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With that blow, Haitian boxer Evens Pierre advanced his career at the expense of Panama's Abdiel Pinto. This issue takes us to the Figali Convention center for a night of boxing and a look at what's coming up for the Panamanians at the top levels of the sport.

The big story up there (and down here)

We might use similar metaphors for the US presidential election. I got most of the opinion section of this issue out way ahead of the usual schedule (which includes a three-week gap between issues after a month when there are five Fridays), so that there would be one last round of columns about the Obama - McCain contest. That one wasn't close but now what looked beyond reach for the Democrats on Election Night --- a 60-vote more or less filibuster-proof Senate majority --- creeps ever closer and may end up riding on a December 2 runoff in Georgia. That's because as the absentee votes come in from all over the place to Alaska election officials, the Democrat has pulled ahead; and because the razor-thin GOP edge in the Minnesota race for the US Senate is likely to evaporate once they start hand-counting the ballots that the machines didn't count. (Put a check mark instead of an oval next to a candidate's name and the machines they use in Minnesota won't pick it up, but according to Minnesota election laws that's a good vote, cast by a clearly expressed preference for that candidate --- and it seems that most of the many thousands of paper ballots on which the optical scanners didn't register a vote for Senate came from Democratic strongholds. So we may still get an actual comedian --- as distinguished from just another clown --- in the US Senate after all.)

Senator Obama's victory and the campaign leading to it were precedent-setting in many respects, but now he faces the difficult task of governing in a time of crisis. People in Panama were by and large glad to see Obama win, but we should all expect to see his popularity dip as he makes some hard decisions that need to be made, even if they don't please everybody.

Within Panama's American community, the shift from the Republican to the Democratic column was palpable. The local chapter of Republicans Abroad all but went underground, with the wannabe business elite faction that had been dominant unwilling to let a prominent conservative veteran debate for the party when they wouldn't do so themselves. The local chapter of Democrats Abroad grew, with a boost from field organizers sent by the Obama campaign to mobilize votes from Democrats living in Latin America, something that had never happened before in a presidential campaign of either major party. And if all politics is local, the matter of who speaks for more Americans was every bit as much an issue in this small community as it was when Sarah Palin attempted to impugn the patriotism of the majority that ended up voting for Obama. The Americans here come in Democrat, Republican and independent varieties and all racial hues and the exclusionary right-wing presumption to determine who's a "real American" has been rejected. But that's not to say that conservatives will never carry the day in a future election.

Two sad milestones

Life's cycles go on, and part of the process is death. Two passings are worthy of particular mention here:

Cirilo McSween

A gifted Panamanian athlete who used his skills to get a university education in the United States and went on to be a successful businessman, civil rights leader and the interface between Panama's former dictatorship (and later the PRD) and some prominent black Democrats has passed away. Cirilo McSween was not only these things, he's the man to whom General Omar Torrijos entrusted his sons as their tutor when he sent them away to school in the United States. That's why President Torrijos went to Chicago for the memorial service.

McSween's rise to prominence began with his setting of national track records as a high school sprinter, which got him a scholarship to the University of Illinois, where he ran circles around the Big Ten competition and ended up with a degree in economics. He made a lot of money selling insurance and in banking, and invested it in more than a dozen McDonald's franchises. He served as treasurer of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Later he served as vice chair of the board of directors of Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH. During the Panama Canal Treaty negotiations Omar Torrijos appointed him as a special ambassador to represent Panama before the US Congress.

A dual US-Panamanian citizen, the Electoral Tribunal dominated by Torrijos's PRD recently stripped McSween (and many others in situations similar to his) of his right to vote in Panamanian elections.

Cirilo McSween died in Chicago on November 4, at the age of 82.

Miriam Makeba

On November 10 in the impoverished Castelvolturno suburb of Naples, Italy, South African singer Miriam Makeba died shortly after performing a benefit concert for an Italian journalist who has been facing death threats from the Neapolitan mafia, known as the Camorra. Earlier this year in that same town, the Camorra had executed six African immigrants and during the preparations of Makeba's last concert hoodlums threatened to kill the workers who set up the stage.

Makeba was celebrated throughout the world as "Mama Africa," serving throughout more than 30 years of exile as one of the brightest lights of opposition to the former South African apartheid regime. The white power militants who used to run South Africa rested such arguments as they had on the stereotypes that black Africans are uncultured, unholy, uncivilized and incompetent. Long before their regime fell --- largely because after the Cold War the Western powers no longer needed the disreputable South African white government as an ally to keep tabs on the Soviet Navy in that region of the world --- the intellectual foundations of white rule were pulverized.

Makeba was an important player in that process. What pompous apologist for the untenable could get away with calling Miriam Makeba uncultured? For that matter, who could believe the old regime's religious card in the face of Desmond Tutu's spiritual leadership, or doubt the competence of Nelson Mandela? Those who used to run South Africa were fortunate indeed that people like Miriam Makeba, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela turned out to be so civilized after all.

Miriam Makeba was 76 years old when she died. Although most of her adult life was spent in exile, she lived to come home as a first class citizen, and to see the son of an African man elected president of the United States. She died on a mission to defend a white man, journalist Roberto Saviano, who had written a book exposing the mob. Hers was a life worth living.

A charming paramilitary threat

What does one do after having published a series of about 15 articles accusing a woman of stealing a car and alleging that she's a fugitive from justice because of it, and all of that has been shown to be a pack of lies?

Normal conventions of ethics would call for a retraction and an apology, but those don't apply to a Mr. Winner. His response to those who called him on his defamation campaign went, in part, as follows:

Why Not Go After Brett Mikkelson? My best friend in Panama is Brett Mikkelson. Brett is by far the most widely respected private investigator in the country. The other day at lunch he asked "I wonder why these assholes don't go after me?" The answer is obvious - with a virtual army of foot soldiers at his beck and call, combined with a truly impressive set of Panamanian governmental contacts in his Rolodex, Brett's not the guy you want to mess with. These guys are typical punks and they only go after people who they think can't fight back, like Clyde Jenkins, who is basically just a harmless, gentle, little old man. (Err, stud - sorry Clyde.) Well, look at it this way - game on. Let's see how tough these assholes are when facing a possession charge.

Well, yes, long before this pathetic threat was published I had such a concern. You see, one night in March of 2007 while I was elsewhere doing a radio show, someone broke into my office. There were no signs of forced entry. The only thing missing was a file of documents in my court case against Mr. Winner's friend and financial columnist, the convicted felon fraud artist and "patriot" militia shill Mark Boswell, who does business here under the alias Rex Freeman. Under those circumstances one would naturally be concerned about another break-in in which a package of cocaine was left in a drawer and the police were tipped off.

And maybe Mr. Winner and his friend do have those kinds of connections.

Those who continue to give this man social cover in the community will naturally be tainted by that association. That's just the way that it is. It's time to flee those associations and the opprobrium that attaches from them. And if you think that paramilitary amorality is the "American Way," or is acceptable to most of Panama's English-speaking community, look at what just happened in the US elections and think again.

Gloria goes independent

Long ago I had cable TV and liked to watch sessions of the Panamanian legislature. At the time one of the most entertaining parts of that show was when two deputies from San Miguelito, Balbina Herrerra and Gloria Young, would do battle.

I never got to see Lincoln versus Douglas, Disraeli versus Gladstone or Winston Churchill versus Lady Astor. I did live close enough to Canada at the time to watch Trudeau versus Levesque on CBC (although I didn't understand enough French to understand much of the same battle on SRC), and I feel privileged to have watched one of the great democratic rivalries of all time. The Gloria and Balbina show was in the same vein.

Gloria Young, a schoolteacher by profession, was the founder of Panama's first battered women's shelter, in San Miguelito. She was elected in 1994 on the Papa Egoro ticket, had a raucous falling out with Rubén Blades, got re-elected as an Arnulfista, got married and moved to Chiriqui and lost an attempt to get back into the legislature from the Puerto Armuelles area.

The Panamanian women's movement has had some political successes in recent years, but almost entirely in defensive battles. Some of the things that the Torrijos Cabinet Council --- including Balbina Herrera serving as Housing Minister for most of this administration --- has sent to the legislature have been hideously misogynistic. The pressure to correct these things has had to come from a coalition of women's groups applying pressure from outside the legislature.

Now Gloria Young is seeking to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for the National Assembly, and even though we have different politics on a number of important points I think that it would be a positive thing for Panama to have her back in the legislature, especially as an independent. Run, Gloria, run!

Covering the Panamanian elections

For the past year or so, I dedicated a lot of space to give the major candidates for president of the United States a chance to make their cases in The Panama News, in their own or their supporters' words. Some readers were a bit annoyed at what they saw as the distraction of attention from Panama.

Mostly in the Spanish-language opinion section, I have been doing something similar for the Panamanian elections. Yes, I have my opinions and don't try to conceal them, but my opinions are neither the only opinions nor the only valid ones and because The Panama News tries to serve intelligent, inquisitive people it gives candidates with whom its editor doesn't necessarily agree the space to present their cases. In this issue, Balbina Herrera welcomes people from other parties, while Ricardo Martinelli calls for a hard line against crime.

(I must say quite frankly, however, that Martinelli's law and order argument would work a lot better if his website did not feature that campaign jingle by rapper Japanese, who is a grown man appealing a 40-month prison sentence for having sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl.)

Anyway, to do a proper job of covering the Panamanian election campaign between now and next May's elections, The Panama News really does need to get a lot more speeches and other statements by all of the presidential candidates into the English-language opinion section of every issue. To do that, we need some extra translation help. Do we have volunteers, either partisans from the respective campaigns or just bilingual people who want to help improve The Panama News?

Holidays

You know the season isn't over, don't you?

A long holiday weekend or two have prolonged production of this issue of The Panama News. (Excuses, excuses, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) The up side is that we have a graphically rich issue, with coverage from both of Panama City's Independence Day parades (the one on Calle 50 and the other one on Via España); Jose Ponce's photos of the slightly soggy Via España Flag Day procession; a classic pollera picture taken by Allan Hawkins at the November 10 celebration in Los Santos; and due notice taken of mayoral candidate Miguel Antonio Bernal working the holiday crowds.

November 28 is the anniversary of both Panama's independence from Spain (1821) and of the foundation of the Cuerpo de Bomberos (1885).  The firefighters' torchlight parade is always one of the coolest events of the holiday season, but there's this acrimonious argument between the Torrijos administration and the full-time bomberos in which a truce was called just in time for the bombero bands to participate in the November 3 and 4 parades. I hope that this year's torchlight parade is not affected. Come back to this website for the next issue for an update on the situation.

Then, before the Christmas / New Year's holidays, we have Panamanian Mothers Day, the Catholic Day of the Immaculate Conception, on December 8. (You American football fans who are reminded of a miraculous pass that Franco Harris caught and ran in for a touchdown so many years ago have two concepts confused.)

Things do get done in Panama this time of the year, but...  mañana.

Enjoy.