With Charlie Harper

The Caribbean region doesn’t frequently figure in US national politics, but a hurricane, convulsive civil disturbances and a return of Cold War politics have thrust the region into American headlines more than usual already this year.

Hurricane Maria devastated large swathes of the American territory of Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, claiming over 3,000 lives and wreaking devastation that is nowhere nearly restored 20 months later.

The persistent, defiant failure of the Trump administration to provide more assistance to the island remains a sore point for many, including world champion Boston Red Sox manager Joey Cora, who is from Puerto Rico. Cora was among many on the team who did not attend a White House ceremony in their honour last week. The snub made front page headlines.

Many black and Latino players on the Red Sox also found reasons not to attend the event at the White House, causing one Boston wag to note than only the “white” Sox were present. Red Sox icon and maybe baseball’s best-ever designated hitter, now-retired David Ortiz of the Dominican Republic, said “You don’t want to shake hands with a guy who is treating immigrants like _.”

Meantime, as Trump and Florida politicians like Republican Senator Marco Rubio pander to the Venezuelan expatriate community in South Florida in their zeal to condemn Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro, some observers are wondering if the tactic will backfire if Maduro is not replaced relatively quickly, or at least before next year’s US elections.

Those hoping for a quick change in Caracas will be disappointed by a recent attempt in Venezuela to displace Maduro in favour of widely-recognised challenger Juan Guaido. The peaceful coup attempt sputtered so badly that it was being compared in some quarters with the calamitous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

Cuban expatriates, mostly in Florida, New York and New Jersey, have long supported Republican and other politicians who have echoed their resolute refusal to have anything to do with the Communist regime in Havana. New polls suggest attitudes are changing, however, and that younger Cuban-Americans are starting to feel differently. Some pundits are speculating the GOP’s return to Cold War measures on Cuba may not work as well at the ballot box as in past elections.

How Hoover and Barry ended up on the same side of town

It straddles several city blocks, occupying real estate once among the most valuable parcels in America’s capital city. Now, just far enough from two freeways that their traffic noise is just a distant, muffled flow, and tucked in among several slowly gentrifying town house neighbourhoods in the far shadow of the US capitol, the Congressional Cemetery beckons visitors almost shyly. For many years in the 19th century, Congressional was the preferred burial spot for members of Congress and other politically and socially prominent Americans. Now, the famous and near-famous aspire to eternal rest in Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River in Virginia.

Arlington National sits on broad riverfront land once the property of Robert E Lee, whose mansion dominates the nearby hillside. On the other hand, Congressional lies in remote far southeast Washington, somewhat hard for tourists to find and dominated by the ominous, slit-windowed brick monolith that is the DC central jail. The passage of years has rendered many of Congressional Cemetery’s old markers and memorials difficult to decipher, but there is a kind of unabashed informality and charm about the place. There’s even a waiting list for those who want the privilege of walking their dogs on weekends along the old cemetery’s quiet, worn paths.

Along one of those paths, in uneasy 30-pace proximity to each other, lie in rest two men whose paths crossed but briefly but whose spirits must not be content with their current location. In a fenced family plot with his parents lies J Edgar Hoover, essentially the founder and long-time director of America’s national police force, the FBI. Serving under eight presidents, Hoover amassed power partly by spying on his bosses and then ensuring his tenure by holding embarrassing information on them and others.

No president dared to fire Hoover. Only his death in 1972 could remove him from office. By then, he had led crusades against real and suspected Communists in the US and hardly concealed his distaste for black activists and anti-war protesters in the 1960s. Among those activists was a young firebrand from Mississippi who would become Washington DC’s most prominent, notorious and significant politician.

Marion Barry first came to Washington in 1965 and jumped into political activism. By 1971 he won a seat on the city’s school board and was elected to the city council three years later. In 1978 he was elected mayor at age 42. He was twice re-elected, once with 82 percent of the vote, and would have won again in 1990 but for a cocaine bust at a downtown hotel organised by Hoover’s successors at the FBI. After a brief stretch in prison, he ran for city council again in 1992, and won again. “He may not be perfect, but he’s perfect for DC” was his campaign slogan. By 1994, Barry was elected mayor again.

Marion Barry throughout his career defied the expectations of white observers. He presided over an almost unimaginably corrupt, incompetent city government in many of the earliest years of home rule, a 1973 Congressionally mandated form of self-government granted to the District of Columbia. But voters loved the charismatic Barry, and voted for him at virtually every opportunity.

He died in 2014, and rests under an impressive memorial uncomfortably close to J Edgar Hoover. Cynics might say they deserve each other, but both were undeniably important actors on the stage of 20th century American history.

England’s fantastic four

It’s never happened before, and it might be quite a while before it happens again, so fans of English Premier League soccer should enjoy these next weeks. Europe’s major two club championships are both being contested by teams from the EPL. In the much more important match, Liverpool and Tottenham will face off June 1 in Madrid for the Champions League trophy. In the tournament final of the second-tier Europa League, Chelsea and Arsenal will seek European soccer’s other major trophy May 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Two big English clubs missing from these tourney finals are Manchester United, still estimated to be the world’s most valuable sports franchise, and crosstown rivals Manchester City, who on Sunday won its second consecutive EPL title – something that has not been done since Man United won its third straight crown a decade ago. Together with Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham, the Manchester clubs make up England’s so-called Big Six. And these Big Six once again claimed the top six positions in the final 2018-19 EPL standings.

No nation has previously dominated these championships as have the English clubs in 2019. By far the most competitive club league in Europe, the EPL has nonetheless in recent years been dominated by the Big Six teams with budgets that allow them to compete with continental giants like Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, Paris St Germain in France, Bayern Munich in Germany, Juventus of Turin and other big Italian teams in Rome and Milan.

This season has seen slumps and underperformance by several of the biggest continental clubs, so the English teams will need to take advantage of that while they can.