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photo by Eric Jackson

Flowers for Panama’s stricken sister city, New Orleans

The Panama News is principally about Panama, but this little country is The Crossroads of the World and, as our regular readers know, we look at our regional and global contexts as well. Louisiana may be several countries and a time zone away from us, but it’s one of Panama’s closest neighbors and best friends. The best old architecture in our Casco Viejo was in its heyday fitted with wrought iron balcony railings imported from the Crescent City, and the Louisiana influence remains to be seen in many of our buildings. Many Panamanians have been educated at Tulane or Louisiana State. The old Panama Canal Company ships used to call at the port of New Orleans, where so many Zonians disembarked for their vacations, or began or ended their time in the old Canal Zone. The devastation of New Orleans and the terrible human tragedies that have accompanied are felt down here in Panama.

By the time these words were written, the shock was starting to wear off and the anger beginning to set in. There will be time enough for the recriminations, which the Chinese have long recognized are also a natural force. To the Confucian way of thinking, great natural disasters are signs that the governments on whose watches they take place have lost the mandate of heaven.

Judging from some of the things I have seen on the Internet, some Americans on the far right side of the political spectrum sense such a thing and are already defending the Bush administration’s less than inspiring response to the disaster by finger pointing at local Democratic politicians. As might be expected from the highly polarized USA, various tangents of the blame game have taken on racial overtones. The funneling of relief contracts to Halliburton may turn out to be as much the corporate symbol of corrupt and ineffective homeland defense as it is the emblem of the fiasco in Iraq. And then for every partisan spin, there seems to be a matching counter-spin.

The truth of the matter is that a port city that lies below sea level is forever vulnerable to floods, and that human defenses don’t hold up very well when nature displays its full fury.

Yes, people can look with hindsight and pontificate about how disaster might have been avoided had this dike or that levee been higher or thicker, had the reaction plans been better and the preparations more extensive, had the evacuation order been given sooner and so on. Such talk may cost certain politicians their reputations or careers, but as I see it’s only worthwhile in the context of decisions about rebuilding New Orleans and its defenses, which ought to start with serious consideration of relocating or abandoning the city.

Meanwhile, this was Hurricane Katrina, hitting before the traditional hurricane season was supposed to have started. Might this be one more bit of evidence of climate change? So what did a Republican house committee chairman from the oil lobby do as the storm was approaching the Gulf Coast? He called for an inquisition of three top climate scientists, demanding decades worth of their work documents and personal financial records in the hope of whipping up a “scandal” about “fuzzy science” and with the certainty that this 2005 version of Joe McCarthy’s hearings about the US Army drafting Roy Cohn’s boyfriend will disrupt the work of these and other scientists.

The bickering has a life of its own and will be conducted mainly outside of The Panama News. Let me leave the subject with this suggestion for North American retirees considering a move to the sunny Gulf Coast: think about the advantages of Panama, a retirement haven with its own peculiar set of problems to be sure, but a place in the sun that’s located outside of the Hurricane Belt.

With this issue our two summer vacation student interns, Joel Inwood from George Mason University and Tomás García from Florida State University, have returned to their studies in the USA. I thank them for their help, and hope that the work they did for The Panama News has contributed to their well-rounded education. The Panama News has frequently had student interns, including both college and high school kids, and though at this point the business can’t afford to pay salaries I try to at least make it a worthy tuition-free educational experience.

This issue takes us to ATLAPA and the Caravana de Asistencia Social, a charity event that was started years ago by diplomats’ wives and is bigger than ever. In the news section we look at the new legislative session that Martín Torrijos inaugurated on September 1 and his recent cabinet shuffle, and the editorial weighs in on his rookie year as president. We have a more extensive and lively letters section than usual this time. This travel feature is no touristy fluff piece, but a true crime story in which there is no direct interpersonal violence but the maleantes still manage to make it a bit more dangerous to get around the capital.

In our opinion section, Raúl Leis is at his satirical best with a column on the privatization of air, Jasmin Garraway of the Association of Caribbean States looks at the relationship between climate change and tourism, and we see just how isolated Winston Spadafora has become through his combination of noteworthy sleaze and attacks against those who report on it.

In the Spanish pages, the news section is as usual largely derived from the Brazil-based ADITAL news agency and the opinion section is largely by Panamanians. You might notice that we have a wide spectrum of local viewpoints, ranging from former President Endara, former San Miguelito Mayor John Hoger and former Vice Minister of Public Works Grettel Villalaz de Allen to PRD member and Panamanian Committee Against Racism spokesman Alberto Barrow, and on to FRENADESSO.

(Yes, I have my politics and they do get reflected on this website, but no, The Panama News is not aligned with any of the political parties and does not restrict discussion to one point of view. That’s almost a novel concept in Panama, but as the Committee to Protect Journalists points out, it’s a lot worse elsewhere.)

I want to close here with a reminder that time is running short for people to submit essays, short stories or poetry for the 2005 Anona Kirkland Writing Contest. Submissions must be mailed by September 17 or delivered to The Panama News by September 23. I do hope that a lot of entries come in so that this worthy competition, started by the now defunct local chapter of the National League of American Pen Women, can thrive and grow.

Participate, and enjoy.

Eric Jackson
the editor

PS: Yes, I know that September is one of months when we usually make one of our two annual fundraising appeals to the readers. It’s being postponed a bit this time.

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