What You Said About …

THE FUTURE OF CUBA

Karl Vick’s April 6 cover story on how Cuba will be affected by newly open relations with the U.S. was “right on point,” said Steve Bartlett of Salt Lake City, who visited Cuba last year; he especially praised the Havana business owner in the story who said a rapid influx of American tourism and business would be a “disaster”–a sentiment shared by professionals Bartlett met who hoped for “small steps over a period of time.” Mark Dymally of Los Angeles, meanwhile, wanted quick, thorough action. Citing a lack of a “major foreign policy accomplishment since Nixon went to China,” he wrote, “hopefully, Obama will show some sort of courage by fully, completely and unconditionally reopening the door to Cuba before his Administration ends.”

TREATING PTSD

Barbara Van Dahlen of Bethesda, Md., founder of Give an Hour, an organization that provides free mental-health services to military families, called Mark Thompson’s feature on the VA’s new research center, a PTSD brain bank, “excellent” but said big changes in military culture were needed as well. “Sadly, service members and veterans often see themselves as ‘weak’ or ‘broken’ or ‘unworthy.'” “I am no scientist, but they don’t need a brain bank to find one cause of PTSD,” wrote Robert Brudno of Washington, whose brother was a POW for over seven years in North Vietnam. He took his own life after only four months of freedom, having “endured the horrors of war, only to return to a country that blamed the war on the warriors. I leave the physiology of PTSD to the scientists, but they won’t find the marks left by antiwar politics in the brain. Those wounds were in the heart.”

NEW WORLD BANK

Ian Bremmer’s column on the new $50 billion Chinese-led bank that could threaten U.S. dominance in world finance came as no surprise to Josef Colman of Santa Monica, Calif. “While China continues its focus on building a strong economy, we continue to weaken ours by spending vast resources on maintaining the world’s largest military to, in part, protect our allies, including those joining China’s bank.”

LIGHTBOX

A part-time juggler and clown, Austrian photographer Lukas Berger had long been fascinated by circus life. So he signed on to perform with troupes in Pakistan, Ethiopia and Germany, documenting such artists as David Larible, above, of Germany’s Roncalli circus. See more of his work at lightbox.time.com.

NOW ON TIME.COM

A recent New York State probe into dietary supplements raised questions about quality control. And health experts say most people can get their vitamins and minerals from a good diet. TIME’s guide to food alternatives to supplements includes oranges (vitamin C) and kale (calcium). For more, visit time.com/vitaminfoods.

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