EDITOR’S NOTE: Columnist Andy Brack spent the last week in Cuba on an agricultural and cultural exchange arranged by Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, the oldest gardens in America. In today’s abbreviated issue is the first of three commentaries on what’s going on in Cuba, plus some photos of Havana and the western countryside.
IN THIS EDITION:
COMMENTARY: Cuba faces big changes in thaw with U.S.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: United Way Association of South Carolina
PHOTO ESSAY: The faces of Cuba
FEEDBACK: Letters on ostracism, reapportionment
ENCYCLOPEDIA: South Carolina’s early gardens
COMMENTARY
Cuba faces big changes in thaw with U.S.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher
HAVANA, Cuba, Aug. 27, 2015 | In dozens of ways, Cuba isn’t ready for the prime-time expectations of a projected tidal wave of Americans unfettered by decades of travel restrictions.
Yes, these new yanqui explorers to the 776-mile-long island south of Florida will be able to smoke smooth Cohiba cigars, drink potent mojitos and see shiny 1950s Chevys, Fords and Plymouths powered by a hodge-podge of Russian, American and Chinese engine parts.
But they’ll also find a country trying hard to come back from decades of decay to mile after mile of noble colonial buildings, Neo-Classical gems and ugly, pre-fabricated Soviet-era cubes. Most American’s will not be ready for the dearth of air-conditioning, Internet service or clean toilets that work. They’ll find two different currencies — one for Cubans and another for tourists — as befuddling as the maddening hours of hurdles required to make a simple call from a pay phone to South Carolina. They’ll marvel at generally clean streets and sidewalks, but wonder about why they’re crumbling and pocked by potholes.
And then there’s the ever-present heat that will make older Americans recall when they grew up and younger ones wonder how anyone can live in a country where glass in windows is the exception, not the rule. It’s common here for front doors and shutters to be open in grand, neglected buildings and in small, squalid shotgun-type houses in the rural areas where peasants watch television in the dark in the daytime to keep from using electricity.
Today’s Cuba is stuck in the past for two big reasons. First, a 1959 revolution turned the country into a socialist state that nationalized private enterprises. It insulated itself to provide free education, health care, housing and food to teeming hordes of peasants. Second came an American embargo in the early 1960s that failed to cause Cuba to democratize. But it did kept the island, once the playground of millionaires and the mafia, from looking much different from its rich neighbor to the north. These days, Cubans live in a time warp without McDonald’s, WalMart and the consumer choices that Americans take for granted.
Soon after you get off a plane at the small Jose Marti airport west of this city of 2 million, you’re told to drink lots of bottled water to keep hydrated and ward off the debilitating effects of ever-present humidity that leeches moisture from your body. Night or day, everyone has an omnipresent sheen — what polite Southerners call a “glow” — of perspiration.
What you quickly encounter driving around Havana is mile upon mile of benign neglect of once grand buildings, often stained brown and black with grime. The whole city needs a good pressure washing. Along the Malecon seawall that stretches for miles along the coast along the north coast, clothes may dry on makeshift lines in open windows of a worn, once grand 19th century edifice. Juxtaposed next door may be a renovated Baroque building that could be in Charleston and where well-heeled diners enjoy the view of the sea.
There’s a thick feeling of anticipation in the old tourist part of Havana. You can see it in people’s eyes — “the Americans are coming.” It seems to fuel the new sidewalks, re-bricked streets and renovations to churches and old buildings. Vendors selling books, trinkets, T-shirts and leather goods offer warm smiles and greetings about how they love Americans.
After spending more than a week in Cuba with a group from Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, it’s easy to wonder whether thawing relations with the United States will actually improve Cuba or change it into something that becomes just another Caribbean experience. It’s pretty neat, for example, not to be assaulted by billboards and advertising images at each corner. While Cubans appear to be able to access CNN, Weather Channel, sports and Disney, it’s clear Cuba’s current and future leaders have a challenging task — whether they can modernize but protect the island from the over-commercialization that helped to fuel the revolution in the first place.
NEXT ISSUE: What South Carolina can learn from Cuba
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
IN THE SPOTLIGHTUnited Way Association of South Carolina
The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring Statehouse Report to you at no cost. This week, we shine a spotlight on the United Way Association of South Carolina. It is the common voice of the 29 independent, locally-government United Ways in the Palmetto State that work together to create long-lasting opportunities for everyone to have the good life. The organizations focus on education to help children and youths achieve their potential so they can get a stable job; income to promote financial stability and independence; and improving people’s health.
Advancing the common good is about helping one person at a time and about changing systems to help all of us. The associations believes we all win when a child succeeds in school, when families are financially stable, and when people are healthy. The organization’s goal is to create long-lasting changes by addressing the underlying causes of these problems. “Living United” means being a part of the change. It takes everyone in the community working together to create a brighter future. Give. Advocate. Volunteer. LIVE UNITED.
- More: http://www.uwasc.org
Intimidation, ostracism certainly was around
To the editor:
Great piece by Kendra Hamilton on white victims of racial discrimination. That fear of intimidation and ostracism was certainly there.
— Chip Brown, Conway, S.C.
Proportional representation may be better for South Carolina
To the editor:
I enjoyed reading your reapportionment article this morning. What is remarkable is how a very large problem has such a very simple solution. As much as where the lines are drawn is an issue, the fact that districts are single-member is just as problematic. The solution is larger districts that yield several members.
Many western European countries use what is called open-list voting. The process is described here: Proportional Representation Systems
Now instead of 124 surgically-drawn House districts, imagine 12 super districts which elect 10 house members each under an open list election method. This way any politically-aligned group in a district that makes up at least 10 percent of the electorate would be assured a representative. This would encourage third parties and independents to run and take some of the governing authority away from the two large platforms currently in power.
This election method would also increase voter turnout as many eligible voters will currently stay home for elections that have already been drawn for the winners. Additionally, and maybe more importantly, this method would increase candidate turnout to challenge the status quo as the number of votes necessary to be competitive (by percentage) is lowered.
Another problem this method would solve is the cost of primaries and primary run-offs. Under this method, there would be no primaries. All candidates of a party would be put on the list and voters would have their chance to state their preference on election day. The money this state loses holding primary elections and election run-offs could be put to better use.
While any election method has its shortcomings, open-list, multi-member super districts solves more problems than it creates.
— Name withheld upon request, Columbia, S.C.
Send us a letter. We love hearing from our readers and encourage you to share your opinions. Letters to the editor are published weekly. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. We generally publish all comments about South Carolina politics or policy issues, unless they are libelous or unnecessarily inflammatory. One submission is allowed per month. Submission of a comment grants permission to us to reprint. Comments are limited to 250 words or less. Please include your name and contact information.
- Send your letters to: feedback@statehousereport.com
The people of Cuba
Set aside political ideologies and international affairs. Cuba, at its heart, is defined by her people, a mélange of black, brown and white seemingly filled with a joie de vivre captured in quick smiles, infectious rumba and a welcoming spirit.
Here are 20 photos that show some of the faces of Cuba encountered during a nine-day August trip organized by Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. Almost two dozen Americans learned about the country’s agricultural and cultural traditions, as will be outlined in coming posts.
NEXT: The cars of Cuba (coming Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2015).
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIAEarly South Carolina gardens
S.C. Encyclopedia | Both home and commercial gardening were essential to the survival of colonial settlements in South Carolina. Early commercial growing was limited to fruit and vegetable crops grown near towns, and consisted mostly of small plots surrounded by wattle or split rail “worm” fences. Home gardening included mostly food crops that could be pickled or stored dry, as the winter climate was too warm for root cellars. Few vegetables were eaten raw, and being more fibrous than today’s varieties, were usually overcooked. To this day, the term sallet or sallet greens is applied by some rural South Carolinians to greens grown to be cooked: mustard, turnip, and rape, for example.
Colonists from the Caribbean brought tropical food crops that thrived in South Carolina, as well as slaves who knew how to grow and prepare them. Sweet potatoes, okra, southern peas, sweet and hot peppers soon augmented cole crops such as cabbage and collards, and root crops that British settlers knew so well. Indian traders helped to introduce the food crops of Native Americans to colonists, most importantly the “Three Sisters”: maize (corn), beans, and squash. The corn was of kinds later known as “field corn” and was grown principally to be dried, stored, and shelled for winter use. Beans were grown mostly to be dried, shelled, and stored, sometimes with hot pepper pods to repel weevils. Squash varieties were mostly hard-shelled, winter-keeper types, not the early maturing “summer squash” that are so popular today. Settlers from France had a long history of eating fresh vegetables, especially salad greens, and they brought seeds with them. However, they had to learn the seasons in the Lowcountry before they could grow greens successfully.
Ornamentals came into colonial gardens more slowly than food crops. Curiously, during the period when early plant explorers such as André and François Michaux, John and William Bartram, Mark Catesby, and others were gathering seeds and starts of native American ornamental species to ship to England and the Continent, settlers were slow in introducing the same species into their landscapes. The Michaux garden grew for sale more than 450 varieties of mostly native species. Perhaps native ornamentals caught on slowly because only the landed elite among the settlers had much experience with ornamental crops or the leisure time to grow them. Some of the commoners had grown food crops in the “old country,” but others from large towns in England and from Ulster knew little or nothing about cultivating plants of any sort.
Seed production was difficult in the Southeast because of plant diseases and seed-eating insects that infested crops. Therefore even the colonists who had the foresight to bring seeds with them soon had to turn to seed and bulb companies in Europe for supplies. Bulbs reproduced somewhat better than seeds but kinds that could not adapt to the hot, humid summers soon disappeared.
Indigo, rice, and cotton soon produced wealth sufficient to fund the construction of fine homes and gardens, on plantations and in towns. The brick-walled Charleston garden of Henry Laurens, for example, measured 600 by 450 feet. Plantation gardens were much larger, especially those along the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, such as [Magnolia Plantation,] Drayton Hall and Middleton Place. DuBose Heyward described the Lowcountry gardens of South Carolina succinctly: “formal gardens blended from their very creation ordered lines with natural beauty, for even the most formal intentions failed to achieve the same results here amid wistful live oaks and Spanish moss, where forests were fragrant with magnolia and jessamine, as in the more sedate landscapes of northern Europe. So the English-planned gardens of Carolina grew and mellowed into gardens unlike any others in the whole world.”
– Excerpted from the entry by Jim Wilson. To read more about this or 2,000 other entries about South Carolina, check out The South Carolina Encyclopedia by USC Press. (Information used by permission.)
CREDITSEditor and Publisher: Andy Brack
Senior Editor: Bill Davis
Contributing Photographers: Michael Kaynard, Linda W. Brown
Phone: 843.670.3996
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