From the Cuban Blogosphere - Introducing Erasmo Calzadilla and The Havana Times (Part I)

La blogosfera cubana esta en candela - The Cuban blogosphere is on fire. So in order to capture a bit of that fire, today I will kick off a new semi-weekly feature on El Yuma called,

"From the Cuban Blogosphere."

New blogs are appearing weekly and new groups and portals promoting and hosting those blogs are proliferating rapidly despite, or perhaps because of the Cuban government's simultaneous repression of some blogs and promotion of others.

Periodically, as I follow these developments in Cuban cyberspace, I will post links to, descriptions of, and if necessary, translations of the most interesting of these new blogs and portals. So here goes...

Introducing Erasmo Calzadilla of The Havana Times.

Thanks to the advice of Carlos Alzuguary that was the subject of one of my previous posts, I recently discovered The Havana Times.org, an English-language news and culture portal that was founded in Cuba in October 2008. Originally run from Cuba as a kind of "private venture" by the state-employed, foreign-born interpreter Circles Robinson (yes, that seems to be his real name), the site is now operated out of Nicaragua, where the Robinson lives after losing his job in Cuba. In fact, with the owner based in Nicaragua, the web master living in Spain, the writers reporting from Cuba, and the translators working mostly from the United States, The Havana Times is a true "transnational" operation that illustrates the power of the web in overcoming low budgets and long distances.

While I will have more to say about this on-line portal in my on-going series of posts Let a Thousand Bloggers Bloom, here I only want to introduce and highlight a number of recent posts by blogger Erasmo Calzadilla (pictured above). Calzadilla's blog/diary is available at The Havana Times in both English and Spanish.

Los Consejos de Carlos: Elaine Diaz @ La Polemica Digital

Some of the best comments that I've gotten so far on this 6-week old blog* have been direct e-mails from readers, some angry and others complimentary. Unfortunately, however much they warm my heart or boil my blood, these direct e-mails never see the light of day.

However, I received one e-mail about two weeks ago from an old friend in Cuba, Carlos Alzugaray, a former diplomat, active scholar (see his recent essay, "Continuity and Change in Cuba at 50" here), and a professor of Political Science in Havana, that was quite helpful for me in expanding my still limited knowledge of the blogosfera cubana.

Carlos and I have since kept up a healthy e-mail exchange, not always agreeing, but always open to debating and learning from one another. If we were not separated by those pesky 90 miles, we'd also likely share a bottle of ron anejo as we argue over US-Cuban relations.

Given the recent rise in the temperature of the debate surrounding the Cuban blogosphere and the flood of personal attacks, innuendo, and basic lack of buenos modales or even el respeto por el derecho ajeno from some bloggers, I think Carlos' note is a good example of respectful, fruitful engagement.

With his permission, I'm pasting his initial e-mail here as food for thought and fodder for more critical and respectful debate.

Adelante Carlos!

Hi Ted!

I have been following your blog and I cannot help but notice your infatuation with Yoani. No doubt an intelligent, articulate and attractive figure. I think in many ways she reflects what many young Cubans of her generation think.

Nevertheless, since you are a scientist and I am one too, I must point out that I find your attention on Yoani excessive and supporting a distorted view of Cuban reality. Your blogs give the impression that the Cuban blogosphere begins and ends with Yoani and the group of young people that surround her and follow her, an idea that Yoani and her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, tend to promote.