Letters to the editor

I spend a few hours a month reading your news page and remember the times I had while stationed there in years past ... all the while wishing I was there once again.

That said, I'll be retiring soon but need to stay here in the states until my sons have finished school. If you don't mind answering a question or two for me...

In your opinion --- are there any schools that you would recommend a 11 and 13 year old to start their education over in? (their Spanish really isn't what it should be --- but they're kids and should adapt) Also, I've been looking over the web at real estate prices down there and I cannot believe the explosion in land/home values. Are the prices the same for locals or just on the web designed to lure in the gringos? Seeing the prices on the web makes me want to kick myself for not buying earlier. Some areas match what I'm paying here in Charleston, South Carolina.

Lastly, I'd like to thank you for giving it straight in your stories in "The Panama News" ... I really enjoy reading them.

Editor’s note: We get into questions of educational philosophy here on the schools question. Which is better, total immersion in a second language or bilingual education? As one who never fit very well into a "one size fits all" educational scheme when I was going to school, I strongly believe that the answer to this is not the same for every kid.

The most prestigious and expensive English-language school in the metro Panama area is the International School of Panama, but by virtue of student performances on the tests to get into the Universidad Tecnologico de Panama as well as by reputation the more affordable and socially inclusive multilingual Colegio San Cristobal that’s run by the Episcopalians is also top-notch. For kids who have been in the Department of Defense schools, the Academia Balboa is closely modeled on that format. The Panama News office is in the Perejil neighborhood of Panama City and there are only a few gringos in the area, but most of these are US military vets who are married to Panamanians and have chosen to live near the Jesuits’ Colegio Javier, which is a top-notch Spanish-language school, so that their children can walk to and from that institution. Panama’s public schools, sadly, leave a lot to be desired. There are a lot of other decent schools, Spanish-only, English-oriented or multilingual, that I have not mentioned. In the Interior the choice of schools is more limited, but there are some good ones, particularly for kids to be immersed in a Spanish-speaking setting.

My only inflexible rule about what constitutes a proper education in Panama is that a kid needs to learn to be literate and conversant in at least two languages, one of which must be Spanish.

About housing prices, these have become relatively high in several areas that are popular with foreigners, but the phenomenon is exaggerated when you consider that the people plugging things on the Internet tend to be aiming at the upper end of the market and that some of them are hustlers whom you want to avoid.

There are many good real estate deals to be had down here, at substantially lower prices than those that prevail in the USA.

Come down here, rent a place, and look around, both by physically searching the areas where you might want to live and by networking with trustworthy established residents. Be prepared to walk away when you run across one of the many Panamanians who presume that all gringos are millionaires whom God created to be fleeced by people like them and thus offer you real estate with the added gringo surcharge. Understand that just because the person who is trying to sell you something is an American does not mean that this person is someone you can trust.

It’s much cheaper to live among Panamanians in a similar lifestyle than to seek out an expatriate ghetto and live an air-conditioned existence there, going about in an American car and only eating American brands of food to which you may be accustomed. I’m not advising a “buy un-American” policy, but rather a strategy of blending into the better aspects of the local economy and lifestyle, holding onto the excellent things about your gringo identity and promoting the better side of American attitudes by quietly setting an example.

Global warming is not logical. Let’s consider the following facts and other things: Chris Landsea, a meteorologist at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), doesn't believe there is currently enough science to back up the claim of Global warming.

Man cannot influence weather. Man can't stop a volcano from erupting. Man cannot change the direction of the winds. Man cannot stop an earthquake from happening. So, having said that, man can only predict the weather. Weather predictions over the years and tracking of the storms are state of the art today.

This was not the case in the early part of the 20th century. Today communications is almost in an instantaneously from any part of the world. Who would have thought back in the 1950s that there would be 24-hour weather station not to mention news stations in the United States?

While many computer models predict that global warming will increase over the next century, the models disagree about what the effects they have on hurricane frequency.

Consider this you are walking up Salsipuedes one hot day in Panama and the Church bells of Santa Ana start ringing. You are sweating. Your brow is wet and your white guayabera has become one with your back. It is almost noon and the bells are ringing to call the faithful to mass. You stop at the nearest refreshment stand and buy an icy cold bottle of Squirt. You take a load off and sit to enjoy your cold drink. As you see the mass of people swirling around you, you say, "My, it is hot today! It was never like this when I was five-years-old and my Mother would take me shopping with her and we would climb Salsipuedes. It must be global warming!"

I doubt it! You are older now and you have put on a few pounds, probably less muscle and more fat. So you are just hot because you are carrying more weight up Salsipuedes. It is not rocket science! You learned to "THINK" while attending grade school in the old Canal Zone from Mrs. Graham. God bless her heart. You also learn to be skeptical about statements that were illogical and from groups that have an agenda.

Contrasting an earlier study, Landsea predicts that even if global warming were to increase over the next 100 years, its effects on hurricane intensity will be minor, resulting in perhaps a 5% increase in rainfall and winds. That is 5% and not 95%!

Instead of being due to global warming, Landsea believes that the current increase in hurricane activity is part of a natural cycle that scientists call the Atlantic multi-decadal mode. Every 20 to 40 years, Atlantic Ocean and atmospheric conditions conspire to produce just the right conditions to cause increased storm and hurricane activity. The Atlantic Ocean is currently going through an active period of hurricane activity that began in 1995 and that has continued to the present.\Scientists consider the period prior to that --- the years from 1971 to 1994 --- to be a quiet period of low hurricane activity.

"Coring work in the Central Atlantic show that such cycles have been occurring for centuries if not more than a thousand years," Landsea said.

So while it is true that hurricanes are getting stronger and appearing at greater frequencies over the past few decades, it's only to be expected, Landsea said.

Another factor that may be contributing to the illusion that hurricanes are becoming fiercer and appearing more frequently is that hurricane detection and monitoring instruments improved dramatically during the last century.

Let's consider this: when this green planet was form there were volcanoes erupting, earthquakes happening, steam escaping from the core of the planet, wild dinosaurs roaming the earth and then came man. Yes, the caveman or as some like to call them cave dwellers. They just accepted it all and did what they had to do to survive. If Joe Shmuck-a-telly got eaten up by a saber tooth tiger, that was just the way it was and there were a great risk to hunt tigers. Nobody thought it was global warming!

Now consider this: when the cucarachas drove the dinosaurs wild and they went into the tar pits they did not become our present oil resources! Granted the cucarachas are still among us but no way could all the oil that is in the ground could have resulted by a few hundred or even thousand dinosaurs going into the tar pits.

Besides, scientists have now unearthed their bones. But again it is that global warming bunch saying things that are illogical!

One last point on oil. There is not a shortage of oil! There is a shortage of refining capacity! There is a shortage of refineries. No new refineries have been built in 50 years! Why is that? Today the refineries produce eight or nine different grades for different part of the United States. In the 1950s there were basically only two grades: hi-test ethyl and regular.

So, lets be logical. Just because we are hot does not mean there is global warming. Just maybe we are experiencing "hot flashes" so you best get down to Casa Millar Pharmacy and buy some Lady Pinkton Tonic!

In conclusion let’s consider that "the counts of the hurricanes from the late 1920s to the late 1960s are probably less than what actually occurred, because we didn't have satellites looking down from space and monitoring everything all the time," Landsea said.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to express my views and views of some scientist on the this subject. Have a great holiday season.

Posada has denied involvement in the 1976 bombing, but has admitted working against Fidel Castro and to a role in the 1961 US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow the Cuban leader.

In 1998, Posada told the New York Times he masterminded a wave of bomb blasts in Havana hotel in which an Italian tourist died with financial backing from Cuban exiles in Miami.

It's amazing (perhaps not) how the US media can select which human tragedies to report on the front page, and which ones to bury on the back page (or not print at all). Contrast the US press coverage of the Lockerbie airline bombing and the Barbados airline bombing in 1976 in which the entire Cuban Olympic fencing team (except one guy who didn't make the flight) and others perished at the hands of Posada Cariles & his anti-Castro terrorists.

Thanks for the letter you wrote re: fallacies of the Panama Canal. As a Panamanian living among foreigners that do not fully understand our situation, and quickly prompt to the old "we build it, it's ours" old adage, it was great to see a great counteraction to those thoughts. As it was "explained" to me, "don't you think that they can control the canal by having the ports of each side of the canal?, and your response --- oh well...

It is interesting, because just last night I was debating with myself whether to call your attention to the Wikipedia entry about the Panama Canal.

I know Wikipedia is not a "real" encyclopedia, but millions of people rely on it. I can see thousands of school kids around the world logging on to Wikipedia every time they need to research the Panama Canal, and again putting up the old Hutchison Wampoa scare story on other websites and papers.

Further down under the "Return of the canal" sub-section you will find the following gem:

Look at the sources that they turn to for confirmation: conservativeusa.org and eagleforum.com. But most importantly, no rebuttal.

Therefore, a "China controls the Panama Canal" turns up Wikipedia as an authoritative source on the subject in a sort of circular way. And nobody disputes the information presented, which may or may not be correct. But I would like to see the rest of the story. Or perhaps the entire paragraph taken off altogether if the overworked moderators/admins at Wikipedia can't decide.

Oh... and as somebody who knows how web ranking works, conservativeusa.org and eagleforum.com stand to gain a lot of "search rep" for Panama Canal searches, since they are linked from that subject page in Wikipedia.

Perhaps you could do us a favor, and try your skilled hand at editing this Wikipedia article for the benefit of all, by including the finer points of your rebuttal.

I have made my few humble additions to the Wikipedia in the past, but on this particular subject, I would rather an expert like you tackle it.

Editor’s note: Mr. Emiliani and our anonymous correspondent refer to a letter that I wrote to a newspaper in Tennessee, responding to another letter that laid out the arguments described, which I encountered while doing a Google News search for things about Panama. See my letter at http://www.gallatinnewsexaminer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050928/MTCN0405/309280018/1314/MTCN04 and understand that in addition to people who take the allegations made by the John Birch Society, Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times and Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum seriously my letter has offended Hutchison management folks. A caller from Panama Ports took vigorous exception to my statement that the company for which he works shook Panama down for breaks in the payments owed for the port concession and pointed out that notwithstanding joint ventures between Hutchison Whampoa and the largely state-owned China Overseas Shipping Company (COSCO), that latter enterprise does not own a stake in Hutchison Port Holdings, the intermediate parent company of Panama Ports. Although I recognize the Panama Ports did have some legitimate claims in its bargaining with the Panamanian government, I still stand by my estimate that the renegotiation with the Moscoso administration did not end up in Panama’s interests. More importantly for Panama, however, I think that it’s time that the myth that Red China runs the Panama Canal gets systematically disputed whenever it’s propagated in the United States because it’s both insulting and injurious to this country and because it is in the interests of the American people that the far-right practitioners of the art that Herr Goebbels perfected be exposed for what they are.

The continuing horrific human rights abuses in Myanmar, Irian Jaya/West Papua and Tibet are almost completely ignored by the governments and peoples of the Asia-Pacific region --- year after year after year.

Why are the governments and peoples of the Asia-Pacific region so remiss on these local matters?

Why are most governments in the Asia-Pacific region, and globally, very good at acting and cooperating on economic and business matters but abysmal at acting and cooperating on human rights matters?

Why are most governments, legal systems and media still acquiescent to, complicit with and/or actively involved in some or many of the worldwide continuing human rights violations and abuses?

And why are most governments, legal systems and media worldwide still characterized by double standards and selective morality, representation and access?

I just read your recent article on retirement in Panama. I found it very honest and to the point. The history of El Valle was also informative.

I am planning to return in December and do as you suggested. Look around; get a good lawyer and see where it takes me.

Editor’s note: I get a lot of requests for references about reputable lawyers and real estate people. I know some lawyers of unquestionable integrity and bravery --- one of them, Miguel Antonio Bernal, is a regular columnist in The Panama News --- but I can’t say that I know who is good at any particular area of the law. On the real estate seller side of it, I am even more at a loss about whom to recommend. However, if you are looking to buy property in El Valle, I can in good conscience recommend that you look up Dr. Charly Garcia, who practices dentistry part time in Panama City and sells El Valle area real estate part time.

Build a home in Las Cumbres with Villa Concordia --- http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/site/pages/concordia.html
Make the Executive Hotel your headquarters in Panama City --- http://www.executivehotel-panama.com
Find the boat of your dreams through Evermarine --- http://www.evermarine.com
Is Bocas your retirement haven? --- http://www.KodiakBocas.com

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