Timid colored awnings spring from nowhere and under newly opened umbrellas fruit smoothies and pork rinds are sold, while the doorways of some homes are turned into improvised snack bars with striking menus. All this and more is growing in the streets of my city because of the new flexibility for self-employment. Some of my neighbors are making plans to open a shoe repair, or a place to repair fridges, while avenues and plazas are being transformed by the efforts of private initiative. Some remain cautious, however, waiting to see if this time the economic reforms will really take hold and not be shut down as happened in the nineties.
As Tunisia has shown recently, the use of social media provides a lot of benefits to those challenging the status quo. However, there are limits to what social media can accomplish in the political sphere. Anchor Marco Werman talks with Clay Shirky (pictured to the left), the author of ‘The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change’. It’s an essay that appears in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. Shirky is also Professor of New Media at New York University. Go to PRI's "The World" for more.
"The increase in contact between Americans and Cubans will expand the flow of information and ideas, and it will increase the income of Cubans in the country’s expanding private sector. It will expand American institutions’ contacts with Cuban counterparts – churches, universities, professional associations, and more. It is only common sense that American influence in Cuba will expand if we open doors rather than build barriers to citizen contact."
Rubio: Obama quietly seeking Cuba changes
In a Spanish-language interview with WAQI, Sen. Marco Rubio said that the Obama administration was quietly talking to some on the Hill about lifting some of the economic and travel restrictions on Cuba.
But the feelers won't go anywhere, Rubio said, because he and other like-minded senators and House members will educate their colleagues on the political reality in Cuba, including telling them about political prisoners like American Alan Gross, who has been imprisoned for more than a year.
A lot of elected officials don't know about the political reality in Cuba, Rubio said, not because they're Communists but because they come from states where the issue isn't discussed -- or where agricultural interests persuade them to let them sell their goods on the island.
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