When the police bands came marching out of the Casco Viejo, they were well received.

Later in the week the cops were out in their riot gear as a large part of the town's population blocked roads to shut down Puerto Armuelles, and to contain a protest at the Colon Regional University Center in Rainbow City (Arco Iris). But in neither of those places were people particularly angry with the police and the protests, though disruptive, weren't violent. (In Puerto Armuelles the entire community is outraged because President Moscoso and the Legislative Assembly promised to make the border with Costa Rica into a duty-free import-export zone to jump-start the area's depressed economy, then reneged on that promise in the proposed 2003 national budget. In Rainbow City people had been complaining about the hazardous street crossing in front of the school, demandig a pedestrian overpass, for years. When a popular university employee was hit and killed when crossing the street, that proved to be a last straw of sorts.)

The Independence Day (November 3) parade to Plaza Cinco de Mayo is covered on the Community page, while Earl Patrick Watson's photos of the November 4 Flag Day procession down Via España is found in the Travel section.

We didn't get the large groups coming down in chartered planes from the United States for this year's 99th birthday party. That's actually not a bad sign, because it almost surely means that the usual suspects, both from the West Indian community in Crown Heights and elsewhere, and the Zonian community that's largely concentrated on the Gulf Coast, skipped this year's festivities in order to turn out in force for next year's centennial bash.

But our political class chose the holidays to cut off Panama's Internet phone access to the rest of the world. Members of President Moscoso's family and cabinet are on the board of directors of the despised Cable & Wireless phone monopoly, which is more or less the sole beneficiary of this policy. I am reminded of the immortal words of the late World's Most Dangerous Rassler, Dick the Bruiser: "Integrity --- what's that?" Anyway, The Panama News was flooded with protesting emails, well over 300 and still coming in as these words were written. You can get a flavor of what people are saying on our Letters page, and, si lee español, in the Spanish-language Opiniones section.

I spent an inordinate amount of time tending to what should have been mundane business matters, and missed some events that I didn't want to miss. Quite frankly, I am not a very nice guy when I am repeatedly threatened with legal action by business managers and lawyers for a company that in the end turned out to be trying to take me for $60. Nor am I very pleasant when a bank that took from October 11 to November 6 to complete a wire transfer from one of its Panamanian branches to another tells me that it's somebody else's fault.

I also spent some time down at the Ombudsman's office, which is helping the OAS compile a report on the abuse that spews forth from official circles in the direction of the press. I am told that the file is missing in the case that presidential aide Alvaro Antadillas filed against me.

What we're seeing is the arrogance of power and privilege, and in another government sector we have seen the phenomenon in full-page ads in the daily newspapers, wherein Comptroller General Alvin Weeden proclaimed that Social Security Director Juan Jované is a crook and "proved" it by reference to official documents --- which were about problems in the social security system that happened under a previous administration and which Jované corrected. That set the stage for Weeden's pronouncement that unemployment is down, a claim that is contradicted by every reputable Panamanian economist and virtually all labor and business leaders who have addressed the subject.

So what to do?

For one thing, stop to smell the flowers.

Or maybe check out a good restaurant.

Or watch the birds.

Or see the beautiful artwork on display at our galleries and museums.

Or laugh --- better yet howl --- along with Sparky the Wonder Dog.

Put on the right attitude, and you can even appreciate a really good tropical cloudburst, now that we are in the peak season for these. Just about every day now, the sky gets still and the clouds turn purplish to black, and the water comes down in sheets. If you use an umbrella, your feet and ankles get soaked on the rebound. If you get caught outdoors but have the right attitude --- the right occupation helps, too --- you just get drenched and enjoy this part of Panama, which makes the canal and the rainforests possible.

Eric Jackson
the editor

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