The print edition of this issue of The Panama News appeared in
large part thanks to the income from book sales at the book signing
party that the Panama chapter of the National League of American
Pen Women held for 9°N and its author, yours truly. After thetraditionally
horrible ad sales month of January, we're seeing a slight upturn
in February, and there are a few signs that Panama's economic
woes in general have bottomed out. However, neither The Panama
News nor the country in general are past the current economic
crisis just yet. Many of our clients aren't paying us on time,
and we're behind on our bills too.
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If you want to help The Panama News continue, you can do so by
purchasing one or more copies of 9°N, which includes articles
and graphics from The Panama News between 1994 and 2000. You might
also buy an ad in our print or online editions. The book costs
$25, which includes the postage, and can be ordered by mail at
Apartado 55-0927 Estafeta Paitilla, Panamá, Rep. de Panamá. If
you want to place a wholesale order, get books on consignment
for resale, or buy an ad, contact us by email at
pmanews@panama.c-com.net or give us a telephone call at 269-1456.
The book signing was quite the successful community event. See
some of Earl Patrick Watson's photos of it in our Community section.
Actually, this issue is full of community-oriented stories, which
appear in several different sections. In Sports, we show you the
start and finish of the first cayuco racing event of the season, both of which took place at the Balboa Yacht Club. In the Arts
section, we get a glimpse of the upcoming female version of "The Odd Couple," which will be showing at the Theatre Guild of Ancon in March.
Over in the Business section, community organizing, historical
preservation and environmental conservation converge in our story
about the San Lorenzo Project. The Community page has a photo spread about a recent dog show at Parque Omar. In the Review section you will find a brief note
about the congo dancing and photo exhibit that the Centro PanUSA put on for Black History Month. We received
an unusual amount of mail this time, so our Letters section is bigger than ever and covers a wide range of topics.
One of those letters is a couple's tale of being robbed in a national
park and having difficulties reporting it to the police. There
appears to be a gang, which includes at least two machete-wielding
robbers and most likely some lookouts, operating around the Madden
Dam and across the Trans-Isthmian Highway in the forest preserve.
After a number of complaints the Tourism Police usually have someone
posted by the dam, which has apparently moved the maleantes to
the national park. It seems that we're dealing with some hoodlums
from Chilibre, and that the police will need to set a trap to
catch these guys and make a public example of them. Our tourism
industry can't tolerate too much of this.
To put it into perspective, however, we are told of the Tourism
Police recently venturing down Colon's dangerous Bamboo Lane,
retrieving a snatched purse and taking a young robber away. To
look at it another way, Panama City has about five robberies reported
per day, which is a problem that ought to be viewed in the context
of a city population of about 800,000 souls. Yes, Panama has a
problem with crime, and yes our hard times make it worse. However,
if you visit here and take sensible precautions the odds are that
you will not get mugged, and if you do have problems the multilingual
Tourism Police are generally very helpful.
We're not a publication that pays too much attention to the daily
police reports, but lately we've been publishing more crime stories
than we usually have. Sadly, these are not crimes in the streets,
but crimes in government office suites. There is a concerted effort
to suppress such news reporting, which is the subject of our editorial this time. On March 22 La Prensa's shareholders will meet, and
there is a move to oust the current directors and editors at that
gathering. The Christian Democrats don't like unflattering cartoons
or coverage of Attorney General Sossa's mob connections, and now
the PRD is crying foul because La Prensa broke the story about
the US government denying a visa to former President Ernesto Pérez
Balladares. The bottom line, however, is the truth. Sossa DID
deputize scam artist Marc Harris's underlings to make arrests
in Panama. Toro DID get his visa revoked, after his National Security
Director said that he ordered her to grant visas to Chinese citizens
en route to illegal entry into the United States. Basically the
politicians who are backing the move to change La Prensa's leadership
are the pro-ignorance slate, and if they win La Prensa will be
much less of a newspaper.
Meanwhile, the lead story in the News, which might fit in just
about any section, is Carnival. The business reality of Carnival means that our next issue will
appear in three weeks, because it's futile to try to sell ads
or to expect to collect payments for ads already published during
the festivities. The human reality is that at The Panama News
we can all use the break. My own plans are to cover the Antillean
Fair, which takes place at the West Indian Museum near Plaza Cinco
de Mayo on the Saturday and Sunday of Carnival, then head for
a quiet rural setting for a few days.
Our Travel section this time features Emily Zhukov's visit to
the Orange Festival in the interior, and in our Opinon section there's a tourism
development idea to steal. The Dining Out page is about an elegant new restaurant behind ATLAPA. These are just a few of the multitude of good
reasons to take your vacations in Panama.
Finally, let me note a feature that we have added this time. Sparky the Wonder Dog has been awfully lonely over on our humor page, and The Panama
News does not have the online rights to most of the comics that
we publish on the back page of our print edition. Thus we have
renamed that Section the fun page and added links to comics, editorial cartoons and crosswords that other people publish and that we think you will enjoy.
Whether you spell in the British or American style of English,
we now have crossword links for you. If you want to follow Panamanian
affairs through its Spanish-language dailies' editorial cartoons,
or you want to see what the English-language press outside the
US is lampooning, click onto our editorial cartoon links. Whatever
your sense of humor, we think that at least some of our 25 comics
links will tickle your funnybone.
Enjoy. See you in mid-March.
