Did IKEA Use Cuban Prison Labor For Furniture Manufacturing?

IKEA was, no pun intended, an American household name in the previous decade. This was an era of tremendous housing expansion, cheap credit, and "don't ask, don't tell" residential mortgages. IKEA was seen an an inexpensive option for those who had a new space and needed furniture to fill it. Few asked hard questions about the provenance of IKEA items. They were inexpensive, and that was enough.

Well, the furniture came from someplace. One of those venues, as it turned out, was Cuba. Today's online edition of The Miami Herald notes allegations, originally reported in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that Cuban prison labor produced dining tables, children's tables, and sofas for the Scandinavian firm.

IKEA said it was investigating this unique form of outsourcing.

Zombie Movie at Havana Film Festival Spoofs Cuba's Ruling Regime

Online editions of the Miami Herald report that Juan de los Muertos (Juan of the Dead), a new film debuting at the Havana Film Festival, does more than simply rehash zombie themes. The film's more likely theme is Cuba's ruling regime and the island's still-repressed political environment. According to Fabiola Santiago, who noted the episode in a Herald opinion column, the film comes across as "crude and bloody" and essentially artless. However, the writer makes the fair point that political statements, especially veiled references to current rulers, may be more effective when used as blunt instruments rather than surgical tools.

For another perspective on the film, read this Associated Press story that appeared in the December 9th Washington Post. It offers more and different details than the Herald's opinion piece. Meanwhile, a very brief Wikipedia link includes a list of all first-prize Havana Film Festival winners.

Hemingway's Cuban Finca Restored

Finca Vigia/Interior, from a BBC segment
on Hemingway's Cuban residence

In a very rare case of a Cuban-US partnership, architects and preservationists have acted in concert to preserve Ernest Hemingway's Cuban residence, Finca Vigia. The story, while not exactly something Papa would have written, is a fascinating one. By the way, reading about "Lookout Farm," as the finca is known in English, is probably the only way the politically unconnected can visit the structure. Most visitors can't get inside the finca, located outside Havana. Author Michael Connors and photographer Brent Winebrenner, however, were given tremendous access to "Lookout Farm"; their new book, The Splendor of Cuba: 450 Years of Architecture and Interiors includes photographs of the finca.

Today's Washington Post has the details of the authors' access, the architectural cooperation, and the condition of Hemingway's beloved getaway. Meanwhile, for a window into Hemingway's way of thinking, George Plimpton's Paris Review inteview of Papa is a good place to start.