Friday, October 9, 2020
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Bat man and Gervan take swing at saving Cuban baseball season
Patrick Kennedy article, September 25, 2020
Kingston
Whig Standard
Gerardo
Hernandez, a member of the Cuban 5, holds a Cubacan "trophy" bat
while surrounded by members of Cuba's first family of baseball, the Gurriels,
and bat maker Bill Ryan. From left are Ryan, Lourdes Gurriel Sr., Hernandez,
ex-Baltimore Oriole Yuniesky Gurriel, current Toronto Blue Jay Lourdes Gurriel
Jr. and Houston Astro Yuliesky Gurriel. (Supplied Photo) JPG, KI
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Retired car salesman turning out
baseball bats for Cuba
Sep 10, 2020 Ottawa Citizen
A retired Ottawa Valley
car salesman is turning out hundreds of hand-made maple bats every year for
Cuban baseball players as part of a decade-long effort to assist the
impoverished island nation.
Bill Ryan, 66, spends 10
or 11 hours every day in his basement woodworking shop, making his now famous
“Cubacan” bats.
This year, he wants to send 600 bats — they each cost about $50 — to Cuba, which is about to start its national baseball series. Professional quality bats are difficult to find and prohibitively expensive in Cuba, which remains the subject of a strict U.S. trade embargo.
“The only way I can do
this is to do all of the steps myself,” says Ryan, who lives on a rural side
road south of Carleton Place, near Franktown.
He uses his own sawmill
to cut the rectangular “blanks” from which he crafts a baseball bat. The blanks
— rectangular blocks 36 inches long and three inches wide — are kiln-dried for
three months to reduce their moisture content and weight.
Each bat requires about
two hours of labour. Ryan uses a lathe to shape the bat, then sands it three
different ways before applying two coats of paint, decals and two coats of
varnish.
A careful record keeper,
Ryan has made 2,967 bats since he launched his “hobby” a decade ago. Almost all
of his bats are now in Cuba.
“When I made the first
bat, there was no intention of making the second or the third: It just sort of
built,” he says.
Like most Canadians,
Ryan’s first exposure to Cuba came as a sun-seeking tourist.
A deeper involvement in
the country started innocently enough when he decided to fashion a few bats as
gifts for Cuban friends. A lifelong woodworker, Ryan made trophy bats that were
more a decoration than a piece of baseball equipment.
In baseball-mad Cuba,
however, the bats attracted attention and he was asked to make more, including
bats that could be used in games. The maple bats quickly grew in popularity
among Cuban players.
He was also asked to
make bats as gifts for each of the Cuban Five — five intelligence officers who
were arrested by U.S. authorities in September 1988. “Los Cincos” spent more
than a decade in U.S. prisons after being convicted of spying. Cuba maintained
they were in South Florida to monitor extremist exiles involved in a wave of
terrorist bombings in Havana.
All of the men were
released by 2014 and welcomed home as heroes in Cuba. Ryan met and befriended
one of them, Gerardo Hernandez, and together they launched a grassroots
organization, Cubacan, dedicated to improving the lives of ordinary Cubans.
Cubacan has shipped
equipment and materials to improve bat making in Cuba. Last year, the
organization delivered more than two tonnes of sports equipment to the island.
This year, Ryan wants to
send 600 hand-crafted bats to the 16 teams competing in Cuba’s national
baseball series, a key stepping stone to the Olympic Games for the country’s
best players. The series starts next week.
Cuba is struggling to
equip its baseball teams because of economic sanctions and new restrictions
imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. During the past four years, Trump has
reversed the thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations orchestrated by his predecessor,
Barack Obama, and tightened the sanctions that have stifled the Cuban economy
for 60 years.
Ryan says U.S. efforts
to damage Cuba even reached into the Ottawa Valley. Earlier this year, he says,
under pressure from the U.S. Treasury Department, GoFundMe closed his
fundraising account which had been created to send sports equipment to Cuba
from Canada.
The Canadian Network
on Cuba (CNC) is now leading the fundraising effort to raise
$30,000 to send the Cubacan bats to Cuba.
Ryan still travels to
Cuba once a year with his wife, Nora. It’s “incredibly satisfying,” he says, to
watch a baseball player hit a home run with one of his bats, but seeing one
break still makes him shudder.
Two years ago, Ryan
received the Cuban government’s Friendship Medal, which has
gone to people such as singer Harry Belafonte and actor Danny Glover.
“More than one million
Canadians go to Cuba every year,” he says, “so we’re trying to suggest to some
of those people to send a bat, offer a donation, give something back.”
Anyone interested in
donating to the Cubacan bat program, known as Cubacan 6060, can go to theCNC’s website or
email cubacanbats@gmail.com.
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Eusebio Leal: the Historian
August, 1st, 2020
Eusebio Leal
Spengler, the man who saved Havana, died at age 77 due to pancreatic cancer. Leal has been -for more than half a century, well known as the Historian of the City of Havana and well respected in Cuba and around
the world for his indefatigable work. Eusebio Leal rebuilt palaces,
fortresses, houses and squares, while at the Head of the office of the Historian and following UNESCO recognition of Old Havana as World Heritage site (1982). The Historian managed donations
and built a self-sufficient project sustained mainly with income raised through its own chain of renovated hotels. Most importantly, the Historian office
provided needed social support and social work to the neighbours of Old Havana.
Every
morning people could see Leal walking through Old Havana something he did for
decades. The Historian saw himself as a “guardian of memory,” and often expressed
concern about those who loving decadent Old Havana forgot the many losses to time and change, losses he mourned dearly. The Historian knew he would never have enough time to achieve his entire goal -he would need many
lives, he often said, to complete the work that kept him awake at night. However, despite
his concern and the size of the work Leal never gave up and instead tried with all his
strength proving much could be achieved.
The Historian rescued
Havana through hard work, inexhaustible effort, and vision. He enlisted the
support of anyone willing to bring to life his goal of restoring
Havana to its original beauty. Since the 1960s, Leal dressed in grey a color he chose to facilitate communication with the men who helped him turn the old
Palace of the Captain-Generals into the Museum of the City (of Havana). Men who were in jail but volunteered to work with him. Leal was appointed Director of this Museum in
1967 and after his mentor, Emilio Roig de Leushenring, retired.
The Historian preferred blue for special occasions. Then, his passionate and knowledgeable speech would touch kings, popes, presidents, ministers, scholars and, very importantly, the many regular people who came in touch with him. Leal guided
Prince Charles, visiting from England, and King Felipe and Queen Letizia visiting from Spain. His friendship and admiration for Fidel and Raul Castro and many Cuban political figures no doubt helped Leal achieve his dream. he was also a deputy to the National Assembly (Cuban Parliament) and was always open about his catholic faith, even at times where religion was strongly challenged.
Leal Spengler, born September 11th, 1942, was the son of poor farmers, the grandson of patriots and the great-grandson of immigrants of French
and German background who arrived in Cuba from Haiti. He completed grade 5 when his mother sent him to an Asturian merchant she
knew to complete an apprenticeship with him who failed to turn Leal into a
merchant but succeeded in instill in him a strong faith and a wish of becoming
a priest. Leal did not become a priest, he later said, because he could not
remain celibate: “I loved women too much.” He married a few times and had five
children, two of them living in Spain. “Homeland
and faith” his motto, insatiable reader from infancy and a regular reader of
the Bible. I want to be remembered, he said, as a “Cuban devoted to his dream,
a dream he was able to carry out mainly at the expense of wounds and
indignities, sacrificing his private life.” Cubans knew Leal and his work through
“Andar La Habana” (Walking Havana) a television program he did for years teaching
Cubans to know and love their capital. Leal was the recipient of international
recognition for his work, the last Order of Charles III from the King of Spain
in November 2019 and Doctor Honoris Cause from Pontificia Universidad Lateranense
(Pontificia Lateran University) on that same month and year.
Monday, June 8, 2020
The Nobel Peace Prize for the Henry Reeve Brigade
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The International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity calls on the friends of Cuba and men and women of good will to support the nomination of the "Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics" for the Nobel Peace Prize for its significant contribution to humanity in the face of the pandemic caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus.
More than 1500 Cuban health professionals, doctors, specialists and nurses were requested by 23 countries in Europe, Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Latin America and the Caribbean to help them in this global crisis and are now working in those countries.
Other requests for cooperation are underway, constituting the only international medical contingent to provide a scientific and humanitarian response to the pandemic on a global scale.
The medical cooperation that took place in Pakistan and Haiti after the devastating earthquakes, and the extraordinary success in the face of major epidemics such as Ebola in Africa demonstrates their great medical-scientific training, the capacity and experience to save lives in situations of natural disasters and serious epidemics, and underscores their great values of altruism, solidarity and humanism. "The Henry Reeve Brigade has spread a message of hope throughout the world. Its 7,400 volunteer health professionals have treated more than 3.5 million people in 21 countries in the face of the worst disasters and epidemics of the last decade," said the World Health Organization when it presented the Dr Lee Jong-wook Public Health Award at a ceremony for them in Geneva in May 2017 during the 70th World Health Assembly.
The initiative to nominate the Henry Reeve Brigade for the Nobel Peace Prize, that has appeared in social networks since March, has taken shape in groups of friendship and solidarity with Cuba such as the Association Cuba Linda, the Association France-Cuba and Cuba Cooperation of France; the Circle of Granma in Italy; the page created in the social network Facebook, on behalf of the Greek solidarity groups by the outstanding friend of Cuba Velisarios Kossivakis, under the name "Nobel Price for the Doctors of Cuba", which has more than 13 thousand endorsers in Greece and tens of thousands of messages and interactions; the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity of Brazil, Cubanismo of Belgium, the Movement of Solidarity and Mutual Friendship Venezuela-Cuba, Australia-Cuba Friendship Society, ACFS WA branch, the Association of Latin American Arab Solidarity José Martí of Lebanon and Madres Sabias of Spain.
They are joined by solidarity groups in the US, such as the Network in Defense of Humanity - US Chapter, the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), IFCO/ Pastors for Peace, Code Pink and the US Chapter of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity.
We ask you to strengthen the bonds between all of us to work in unity of action and achieve the nomination of the Cuban International Medical Brigade "Henry Reeve" for the Nobel Peace Prize.
While the US doubles the blockade, it prevents Cuba in the midst of a pandemic from even acquiring the health supplies to face it and puts pressure on other countries by launching a campaign of lies and slander against Cuban doctors.
The rhetoric of hatred, expressed by US President Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo and servile OAS Secretary Luis Almagro, seems to have no end. Recently an additional two million dollars has been allocated to the USAID to attack Cuban medical collaboration. "Instead of wasting money on aggressions against international cooperation and the health of the people, the U.S. government should focus on preventing the illness and death of its citizens in the face of Covid-19," Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said on Twitter.
In August 2019, to serve this same purpose, USAID, which provides resources to subversive programs against the Cuban government, allocated three million dollars. In less than a year, they have directed at least $5 million; taken from the pockets of American taxpayers to destabilize a program that's only purpose is to provide health to those who need it most, during this current pandemic, especially the countries of the Third World.
The small and besieged Cuba continues its heroic resistance, leaving no one behind, preserving its social conquests, its sovereignty and independence. Faithful to its principles of internationalism and cooperation, as recently expressed before the NAM summit by Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel.
Cuba and its doctors are giving the greatest example of giving solidarity and love to the world.
Nobel Peace Prize to the Henry Reeve Brigade
#CubaSavesLives
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CNC letter to the
Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs
The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, MP
Cuba's potential virus vaccine
has good results
72% of critically ill patients, 90% sever cases recovered with treatment, says Verena Muzio
Sunday, April 19, 2020
YOUTUBE Interview in English. Meet Cuban doctor Luis Herrera, the creator of Interferon Alfa 2-B medication against COVID-19. In layman’s language he explains it, and answers questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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https://siempreconcuba.
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Cuba Business Report
https://www.cubabusinessreport.com/
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Letter written by Mr. Jack Harris, MP to Honorable F. P. Champagne, Minister of Foreign Affairs, in response to request made by Cuban Ambassador in Canada.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2020/04/13/colaboracion-entre-ee-uu-cuba-y-canada-en-la-lucha-contra-covid-19/#.XpXhr8hKiUn
Prensa Latina: Lanzan campaña en Canada para apoyar lucha de Cuba contra covid-19
https://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?o=rn&id=354699&SEO=lanzan-campana-en-canada-para-apoyar-lucha-de-cuba-contra-covid-19
U.S.-Cuba-Canada Collaboration in Fighting COVID-19