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Falta de originalidad de razón y sentido en la vida son los principales ingredientes del mediocre, en ellos no atisba no se asoma la genialidad, ellos rumean su suerte con odio a todo el que no se revuelve ni revuelca con ellos
Entregados al fracaso reniegan la verdad y se refugian en su propia miseria no aman ni ríen genuinamente, su risa es una mueca hipócrita, no dan gracias a Dios porque no tienen, ellos repiten la bendiciones trilladas huecas de contenido.
Ellos aman el dólar y lamen dóciles los callos y traseros de sus amos proveedores, para escupir su veneno a la primera oportunidad y manchar cualquier nombre de quienes viven ajenos a su mísera existencia.
El mediocre se rodea de cosas que le costaron tanto o cuánto, y lógico de sus congéneres, la amistad para ellos es apoyo, aplauso y elogio de lo ridículo, destilan desprecio por todo lo que no se les parece ni compara.
El mediocre no vive sólo existe, está allí esperando para criticar, desacreditar y destruir todo lo que no cuadra con su torpe ceguera, pero el mediocre no indigna porque el rebuzno tampoco logra frenar al espíritu noble.
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Anyone who cries over the passing of such scenes as this in the National Assembly should be told to quit whining and sent to bed without supper.#NoALaReelección
“I’m going to sue La Prensa. They are going to respect me in this country.”
Carlos “Tito” Afú
What, a complaint about his 2014 campaign gets referred to the Supreme Court and nobody gets to mention it?
And Toro Pérez Balladares, who made an ass of himself and made himself a lame duck president with an ill-fated ballot proposal to allow himself to seek re-election, now feels the political winds and declares himself in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban the re-election of legislators?
And the vulgar demagogue whom the legislators have chosen to head the committee that considers appointments and possible impeachments, Sergio Gálvez — the self-proclaimed “Sexual Buffalo — goes off on an incoherent and mendacious rant against a television journalist from the National Assembly floor. Then, when anti-corruption czarina Angélica Maytín asks for more information about deputies putting their relatives on the legislature’s payroll, he leads a movement to call her on the carpet over travel to other countries to collect information about the Brazilian company Odebrecht’s crimes committed in Panama or against the Panamanian people.
And the yeye contingent weighs in with Katleen Levy’s complaint that the hashtag, slogan and popular demand #NoALaReelección ought to be banned by the Electoral Tribunal. The nation was mercifully spared, unless perhaps someone running for office actually spends some money on that.
The thrashing death agony of a disreputable caste that has gone too far? The logical reaction of a nation that has been told that its pension fund has been stolen and its health care system has run out of medicines even though it had a budget for that, and that nobody is going to lose his or her job, let alone anyone going to prison?
Are you a Panamanian citizen? Do not mourn. Help to hasten this miserable caste’s demise.
Are you a foreigner? You should beware the rich and powerful to whom some will advise you to suck up.
There was once a perilous time in which guys who ran with Jesus Christ would not admit to knowing him. (He didn’t have that problem with the women who followed him, if the scriptures are right.) Are those who followed yesteryear’s advice that what’s most important is who you know, not what you know, about to deny knowledge? Worse things could happen.
Tulsi, Jamila, Nanette and others get reinforcements in the House. Among Democrats many an old man is also cheering. From Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitter feed.
New faces, fresh ideas in the Democratic lineup
The primary season is about over. Mostly but not always Democrats have chosen to return incumbents. Progressive strains have made progress against establishment types, but it’s a shifted balance rather than a turning of tables. To survive a lot of centrists have had to shift their center. There are very real differences among Democrats. As always. Civil rights, labor rights, foreign policy principles — these questions tend to be fought out within the Democratic Party, after which the nation tends to follow or react. It’s a big tent with a lot of different sorts of folks under it. What we see now is generational change, not just younger faces but responses to demands and opinions that were not so urgent in the public mind in decades past.
There are a few more primaries and there will perhaps be a few more upsets. But when the nominations are set, Democrats and independents who care about America need to close ranks. There is a dangerous maniac with malicious intentions in the White House, and he has a cast of acolytes in control of the Congress and the Supreme Court.
It’s not that Democrats lack a positive message. On the campaign trail most of the Democratic candidates are talking about health care, education, jobs, rebuilding the nation’s infrastructures for the industries of tomorrow, justice and human rights. But there are obstacles to remove before any such talk can rise above mere brainstorming.
Perhaps you, as an American citizen, disagree. That’s your right.
But whatever you think, now is the time for US citizens living abroad to register to vote and order their November ballots. Those two steps can generally be done online via votefromabroad.org OR fvap.gov OR overseasvotefoundation.org. The general rule is that adult US citizens living abroad get to vote absentee at the last place they resided in the USA. US citizens living abroad who have never resided in the USA — there are a bunch of these in Panama, the children of US citizens living here — can in all but a few states vote in the place where an American parent last resided in the USA. Time runs short to register, and the challenge to our nation and its voters is great. Register and order your ballot now.
Bear in mind…
A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Like the mind-set that places men above women, whites above blacks, and rich above poor, the mentality that places humans above nature is a dysfunctional delusion.
Petra Kelly
It is not half so important to know as to feel.
Rachel Carson
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Captain Wilbur A. Velarde and family at
US Coast Guard retirement ceremony
Captain Wilbur A. Velarde and family, formerly of Panama City, Gamboa and Cardenas, celebrated on August 13, 2018 at the US Coast Guard Academy 20 plus years of service to our Nation. Captain Velarde and family served six plus years on active duty and 14 years in the reserves. Upon retirement, Captain Velarde served as the Senior Reserve Officer and representative for 850 reservists from the USCG’s First District which stretches from our US-Canadian border to northern New Jersey along 2,000 miles of coastline to 1,300 miles offshore. Additionally, as a Foreign Service Officer, Captain Velarde departed military service as the highest ranking USCG reserve officer within the US Department of State worldwide. For his military service Captain Velarde was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. Captain Velarde (Ret.) will continue to serve our country at the US Department of Defense Southern Command as a Political Advisor (POLAD).
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Kevin Harrington Shelton in the course of his travels.
Kevin Harrington
Kevin Harrington Shelton has, as he once told the editor of The Panama News he would do, gone to The Great Eire in the Sky. Considering who he was and what he did, one would think that the local corporate mainstream media would notice. But not so. Rabiblancos consider him to be this awful traitor.
To The Panama News and its editor, Harrington was an instructor in Spanish, diplomatic protocols, the ways of the banking world, and who’s who and what in the local inbred aristocracy. He was sometimes one of our contributors and often a source.
To the media barons and the ad cartel behind them The Panama News is nothing and no association with it is noteworthy. But Kevin Harrington’s association with this publication is a tiny footnote on his CV. The son of a shipping exec who was one of the founders of the Colon Free Zone and part of the brain trust that negotiated Panamanian sovereignty over the old Canal Zone, Kevin Harrington got a top-notch education at Georgetown, was fluent in several languages and was a competent economist. A member of Panama’s elite Union Club, he worked for Citibank, was Panama’s consul in London, was the court-appointed receiver and administrator for Toro Pérez Balladares’s PYCSA folly that involved an private toll road concession with a company selected in a rigged process and a business plan that never really contemplated the company paying its debts, served as chief translator for the Ministry of Canal Affairs when Ricardo Martinelli was the minister and became Panama’s most persistent freedom of information litigator, racking up a few victories against many losses that laid bare the secrecy culture in which public corruption thrives here.
And when the Panama Canal Authority called a snap referendum in 2006 and dumped tens of thousands of pages of studies in English on the public and then lied in Spanish about the contents of those English documents he spoke up. But of course, he was against most of the politicians, all of the banking and construction industries, the entire ad cartel and almost all of the mainstream media, the latter having been bought off with massive illegal expenditures of public funds for one side of a ballot issue campaign.
(‘How can you say it was illegal? The Electoral Tribunal held that if the president does something against the law, his being president makes it legal!’ So charge the editor with criminal defamation if that’s your pleasure.)
All ancient history and sour grapes? But when Martín Torrijos bought all copies of La Prensa so that people would not see an unfavorable editorial, when Torrijos’s politically motivated information control about toxic medicines directly led to hundreds of preventable deaths, when the vote suppression for the 2006 referendum included taking almost all cabs and buses off the streets for election day, when the use of public funds for partisan campaigning was “legalized,” the stage was set for the enormous crimes of the Martinelli regime.
And all along, there was Kevin Harrington, warning of the consequences of what was being done and later, as the man who had translated Martinelli’s speeches for a living, warning of the nature of Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal.
So La Prensa found nothing worthy of mention in Kevin Harrington’s passing. But radical construction workers mourned, as did some fairly conservative business people who are into such stodgy concepts as honest book keeping, arm’s-length dealing in public contracting, the reality and not just the rhetoric of transparency and a judiciary that’s both independent and honest. As did many others. Kevin is gone, but his place in Panamanian history will not be buried.
In the United States many Americans are appalled at the vulgarity with which Donald Trump has noted the passing of Senator John McCain. Panamanians have every reason to feel the same way about La Prensa ignoring the passing of Kevin Harrington Shelton.
No matter. They have the freedom of the press to ignore whom and what they will. The many Panamanians who admired Kevin Harrington have the freedom of expression to say that the would-be power brokers and their business and political backers are the ones to ignore.
Donald Trump
He has admitted to crimes. Now that his legal case is destroyed and still disintegrating, he counts on political salvation. He has his large cheering section, the heart of which is composed of white supremacists, cheering him on.
That’s not America but it might as well be if people who object to crime in high places and the increasing nazification of US public policies don’t vote in a new Congress that obstructs Donald Trump’s malignant designs.
No legislator needs a duty-free car to improve his or her work of legislating. On the contrary, I think that this type of tax law distracts them from what should be their real work.
Kevin Harrington Shelton
Having talent is like having blue eyes. You don’t admire a man for the color of his eyes. I admire a man for what he does with his talent.
Anthony Quinn
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The meeting part of our gathering will be short, with no speeches. The main thing is to finalize the vote on a new vice chair. Only one person is nominated for vice chair. That’s board member Kim Antonsen, of El Valle. It’s important to get a lot of votes, however, in order to muster a quorum and as an expression of confidence and solidarity going into the critical midterm election campaign.
We realize that since a lot of people are on vacation, going to the meeting will not be possible for everyone. But you can cast your vote by email, too. We have had trials but mostly a lot of error, but we will again try to establish a Skype connection for those who can’t be there.
To vote for Kim Antonsen for vice chair,click hereand send the email.
To write in someone else for vice chair,click here and send the email.
(In the text of the message say you are voting for Kim Antonson or write in your other choice for the job. If that does not work on your browser, just send an email to panamademocratsvote@gmail.com to cast your vote. Or better yet, vote at the meeting on Saturday.)
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Perhaps the most serious thing to do at the gathering is for those who have not registered to vote and ordered their ballots to do so. We need for people to bring computers or smart phones, cameras and perhaps wireless modems — don’t know if the WiFi will be working at the Yacht Club — and in many states you need to photograph and show ID. It’s still a work in progress — as are the GOP legislative and regulatory efforts to change laws to make it harder to vote and the lawsuits to make it easier to vote, but an approximate state-by-state guide that includes ID requirements can be found here.
There will also be sign-up sheets to volunteer for this or that, and a hat into which to put any financial contributions toward the cause. We really want to hear your ideas about what you would like to do.
See our latest mailing to the local email list here, and perhaps sign up for it. We keep no other information than email addresses, so as to make it harder for Boris and Natasha to mine any data out of it, and we do not share this list with ANYONE.
Sign up as a global member of Democrats Abroad, which will get you a different set of messages than the local list and sign you up to vote in the 2020 Democrats Abroad presidential primary. We are promised that this list is no longer shared with others.
Do words in print put you off, such that rhyme, meter and music make things easier for you? Check out some timely if in some cases very old anthems for this time:
(Email panamademocratsvote@gmail.com to sign up for a Skype connection if you can’t make it in person.)
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Sunflowers, John Douglas explains, are more than decorative and although in various ways their seeds can be eaten, they have other uses yet. As the climate changes, these plants can do much to keep the topsoil from washing down the hill in heavy rain or blowing away with dry season winds.
A Peace Corps learning session at the Lazy Man’s Farm
story and photos by Eric Jackson
So, on an isthmus with an agricultural history of more than 10,000 years, what farming and land use practices can be sustained against changing climatic conditions? Archaeologists, paleobotanists, climatologists, ecologists and other specialists still have a lot of work to do but what the known record suggests to this writer is that many things do not get sustained, that communities and cultures have come crashing down for various reasons and have had to start again almost from scratch.
(Do we want to sound modern and unprecedented and alarmist about human causes? Animals were hunted to extinction in prehistoric times, and then in the historically known European Conquest the ravages of war but to a far greater extent the plagues uwittingly brought by the Conquistadores also left their marks on the land. Jungles grew back in areas that had long been cleared and farmed in Panama’s great human die-off starting in the 16th century.)
But for sustainability in the face of climatic changes we can look, if not so much here, to terraced hillside farms in Asia and South America. These look like they were a terrible amount of work to create, which sells books and movies for hustlers speculating about visitors from outer space. There WAS quite a bit of labor involved, but mostly by plants and elemental forces. How a lazy man can harness such forces and make the land produce and thrive was the gist of farmer John Douglas’s presentation to Peace Corps volunteers, members of an organization of which he was once a part.
Breakfast at the Lazy Man’s Farm in the Cocle foothills north of Penonome. There is a banana blight ravaging the guineos chinos — the square bananas — on farms across this country, including Douglas’s and this writer’s. Douglas, however, has more than a dozen varieties so while one type will have to be uprooted and buried others will continue producing. Part of his presentation was about monocultures, the industrial calculations that promote them and their futility. Cover the land with one kind of plant and along might come an insect or a fungus that denudes the land. In the meantime seed and agro-chemical companies finely tuned to such monocultures will have made a profit and farmers who had become dependent will in many cases have been left destitute.
La Finca Perezosa, a hillside along a half-mile stretch of the Zarati River, was fairly barren when Douglas took his retirement from the Peace Corps without ever giving up his vocation as a teacher and promoter of organic permaculture. That is, farming in which the things that are cut down are not burned but allowed to decompose more or less in place, ploughs never break the soil, chemicals ae not dispersed and this weird Panamanian sense of the word “limpiar” — to “clean” the land by killing every living thing on it and leaving only bare soil — is quite the dirty word. Douglas tries to balance and direct nature, letting elemental forces do most of the heavy lifting and keeping a diverse and mostly edible jungle growing throughout the seasons.
For example, by the use of swales, to which he attributes the famous terraces of the Andes and parts of China. Backbreaking labor? Well, maybe just a little. Mostly, stones laid athwart where the water washes down the hillside in heavy rains to slow and spread the flow, followed by a swale — a trench perpendicular to the slope — to make the water slow and spread some more, and then on the down side of the swale the planting of things that hold the soil, absorb the water and direct leaves and other solid stuff washed by rain or blown by wind into the trench. The muck that builds up in the swale is both the good black dirt in which to plant things but eventually this raised earthen terrace held in by the balo trees (the main plant used in Panama’s living fences), sunflowers or other apt plants. Those thousands of years old trenches here and there around the world? Neither armies of slaves nor sophisticated spacefarers with amazing machines are to be blamed, albeit there was a bit of human labor involved. Once the swales were dug and their edges planted, elemental forces did the rest of the work.
A three-bean experiment. One hole loosened with a pitchfork is half-and-half filled with bagaso, the waste from squeezed sugar cane. Another hole has soil that’s just loosened and planted with bean seeds. The third hole is loosened, planted with identical beans, then covered with banana leaves and other greenery. Let’s see which bean hill thrives the best.
So, what to grow? Douglas has about 350 fruit trees on the property, some wood trees, plenty of vegetables and tubers — but more than anything he is growing SOIL. In some spots, particularly were water runs off of his house, Hugleculture. With swales you dig a trench but with this method you may or may not do any digging. The idea is that, with rotting wood — chips or otherwise — at the bottom you add more layers of organic compost until there is a raised planting bed. Soil fertility and water retention are enhanced, and a household can feed itself in a small space by planting the right things on or around such biomass mounds. A number of the volunteers took Douglas up on his offer that they could take cuttings from the mound just downhill from where we had breakfast a few hours earlier.
Does one of the volunteers have a bit of money to invest and a dream of moving to the country and living on and off of the land? He did not do the sales pitch on this occasion but John Douglas would like to sell the Lazy Man’s Farm. He’s 75 now, this project is a legendary success and he’d like to move on and create a smaller new farm from scratch, somewhere closer to the Pan-American Highway, while he has the time. Give him a call at (507) 6435-7686 or send him an email at johnarthurdouglas@yahoo.com if you are interested.
This, of course, is Panama. Reports of headhunter tribes are greatly exaggerated, although there have been human resources people spotted in places like Coronado and Panama City. But a densely planted permaculture farm of which you can’t see every corner from your balcony poses certain pilferage risks. These can be more or less intelligently managed.
Do you want to be a gringo gunslinger ready to pull the trigger on all predators? You may say that Indiana wants you, but if you are one of those actually Indiana thinks that you’re a jerk. And so will Panama. Guns are restricted here, as is hunting. You are not welcome to shoot predators, human or animal, in this country.
At the Lazy Man’s Farm there are wild animals — mostly arboreal things like sloths, monkeys and at least 72 species of birds. A bit of animal predation, and the occasional kid sneaking onto the property with a slingshot to get an iguana to put in the pot, is part of nature’s balance. So is the appropriate planting of a few fruit trees where animals or people may be expected to glean or graze. On the far edges are the spots where you also want to plant wood trees.
But the food crops on which your lifestyle depends? Keep THOSE gardens close to the house, where you can see them and where the usual fruit poacher will be afraid or embarrassed to be discovered stripping the farm. Yes, it’s organic permaculture and it looks pretty wild, but actually John Douglas’s farm is not a random scattering of plants.
Planting along the swale. So how many centuries before someone attributes the terrace to come to space aliens, or some future stormtrooper politician uses it as an example of why society really needs to have slaves to do the heavy lifting?
Then there is one of Douglas’s favorite tricks, especially with the gray water from his house, but amenable to many situations: the magic circle.
Holes collect water and organic debris. Back in New Deal WPA time, when the Dust Bowl had added to burst stock speculation bubbles to make the United States miserable and Franklin D. Roosevelt assembled a brain trust trying to figure out what to do, one of the ideas was to make the western deserts bloom. As in, to roll over them with something that looked like a steamroller with spikes coming out of the cylinder, to punch all of these holes in the arid dire. Dust and spores and seeds collected when the wind blew over the holes, and come the infrequent rains, stuff sprouted out of the holes and bloomed. It looked pretty enough, it marginally reduced the dust storms, but all the people who decided that they wanted to live near the desert flowers and the Roosevelt era reservoir projects skewed the calculations of environmental benefits and damages. Did the folks who made lines in the Atacama Desert have a similar idea way back when? Holes collect water, promote growth and add structures to the land.
The seminar ended with the creation of a magic circle. A shallow hole was dug, the excavated dirt around the edges in a doughnut shape. A plantain went in the middle, various greens and tubers around the edges. As the plants are things and there are clippings of this or that, or plant waste from the kitchen is generated, that stuff goes down into the hole. You get this little ring of organic biomass that the plants love, especially if the kitchen sink drains out into it. And so it was done, and Douglas explained why.
It’s about water and compost management.
Comparison is a good teaching method…
…but actually doing the things works better.
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