At long last, a little bit of green

At least that's what the Interior, where the rains came late, now has to show. The cattle are thin and the crops are stunted, but now at least there's some hope for better times

Hard to say whether the same applies to the economy in general, or to The Panama News in particular. Social Security is moving to appoint a receiver to take over The Panama News, but we still have hope that we can redeem this institution before they come and take all our modest assets away. If you are disposed to help, send your contributions to:

The Panama News
Apartado 55-0927 Estafeta Paitilla
Panama, Republic of Panama

Again, I'd like to thank everyone who has already donated to our survival.

Despite the economic doldrums and general public exhaustion after the bus fare riots, a lot has been happening in Panama of late. Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian came and went, provoking a sharp national debate about China policy and Panama's foreign relations in general. Attorney General Sossa went to Washington and made an ass of himself on the international stage by attacking freedom of the press before OAS officials and in the Panamanian press, and this, along with the Moscoso administration's totalitarian proposed press law, is the subject of an opinion column by journalist Rafael Perez Jaramillo, letters by law professor and radio show host Dr. Miguel Antonio Bernal and journalist-labor activist David Fishlow, and this edition's editorial. Just as an audit was about to begin at the Civil Aviation Directorate at Albrook, somebody conveniently torched the accounting department. Journalist Marcelino Rodriguez was sentenced to 16 months in prison for a minor error in his reports about how a lot of politically connected people got special deals on houses at Albrook. Mireya plunged to new depths in the Gallup poll. As these words are written, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission is in town to investigate a number of concerns, including the government's attacks on the press and the conditions in Panama's prisons.

Our letters and opinion sections are larger than usual this time. The opinion section includes, in addition to Perez Jaramillo's column, a friend's tribute to Tito, one of the patients who died of a radiation overdose at the Instituto Oncologico, Transparency International's opinion on anti-corruption moves at a recent OAS summit, and my take on the early maneuvering for the 2004 Panamanian presidential race. The letters that don't concern freedom of the press include one by about 200 economists, two of them Nobel laureates, expressing an opinion about the OECD blacklist of "tax havens" upon which Panama finds itself, and one in which the Panamanian Committee Against Racism takes exception to an ad.

Just so that you know what all the fuss is about, an English translation of the proposed press law leads our news section this time. If it passes, then we would be by law obliged to "obliged to provide opportunities for publication to the plurality of publics belonging to a society, and must do so while guaranteeing equal treatment, without permitting the predominance of any discriminatory judgment," as in, for example, giving equal time to neo-Nazis who say that the Holocaust never happened. Heil Arnulfo.

Even high school kids are touching dark and heavy themes this time. See our review section for photos of the International School of Panama's recent production of Arthur Miller's classic tragedy "The Crucible," and for relief, read Roxanna Cain's review of a book with a happy ending. Feed your mind with jazz and the visual arts in the arts section, and your body on budget-minded alternatives explored in our slightly larger than usual dining section.

As you read these words, rest assured that I will likely be engaged in peasant pursuits - we're getting way more mangoes than the two food dryers at my disposal and I can handle. In a future issue I'll publish some good mango recipes, but for starters let me suggest a standard oatmeal raisin cookie recipe, except with dried mango bits substituted for the raisins. (Yes, I know - were I back in Michigan I'd be doing the same thing with dried cherries.)

Enjoy. If times are hard and luxuries seem beyond your reach, inexpensive pleasures like home-preserved fruit and The Panama News Online will get you through to better days.