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Here we have school kids and their parents passing down an ancient Panamanian building style by making a playhouse at a public school in Los Santos. Dino Barkema was on hand to record the process and kindly agreed to let us use some of the photos in the Community section. These past couple of weeks have seen some relatively minor student disturbances in front of the University of Panama, which were sparked by a far more serious labor dispute at the Caja de Seguro Social. The increasing labor unrest included a teachers’ protest march to the presidential palace, the reasons for which are explained in a leaflet I translated for the Opinion section. But then, back to the positive aspects of the educational scene, there was a massive turnout at the Central American Book Fair at ATLAPA and the kids at the Instituto Alberto Einstein got top-notch technical production for their recent school play. The bottom line? The politicians may be interested in other things, but Panamanian parents want their kids to learn and despite many hardships the kids are learning.

Just because your hair is gray doesn’t mean that you have to stop learning, and of course a lot of learning comes from trial and error, most especially error. So I hope that I have learned something from a couple of flagrant mistakes in the last issue, which were corrected when they became known but still need to be acknowledged in good faith. I confused René Van Hoorde the father --- the electric company exec who used to work for the Ministry of Economy and Finance, ENRON and the old Panama Canal Commission --- with René Van Hoorde the son, the person who actually got that new job with Microsoft. I mistakenly identified former ARI board of directors member Carlos Valencia, who stole Bill Speed’s plans for a marina at Fort Sherman and used his inside connections to get away with it, as a member of the Arnulfista Party. My humble apologies.

As has been pointed out in a number of emails, the Calendar and Galleries sections were missing or deficient this past issue, and I was a couple of days late in publishing the News Briefs and Business & Economy Briefs. This flu-like thing got me by the throat during the course of the last production weekend, and at a certain point I just had to call it quits for issue 12 and sleep the bug off. I’m feeling better this time around.

I was also recently informed that my undefeated 1-0 record against criminal defamation complaints is being challenged again. It’s weird --- an English translation of the Spanish-language complaint has been posted on the Internet, but I haven’t actually been served with the original. This is the work of Tom McMurrain’s noni scamsters, but McMurrain is not mentioned in, nor is he formally a party to, the complaint. Actually, I’m told that the guy who filed the complaint --- and who wasn’t mentioned in the stories of which he complains --- is no longer with the company in whose name he filed the complaint. That should make for some interesting proceedings. Our anti-press Attorney General might just take the allegations and run with them --- after all, Marc Harris is in jail and the Panamanian prosecutions of Harris’s foes continue --- but if you look at the complaint it really doesn’t specify what we published that was specifically false. The denials don’t match what we actually published. It’s just another nuisance suit.

Also in relation to those stories, in our Letters section one organization that was plugging Mr. McMurrain’s scam on its website until the news broke complains that we wrongly confused them with a group that has a similar name and common spiritual origin. Fair enough --- the letter is run and the correction made.

Although this is slow time for Internet newspaper readership, a lot has been going on in Panama and around the region. This is reflected in the number of Business and News stories and Opinion columns.

Moreover, and key to our long-term survival, we have more than our customary number of contributors this time. The Panama News is never going to make a big splash as a news corporation, but with a little help from our friends we can be a respectable community newspaper --- from this little community that happens to be the Crossroads of the World. Anyway, notice in addition to Dino Barkema’s photos Charly Garcia’s symphony review, BirdLife International’s book review and Dr. Manuel Orozco’s Business section article on the Panamanian Diaspora.

Our frequent contributor Willy Carrera is back as well, with an update from Houston about that awful case in which human traffickers allowed 19 people to suffocate in the back of a refrigerator truck.

Have we seen the last of Sparky the Wonder Dog? Check the issue after this one to find out for sure. Maybe we’ll end up with the Paris correspondent we need to cover the European scene for us.

And who will survive the Panama version of “Survivor?” The Panamanian police are busy patrolling around the islands where the competition is taking place. After all, if the point of the game is to starve the contestants into eating raw snails for the viewers back in the States, you can’t let Colombian smugglers bring in boatloads of twinkies at night. Plus, the network doesn’t need gawkers in the picture. But be that as it may, The Panama News has broken the blockade and we will have pictures that the Moscoso administration and TV moguls won’t like in the next issue.

But still, I don’t think “Survivor” will be our lead story.

Enjoy, folks.

Eric Jackson
the editor

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