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¡Gigantes!

Actually, the Man of La Mancha and the 2007 Panama International Book Fair were pretty calm when I visited. I went there on Thursday night so that it would be so. I wish I'd had a ton of money to spend, but even then some of the most attractive books on display, things at the Taiwan exhibit, were not for sale.

Regular readers will know that I am critical of the lack of freedom of the press in Cuba and maintain my solidarity with the more that two dozen journalists who are behind bars there. But still, my one purchase at the fair was five bucks for a copy of a Cuban paperback about Meyer Lansky's times as the vice king of Havana, based on the story of his bodyguard and chauffer from those times. I read more slowly in Spanish, so it might be awhile before I find out if Pittsburgh Phil and the other swell guys from Murder Incorporated are in the story.

The book business under Panamanian conditions was also the subject of one of Mary Arreaga's Tuesday Talks, a May 8 presentation by Sheila Terán of Exedra Books.

What would I do without my reading glasses? Usually take my walking glasses off and hold the book close to my face.

To so many Panamanians, including a lot of senior citizens who ought to be dedicating their golden years to the calm pursuits of reading and reflection, and including a lot of youngsters who must learn to read well or be permanently impaired in everything else they attempt to do in life, the choice of using or not using their glasses is not an option. But thanks to a bunch of people from Luxotica in the United States, the Lions Club chapters down here and various other people of good will, many thousands of people have been given new choices, and new chances, that come with a gift of better vision.

Now how can I square my appreciation of what these volunteers did, and my hardcore bookworm tendencies, with a night of entertainment in which people get bashed upside the head until they are seeing stars? What can I say? I'm a boxing fan and little Panama is a global pugilistic power. And while the thrills that attract the most attention are when our best fighters take to the ring with a world championship belt at stake, paying five bucks for a close-up view at a fight night in which we may or may not see a future champion learning the professional ropes is also a worthy way to spend a Saturday night. Do you expat readers care to assimilate into the surrounding culture? Acquire a healthy Panamanian appreciation for boxing.

(By the way, although I am not a Republican I do appreciate Senator McCain's so far unsuccessful efforts to reform boxing, including a requirement of a CAT scan for every fighter who gets knocked out or even who wins the fight but takes some hard blows to the head in so doing. The guy who walks away woozy might drop dead a little while later but probably won't. The thing is, the guy with a little bit of non-fatal bleeding in the brain might end up punch drunk and disabled in middle age when a scan can catch that and there are now drugs that can eliminate or greatly limit the lasting damage.)

Oh, about those bookish tendencies of mine? This issue includes a couple of book reviews, one about a work of science fiction and the other a nonfiction book about urban policy. A thinking man can't live by gangster stories and ringside seats alone.

In the past couple of weeks the political and religious divides in narrowly defined "America" and the broader sense of "América" have been accentuated, in the former case by the death of the Reverend Jerry Falwell and in the latter by the papal visit to Brazil. Pope Benedict XVI may be somewhat less openly partisan than Falwell was, but both men are of the religious right. Ratzinger tends not to be so vitriolic as Falwell could be, but he stuck by his conservative principles in as tactful a was as he could given the realities of Latin American Catholicism. Our Spanish-language opinion section includes three Liberation Theology takes on the event and the divisions it highlighted, wherein Frei Betto, Leonardo Boff and Cecilia Tovar express opinions that are pretty much excluded from Panama's mainstream media.

In both the US and the Panamanian corporate press you also don't hear much from the Israeli peace movement, which represents only a minority but is nevertheless more consequential than a mere voice in the wilderness. This issue's English-language opinion section features a debate between two seasoned Israeli peace activists, Ilan Pappe and Uri Avnery, about the nature of a final agreement with the Palestinians for which their movement should aim. That section also includes views from Panama and the United States about the nature of one Luis Posada Carriles, Miguel Antonio Bernal's warning about a disturbing trend in Panama, my take on what the government proposes to do about Panama City's congestion and an exploration of a writer's torment by Silvio Sirias.

This edition goes heavy on the science, from the medical brain drain to the question of whether Irish dolphins have their own brogue, and with slightly delayed looks at a social scientist's work on Barro Colorado Island and an outstanding publication by several of the people who study tropical forests at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

The news this time? It's largely depressing and I blame the government. Even so --- especially so --- with respect to an atavistic tale that merits only brief mention as a news story this time but has grabbed some international headlines about Panama. A fisherman was attacked and killed by a 10-foot-long crocodile in the Panama Canal waters at Miraflores Lake.

Say what? Isn't it an "act of God" if somebody gets eaten by the wildlife?

Actually, Miraflores, Gatun and Madden Lakes are artificial environments and there was a time when the old US canal administration treated them as multi-use public assets, with important recreational functions that needed to be managed. They hired hunters to keep the crocodile and cayman populations under control, particularly the big ones who might reasonably be expected to grab someone who's swimming or fishing in the lake. When I was a kid I used to swim in Gatun Lake all the time, with no concern about a crocodile attack.

But now we have a narrow-minded administration that happens to be Panamanian, but the problem is not that Americans are no longer in control. It's this particular Panamanian administration that treats the assets it controls as a service for the international shipping industry and little else, when by its very nature the canal is a multiple use system. Mr. Aleman Zubieta et al trashed the canal's print shop, would have eliminated the canal's power generating business had a crisis not forced a reconsideration of that policy, evicted the primate rehabilitation center from the lake's islands and degraded the canal watershed's recreational value by, among other things, failing to control the crocodile population and not allowing others to do so. The croc attack that conjures up the most ancient of human fears was the logical result of human negligence, not an act of God. The rabiblancos who run the canal are not gods, nor are they even particularly capable managers.

So, what to do on a rainy season day when most of the news gives minimal cause for optimism? Well, a cat might help. So might Sparky the Wonder Dog. And then there's the tried and proven miracle cure, curling up in a soft, well lit place with a good gangster book.

Enjoy.

Eric Jackson

the editor