You say you want a revolución
I spent eight days with Insight Cuba's Havana Jazz Experience ("Cuba, Up Close and Personal," 5/18/2012). The trip was a wonderful adventure, but the modest changes permitted by the Castro regime have not improved conditions. The revolucion needs a new revolucion.
There are a handful of excellent paladars, home-operated restaurants. A few vendors pay exorbitant government fees for the privilege. But almost all workers earn poverty wages in government-run businesses. Increasing numbers are unemployed. The government decides who needs and can afford an old car.
The Cuban government has convinced people that the U.S. embargo is the cause of their problems. But if the embargo goes away tomorrow, and it should, the Cuban people will still be extremely poor.
I returned thrilled by the Havana experience and enriched by the music, the art and the many people I met. I wish them freedom!
Wayne Corey
Fare play
As an emerging professional in the tourism industry, I am truly sorry about Judith Davidoff's difficulties recognizing her 4:30 p.m. departure to Chicago as a Van Galder bus ("Megabus, Mega-Headache," 5/18/2012). Booking Van Galder through Megabus is a fairly new option. So far, Megabus bookings are rare, and the Van Galder drivers are just getting the hang of dealing with them.
One thing about the arrangement: Megabus has not "contracted out" bus runs to Van Galder. Van Galder has contracted out the right to book passengers on their Chicago to Union Station buses to Megabus. If you book on the Van Galder site you have to pay full fare to downtown Chicago no matter what time of day you travel. If you book via the Megabus site, fares at certain off-peak times of day are discounted. This is an arrangement designed to save "bargain shopping" travelers who visit the Megabus site a discount that was never offered in the past.
David Katz, Voyageur Tours
Multiple marriages
Joseph T. Leone's letter to the editor (5/25/2012), regarding the Tell All column "Why Is Polygamy Illegal?," obviously missed the point on polygamy. You can make multiple marriage contracts in Wisconsin. You can do it in church if your church (or synagogue, or mosque, or coven, etc.) is into that sort of thing. You can also write up cohabitation contracts for these multiple marriages. What you cannot do, where the state can take action against you, is attempt to have the state recognize these multiple marriages.
Jim Miller
