We’ve been doing our best to work up a healthy antipathy toward Algeria, whose national team we face tomorrow in a must-win World Cup match. As big fans of The Battle of Algiers and longtime observers of the country’s ruinous civil war, our hearts go out to the Algerian generations that have endured so much [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Cuba'
Union City Blues
April 20th, 2010 · 2 Comments
We’re still dealing with making sure all’s cool with the kid, so just a quick check-in regarding the 30th anniversary of the Mariel Boatlift. The clip above comes from a local station in northern New Jersey, home to the largest Cuban-American community outside South Florida. Make it to the back half and you’ll see that [...]
Tags:Cuba·economics·Florida·immigration·Mariel Boatlift·Miami·New Jersey
Desperation in Action
February 8th, 2010 · 4 Comments
One of our treasured Japanese correspondents just have us a heads up about this tragedy, involving an airplane stowaway who apparently froze to death while concealed in a Boeing 777′s landing gear. Such deaths are actually somewhat common, not to mention quite predictable—at 35,00 feet, temperatures are insanely icy, and oxygen scarce. Yet men and [...]
Tags:airplane stowaways·aviation·Cuba·economics·immigration·public health·Tahiti
Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Airlines?
October 12th, 2009 · No Comments
We’re extremely curious to learn the backstory on why Louis Armando Peña Soltren decided to return to the U.S. from Cuba yesterday. He’d been hiding in Fidel Castro’s alleged proletarian paradise for over four decades, and now seems likely to spend the rest of his days in a federal penitentiary for orchestrating a 1968 skyjacking. [...]
The Molar Index
June 8th, 2009 · 4 Comments
We always love it when The Economist makes a cutting reference to Americans’ preference for bright shiny teeth. It’s almost as if the magazine takes pride in English teeth, as a sign of lack of vanity, wise allocation of health resources, or what have you. The mag’s latest crack got Microkhan thinking about the reasons [...]
Tags:Belarus·Britain·Cuba·dentistry·Dominican Republic·Estonia·Lebanon·medicine·Norway·Slovakia·Soviet Union·Uruguay·World Health Organization
