Word: cuba
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Bill Clinton is in no hurry to clothe the emperor. The U.S. embargo on Cuba may be privately acknowledged as a cold war anachronism, but new measures to be announced by the White House Tuesday reflect a continued pandering to Cuban exile organizations in such electoral-prize states as Florida and New Jersey. While easing restrictions on cash flow and contact between the two countries, Clinton rejected pleas by GOP Senator John Warner to launch a bipartisan review of the four-decade-old embargo -- a proposal fiercely opposed by the influential exile lobby...
...package is designed to expand U.S. links with the island in anticipation of Fidel Castro's demise in the near future. The exile lobby is satisfied, but critics such as Warner point out that Cuba is getting rougher treatment than even Iraq and North Korea. Except, perhaps, when it comes to sports: The White House is backing plans by the Baltimore Orioles for an exhibition match against Cuba's national team in March. Of course, if they're hoping to thaw Cuban society, the Orioles had better throw the game -- Castro is a notoriously bad loser...
...when the Vatican released a 14-page report declaring a genuine (if limited) repentance for the church's role in the Holocaust. Or when Cuba altered its attitude (somewhat) toward Christianity, and Castro invited the Pope for a visit. Or when Northern Ireland made a formal decision not to keep killing itself (for a while). The sound of one mind changing can make one hell of a yarn...
...CHUCHO VALDES Bele Bele en La Habana (Blue Note) A native of Cuba, this fleet-fingered performer is one of the world's finest pianists. Mixing jazz with traditional Afro-Cuban musical forms such as son, danzon and mambo, he creates ferociously cerebral songs that break boundaries, cross oceans and are too spirited for any embargo to contain...
...DANILO PEREZ Central Avenue (Impulse) Perez, a pianist, is after a kind of musical Creole, mixing straight-ahead bop with motifs from Cuba, Brazil and his native Panama--all at once! Central Avenue may not be the year's most coherent album, but it's emblematic of the new, more supple, more eclectic brand of fusion that's enriching jazz...