You can take a look at a map. It doesn’t matter in their alternative universe.
GOP voices
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What Democrats are saying
We Panama Democrats pay our respects to the late US Representative from Baltimore. Photo by Lorie Shaull.
Dem voices
Bernie Sanders in New York
I want you all to look around and find someone you don’t know. Maybe somebody who doesn’t look kind of like you, maybe somebody who may be of a different religion than you, maybe they come from a different country.
My question now to you is are you willing to fight for that person who you don’t even know as much as you’re willing to fight for yourself?
Are you willing to stand together and fight for those people who are struggling economically in this country? Are you willing to fight for young people drowning in student debt even if you’re not? Are you willing to fight to ensure that every American has health care even if you have good health care? Are you willing to fight for frightened immigrant neighbors even if you are native born? Are you willing to fight for a future for generations of people that have not even been born but are entitled to live on a planet that is healthy and habitable?
Because if you are willing to do that, if you are willing to love, if you are willing to fight for a government of compassion and justice and decency, if you are willing to stand up to Trump’s desire to divide us up, if you are prepared to stand up to the greed and corruption of the corporate elite, if you and millions of others are prepared to do that, then there is no doubt in my mind not that only we will win this election but together we will transform this country.
Elizabeth Warren in New York
Washington works great for the wealthy and the well-connected, but it isn’t working for anyone else. Companies and wealthy individuals spend billions every year to influence Congress and federal agencies to put their interests ahead of the public interest. This is deliberate, and we need to call this what it is – corruption, plain and simple.
We will start by ending lobbying as we know it by closing loopholes so everyone who lobbies must register, shining sunlight on their activities, banning foreign governments from hiring Washington lobbyists, and shutting down the ability of lobbyists to move freely in and out of government jobs.
We will also shut the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington and permanently ban Senators and Congressmen from trading stocks in office and from becoming lobbyists when they retire – not for one year or two years, but for life. We will make the justices of the Supreme Court follow a code of ethics and strengthen the code of conduct for all judges to make sure everyone gets a fair shake in our courts. And we will force every candidate for federal office to put their tax returns online.
Together, these sweeping, structural changes will end the dominance of money in Washington, taking power away from the rich and powerful and putting it back where it belongs – with the American people themselves.
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Editorials: Now that THEIR game is up; and Cornered but deadly
The essence of it, refined from a National Assembly video.
It’s over for them. But now WE…
We have seen a display of the most base motives and behaviors in the guise of constitutional reform. Appeals to primitive hatreds. “Heads we win, tails you lose” economic proposals from kleptocrats who belong in prison. Tawdry power grabs. The utmost concern for self protection from the consequences of the crimes they commit.
Ain’t no lipstick that can disguise this pig. Ain’t no inspector’s stamp that can certify away the rot and the stench enough to make the pork edible. Whatever sweeteners, reforms to the reforms or backtracking, this constitutional process is going to be voted down.
But Panama does need a new constitution and to get a worthy one there is this herculean task of public civics education to be done. Talking about some magical procedural bullet like an originating constituent assembly will not suffice. We need to talk about essential aims and principles, and practical ways to secure them. We need to recognize, and teach others to recognize, the varieties of fatal lures that will be dangled in front of us by hustlers who do not wish us or Panama well.
An early order of business needs to be the drafting of a ballot proposal that takes the rules of electing an assembly to write a new constitution away from the current powers that be — the Electoral Tribunal, the National Assembly, the Supreme Court and the Presidency.
How to do that? No way should we tolerate the current legislative circuits, neither the single-member ones nor the cockamamy multi-member ones. No way should we tolerate any of those people drawing new political boundaries for the occasion. No way should we tolerate discrimination against independents, the “plancha,” the quotient / half quotient / residue scam.
It would seem that, for the drafting of a new constitution, an assembly apportioned among the provinces and comarcas by population with at-large members within those boundaries and enough convention delegates to make representation meaningful, should be the general approach.
Say, 101 delegates. Partisan slates? Then treat the independents as if they were a party. Primaries? Those would probably be in order, but the Electoral Tribunal is the political parties’ arm and it should not be allowed to determine who the independents on the ballot will be. A province with nine delegates, elected with each party and the independents running up to nine people apiece, and then — first past the post or proportional by party with independent and party shares filled according to which individuals got the most votes?
And STILL there will be the usual thugs buying votes, and the usual authorities condoning that criminal activity.
Voting down THEIR thing is the easy part. Building PANAMA’S thing is the hard task ahead.
#VoteNo #NOesNO #NoALasReformas #NoMasParches
The nation gets all that. But now’s the time to be thinking of the positive alternatives.
White House photo. The particular infamy that was discussed unspecified as to this call.
So he got on the phone…
And approved the immediate dispossession and death of those who were fighting by America’s side when the phone call began.
And tried to blackmail another head of a foreign state into setting up one of his domestic political opponents.
What a complete disgrace. What a threat to both domestic order and world peace. Remove this corrupt public official, and scatter his supporters to the irrelevant fringes.
The library dedicated to universal education is the most powerful of our armies.
José de San Martín
Bear in mind…
Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4:7
The infirmities of genius are often mistaken for its privileges.
Countess of Blessington
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The Panama New blog links, October 23, 2019
The Panama News blog links
a Panama-centric selection of other people’s work
una selección Panamá-céntrica de las obras de otras personas
Canal, Maritime & Transportation / Canal, Marítima & Transporte
Seatrade, DP World eyes Panama’s logistics sector
La Estrella, Lluvias en la cuenca del Canal son las segundas más bajas en 70 años
TVN, Panamá participa en conferencia ministerial sobre pesca segura y legal
Seatrade, Strikes at Chilean ports as the nation’s unrest spreads
Bloomberg, China dominates oil tanker market
Sports / Deportes
Telemetro, Panamá empata en su estreno en el Torneo Sub-18 UNCAF
La Prensa, Julio Dely Valdés arranca un nuevo reto con Panamá
Metro Libre, Boxeo Olímpico en Panamá
Economy / Economía
International Investment, FATF keeps Panama on its gray list
La Estrella, Intervención de Allbank pone en duda labor de la SBP
Fresh Plaza, Bocas banana workers secure agreement with Chiquita
Prensa Latina, Panamá impulsa medidas a favor de productores nacionales
PR, First Quantum declares commercial production at Cobre Panama
Página 12, “Nos están obligando a hacer kirchnerismo”
Frankel, How a weaponized dollar could backfire
Science & Technology / Ciencia & Tecnología
STRI, What makes a good primate leader?
Mongabay, Indígenas panameños elaboran mapas para monitorear sus bosques
Science Alert: That dinosaur-killing asteroid instantly acidified the oceans, too
Wired, New Crispr technique could fix most genetic disorders
The Guardian, A blind spot about how the pill influences women’s brains
Vanguardia, Glaciares de la Antártida liberan cloro radiactivo en la atmosfera
News / Noticias
EFE, Diputada oficialista invoca la xenofobia y la homofobia en Panamá
La Prensa, Bancada Panameñista en contra de reformas no ampliamente debatidas
La Prensa, Carrizo advierte que Cortizo puede llamar un constituyente
Telemetro, APAP investiga posible falsificación de pasaportes en Panamá
La Estrella, Trece años después del envenenamiento masivo
Americas Program, Mexico’s refugees
NACLA, A clash of interests in Villa 31
BBC, Los candidatos que se disputan la presidencia de Uruguay
El País, UK blocks Spanish judge from questioning Assange
The Washington Post, An envoy’s tale of venal intrigue
Opinion / Opiniones
Sachs, Why rich cities rebel
Bookbinder, Don’t praise Trump for reversing G-7 Doral debacle
The Intercept, Bernie and AOC talk politics and 2020
Pierce, GOP wingnuts commit a dangerous breach of national security
La Estrella, Migración
Gutiérrez, El ignorado peligro para la salud panameña
Noriega, ¿Tribunal Constitucional?
Sagel, Después de 30 años
Bernal, La CIDH Y La Defensoría
Culture / Cultura
Billboard, Erika Ender’s gala
Remezcla, Coming soon: the AOC action figure
Meacham: I, Pastafari
NPR, Nuevofest with the Beachers
The Guardian, The lost history of Soviet hippies
Sagel, La Lavandería
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Nuevo coral de aguas profundas panameñas
La composición de las escleritas de este coral blanco y en forma de abanico es característica de esta especie y la diferencia de otras especies del mismo género.
Foto por Héctor Guzmán/STRI.
Smithsonian descubre nuevo
coral de aguas profundas
por Sonia Tejada – STRI
Pax, que significa “paz” en latín, se abrió paso en el nombre científico de una especie de coral recién descubierta en el Pacífico panameño y descrita en la revista Bulletin of Marine Science. Según investigadores del Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI), el Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología de la Universidad de Costa Rica (CIMAR) y otras instituciones, su nombre alude a la necesidad de hacer las paces con la naturaleza y acabar con la devastación de los océanos.
Psammogorgia pax, recolectada a una profundidad de 63 metros (207 pies) en banco Hannibal, una montaña submarina ubicada en el Parque Nacional Coiba, Patrimonio de la Humanidad de la UNESCO, forma parte de un ecosistema marino inexplorado y poco estudiado: el de corales mesofóticos. Estos hábitats de difícil acceso, que se encuentran entre 40 y 150 metros de profundidad, entre los arrecifes de aguas poco profundas y los corales de aguas profundas, están bajo creciente necesidad de protección, pero se sabe muy poco sobre su ecología y biodiversidad.
Últimamente, los sumergibles han permitido a los científicos marinos explorar estas comunidades y recolectar muestras, descubriendo nuevas especies de octocorales para el Pacífico Oriental Tropical, incluyendo la Adelogorgia hannibalis (2018), Thesea dalioi (2018) y Eugorgia siedenburgae (2013), todas de banco Hannibal.
“Explorar la zona mesofótica y más allá siempre ha sido un desafío para los científicos”, comentó Héctor M. Guzmán, ecólogo marino de STRI. “Necesitamos vehículos sumergibles operados remotamente (ROV) para buscar y recolectar especímenes. No siempre tenemos acceso a estos recursos, pero cada vez que nos sumergimos, encontramos algo nuevo”.
P. pax es un coral blanco, en forma de abanico. La colonia está hecha de estructuras microscópicas de carbonato de calcio llamadas escleritas. La composición de las escleritas es característica de esta especie y la diferencia de otras del mismo género, como P. arbuscula, una especie común de aguas poco profundas. Hasta ahora, las especies de Psammogorgia del Pacífico oriental solo se han reportado en aguas poco profundas de hasta 30 metros (98 pies) de profundidad. Sin embargo, la aparición del género en aguas más profundas era de esperarse.
“Porque, aparte de nuestras observaciones personales, hemos encontrado especímenes de Psammogorgia en colecciones de museos. Estos son el resultado de expediciones históricas que adquirieron estas muestras dragando a profundidades mesofóticas”, comentó Odalisca Breedy, bióloga marina de CIMAR y coautora del estudio. “Estos especímenes aún no han sido identificados, ni han sido considerados en ninguna evaluación de biodiversidad”.
El reciente descubrimiento y descripción de P. pax es una valiosa contribución para comprender la diversidad de octocorales en Panamá, un importante componente de las comunidades de corales mesofóticos y de aguas profundas. En última instancia, aumentar el conocimiento sobre estos ecosistemas será esencial para salvaguardar su conservación a largo plazo.
Por el momento, los investigadores marinos siguen preocupados por el futuro de la montaña submarina de banco Hannibal, cuya rica biodiversidad solo ha sido explorada recientemente. Consideran que el área podría beneficiarse de protecciones ambientales y de conservación más fuertes.
“El manejo de esta montaña submarina protegida a nivel internacional podría reforzarse, ya que enfrenta una fuerte presión de pesca”, comentó Guzmán. “Lo mismo ocurre con el resto de los montículos submarinos panameños que aún no hemos explorado por falta de recursos”.
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Legislators’ constitutional moves collapsing
Mostly student protesters, who had been locked out of the National Assembly grounds but broke in with some first scaling the fence and then others storming through the gate take over part of the legislative palace. Shortly afterwards National Assembly president Marcos Castillero came down to announce that the higher education changes that he had introduced along with nine other deputies would be withdrawn. All five public universities had issued statements calling the PRD – Cambio Democratico – MOLIRENA – Independent proponents “enemies of higher education in Panama.” Led by the rector, Eduardo Flores, University of Panama students, faculty and administrators marched from the central campus to the legislator, joined by a few high school activists as well.
Unfolding constitutional change fiasco
by Eric Jackson
The Twitter hashtags have proliferated:
#NoALasReformas #HartosDeLaCorrupción #NoesNO #VoteNo #RechazoAlPaquetazo #OriginariaSí
The constitutional revision process that began with the Chamber of Commerce (CCIAP) and the National Private Enterprise Council (CoNEP) was waylaid in the legislature by deputies seeking to enhance their own powers and privileges and advance causes from withdrawing from international human rights treaties to stripping tens of thousands of Panamanians of citizenship to muzzling the press. So far it has not gone well for the legislators attempting these moves.
The cracks in the process began when Government Committee chair Leandro Ávila, once head of a public employees’ union but long since reviled by more or less the entire Panamanian labor movement, announced that instead of taking the business groups’ proposal that President Cortizo had passed on to the National Assembly, the entire constitution would be reviewed and open for amendments in four blocks. The session had to be adjourned when that set off a shouting match between Ávila and Dr. Crispiano Adames, both PRD deputies.
The structure of how it would be a problem was, in hindsight, evident all along. Every party caucus is divided — the PRD between those who see San Miguelito demagogue Zulay Rodríguez as their spokeswoman and those of factions more deferential to President Cortizo, CD between those who rebelled against former president Ricardo Martinelli in the 2014 to 2019 assembly and a smaller group of Martinelista loyalists, MOLIRENA between the international religious right CitizenGO movement’s local leader Corina Cano and those who like more traditional liberals are not religious fanatics. It seems that the only reasonably united caucus were the five independents, who by all appearances wanted to show that they respect decorum, go along to get along and can make impressive deals that they can show to their constituents.
The committee wheels were greased, so in the rushed debate on the first block it was proposed to strip those born in Panama to foreign parents of their citizenship, to constitutionally bar same-sex marriage and so on. But in the party caucuses deputies were hearing angry responses from their constituents. The queer-bashing was watered down and, when rookie deputy Kayra Harding objected to the citizenship proposal in the PRD caucus it turned out that there wasn’t support within that party for that idea either.
Things proceeded to the second block and the legislators attacked many things — freedom of the press getting the most notice — but structurally most important were a series of changes that would shift powers from the presidency to the legislature. They would make all international law optional for Panama. They would further privatize the Social Security Fund. They would bust up the powers of the University of Panama, and while dangling a six percent for education lure, shift money from public to private education at all levels. They would have the legislators yet more immune from the audits many of them have been defying. Ávila made an impassioned plea to reject the business groups’ proposal for term limits for deputies. He and his colleagues made a bid for legislative power to summarily remove government ministers more or less as they had just kicked out the ombudsman with great rancor over unspecified charges. (While that was going on, one of their own was at the Supreme Court hearing specific criminal charges of rape and pedophilia against himself, and the defense that he was a practicing physician back then but now he’s a legislator with immunity wasn’t being accepted.)
The legislators went home for the weekend on October 18th with the second block of changes only half done. And over the weekend the game exploded in their faces. Independent groups spoke harshly of things independent deputies were co-sponsoring. A Martinelista deputy pleaded with the president to take the whole constitutional matter off of the table. Most of the nation’s news media and press organizations denounced the proposed new press restrictions. The Chamber of Commerce pleaded with the president to defend their proposal from the legislature. And while flying to Japan, Cortizo sent a short and blunt message back to the legislators — “Let’s respect the separation of powers.”
There were a few people cheering for the legislature in the social media. There was a bit of acclamation for the the mentions that were proposed that recognized the distinct cultural rights of Panama’s black and indigenous communities. The religious right cheered. But these voices were drowned out in a massive outcry against what was being done. Professional associations, labor unions, every imaginable sort of community organization, all the human rights groups — they were speaking against the whole process and vowing to vote against any proposal coming out of it.
The Monday resumption of work on Block 2 was put off a day, and then on Tuesday morning the universitarios came marching through the rain.
And the opposition kept coming. Officials from the Embera-Wounaan Comarca complained that they had not been consulted about the government decentralization proposal. Notwithstanding Zulay Rodríguez being president of the PRD Women’s Federation, the multipartisan Women’s Forum of the Political Parties denounced the constitutional process, in particular for the deputies’ failure to even consider parity for women in governing bodies’ memberships that had been in the original proposal by the business groups. The PRD caucus appeared to be in gridlock, unable to negotiate with one voice with any of the other caucuses even if those smaller groups were united enough to give a negotiator full powers, which they are not.
On October 31 the legislative session ends. If no proposal is passed by then the whole process would either have to go to a special session which the president would have to call. Or the deputies might start again from scratch next year. Or the whole idea might just be scrapped, either in favor of a constitutional convention or just to be forgotten.
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Siembras con mayor biodiversidad son mejor protegidas
Donde la variación de cultivos, setos, árboles y praderas es mayor, los polinizadores silvestres y los insectos “beneficiosos” son más abundantes y diversificados. Foto por CATIE.
La biodiversidad mejora la producción de cultivos
por el Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE)
En las últimas dos décadas, aproximadamente el 20% de las superficies cultivadas se han vuelto menos productivas. Según el último informe de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación (FAO), los seres humanos son los culpables ya que no han hecho lo suficiente para proteger la biodiversidad de la naturaleza.
Ante este panorama, un equipo internacional de investigación, coordinado por la Universidad de Würzburg y Eurac Research, ha realizado un estudio donde han confirmado que los campos agrícolas con mayor biodiversidad están mejor protegidos de los insectos dañinos, promueven la polinización y producen mayores rendimientos.
De acuerdo con Alejandra Martínez-Salinas, especialista en manejo y conservación de biodiversidad del CATIE (Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza) y parte de los investigadores que participaron en este estudio, se compararon datos de unos 1500 campos agrícolas en todo el mundo; desde campos de maíz en las llanuras americanas hasta campos de colza en el sur de Suecia, pasando por plantaciones de café en la India, plantaciones de mango en Sudáfrica y cultivos de cereales en los Alpes. Asimismo, se analizaron dos servicios de los ecosistemas (procesos regulados por la naturaleza que son beneficiosos y gratuitos para los seres humanos): 1) el servicio de polinización proporcionado por los insectos silvestres y 2) el servicio de control biológico de plagas; es decir, la capacidad de un medio ambiente de utilizar los artrópodos depredadores presentes en el ecosistema para defenderse de los insectos dañinos.
Uno de los sitios incluidos en este estudio corresponde al trabajo realizado por Martínez-Salinas, el cual demostró que las aves silvestres son importantes para el control de la broca del café (Hypothenemus hampei), una de las plagas más dañinas a nivel mundial, en fincas cafetaleras de Costa Rica. Martínez-Salinas y colaboradores demostraron, a través de experimentos con exclusiones, que las aves silvestres (residentes y migratorias) que consumen insectos son capaces de reducir la infestación de la broca del café hasta en un 50%.
Con respecto a esta publicación, Martínez-Salinas indicó que los resultados muestran que en los paisajes heterogéneos donde la variación de cultivos, setos, árboles y praderas es mayor, los polinizadores silvestres y los insectos “beneficiosos” son más abundantes y diversificados. “No solo aumenta la polinización y el control biológico, sino también el rendimiento de los cultivos”, expresó. Por otro lado, la investigación arrojó que los monocultivos son la causa de aproximadamente un tercio de los efectos negativos sobre la polinización que resultan de la simplificación del paisaje (medido por la pérdida de la “riqueza de polinizadores”). Este efecto es aún mayor con el control de los insectos dañinos, donde la pérdida de “riqueza de enemigos naturales” representa el 50% de las consecuencias totales de la simplificación del paisaje.
Por su parte, Matteo Dainese, biólogo de Eurac Research y primer autor del estudio, manifestó que se demuestra que la biodiversidad es esencial para asegurar la provisión de servicios ecosistémicos y para mantener una producción agrícola alta y estable. “Por ejemplo, un agricultor puede depender menos de los pesticidas para deshacerse de los insectos dañinos si los controles biológicos naturales se incrementan a través de una mayor biodiversidad agrícola”, expresó.
Ante esto, los investigadores recomiendan proteger los entornos cuya salud se mantiene a través de la biodiversidad y diversificar los cultivos y los paisajes en la medida de lo posible.
“En las condiciones futuras, con el cambio global en curso y los fenómenos climáticos extremos más frecuentes, el valor de la biodiversidad de las tierras de cultivo, que garantiza la resistencia a las perturbaciones medioambientales, será aún más importante”, subraya el ecologista animal Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter, del Departamento de Ecología Animal y Biología Tropical de la Universidad de Würzburg, iniciador del estudio en el marco del proyecto Liberación de la Unión Europea.
“Nuestro estudio proporciona un fuerte apoyo empírico a los beneficios potenciales de los nuevos caminos hacia la agricultura sostenible que buscan reconciliar la protección de la biodiversidad y la producción de alimentos para el aumento de las poblaciones humanas”, expresó Steffan-Dewenter.
La financiación del estudio provino de los proyectos de colaboración EU-FP7 LIBERATION (311781) y Biodiversa-FACCE ECODEAL (PCIN-2014-048). El estudio acaba de ser publicado en Science Advances: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax0121.
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House arrest for Arquesio Arias
Arquesio Arias Felix was not removed from his seat in the National Assembly pending trial, nor ordered not to do public business. But if the ordinary terms of house arrest apply and the legislature does not change its rules to allow him to vote or take part in debates remotely via electronic communications, it would seem that his suplente (alternate), Renilio Martelo Robinson, will replace him for the time being. Archive photo by the National Assembly.
House arrest leaves some questions but removes a problem from the limelight
by Eric Jackson
It was a Monday of watching and waiting, with a morning in the National Assembly chambers supposed to be dedicated to constitutional changes after a firestorm of criticism and defections over the previous few days, and a hearing at the Supreme Court for one of the assembly’s members, Dr. Arquesio Arias. After long delays there were some decisions — or punts — on each score.
The delays were about an expedited appeal. The panel ordered pretrial measures against Dr. Arias, the defense appealed, and a nine-member plenum of the Supreme Court was brought in to immediately hear that appeal, which was rejected by a reported 8-1 vote with magistrate José Ayú Prado dissenting.
The Arias hearing didn’t get underway until 3:00 p.m. and dragged on all night. Magistrate Olmedo Arrocha, acting as prosecutor in a series of rape cases that include at least one minor as alleged victims, asked in a closed hearing for standard preventive measure number eight, usually referred to as “casa por carcel” — house arrest. Sometime after midnight the court announced that the panel hearing the matter had ordered Arias to stay at his house, turn in his passports and not to leave the country. The standard for house arrest is that one does not leave the premises of a specified residence — it might be somebody else’s — without prior leave of the court. Is that what is meant here, or something softer?
And which house may be of some importance. Over the preceding weekend Arrocha traveled to the Guna Yala community of Ustupu, where Arias had been living and working in the health center before his election to the legislature. There, at least two families requested government assistance to leave the community because they said they were being intimidated, and Arrocha found local authorities divided about and backing away from the Arias matter. The current sahila did not receive Arrocha, leaving that to his predecessor who had received, and apparently did little about, complaints against Arias over the years.
Guna land management practices preserve large areas that are left in a natural or lightly fished or farmed state and crowds residences into densely populated areas. These are crowded but somewhat isolated from the rest of Panama and the world. Social divisions such as about the merits of a criminal case that’s unfolding in what many would see as a foreign court against a person with a loyal following in the community could make life difficult for a defendant, an accuser or any other witness. House arrest in Ustupu, or in the village in Wargandi from whence Arias comes, would be a different matter than confinement to a residence in Panama City. Concerns about both public order and the integrity of criminal justice would arise.
Also of great traditional concern in Guna eyes is indigenous sovereign self-rule, one indication of which is that few people would talk about the Arias case with television crews that went to the comarca to ask about it. On the other hand, there is and long has been a Guna strain of feminism, one which alleges that male domination is an undesirable import to a society in which women traditionally had more respect, and which demands a social status commensurate with the burden that women carry in the Guna economy. In recent feminist protests arising from the allegations against Arias there have been Guna women participating.
Despite house arrest that may keep him from his duties, Arias will continue to receive his salary. Whether his suplente might get control of the legislative office’s budget in the interim is another interesting question.
As the sun came up on October 22, it appeared that the afternoon’s march for justice from the legislature to the high court was still on, and it was reported that the accusing women and girls had been moved from their Guna communities to the metro area for their protection.
Ustupu. Maintaining order in the community during a sensational court proceeding is of great concern to both indigenous and national authorities.
[Editor’s note: The norm is that anyone without special connections accused of multiple sexual assaults, including against minors, would be jailed in preventive detention pending trial. This inequality before the law is no trivial matter. Many physicians are incensed about the scandal brought down on their profession, and women’s groups are tired of the sexism with impunity that characterizes so much of the Panamanian political caste. These are also concerns that should not be taken lightly. But let’s remember that there is a presumption of innocence that applies even to politicians we dislike. At this point the facts of guilt or innocence are not established as matters of law.]
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Kermit’s birds / Las aves de Kermit
Veery / Zorzal Dorsirrojizo / Catharus fuscescens, Gamboa, Panama, photo © Kermit Nourse.
The Veery ∼ El Zorzal Dorsirrojizo
by Kermit Nourse
The Veery is a small thrush – like bird known for its melodious song in the forest. It’s far ranging and migratory too, from North America through southern Brazil. In Panama it passes through heading south from the end of September through mid-November and is less frequently seen heading the other way in late March and early April. When here it’s an understory bird in mature forests, also found in secondary forests and the Atlantic Side lowlands. On the Pacific Side, it can be found from the Chiriqui highlands to the canal area. But you HEAR this bird far more often than you see it. Ornithologists will see it by putting out cloud nets to catch it.
El Zorzal Dorsirrojizo es un pequeño tordo parecido, un pájaro conocido por su melodiosa canción en el bosque. También es de largo alcance y migratorio, desde América del Norte hasta el sur de Brasil. En Panamá pasa a través del sur desde finales de septiembre hasta mediados de noviembre y se ve con menor frecuencia en sentido contrario a fines de marzo y principios de abril. Cuando aquí es un pájaro del sotobosque en bosques maduros, también se encuentra en bosques secundarios y en las tierras bajas del Atlántico. En el lado del Pacífico, se puede encontrar desde las tierras altas de Chiriquí hasta el área del canal. Pero ESCUCHAS a este pájaro mucho más seguido de lo que lo ves. Los ornitólogos lo verán colocando redes de nubes para atraparlo.
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Kaushik, The colors of ships and healthy seas
What the shipping industry is trying to control, without poisoning the marine environment. Graphic by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Ship hues and ecosystems
by Pitamber Kaushik
Panama has the world’s largest shipping fleet. It is also an ecological bastion and a biodiversity hot spot. Its tropical waters are home to numerous endemic marine species — fish, mollusks and crustaceans which together comprise and sustain the rich yet delicate ecosystem. It’s thus crucial that the environmental and mercantile interests are fastidiously reconciled. In the era of globalization, an insidious threat lurks, ‘superficial’ yet unapparent.
You must have observed that the lower portions of boats and ships are colored a different tone.
This is classically red, but nowadays, its any color that you would like. The reason behind this custom can be traced back to the antiquity of sailing ships. Dating back to the days of wooden ships, this practice was meant to alleviate the frequent and resilient organic growth that wood hulls were susceptible to. They acted as ideal substrates for submarine life to latch onto, grow, proliferate and thrive, owing to their slow-plod and rough surface. Worms, barnacles and weed grow on the underside of hulls and deal a threefold damage: the obvious physical damage, the load rendering the ship heavier as well as the growth positing sizable drag further impeding it. Painting was thus devised as an antifouling measure to cope with this bloom. Antifouling measures antecedent to painting included overlaying with copper sheets, which acted as an impregnable physical barrier to prevent vermin from boring their way through the hull, while copper also posed a biochemical detriment to the growth of plant life.
This was rendered largely irrelevant with the advent of metal ships. However, it never went obsolete as we can still observe wooden-hulled ships in the leisure industry. In fact, the contemporarily prevalent anti-fouling measure is a cuprous-oxide-based paint, that still uses copper as a biocide. The color of this oxide is responsible for the predominance, and later convention of red hulls. The outer layer of the paint wears off over time continuously exposing the underlying fresh layers of biocides integrated with it.
The antifouling releases flaked-off paint bits and biocides into the sea, posing obvious environmental implications, given coppers proclivity to hinder microscopic life, and thus disbalancing marine ecosystems. Introduction of the synthetic polymer-based, and often toxic paint is no less troublesome. Out of this consideration, certain port-authorities and harbormasters do not permit scrub-cleaning of the hull on the dock, as it would release further paint and biocides into the adjoining coastal water rich in marine life.
Not using the paint exerts another sort of environmental footprint that imperils biodiversity. Imagine a liner cruising from the West Pacific to the Mediterranean. What if a certain species of seaweed endemic to the former latches on to the ship’s
hull and gets transmitted to the latter location? In some cases, as natural history has taught us, this weed will prove invasive and dominate, evict and vanquish the local weed. It might also subsequently jeopardize the existence of other native life-forms, beyond its species.
This is particularly true for organisms higher in the life cycle, say scavenging or predatory vermin, who’ll compete for food and resources with fellow consumers in the locale. This can, sporadically throw the entire ecosystem into chaos, as often, the new replacement link in the food web will have unequal terminals, i.e. the new species might have lesser predation upon it, while being a voracious and serendipitously successful consumer. Ballast-water transmission has been shown to result in similar consequences, as it carries a host of marine-life in its arbitrarily-sourced water. Invasive seaweed overtaking has actually been recurrently historically documented.
So both antifouling, and absence thereof, are potentially detrimental to marine ecosystems. What is the sustainable solution then? There’s a proposed avant-garde solution of using a semi-readily detaching jelly-based coating that serves as the substrate to the organic growth and then intermittently wears off the hull, taking the surmounting growth with it. Nano-coated self-adhesive films that repel dirt (by having nano-scale structural or chemical phobicity to it) are also increasingly prevalent antifouling implements. They are durable, easy to maintain and biologically non-intrusive, as well as economical compared to other cutting edge technology.
What is generally not taught in the schools is that among Christopher Columbus’s faults, he was a horrible seaman. Errors in his navigation and ship logs might be attributed to the crude tools of his time and his desire to conceal things and places he found from rival conquistadores. However, the Genoese navigator’s real downfall was his negligence at controlling ship fouling. In those days what was done, especially in tropical waters, was to careen a ship — pull it out of the water onto a beach — and scrape the barnacles, algae and other growth off of the hull, then inspect and if need be replace ship timbers damaged by the wildlife. As in, the Teredo navalis shipworms, a species of clams that tunnel into wood and make it weak, spongy and leaky. Colombus lost all of his ships to those when he visited Panama, and had to go limping back to the Spanish Empire in a cayuco. Even in those days, even in the Spanish culture that was challenged about things biological, that was hardcore neglect.
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