I’ve been slow to update my website since other things have intervened and I’ve also debated how much I want to occupy my mind with the “world’s most successful narcissist” as one friend called our new president-dictator. But I did write this piece for Caracas Chronicles and republished it in Spanish at Trópico Absoluto on…
I love this photo of my friend and co-director, Arturo Albarrán that I took at the Berkeley Marina two months after his arrival in the US on the “Parole Program” our government is offering Haitians and Venezuelans. I’m especially grateful to have Arturo living with us today as we commemorate the UN Day of…
It’s hard for me to pull my head out of a big project for anything, especially if it’s a writing project. As I have recently come to understand how “neurologically weird” I am, I’ve come to accept that trait in my personality. All of the world can be collapsing around me and I’m trying to…
I haven’t written about Venezuela for a while, mainly because after the Juan Guaidó fiascos the Maduro dictatorship just went on pillaging the country as he and Chávez had been doing for the previous two decades. The situation appeared hopeless and, frankly, I lost heart. I became more preoccupied with my own country and its…
Note: You need to read Rafael Osío Cabrices and Raúl Stolk’s piece on the state of Venezuela today, posted at Caracas Chronicles. This is what twenty years of wreck and ruin by a “socialist” elite operating with impunity hath wrought. Do we need more lessons on why a dysfunctional, inefficient, hypocritical, half- and weak-hearted liberal…
I highly recommend anything by Javier Corrales, but this recent piece is really exceptional. He goes into detail on “why Cuban President Diaz-Canel” is still facing rebellion at home, and it’s exactly the sort of information people on the left, and progressive or liberal left need to hear about Cuba. Corrales teamed up with Scott…
Note: I had the pleasure of doing an interview with Jeudiel Martínez on Facebook chat July 17th after I read the essay, Cuba Libre (below, in English, la versión en español está aquí) a few days after the unprecedented protests that shook Cuba on July 11th. I thought readers might find a little background…
Two new posts came out today—what a Bastille Day this year!—and there’s a strange synchronicity about it all. You know, Bastille day, July, the month of Revolutions (US on July 4th, Venezuelan on July 5th, the Cuban on July 26th, the Nicaraguan on July 19th , and of course France in July 1789 and…
Out of respect for Mr. Marti, I’m posting a link to his post, and to another here, wherein he claims Biden stole the 2020 election and responds to my article at Caracas Chronicles. I make these available to those of you who have the time, interest and inclination to read work that appears to me…
I don’t like “attacking” people and prefer to keep discussions to ideas. It’s part of a program I try to practice of “principles before personalities” and my dear life partner and wife, Marcy Rein, has helped me in that process immensely. It’s particularly painful to me to go after someone who I’ve once respected and…