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No OLPCs for Cuba, Ever
An anonymous reader writes "In a move going largely unnoticed by developers, the OLPC project now requires all submissions to be hosted in the RedHat Fedora project. While this may not seem like a big deal, the implications are interesting. First, contributors have to sign the Fedora Project Individual Contributor License Agreement. By being forced to submit contributions to the Fedora repository they automatically fall under the provisions of US export law. So, no OLPC for Cuba, Syria and the like. Ever."
According to the linked sugar list message, this restriction only apply to submissions to the Etoys project (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Etoys). This doesn't imply (as the summary states) that all submissions to the OLPC project must be hosted on Fedora.
I know we like to blame the UN for everything here at Slashdot, but the embargo against Cuba was enacted by President Kennedy in 1961, with the total travel ban enacted in 1963. The UN certainly has its hands in a lot of useless sanctions, but to pretend the UN is responsible for the Cuba situation, or that the US does not exert tremendous influence over the UN, is just flat wrong.
Nope. The embargo on Cuba is purely a US matter. There was a time when the US could bully plenty of Central and South American countries into honoring it, but the US is pretty much alone these days. Neither the UN nor the UN Security Council has ever had an embargo on Cuba.
No - if Cuba wants the embargo lifted - they need to persuade the politically strong Cuban-American groups that work so hard to keep the embargo in place. This issue, like so many others - has deeper roots and issues than your humorous comment allows.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I think GP was reacting to the rather more ridiculous contention that American politicians by and large give more of a crap about the people they govern than politicans in other countries. That the countervailing evidence manifests as health insurance being inaccessible for a huge swath of the working population (when a good portion of the rest of the world has amply demonstrated is not a necessary situation), and the prosecution of an transpatently profiteering war that has killed tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans (which most of the rest of the world considered if not illegal than just plain stupid to get involved in), is simply a reflection of our own neuroses. Other countries screw over their people in different ways, according to different guiding ideologies.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 97%
male: 97.2%
female: 96.9% (2003 est.) World Factbook - Cuba
No. Not necessarely at least.
When Castro dies, his brother Ramon will take over. And he is a stalinist-type communist.
Fidel himself was not a (pure) communist from the beginning, but as Cuba was isolated by USA after the revolution he had to go to Soviet for help (economical and other).
And by that the regime went to communism.
Mundus Vult Decipi
But Cuba's main agricultural product, besides tobacco, is sugar, and the US has had high tariffs on sugar for a long time. Not only does that prop up US sugar producers (mainly Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida_) by keeping the US sugar price far higher than the world average, but the High-Fructose Corn Syrup lobby likes high sugar prices because they can put their dreck into our soda, while the rest of the world gets to have Coke with real sugar in it. So the Archer Daniels Midland gang also don't want free trade with Cuba.
I'd recommend that next time you're in Canada, you get some Cuban cigars, except for the problem that they put carcinogenic flammable tobacco products in the things....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
To think the US has control of the security council is naive. No country has any power in the security council for the most part. Security Council requires unanimous decisions, and the US is always at odds with someone else in the Sec Council. During the Cold War, it was the USSR, and now it's China (and Russia still somewhat).
Fun times had by all...
I was under the impression that part of the OLPC project was not only to get computers into the hands of people in under developed countries, but also to get them connected. Well, in Cuba it is an offense to have a PC at home without permission and license from the State, and private internet connections are forbidden. Possessing a PC, and having connected to the net can get you 20 years in the pogey. So, the OLPC would likely have been a no go in Cuba anyway. Furthermore, I think the money wasted on OLPC would have been far better spent setting up programs for low intensity, organic agriculture desigend to replace cash crop cultivation with food supply crops. But, I guess feeding people isn't as cool, or sexy as sending them a bright gree, hand cranked laptop. To me, Negroponte is an ass.
Good luck with that.
If you've travelled abroad lately from the US, you know that the folks at Homeland Security take their jobs very seriously. Also, the State Department has been nailing US citizens who have visited Cuba without authorization with very stiff fines. When they do find out you've visited there from a 3rd country (and they will), expect a registered letter or summons to appear in federal court. It's happened to people I know. Fines and court fees can run in the thousands of dollars.
Cuban products are also considered contraband in the US and therefore are just as illegal as if you were smuggling pot or cocaine. If you are found with cuban made cigars, rum, etc. on your person that you have not declared, you can be detained, prosecuted, fined, and possibly jailed if you get a nasty prosecutor. Not at all worth it for an authentic mojito and a few cojibas IMHO.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Fixed it for ya.
Oh, damn, I didn't see the "don't feed the trolls" sign. Sorry.
"Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
lol, you do realize Castro's family was rich and was part of the ruling class in Cuba BEFORE the revolution. Same with Che Guevara's. Guess what plantation was the first one given over to the "people" Castro's mother's. Castro gave everything his family owned to the people.
Castro lives in a shack compared to the average upper middle class in the US.
When I say that children will get the best first in Cuba its just a continuation of their philosophy. Schools have better computers than banks in Cuba. If you aren't working you are in school in Cuba. They know its the best defense against being exploited again. You can't exploit a society thats smarter than yours.
What you need to do is assume everything you hear on Fox news is the opposite of how it is in Cuba.
What gave you that idea? US citizens are banned from traveling to Cuba except for educational or humanitarian purposes. The fines tend to be in the $30,000-$40,000 range. They didn't enforce it very often until the current administration took office, but now it is very common.
Here's a perk of living in (even rural) Canada: I go down to the garage/general/liquor store, and there on the shelf is Havana Club, "Ron puro Cubano," mmm, great is right. And cuban coffee in the cupboard, it's only pretty good but it's organic.
There may be long-term competitive benefits accruing to Cuba out of the blockade and its hardships.
The whole island has pretty much gone organic, as part of the austerity produced by the embargo, and they're trying to turn that constraint into a strength. When the embargo finally drops in the US, watch for cuban specialty products showing up in the organic food stores.
They need an internationally credible domestic certification system to really flourish, however the embargo has forced them to look hard at their local food security, so they'd be okay if international trade was interrupted. They have international trade in things like organic fruits and coffee, and they've made interesting innovations with domestic distribution in mind, like the Organopónicos.
The embargo has created constraints that make it an interesting testbed for development without the overwhelming influence of large transnationals. It's a race between the international organic sector to help establish Cuba as an entrenched organic ag system and the influx of Life Sciences transnationals that might happen if there's regime change.
Cuba's ripe turf for donated linux-ready systems, so support that goal in some way. There's enough real zeal for independence and common interests to make it a interesting test bed for a society running on open-source software.
Damn those pesky terrorists
This has more to do with politeness norms than anything else. What it means to be polite is not culturally invariant -- to take an extreme example which you may have been exposed to anecdotally, the sorts of things that are important and considered polite to a Japanese person are not the same as to an American person. You're rude there if you don't pour drinks for your guests with both hands and if you don't slurp your noodles you're insulting the cook.
Well, French culture (for example) may share a lot more in common with American culture than Japanese culture does, but it is nonetheless different and has different ideas of what it means to be polite. Consider: most Americans think that French people are quite rude, and it's not uncommon for people who go to France on vacation (one of the most popular vacation destinations in the world) to come back with stories about how rude they are. What may surprise you is that in France, Americans are widely seen as extremely rude. Despite what you may think, this is not due to France's perceived anti-Americanism. It's due to different politeness norms. Since I'm intimately familiar with both cultures, I'll give you a run-down of why this notion persists on both sides. Similar explanations work for any other culture, I'm sure, although the details are bound to be different.
French, like many European languages (and English, in the old days, but not any more) has what is called a T-V distinction. This means that they have two different words for "you": one is formal, and one is informal. With friends and children you might use the informal one; with strangers on the street, colleagues at work, clients, etc, you'd probably use the formal one. It's actually much more subtle and complex than this, but bear with me. Then, the French rarely address people they don't know well by their first names, preferring instead words like Mister, Madam, and Sir. They place extremely heavy emphasis on greeting people, even strangers: when you walk into the Baker's shop, as soon as you open the door, you are expected to greet everyone (not individually, but you might say something like "Messieurs Dames" Saying "Please" and "Thank You" is extremely important. With people you don't know well, you are expected to be formal, even a little bit stiff. This is because being overly familiar with someone you don't know well is considered very rude, and the French person feels rather the same way that an American might feel when his personal space is invaded if someone is too informal with him.
Americans, on the other hand, speak a language which lacks a T-V distinction. While saying please and thank you is considered well-mannered, in general, the American thinks he is being polite by being friendly. In American society, smiling a lot when you greet someone and acting like you're old friends is considered polite, and calling someone Mister is seen as extremely stuffy -- outside of very formal situations, like job interviews, the average American feels uncomfortable using these terms. You don't want to be seen as stuck-up, and many Americans will feel that you are putting on airs if you don't smile much and persist in calling them sir.
I remember once that my cousin came to visit me and she had a conversation with a lady while waiting in line at the supermarket. The lady was very friendly, asked her how she liked the US, and generally did the American thing. The lady said things like, "Oh, you should come over to my place sometime, my husband really knows how to BBQ". My cousin came away feeling like this woman, who was just trying to be friendly, was extremely fake. All the small talk, the asking of questions whose answers she wasn't really interested in -- they all severely offended her French sensibilities. But this is in no way a criticism of the American woman; in the context of American culture, she was being polite and welcoming to a foreigner. Still, a misunderstanding resulted.
So, essentially, what is considered polite is different in differ