Rene González and Alan Gross: speed and bacon

Disparates - (español)

Machetera

I suppose the Latin American term for an apples and oranges comparison is peras y manzanas.  [Pears and apples.]  Somehow it doesn’t have quite the same ring.  In Spain, the expressions are funnier.  No hay que confundir el culo con las témporas. [No need to confuse the ass with the temporal bones].  No confundir churras con merinas.   [Don't confuse the sheep that produces itchy wool with the sheep that makes merino].

But at the moment, thinking of Rene González and Alan Gross, I prefer the Spanish no mezclar la velocidad con el tocino [don't mix up speed and bacon], because it’s an expression that highlights the absurd, and nothing is more absurd than the comparisons that are being marketed by the mainstream U.S. press on behalf of the State Department about these two men.

The Marketing of Yoani Sánchez: Translation as invention

Machetera and Manuel Talens - español

“There are no accidents.” – Sigmund Freud

As one might have expected, Bloomberg and Reuters dutifully shaded their reports on the recent visit to Cuba of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff with mentions of the Yoani Sánchez Twitter campaign to pressure Rousseff to intercede on Sánchez’s behalf and persuade the Cuban government to grant her an exit visa to attend a propaganda event in Brazil.

That’s not so surprising.  Sánchez is an egomaniac, for sure, insisting that anyone should care in the first place, when her compatriots Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez O’Connor have been denied entry visas by the United States for more than a decade to visit their husbands (Rene González Sehwerert and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, two of the Cuban Five) unjustly imprisoned in the U.S.  - but if all she has to do is tweet and the press come running, judging the tweet as equal in value to Rousseff’s criticisms of the U.S. gulag at Guantánamo, well, that’s not really her fault – it’s just part of a marketing plan that counts on press complicity.

And now, the Miami Herald has a teeny tiny retraction…

español

Here at Machetera’s vast publishing empire, we believe in being gracious. Which means we’ll take yes for an answer from the Miami Herald on its “correction/clarification” regarding its shamelessly poor reporting on Gerardo Hernández’s habias corpus appeal.  Yes, they did get it horribly wrong.

However….

When you issue a correction and clarification, you should do your best to be complete and accurate, not dig yourself a new hole.  Even when the correction is buried and microscopically small.

Teaching the Miami Herald to read: Gerardo Hernández’s habeas corpus appeal

On Sunday, December 28, Jay Weaver filed a story for the Miami Herald about the habeas corpus appeal for Gerardo Hernández, one of the “Cuban Five” who is currently serving a double life sentence in the maximum security federal prison at Victorville, California.  The article was subsequently translated for publication in the Herald’s Spanish language subsidiary, El Nuevo Herald.  The story and its headline (“In about-face, Cuban spy says planes were shot down over international waters”) made the sensational claim that in his appeal, Hernández had made a 180 degree turn, and is now contradicting the Cuban government’s position regarding the events of February 24, 1996, when two light aircraft belonging to the Miami group “Brothers to the Rescue” were shot down by Cuban fighter jets after being led toward Cuban airspace by their commander, José Basulto.

Sensationalism certainly attracts readers.  But it is not a substitute for a well-researched story, or the truth.  A careful reading of Hernández’s appeal does not lead to the conclusion stated by Weaver or the Herald.  I will write further about this in upcoming posts.  For now, these are my comments at both the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald (Spanish below).

September 12: 12 years too long for the Cuban Five

Wilfredo Cancio’s sleepless nights over the Cuban Five

Wilfredo Cancio’s Desperate Effort to Keep Gerardo Hernández Down - español

Machetera

Really, the desperation is the saddest part.

The recent news about Gerardo Hernández being sent to the “hole” in the federal prison at Victorville, abruptly pre-empting the lab tests that had been ordered for him by the prison’s doctor after a 3 month wait, has raised alarm in certain circles in Miami.  Not out of any particular concern for humane treatment of prisoners, however.  To the contrary, the fear seems to be that Hernández, Miami’s trophy captive from the absurd trial of the Cuban Five staged there nearly 10 years ago, may be slipping away as part of a U.S.-Cuba prisoner exchange.

Wilfredo Cancio Isla, a Miami Cuban who, after a 10 year peregrination through Miami’s anti-Castro obsessed media has finally landed at a blog called CafeFuerte [strong coffee], is participating in the campaign to destroy Hernández by incarcerating him until death, and then incarcerating him again.

Message from Gerardo Hernández upon his release from the Victorville “hole”

Gerardo Hernández Nordelo

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

I am dictating these words via telephone, which is why I must be brief and I will not be able to say everything I would have liked. Yesterday afternoon I was removed from “the hole” with the same speed in which I was thrown in. I had been taken there supposedly because I was under investigation. These investigations can take up to three months, sometimes more, but I was there 13 days. As a known Cuban journalist would say; you can draw your own conclusions…

Hillary Clinton & Harley Lappin: two people who can stop the torture of Gerardo Hernández now

This picture matches the description of the "hole" where Gerardo Hernández is being held

For Over A Week Gerardo Hernández Nordelo Has Been Held In The Hole At Victorville Prison Without Committing Any Infraction

U.S. Government continues its Nazi treatment of Gerardo Hernández

In the United States, unlike Cuba, we almost never free political prisoners and we certainly don’t give them medical care.  We send them to the hole, we punish them while they’re in the hole, and we deny them access to their attorneys.  And our State Department ignores any questions on the subject.  Like with Gerardo Hernández.  Gerardo says that this picture (of a Nazi torture cell) is a dead ringer for the hole where he is being held.  Except that I’ll bet this one is bigger.

Arturo Valenzuela is the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department.  Switchboard: 202-647-4000

UPDATE: When I called the State Department Switchboard they had a great deal of trouble recognizing Valenzuela’s name.  202-647-6755 will reach a secretary for Valenzuela who can take a message for him while he’s traveling.

Alarcón: The United States is Responsible for Gerardo Hernández’s Health – español

Collateral abuse in the “Russian agent” case

Collateral Abuse in the “Russian Agent” Case

Machetera

Traducido a español por Manuel Cedeño Berrueta y Manuel Talens, de Tlaxcala

Elian González with his father, Juan Miguel González

It’s a well known fact that for a child, emotional trauma is every bit as damaging as the physical kind and often considerably more difficult to treat, given the fact that it leaves no physical marks.  In the news about the tenth anniversary of Elian’s return to his father in Cuba there was a remarkable quote from Elian himself.  Speaking about the Miami relatives who put him on display like a miniature human trophy and spared no effort to prevent his return to the father he’d been taken from without permission, he said, “Even though they didn’t support us in everything…I have no bitterness.”  For Elian to emerge without bitterness after such suffering is a testament to the family who raised him and the society surrounding them.

Thinking of perfectly avoidable childhood trauma, one has to wonder about the U.S. government’s motivations in its warp-speed roundup of accused Russian agents, the majority of whom were also parents.