Time for a Prisoner Exchange by Jim Ryerson + Cuban Five Billboard, Hollywood, CA

by Jim Ryerson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)
Cuba Connections
March 23, 2011

Image by hartlandmartin via Flickr

Now that “contractor” Allan Gross has been found guilty of spying and sentenced to prison in Cuba, it’s time to suck up our pride and exchange some prisoners. The “Cuban Five” are also convicted spies, but for those who don’t know The Cuban Five are five Cuban men who are in U.S. prison, serving four life sentences and 75 years collectively, after being convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami in 2001. But the Five pointed out vigorously in their defense that they were involved in monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups, in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their country of Cuba.

Cuban Progress Never Enough in Miami by Jim Ryerson

by Jim Ryerson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)
Cuba Connections
February 6, 2011

Image by marcel601 via Flickr

The New York Times has an excellent article on free enterprise taking hold in Cuba http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/world/americas/04cuba.html?ref=americas

The Peoples Republic of Florida by Jim Ryerson

Image via Wikipedia

by Jim Ryerson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)
Cuba Connections
January 25, 2011

Some Cubans in Florida continue to try to live by their own rules, despite what the rest of the country does. The latest example of this idiocy came to light last week when President Obama lifted some restrictions for academics traveling to Cuba.

Virtually Killing Castro by Jim Ryerson

by Jim Ryerson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)
Cuba Connections
December 6, 2010

Image via Wikipedia

I am not a “gamer”, have never been one. I have enough ways to waste my time on reading, television and the information portion of the internet, so that virtually blowing people away with a 50 caliber machine gun really does not do it for me. I was in the military during Viet Nam, and have a good idea that killing people is a lot more involved than just pressing a button on a video controller.  I realize that my friends who play these games are just utilizing the latest technology to spend some free time and I’m cool with that.  But the phone message I received a week ago from a close friend was still a bit shocking. “I shot Fidel last night”, he told me.

Honoring Terrorists at the University of Miami by Jim Ryerson

by Jim Ryerson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)
Cuba Connections
November 22, 2010

In the past few years, radical Cuban exiles in Miami have toned down their act. By toned down I mean they don’t necessarily kill Americans who might tend to disagree with them which was sometimes their practice during the past 50 years. That never stopped them from killing people in Cuba, and from making it a priority to kill Fidel Castro at all costs. Two of the best known of these wanted international terrorists, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles live openly in the Miami Cuban community. But if that were not enough, a radical exile group recently gave an award to Bosch, at the University of Miami, which has caused an uproar among academics at the school. Here is a letter sent after the event.

Queen of Cuba? by Jim Ryerson

by Jim Ryerson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)
Cuba Connections
November 1, 2010

Image via Wikipedia

The Miami Herald has a piece about the election which shows what the future for Cuba policy would be if Republicans take over the House.

Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is a shoe-in to win reelection, and if she does, a Republican victory nationally would put her in position to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee. That would effectively put a hold on efforts to change the repressive policy against Cuba. Ros-Lehtinen is a Cuban-American, Bush family protégé, who will back the radical right wing agenda which led us into two unnecessary wars.

Et tu, Rachel Maddow? by Jim Ryerson + Looking for Cuba: Guantanamo Bay

by Jim Ryerson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)

Feb. 17, 2009

As a fan of so very few in the main stream media, it is difficult to be in any way critical of one of the few voices with whom I normally can agree. Rachel Maddow has brought such a refreshing presence to television, that her very existence on cable news is a victory. But on a recent program, she touched on my particular hot topic, Cuba, and did what most commentators of the left are doing; she defended President Obama’s decision to” close Guantanamo”. She also interviewed a former interrogator at the prison camp who pointed out more of the atrocities which had been and presumably still are being done in our name. That’s all good and necessary, but Rachel missed a chance to touch on a subject equally, if not more important than the prison camp.

Comment to “Reach out to Cuba” published in the Los Angeles Times, by Jim Ryerson

By Jim Ryerson
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)

Jan. 13, 2009

President-elect Obama promises that one of his first actions will be to close Guantanamo. Unfortunately, he is not telling the whole truth. Closing the prison will still leave us occupying a large piece of a country that does not want us there. We remain because we have the military might to hold this occupied territory, although the world recognizes the base as just a remnant of our colonial past. Until we turned it into a holding cell for alleged terrorists, it existed for 50 years solely as a thorn in the side of the Cuban government. During the cold war there might have been an argument for being there, but that time has long past. What comes to mind when we think of the training school for torture we call Gitmo, must be replaced with the beautiful piece of Caribbean seashore rightly called Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

My Very Best Kwanzaa Ever

By Jim Ryerson
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)
Dec. 30, 2008

I guess it’s appropriate that my best Kwanzaa celebration should start with Christmas. I had been raised celebrating the traditional holiday, although, in truth, I’d dropped out of the Catholic Church a few decades ago and the day held little for me but memories. But it wasn’t a search for a new holiday that brought me to Kwanzaa, it was Wal-Mart. My daughters in New Orleans had sent me a present (I had not given up that part of the celebration), and one of the items didn’t fit so on the Saturday following Christmas, I set off to exchange it.

My nearest Wal-Mart is in an upper middle class neighborhood of Los Angeles known as Leimert Park, home to a large African American population. As I got close, I noticed traffic starting to slow down, and finally stop. Anyone who lives in LA knows that a traffic jam is possible any time day or night, but this was ridiculous for a Saturday afternoon. Finally I got to where I could look ahead for a few blocks, and saw a parade. Why, I wondered, would they be holding the Christmas parade 2 days after Christmas? As it turned out, they were not holding a Christmas parade at all. It was a Kwanzaa parade, going right through the heart of the business district, in the middle of which sat Wal-Mart.

Comment to “The useless Cuba embargo” By Jim Ryerson + music video

By Jim Ryerson
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)
Oct. 31, 2008

When I started traveling to Cuba ten years ago to make documentary films about the country’s music and culture, I was fairly certain that the embargo and travel ban could not possibly continue. Seeing Europeans and Asians, and our fellow North Americans from Canada and Mexico traveling around the country, enjoying the beaches, and most importantly interacting with the fantastic Cuban people, I felt that surely the time was ripe for change in this most futile of foreign policies. But when the Bush administration came in, with their ties to the most reactionary of the Miami Cubans, the stranglehold on Cuba only got tighter. Now there is potential for realistic change in this failed half century of aggression which only hurts the average Cubans who, remarkably, still think of Americans as their friends.  Those of us who have been fortunate enough to be able to experience that friendship can only hope that other Americans who choose to do so, will also be able to feel the embrace of this remarkable culture. It’s been way too long.

Open the door to Cuba By Jim Ryerson + Carnaval De Cuba (vid)

By Jim Ryerson
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)
Sunday, May 4, 2008

Re: “Raul Castro walks tightrope of reforms,” April 29, 2008

Changes in Cuba Won’t Change U.S. Policy By Jim Ryerson + Looking for Cuba (vid)

By Jim Ryerson
featured writer
Dandelion Salad

www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)

The writer is a documentary film producer specializing on Cuba, which he’s visited more than 30 times. He formerly worked as a television news reporter in Los Angeles, and won all of the major broadcasting awards.

Late Again on Cuba By Jim Ryerson

Dandelion Salad

Sent to me by the author. ~ Lo

By Jim Ryerson
Los Angeles
(jim at travelingman dot net)

The writer is a documentary film producer specializing on Cuba, which he’s visited more than 30 times. He formerly worked as a television news reporter in Los Angeles, and won all of the major broadcasting awards.