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Today's faves: Cuban Travel, Conspiracy Theories, and Sexism

Categories: Americas, South Asia, Western Europe, Cuba, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Democratic Party, Republican Party, Diaspora, Gender, Terrorism and Security, VwV Top 3

Voices without Votes continuously aggregates interesting links about the election from world bloggers. Our authors take turns picking their top 3 personal favorites every weekday.

1) Havana-based blogger Circles Robinson Online [1] says Cubans in Cuba are watching the elections intently, and seem to be favoring Obama because they think he is most likely to loosen the U.S. travel restrictions on Cuban relatives who want to visit the island.

“I’m living in Cuba, not the United States, but even so I’m tired of the US presidential campaign. It’s been going longer than the last three TV soap operas combined!

There has been extensive coverage here, with entire round table programs dedicated to the subject and almost daily reports and opinion pieces in the newspapers.

Most Cubans made up their minds on who they favor shortly after the Democratic Party primary ended. Not that people are enamored with either of the two major parties, but they at least see a ray of hope for improved relations under Obama. This means a lot for many families divided by the Florida Straits and politics.”

2) On the British-South Asian group blog Pickled Politics [2], Shariq, muses on the origins of conspiracy theories, like the one that Bill Ayers wrote Obama's biography [3], and says he thinks conspiracy theories happen when people feel distrust conventional media, and come up with alternative formulations.”

He draws parallels to conspiracy theories in the Muslim world:

“Just like the [U.S] right wing machine has taken legitimate grievances and turned them into wild speculation, the same thing has happened in the Muslim world. This really hit home to me after the bombings in Pakistan. Rather than finally realising that the Pakistani Taliban/Al-Qaeda do not discriminate on nationality or religion and are willing to butcher innocent civilians, talk has turned to yet more conspiracy theories. I’m not sure what the solution is but I think its important to realise that this is a problem and is standing in the way of making progress.”

3) Finally, 24-year old Zeinoba blogging at Egyptian Chronicles [4]is displeased with the sexism on display in the attacks on Sarah Palin. Her post is in response to a rumor that someone is producing a new porn film with a Sarah Palin look-alike.

“Maybe Hilary Clinton would have suffered in the same way if she had won the ticket of the democrats. Some people still can’t remove the fact that she is woman in the first place before being a politician, and for them being a woman is a weakness point they can mock as they want !!’”

* Photo of flag display at Havana Airport taken by jorge6880 [5]