Urban/Global Politics

Friday’s cover story of the Daily News, written by one of their long-time gossip columnists, is essentially a rip job on Jennifer Lopez for not donating money to her old Catholic school in the Bronx, which her mother worked at for many years. Granted, it’s newsworthy since Lopez, who like most celebrities, does tout her […]

The New York Times has now officially weighed in on this week’s announced economic policy changes in Cuba in its Week in Review section. The headline fits in nicely with today’s information technology obsession–“Cuba Resets the Revolution”–or is it a reference to Bill Clinton’s appearance at the Brooklyn Bowl last week? You remember, the reset […]

With yesterday’s announcement that Cuba intends to lay off more than half a million workers with the expectations that they would join a new, state-tolerated private sector, you have to wonder if that old song lyric, “Cuba y Puerto Rico son de un pájaro las dos alas” is more true than ever before. Think of […]

This is a tale about The Capeman, past and present, history and Broadway, Puerto Ricans and public relations, and the Public Theater. On Sunday night I was among the masses huddling under the awning in front of the Delacorte Theater, waiting through a rain delay to be seated for a performance of Paul Simon’s musical, […]

Yesterday was a banner day for bizarre self-contradiction by the right on two of our treasured American issues…cojones and white anxiety. Witness former Alaska governor turned Fox nobody Sarah Palin using Spanish to defend the chief perpetrator of the blatantly anti-Latino Arizona law called SB 1070! That is, if you think saying “co-ho-nays” qualifies as […]

As you’re recovering from the latest Andrew Breitbart/Fox News scam that resulted in the ouster of a Department of Agriculture employee, consider this, one of countless examples of propaganda disguised as news presented by Rupert Murdoch’s media empire: This morning an article in El Nuevo Día points out that images shown during a July 9th […]

Want to see a phony talking point wielded by Puerto Rico governor Luis Fortuño obliterated by a serious journalist on live TV? Then click on the video above and watch Rafael Lenín López ask the governor about what I’d cast doubt on in my previous post. “At what moment,” asks Lenin, “did you hear of […]

The current government of Puerto Rico, led by Governor Luis Fortuño, is engaged in a campaign of deception and curtailment of democratic rights to crush legitimate opposition to its punishing and now, destabilizing policy of neo-conservative reforms. The governor’s remarks yesterday–fittingly at a groundbreaking for a new Sam’s Club in an industrial area of San […]

If there had been any doubt previously, it is now clear that the current government of Puerto Rico, led by the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP) is intent on provoking confrontation with dissenting citizens and using violent force against them. Yesterday (June 30) at around 4:30 p.m., a large contingent of riot police expelled protestors […]

This past Sunday, Newsday employees voted to ratify a contract that would lower their salaries by 5% and 10% beginning next week, July 6. This is patently outrageous because Cablevision, the parent company of the Long Island daily, has reported a tripling of its profits a month ago. The huge profits seem to have resulted directly from Cablevision’s […]