You can't get there from here

You can’t go directly from Panama to Saturn, at least not these days. But NASA and the European Space Agency have shown that it is possible to get there, and the world has just seen its first privately funded space flight. Then if you consider that spacecraft can be launched with less energy from equatorial areas, and that for tax and regulatory purposes international waters will be attractive launch and recovery sites for private space flights, and also the location, facilities and infrastructures we have to offer, maybe the day will come when people and vessels en route to Saturn will routinely pass through Panama.

In the meantime, the Cassini mission to Saturn is great science section stuff.* (Thanks to NASA for the photo above.) Also in that part of the paper is a heads-up about a July 20 appearance in Panama and English-language lecture by the noted Johns Hopkins paleontologist Steven Stanley, who will discuss how he believes that the emergence of the isthmus of Panama allowed humans to evolve in Africa.

This issue comes as several big stories are playing themselves out. The special legislative session on constitutional changes is under legal assault and is racing against the clock, but it seems as this issue was being produced that about half of the changes that the PRD proposed stand a chance of making it into the constitution by way of approval by two separate legislatures. The free trade talks with the United States are sowing ever more widespread concern throughout many sectors of the Panamanian economy, and ever more frequent public protests. A sordid lame duck administration has decided to go out in a law’n’order posture, a tale that’s the stuff of news coverage, this issue’s editorial and an opinion column by Raúl Leis.

Internationally, too, there’s another big story playing in the region --- the Venezuelan recall election. The vote comes in less than a month and the outcome is uncertain. Although events may make my concern moot, there is at least one thing I don’t want to hear in that referendum’s aftermath.

And yes, many of you readers of The Panama News out there in cyberspace are following the US election campaign very closely. Whether you look at it primarily from the perspective of what's good for Panama or are mainly concerned about what's good for the United States, this will be a crucial vote. As in past issues, here I have tried to give both major contenders a chance to make their case in their own words or those of their supporters. This time it's Kerry talking to leaders of one of the larger African-American religious denominations and the remarks that Bush made to nuke plant workers in Tennessee.

Because the free trade issue is so important and at the front and center of national discourse at the moment, a couple of the featured links in the Cool Internet sites get you to websites with relevant information, our Spanish-language opiniones section features a Chilean writer’s “Dictionary of Globalization” and among the English-language opinions Council on Hemispheric Affairs researcher Matt Singer ponders the implications of trade talks between the European Union and South America’s MERCOSUR trade bloc.

One of the reasons why The Panama News has a Spanish-language section is that almost all of this country’s English-speaking community is bilingual. Most of those who aren’t, or who have only limited fluency, and many of our readers outside of Panama who plan to move here, put improving their Spanish skills on their list of life’s priorities. The full benefit and enjoyment of The Panama News is a bilingual experience, because the things in our Spanish-language sections are rarely published in the English sections, and are both relevant top life in Panama and the region but not to be found in this country’s mainstream Spanish-language dailies. Those who are learning Spanish will benefit from the practice of reading these stories with a Spanish-English dictionary by their side. Those who already read Spanish will find themselves better informed about Panama and its environs by reading the noticias and opiniones sections.

While the cultural and sporting life of the capital has been going strong, I have been missing a lot of that lately, in favor of campesino pursuits in the Interior. If you don’t dry mangos now, the season will slip by and you won’t have put away enough to last out the vagaries of the coming year. If you don’t weed your saril now, you won’t have any to dry come the dry season.

But I did get into town long enough to catch a wild and crazy boxing night. But how to play the story, gonzo or not? On the one hand, it was a night of dreary to dreadful bouts, only redeemed by a thrilling main fight in which Panamanian Roberto “La Araña” Vásquez convincingly asserted his claim to a world title shot. On the other hand, there is a lurid cannibalism angle to the story --- or would it be more proper under the circumstances to call it attempted vampirism? But at least here the victim walked away with his ears intact.

Strange days, here at The Crossroads of the World.

Enjoy.

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