God save The Queen!

Just about any queen, really. I'm not a monarchistic kind of guy, but I think that if Panama's various Carnival queens held a lottery among themselves and the winner by luck of the draw became our nation's head of state, it would be a great improvement over what we have now.

Hmmmm. I like to work at odd hours, but Panama now has these frequent brownouts, and when the power gets too low my computer monitor blacks out. I had to wait a couple of hours to start writing this page. Isn't it comforting to know that when Enron collapsed the president put the CEO of that company's Panama subsidiary in charge of the government's relations with privatized utilities? He has since moved on to head another electric company, from whence he rails against the sale of power generated by the Panama Canal Authority.

Hmmmm. The lead news story this time is about an especially heinous bit of public corruption. I suppose if I characterize it as the work of thugs, I might get charged with criminal defamation because nobody at INAC worships the goddess Kali or ritually strangles people with yellow cloth. At least, not to my knowlege.

Hmmmm. The first item in our Business and Economy Briefs is awful, and most of the rest of the news on the economic front is also grim. To be fair, I could balance the tale of a little girl starving to death by mentioning that the government is working hard to make sure that the $9 million subsidy it gave to Donald Trump for the Miss Universe pageant will not be entirely wasted.

But I shouldn't be finger pointing and judging and bemoaning facts at a time like this. It's the Carnival season of Panama's centennial year!

So let me tighten up my blues act for upcoming spring fundraising drive, but concentrate on Panama's attractions for now.

I had intended to cover an event featuring Panama City's gay Carnival queen for this issue. The problems we had with the last issue, which have also dogged us with the production of this one, had me slaving over a computer when I should have been checking out the scene at the San Miguelito Machetazo. During Carnival itself I will put on my reporter hat and try to make up the lost opportunity.

(I wear out gorras --- the baseball hats usually found atop my head --- on a regular basis. My coolest reporter hat is in semi-retirement, as I wore it until it began to get ragged. It's blue, with the white logo of a business that sells topsoil. "ALL DIRT," it says. I suppose I'll dress slightly more respectfully for Carnival, and one of these days I may even run across a Detroit Tigers hat in this bastion of Yankee fandom.)

You have heard about killing two birds with one stone? I didn't quite accomplish that the other day, when I went to the Penonome area to take photos of the Muchachas Guias (Girl Scouts) Camporee. I got to the camp when some 200 scouts from around the country were away on a field trip, but the campground itself is a story, and I got to see the Zarati River upstream from town, a week and one-half before Penonome's water parade. That happens on Carnival Saturday, when Her Majesty and a colorful supporting cast display the Interior's naval might on a series of river floats. It seems that we're getting into a drought, but it also looked like there will be enough water to hold the parade. In some years low river levels have forced the event's cancellation. So I didn't get the people pictures I sought, but noticed a story that I had not contemplated. I didn't actually hurl a stone, nor did I kill, wound or molest any birds.

(Despite what some critics may say, I don't think like a bird, so maybe voyeurism that seems perfectly acceptable to me is downright annoying to our feathered friends and I'm just too dense to catch on. Right before I headed out to Penonome from a farm in Panama Oeste, I had the privilege of watching an osprey family. The lens in the camera I held wasn't powerful enough to record the ospreys in acceptable detail, but the raptors obliged me by staying put while I ran into the house and grabbed a pair of binoculars for a better look. Habitat destruction may be cause for concern, but Panama is still one of the world's coolest places to watch birds.)

Nor did I bother my neighbors the snakes. In the Science section I take note of their probable habitat. I just photographed it. I didn't intrude onto their turf, and they didn't come out to bother me. That tacit arrangement --- it's hard to come to an EXPLICIT agreement with a reptile --- probably means fewer rodents on the farm. But even when one gains the wisdom to let the wildlife that so many people fear or detest live in peace, it's still prudent to consider how to avoid snakebites, and to know what to do in the event that prevention fails.

We are still behind our production schedule, and our usual templates are still frozen away in a computer. Because The Panama News published on the second and fourth complete weekends of the month and due to the vagaries of the calendar, we have a three-week scheduled break between this issue and the next one. That should mean the next issue appearing promptly on the evening of March 16, with the usual buttons.

Between now and then, I'm going to take a little time off for Carnival. I plan to partake of of the partying, at the Antillean Fair over which Her Majesty Nidya Ceballos Molinar (shown above) will preside, down on Via España, and maybe in the Interior.

Perhaps we'll cross paths. If we don't do so this time, then maybe we will in the future. They do, after all, call this place The Crossroads of the World.

Eric Jackson
the editor

PS: As mentioned, this issue is a bit tardy, pluse I'm having troubles with the graphics --- that's what can happen when you produce an issue on other people's computers, with programs that may be incompatible. Bear with me, and check back to catch what's missing.