Yes, Panama does needs to do better at paying our musicians and composers. No, it’s not a good idea to leave it up to the lawyers. And are we so dependent as to always look north for a model of how things should be done? Look a bit farther north, to Canada, which subsidizes its performers and composers. Photo and electronic manipulation by Eric Jackson.
What could possibly go wrong?
The pushbuttons are about to reopen, but there is a legal hang-up.
Attorneys for the Panamanian Society of Artists and Composers (SPAC) are demanding royalties for the music played in the rooms of these by-the-hour motels for clandestine sexual liaisons.
So do the lawyers get to install devices to monitor the sounds in the rooms, so as to enforce their clients’ intellectual property rights?
We might also ask other rude questions – terrible invasions of privacy, it will be said – about the successes to date of such collection efforts with respect to others who play copyrighted music. How much has gone to which musicians and composers? How much has gone to lawyers?
What Panama ought to do is, without intermediaries taking a large cut of the proceeds, properly subsidize our musicians, composers and other creative people.
To do so other than on the bases of who belongs to which political faction, business organization or illustrious family would be no simple matter. However, the present extensions of juega vivo into our music scenes have for years made this country something of a cultural backwater.
Our best musicians and composers have to leave Panama to work with their international peers and seek their fortunes. Here it’s hard for them to work without regard to the patronage of politicians, beer companies or rabiblanco families. The effect is that we may be a commercial and transportation hub but we are not much of a cultural crossroads.
We can and should do better than suggested.
The former first lady lectured her son, it was secretly recorded and is just now leaked after several years. People with values can relate. Even if some of Panama’s worst snobs consider it a terrible scandal. Photo by Eric Jackson.
What did she say?
“…pinche Club Unión, lleno de gente acomplejada, y la mitad son unos ladrones, sin valores, sin principios…”
“… damned Union Club, full of self-conscious people, and half of them are thieves, without values, without principles …”
Así es.
So, how much?
So much that they have gotten a lot of people killed. So little that nothing that he says during the last month of the campaign should be taken at face value as news. His utterances may, however, be useful in footnotes to an indictment.
It’s fitting enough that Joe Biden chooses the occasion of the president’s illness to shift emphasis to the positive things about what he and the Democrats intend to do. The outlines of Building Back Better have always had their proper time and place to rally an emerging Democratic consensus on its own merits.
Mock what Trump says. Or ignore it. Just vote him out, and be ready to rout his thugs if he won’t accept it.
A Palestinian proverb.
Bear in mind…
Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense, we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment realizes itself.
Anna Jameson
I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
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If you are a US voter in Panama who has not yet voted, time is short
You have heard so many arguments, and there will be more in the month to come. It should be expected that you have made up your mind about whom you support, and whom and what you oppose. The general question is whether Democrats turn out in sufficient numbers to turn a troubled country around and the specific question is how do YOU do your part in this. It gets complicated — but not TOO complicated for an informed citizen like you — by different voting laws and sets of deadlines in each state.
AR CT GA ID IL KY MD MI MN NH NJ NY OH PA SD TN TX VA WI WY
If you vote in a state that
accepts only postal ballots
The surest way to get your ballot to the clerk in time and be counted may be to spend the money to send it by international commercial courier — DHL, FedEx or so on. If you are poor, that’s a hefty de facto poll tax.
You still have time to put your ballot in the diplomatic mailbox at the US Embassy in Clayton. Go to the entrance to the embassy complex and the guard will direct you to a blue mailbox not far from the gate. Deposit your ballot there, but only in an official postage-free ballot mail envelope, which you can download here and print onto a regular-sized envelope to have that done. Mail Boxes Etc. will do this for you, along with many other services to get your ballot in. In Anton, Vikingo will print up your envelopes and ballots. Copy the files need printed and bring them with you to the place you choose to do your printing if you don’t have a printer..
If you have ordered but not received your ballot by now, you must use the Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot. The form, downloadable and printable in PDF format, can be found here. Remember to fill it out completely, and to sign it, and to enclose the ballot in the privacy cover before putting it in the ballot mailing envelope.
The American Embassy is open to take your ballot in the drop box during regular business hours: Monday through Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and Friday from 8:00 a.m. to noon.
Your ballot will enter the US Postal Service mail system after the embassy sends it to the United States. The USPS is the target of Donald Trump’s sabotage, in defiance of court orders. The embassy estimates that it will take two weeks for your ballot to get to your voting office in the States, but this may be optimistic. Time runs short.
There is litigation, but…
Lawsuits have been filed against several “vote by postal mail only” states to allow email or fax voting under this year’s special circumstances.
The COVID-19 epidemic and Donald Trump’s criminal sabotage of the US Postal Service via the destruction of some 700 mail sorting machines are going to combine to delay the declaration of results in many of this year’s election races. There will be an all-time record of ballots cast by mail in any case, which Republicans want to declare void if they can. We probably will not know the composition of the US Senate, and may not know who won the presidency, on November 3.
MEANWHILE, millions of early votes have already been cast.
As a practical matter it’s probably too late to get states to change their voting systems. Like when white racists have delayed the opening of polls in heavily black areas, emergency orders to deal with those sorts of things have historically been requested and often been issued by judges. Look for a lot of Election Day and post election litigation this year, but do not count on voting laws changing very much in very many places before November 3.
If you vote where you can return your ballot electronically, DO THAT
There is a concerted illegal effort to obstruct and delay the US Postal Service mail. Putting your ballot in the mail if you do not have to do so can not only get your vote lost, it can add to mail congestion that disenfranchises other people too.
For years Democrats Abroad has been for email and fax voting. If you are so fortunate as to vote in a state that has this, enjoy the fruits of hard-won victories to make your voice heard.
¿Le resulta más cómodo votar en español?
St. Augustine, Florida, hablaba español mucho antes de que los angloparlantes llegaran a América del Norte. Antes de que los peregrinos llegaran a Massachusetts, los judíos de habla hispana ocultaban su fe a la Santa Inquisición en lo que ahora es Nuevo México. Por población, Estados Unidos es el quinto más grande país de habla hispana.
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“¡Paren el mundo, que me quiero bajar!” Es una de las maravillosas frases que el genial dibujante Quino puso en boca de la niña filósofa Mafalda.
Quino se ha bajado definitivamente del mundo. Pero ese personaje inventado, ahora más real que cualquier otra cosa, le sobrevive. Mafalda no sólo supo retratar a la sociedad argentina de los años sesenta y setenta, como afirmó Umberto Eco, también fue el emblema de una manera de pensar, de un modo de vivir.
Mafalda sabia, graciosa y sencilla
Supo mostrarnos con ingenio tanto las miserias como las esperanzas del ser humano. Es la niña que denuncia las injusticias de un mundo desgobernado, donde abundan más los creadores de problemas que los buscadores de soluciones.
Quino, viñeta de Mafalda.
Para Mafalda, “lo malo es que la mujer en lugar de jugar un papel, ha jugado un trapo en la historia de la humanidad”. Y en sus ocurrencias, Mafalda cantaba con amor a la mujer, como hiciera John Lennon en Julia, dedicada a su madre.
The Beatles, Julia (Remastered 2009) (1968).
La Mafalda crítica y mordaz reconoce el papel embrutecedor de los medios. Para ella, incluso desenchufada, la televisión nos tiene acostumbrados a frivolidades variopintas. Nos decía que “los diarios inventan la mitad de lo que dicen” y a eso se suma que no cuentan la mitad de lo que pasa. Para pensar cuando leemos cualquier noticia que nos relata un día de nuestra vida…
The Beatles, A day in the life (1967).
La sopa y los Beatles
Hay toda una filosofía de vida en las viñetas de Mafalda. Odia la sopa, tal vez una metáfora para el rechazo al militarismo de las dictaduras de América Latina. Se oponía a los doctrinarios charlatanes, que miran el mundo desde su estrecho y punzante punto de vista y proclaman sus clichés como dogmas absolutos:
“El problema de las mentes cerradas es que siempre tienen la boca abierta”.
Mafalda adoraba a los Beatles, que hoy se han convertido en la banda sonora de este homenaje a Quino, sus mundos de campos de fresas y su imaginación desbordante que abre rumbos:
“Lo ideal sería tener el corazón en la cabeza y el cerebro en el pecho. Así pensaríamos con amor y amaríamos con sabiduría”.
Imagino siempre a Mafalda en el cielo con diamantes, como la canción de los Beatles.
The Beatles, Lucy in the sky with diamonds (1967).
En lugar de las violencias y los mezquinos intereses, Mafalda rompe una lanza por la cultura, por todo cuanto hace que vivir sea un ejercicio de dignidad. Y a pesar de las conspiraciones contra la felicidad, la vida es linda; no es tan complicada como nos quieren hacer creer quienes todo lo enmarañan. Pero no es sencillo advertir la belleza de lo que nos rodea y abrir los ojos de par en par para apreciar los cielos abiertos. Hace falta un poco de buena prudencia y mirar, como Mafalda, a vuestro alrededor.
The Beatles, Dear Prudence (1969).
¡Qué triste y revelador que se impriman más billetes que libros! ¡Que la gente escuche más política que música! Si no tuviésemos tantos intereses interesados, si fuésemos más interesantes, ese algo que da sentido a todo para los Beatles vendría a poblar nuestras vidas.
The Beatles, Something (Studio demo/Audio) (1969).
Una niña en un mundo de adultos
Mafalda nunca quiso aceptar ese mundo de adultos que ridiculizaba desde la primera viñeta, aparecida en 1964, a la última de 1973, fecha en que Quino decidió dejar de dibujar a la niña irreverente. Y en ese transcurso, y a pesar de que hubiese nacido para promocionar un electrodoméstico, obviamente sin éxito, Mafalda logró cautivar a generaciones dispares. Su impulso revolucionario traspasó sus historietas.
The Beatles, Revolution 1 (Remastered 2009) (1968).
La revolución de la lentitud
Quino. Viñeta de Mafalda.
¡Qué ritmo de vida tan frenético. No nos deja respiro para siquiera vivir y emplear el tiempo en lo importante! La niña filósofa nos enseña a pensar sobre nuestro mundo, acerca de aquellos detalles de nuestras vidas que pasan desapercibidos.
Mafalda nos despierta y nos obliga a formular preguntas fundamentales, como ocurre en los buenos cuentos. ¿Se han planteado ustedes qué merece la pena en sus vidas? ¿Se han parado a sopesar si no es preferible la lentitud y parsimonia a la rutina diaria, tan repleta de cosas por hacer y por decir como vacía de sentido? ¿Por qué no dejarse iluminar por otros soles, como los de Mafalda y los Beatles?
The Beatles, Here comes the sun (1969).
Mafalda nos enseñaba a ser inconformistas, a ver el mundo desde los ojos de una niña que no lo esconde tras velos de optimismo ingenuo. No interesará a los adeptos a esa pseudo-filosofía de vida que pregona el happy flower. Porque no, todo no irá bien. Al menos por sí solo, únicamente con buenos propósitos, con intenciones que nunca se llevan a cabo, con principios sin final. El mundo es un desastre, admitámoslo.
The Beatles, Helter Skelter (Remastered 2009) (1968).
Nuestra querida Mafalda descubre el mundo tal cual es: imperfecto y desordenado. Pero aún así nos invita a la carcajada que recorre el universo desde la mente abierta y lúcida de una niña de seis años. Nada cambiará nuestro mundo, pero expresar tales constataciones con ingenio y picardía ya implica girarlo un poco, esperemos que a mejor.
The Beatles, Across the universe (1969).
Contra ese mundo ridículo en el que, decía Mario Benedetti, hay que pedir permiso hasta para ser feliz, se alza Mafalda como si nada, con su eterno e incontestable arrojo:
“No ando despeinada sino que mis cabellos tienen libertad de expresión”.
Como sugerían los Beatles en Hey Jude: “Toma una canción triste y hazla mejor”. Es lo que Quino y Mafalda supieron hacer con el mundo con permiso de la realidad y a expensas de lo imposible.
To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.
Para defendernos de los piratas informáticos, los trolls organizados y otros actos de vandalismo en línea, la función de comentarios de nuestro sitio web está desactivada. En cambio, ven a nuestra página de Facebook para unirte a la discusión.
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Estos anuncios son interactivos. Toque en ellos para seguir a las páginas de web.
Democratic lawmakers were incredulous after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Friday testified following President Donald Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis that the Trump family can’t be expected to take the precautions that public health experts recommend, while also claiming the spread of the coronavirus to more than 7.3 million Americans is a matter of “individual responsibility.”
Testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis as Trump reportedly began developing Covid-19 symptoms, Azar told Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) that the president’s family did not wear masks at the first presidential debate last Tuesday because “the first family and the protective aspect around the president is a different situation than the rest of us.”
The secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, defended President Trump’s family for not wearing masks at the presidential debate. The first family is “in a different situation than the rest of us,” he said. https://t.co/Nizd1OzNhY pic.twitter.com/zQ44l4WPPX
Despite the fact that at least two members of the Trump family are now ill, Azar suggested the family is in “a protective bubble.”
Someone explain to me how the Trump family’s refusal to wear a mask can be justified by Azar on the grounds that the family is in a “protective bubble” when both Trump and Melania are infected? https://t.co/E4sqx17f0R
“He said this…today?” tweeted MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow.
At the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio on Tuesday, a doctor was reportedly shooed away from the president’s adult children when she approached them to ask them to wear face coverings during the debate.
Members of the Trump family were also present at the White House event last Saturday where Republicans celebrated the president’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, where many attendees were unmasked. The gathering is now thought to have been a “superspreader” event, with at least seven attendees having tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, including Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) and former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway.
Testifying before masked Democratic lawmakers and GOP members who declined to wear face coverings even as the number of positive Covid-19 tests on Capitol Hill grew, Azar dodged a question from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) about Trump’s recent rallies, where indoor venues have been packed with unmasked attendees in close proximity and where the president has frequently downplayed the severity of the virus.
“Do you think that the president’s rallies that he has gone to where people are not social distancing…or wearing masks, does that contribute to the increase [in cases]?” Waters asked.
While assuring the congresswoman that HHS advises Americans to practice “the three W’s” by wearing a mask, washing your hands, and watching your distance, Azar said people should also “evaluate [their] individual circumstances.”
‘Mr. Secretary, are you proud of the job you’ve done?’ — Watch Rep. Maxine Waters go off on HHS Sec. Azar over Trump’s rallies and the admin’s lack of transparency pic.twitter.com/K8tcVEzRGL
Azar’s comments came as news spread that the Barrett nomination event may have led to several positive tests. In addition to the Rose Garden celebration at the White House, the event included an indoor gathering where attendees were also unmasked.
New York Times opinion writer Charlie Warzel suggested on Twitter that Azar’s statement that different safety standards apply to those in the president’s circle unfortunately rang true.
this photo dredges up a similar feeling to the beginning of the week & the $750 tax figure. you’re staying at home, not seeing loved ones. making big sacrifices for the greater good. but that’s a *you* thing. *they* do what they want always. it makes you feel like a sucker. pic.twitter.com/wGfs39NE7e
“You’re staying at home, not seeing loved ones. Making big sacrifices for the greater good,” Warzel wrote on Saturday. “But that’s a *you* thing. *They* do what they want always.”
Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), chairman of the subcommittee, harshly criticized Azar for enabling the president to downplay the pandemic and potentially contribute to the spread of the coronavirus in an effort to appeal to voters.
“Let there be no doubt: the president’s response to the coronavirus crisis has been a failure of historic proportions,” said Clyburn. “Covid-19 has claimed more American lives than the battles of World War I, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan War, and Iraq War combined. As HHS Secretary and the first Chairman of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Mr. Secretary, you should have been at the helm of an ambitious national response. Rather than follow the science, you tried to hide, alter, or ignore the science whenever it contradicted the president’s wish to downplay the crisis for perceived political advantage.”
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Polling over the years has shown, and US immigration records will buttress it, that a lot of Panamanians want to become Americans. The “if you were an American voter” question is slightly more than rhetorical here, and especially if you know that there are a lot of dual US and Panamanian citizens who conceal that fact while here. So Don Ricky did a poll of his Twitter followers, to which a little more than 2,000 of them responded. They LIKE the administration that extradited their leader from Miami, and seeks the extradition from Guatemala to face money laundering charges in Brooklyn? When you get elected to office on a platform of being crazy and then defend yourself against the criminal charges stemming from what you did as president, conspiracy theories do become the order of the day. Seems that the delusional thinking is contagious.
TWO Martinelli creations on the ballot?
by Eric Jackson
The Electoral Tribunal has just approved the RM Party — Realizando Metas — as a party in formation to go out and seek signatures to get on the ballot. The man can still buy lawyer services, and surely can hire plenty of signature gatherers. Maybe they, in turn, would have to buy signatures.
But what about the other party that Martinelli created, and rode to the presidency in 2009? Cambio Democratico still exists, and has, on paper, 18 deputies in the legislature. But while he was in jail and screaming that he’s too mentally ill to stand trial, he lost control of that party, often abbreviated as CD these days. Corporate lawyer and former foreign minister Rómulo Roux won both the presidential primary to be the CD standard bearer in the 2019 elections and five years in control of the party’s executive board in 2018.
Martinelli built CD with defectors from other parties, including, after he became president, legislators elected on other party tickets who were blackmailed with promises of not a dime going to their electoral circuits if they didn’t switch allegiance to Martinelli. Right after the 2014 loss of Martinelli’s proxy slate, he assembled the deputies elected on the CD ticket that year and told them that they had to do what he told them because he has assembled a file on each of them for use if need be. His flight from prosecution and subsequent legal battles in the USA and then Panama may have won him the occasional dubious court victory here and there, but other than lawyers to whom he paid retainers and former members of his government who themselves had legal troubles from that time, Ricardo Martinelli found few vocal supporters in the ranks of CD.
As it stands now, only three legislators elected on the CD ticket — Sergio Gálvez, Mayín Correa and Alaín Cedeño — have thrown their lot in with the new party in formation. It’s a problem for the potential new party, because there is the outside chance that Roux could move to expel turncoats from the legislature, and in any case you need at least five deputies to form a caucus in the National Assembly.
A party bearing Ricardo Martinelli’s initials! And with an emblem that looks like a bandshell with a leader sporting a halo standing front and center! He’ll say he’s a man FOR the people, but all pretense of being OF the people is discarded here.
Meanwhile, what’s Rómulo to do with CD?
Cambio Democratico won enough votes to be on the ballot for the next elections, but so long as President Cortizo’s PRD legislative caucus and its alliance with MOLIRENA deputies holds together, there is no bargaining power that Roux can wield with the votes of his deputies in the National Assembly. When you look at how those legislators have voted on certain things, it’s not just the Martinelistas who are chipping off of the ideal of a solid bloc.
Over the past few days, CD claims, they have signed up more than 2,500 new members. Mostly young voters. Might it be a different sort of transactional politics than Martinelli’s crude sort? With first-time voters the “I will pay you $X, or refrain from ending your political career, if you betray your old party boss” offer tends to be meaningless. But perhaps, in a corregimiento where the representante impedes food assistance to poor families that aren’t PRD, there are other sorts of more understandable offers. Maybe there is none of that. The photogenic Roux just looks like someone with whom younger voters would more readily identify than Martinelli, for one thing. Plus, none of his dealings with the Gringos were about battles with US federal prosecutors.
Early on a long campaign trail, Roux-style with new Cambio Democratico members. Photo from the CD Twitter feed.
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The company’s headquarters in Madrid. Wikimedia photo.
Sacyr, the Spanish company that’s
trying to loot the Panama Canal
by Olmedo Beluche
Some folks hailed a ruling at the end of September by the International Chamber of Commerce’s Arbitration Court, based in Miami, which obliged the Spanish company Sacyr to return $265 million from a lawsuit over the construction of the Panama Canal’s third set of locks. The company alleged that the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) erroneously rejected the mixture of basalt and asphalt that it proposed to use.
However, the enthusiasm of the Panamanian public should be tempered, since Sacyr has filed lawsuits against the ACP on the order of $3.75 billion. The aforementioned 265 million barely constitute 8.8% of the total demanded. Everything else remains in dispute.
The problem is that, when in 2007 the Grupo Unidos Por el Canal consortium (GUPC), in which Sacyr was the majority partner, tendered its bid for the construction of the larger third set of locks, the total cost of the work was estimated at $3.118 billion. On that figure, the ACP ended up paying an additional $460 million, bringing the final cost of the work to $ 3.578 billion.
In other words, SACRYR makes the leonine demand for more than double the initial cost of the work. It’s absurd, and fraudulent from every point of view. If everything demanded was paid in favor of Sacyr, the final cost would go from the $3.118 billion estimated at the beginning to a total of $7.103 billion.
To top it off, thanks to neoliberal globalization, this attempted raid on Panamanian public funds is in the hands of a foreign tribunal, outside of our jurisdiction and sovereignty, in Miami. Let’s not celebrate too soon.
Historically, the looting of the Panama Canal’s resources by financial speculators began in the 19th century when the North American owners of the Panama Railroad Company, together with those of the French Universal Canal Company, conspired to rob the people of Panama and Colombia of rights over the railroad for which neither ever paid. That’s just to mention one of the incidents.
In Latin America, the news media commonly use the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht as the model of a corrupt company. However, they forget that others have also paid bribes and kickbacks to politicians. In Spain, Sacyr has been accused of paying politicians of the Partido Popular and has been involved in other questionable operations.
In the Panamanian case, it was questionable that CUSA, whose owners are the Alemán Zubieta family, to which the ACP administrator at the time when this concession was made belongs, was a junior partner with Sacyr in the GUPC. But that was “legal,” they say, because in Panama there is no conflict of interest law.
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For the millions of people around the world who live on islands today, a plane or boat can easily enough carry them to the mainland or other islands.
But how did people in the ancient past first make it to distant islands they couldn’t even see from home? Many islands around the world can be reached only by traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles across open water, yet nearly all islands that people live on were settled by between 800 to 1,000 years ago.
Archaeologistslikeuswantto understand why people would risk their lives to reach these far-off places, what kinds of boat and navigational methods they used, and what other technologies they invented to make it. Islands are important places to study because they hold clues about human endurance and survival in different kinds of environments.
One of the most interesting places to study these processes is the Caribbean, the only region of the Americas where people settled an archipelago with some islands not visible from surrounding areas. Despite more than a century of research, there are still many questions about the origins of the first Caribbean people, when they migrated and what routes they took. My colleagues and I recently reanalyzed archaeological data collected over 60 years to answer these fundamental questions.
Settling the islands one by one
Based on the discovery of unique stone tools and food remains such as shells and bones, archaeologists have a general understanding thatpeople first spread throughout the Caribbeanin a series of migrations that probably began at least 7,000 years ago and likely originated from northern South America.
Amerindians paddled between islandsin dugout canoes and were remarkably adept at open-water travel. Archaeologists don’t know what inspired people to first colonize the Caribbean islands, but we do know they brought plants and animals from the mainland, like manioc and oppossum, to help ensure their survival.
There are two main ideas about what happened. For decades, the prevailing notion was that people migrated from South America into the Antilles in a south-to-north “stepping-stone” pattern. Because the islands stretch in a gentle arc from Grenada all the way up to Cuba in the northwest –with many largely visible from one to the next– this would seem to provide a convenient path for early settlers.
This hypothesis, however, has been challenged by evidence thatsome of the earliest sites are in the northern islands. Analyses of wind and ocean currents suggest that it was actually easier to travel directly between South America and the northern Caribbean before moving in a southerly direction. Researchers call this proposal of a north-to-south migration the “southward route” hypothesis.
For decades, archaeologists have been excavating artifacts on these islands. Scott Fitzpatrick, CC BY-ND
Revisiting previous scientists’ date data
Figuring out which model for settling the Caribbean best fits the evidence depends on being able to assign accurate dates to human activity preserved in the archaeological record. To do this, researchers need a lot of reliable dates from many different sites throughout the islands to establish how, when and from where people landed.
Archaeologists typically usea technique called radiocarbon datingto figure out how old an artifact is. When an organism dies, it stops producing carbon and its remaining carbon decays at a fixed rate of time – archaeologists say “death starts the clock.” By measuring the amount of carbon left in the organism and then performing a few additional calculations, scientists are left with a probable age range for when that organism died.
Archaeologists often date things like food remains, charcoal from cooking hearths or wood in the building where they are found. If archaeologists date shells found in a trash heap, they can tell, usually within a range of 25 to 50 years or so, when that shellfish was harvested for a meal.
Archaeologists have been radiocarbon dating findings in the Caribbean since the 1950s – when the radiocarbon technique was first discovered. But dating methods and the standards scientists follow have improved dramatically since then. Part of our job was to see if each of the 2,500 radiocarbon dates available would meet today’s standards. Dates that did not meet those standards were thrown out, leaving us with a smaller database of only the most reliable times for human activity.
Determining where people lived first
By statistically analyzing these remaining dates, we confirmed that Trinidad was the first Caribbean island settled by humans, at least 7,000 years ago. However, Trinidad is so close to South America that only simple – or even no – boats were needed to get there.
After Trinidad, the oldest settlements occurred between 6,000 and 5,000 years ago in the northern Caribbean on the large islands of the Greater Antilles: Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. Reaching them would have required crossing passages of water where no islands were visible to the naked eye, although navigators rely on other wayfinding techniques – like current, cloud patterns, seeing birds fly in a certain direction – to know if land is out there. By around 2,500 years ago, people had spread out to settle other islands in the northern Lesser Antilles, including Antigua and Barbuda.
Based on these data, the patterns of initial settlement of the Caribbean are most consistent with the southward route hypothesis.
Around 1,800 years ago, a new wave of people also moved from South America into the Lesser Antilles, colonizing many of the remaining uninhabited islands. About 1,000 years later, their descendants moved into the smaller islands of the Greater Antilles and Bahamian archipelago. This is when Jamaica and the Bahamas were settled for the first time.
Our research findings also support the widely held view that environment played a significant role in how and when islands were settled.
Archaeologists know that once people settled islands, they frequently moved between them. Not all islands are the same, and some offered more or better resources than others. For example, in the Bahamas and the Grenadines, the primaryway to access freshwateris by digging wells; there are no streams or springs. Some islandslacked clay for making pottery, which was important for cooking and storing food. People may have also traveled to different islands to access preferred fishing or hunting spots or seek out marriage partners.
Strong seasonal winds and currents facilitated travel between islands. That’s also probably one of the reasons why Caribbean people never developed the sail or other seafaring technologies that were used in the Pacific, Mediterranean and North Atlantic around the same time. Dugout canoes crossed between South America and the islands just fine.
Interpretations of past human behavior at archaeological sites are anchored by radiocarbon dates to study change over time. For archaeologists, it’s important to periodically take another look at the data to make sure that the narratives built on those data are reliable. Our review of the radiocarbon record for the Caribbean allowed us to show – with increased accuracy – the ways in which the region was first colonized by people, how they interacted and moved between islands, and how their societies developed following initial colonization.
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To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.
Para defendernos de los piratas informáticos, los trolls organizados y otros actos de vandalismo en línea, la función de comentarios de nuestro sitio web está desactivada. En cambio, ven a nuestra página de Facebook para unirte a la discusión.
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Back then — now Trump wants to get Flynn out of the latter’s guilty plea and the Greens no longer openly hobnob with Putin and the Trump campaign but still say nothing about swarms of fake Facebook personas coming onto Bernie groups preaching “vote Green” and repeating right-wing anti-Biden memes.
A warning from a Democratic member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee
I am also an active Democrat — how good or bad of one we Democrats in Panama will perhaps discuss after the election — and this old hippie activist. Since 2016 I have been an administrator of the Expats for Sanders Facebook group (we DID win the Democrats Abroad global primary again this year) and more recently, with Yippie legend and group founder Aron Kay ailing, I have become an administrator with the Aging Hippies for Bernie Sanders group. I came into responsible positions with both groups in times that they were facing enemy troll wave attacks.
The technology is always advancing, as is public awareness of what goes on and corporate and political reactions to that, but the basic stuff is very old. And the arts of creating fake persona bots and trolls can be quite sophisticated, but even compared to 2016 this year’s norms have regressed to quite primitive.
First, the difference between a bot and a troll is generally function. A bot is a bit of code that presents an image of a person but has no speaking role. It’s used to “like” or “follow” some dubious page, persona or account to promote its rankings with the company running the particular social medium, so as to reach more people. But bots are often amenable to being fleshed out enough to be given speaking false persona roles through which trolls operate. The question does arise whether old bots which survived mass purges between the last presidential election season have now have been upgraded to be used by trolls this time around. It might explain a lot of things about artistic levels if that is the case.
As a group administrator, look first at behavior. Is somebody coming into a progressive group running a de facto ‘abstain from voting against Donald Trump’ message? Might be a ‘vote Green’ ploy, or a ‘write in Bernie Sanders’ message, or a ‘vote for Kanye West’ argument or — more common then than now — this nonsense about how it’s “woke” for young African-American adults not to vote. At this point, and especially given the endorsements of Joe Biden by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortéz and virtually all of the leading American progressives, that stuff just ought to be eliminated from any group bearing the name of anyone who has endorsed Biden. But you really want to distinguish among causes for the deletion of a post or comment, the placing of a person on moderation during the campaign season and the definitive expulsion of an account.
False personas advocating voter abstention need to be definitively kicked out. Real people with genuine progressive credentials who don’t much like Joe Biden and say as much should be respected as people and engaged in reasonable debate.
So, the person or persona who posts something that ought to be deleted should be looked up. Did this account get created last week? Is the sum of its messaging a mix of Bernie Sanders primary arguments against Joe Biden and rightist conspiracy theories or memes? Does the name sound odd? Is the photo one of some celebrity, or of a cat? Do you go to the “about” part and find no information listed? Or spurious or clearly false information listed? Do you go deeper and look at what the Facebook account says that they like and find an odd mix for anyone in any generation of a progressive social milieu? (Or more telling yet, go down to the things they say they like, or into their photos, and see all these Confederate flags?)
These are all hallmarks of a fake persona at a primitive level of the art. There are lots of these popping up in the social media these days.
A great quick red flag — are they in a Bernie group, which they only joined AFTER Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign? There are legitimate folks who have done that — it’s about us, not him, and it’s a movement, not a personality, so he tells us. But a simple date may call for deeper investigation.
I have run across a couple of more sophisticated troll personas that made me suspect, with no way of proving, that we are dealing with Russians.
There was the guy (or so projected) in a Bernie group, claiming to be from New Zealand. Born and educated there, works there, so the Facebook profile says. Almost all posts about US politics. Nothing at all about the American community in New Zealand.
Similarly, the purported guy from the north of England. Nothing at all about England. Nothing about the large Democrats Abroad chapter in the UK or any other Americans. Born, educated and lives in the same part of northeastern England. All this trash Joe Biden ‘from the left’ stuff, and a bit about 9/11 being a false flag event staged by an international Jewish conspiracy.
And what else do the two guys above have in common? Writing perfect American Standard English of a bland midwestern variety. Not one phrase of Kiwi or Brit usage. Much better language institute students than Boris and Natasha ever were, but not so steeped in the dialects and histories of the English-speaking peoples to be convincing.
There are and were in 2016 entire fake leftist groups using Bernie’s or AOC’s names. They have attracted real people, who recoil at the abstention messaged they allow or promote. One of the hallmarks is their screeds against progressives who are voting for the Democrats on the charge of “vote shaming.” The next US Congress really ought to call some of the people involved to come before committees and explain. Not just for the purposes of exposing slime, but for some legislative purposes like what ought to be done about Facebook, Google et al.
Finally, let me say as an old antiwar hippie who lives abroad that although I think that Senator Murphy says a timely and important thing, at the end of the day it will be in America’s interest to reduce tensions and reach certain understandings with Putin. And with other bad guys like Modi, and with Latin American leaders who have fallen ill with the caudillo compulsion. Thing is, Donald Trump owes too much to Putin to deal with Russia properly, at arm’s length, talking nation to nation.
Let’s have these discussions about US foreign policy among calm Americans of varying points of view. But let’s give the fake persona trolls the bums’ rush.
[Eric Jackson, a dual US and Panamanian citizen by birth and resident of Panama, in addition to publishing The Panama News is also vice chair and past chair of Democrats Abroad Panama. Here he does not speak for Panama’s Democratic organization, only himself.]
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One of the historic abuses — and abuses of history — that has existed in Panamanian law is the notion that it can be a crime punishable by prison to defame a dead person. That specific possibility was written out of the law several years ago, but without an explicit bar on such prosecutions. The former mayor of La Villa de Los Santos, who died this past March, was found listed on the Ministry of the Presidency’s payroll this September. The young and increasingly noticed online journal Foco took notice and published the above — which is true, or was at the time. There could be many an innocent explanation, but there are also historic practices that are not so innocent. Foco did not accuse any individual of a crime. A false allegation that someone committed a crime is the essence of calumnia, half of what is usually referred to as the calumnia e injuria law. The other half, injuria, is making somebody look bad in the public eye. Strictly speaking, truth is not a defense. However, Panama is a party to human rights treaties that would bar a conviction for injuria when the story is both true and a matter of public interest — as in what’s going on in the government. There are other ways to harass journalists, though. The late politician’s son has announced a lawsuit for $30,000 for injuring the reputation of the deceased. Graphic from Foco.
Turbulence and decay in Panama’s politics and media taken out on the small press
by Eric Jackson
It used to be that there was a powerful cartel of about a half-dozen or less ad agencies that wielded tremendous power. They told the TV stations what programs were acceptable, the real estate developers which races of people could or could not appear on their billboards, the newspapers who would or would not get the prized advertising clients.
Then, as a worldwide phenomenon that owes a great deal to Google and Facebook, advertising-supported communication media collapsed as a business model. A few of the giants survived by gobbling up competitors or diversifying into other lines of business. Some of the media were acquired by billionaires to whom profits were not so important as vanity. A lot of news organizations, and many an entertainment medium, went through painful cost-cutting.
(Reality TV? Influencers? Some people get well paid, but these insufferable personas are cheap compared to the costs of the way things were done. The wretched products are noticeably inferior to those who see and care about such things.)
Now, with Panama’s ad agencies largely subsidiaries of US-based companies that are themselves endangered, with Panamanian media increasingly captured by political parties or beholden to foreign interests, the opinion-making biz ain’t what it used to be. What a time for a medical crisis that collapses the Panamanian economy, and a moral crisis that has collapsed the credibility of Panama’s political caste notwithstanding partisan boundaries.
We are in such a time. The state, and now with an attempt by the church to get in on the action, dominate the sources of information like never before. Government announcements, police trophy photos of the latest drug seizure and the archbishop’s declarations of what’s right and what isn’t — this is supposed to be our daily information feed.
What’s a demagogue looking to increase his or her following to do? Set up “call centers” of trolls who spread bile about whatever other side wherever it can be spread. Get some sort of government funding for private propaganda aimed at personal benefit. Build up some low-talent relative as an “influencer” and get his or her endorsement. It’s all pretty vacuous. People sense that and buy fewer newspapers, avoid subscribing to get past the old mainstream papers’ pay walls, turn off the old TV networks, and go surfing online.
It’s hard to sustain a vacuum, though, and into the empty spaces come the social media and a bunch of small and micro news organizations. A bunch of the emerging sources are no longer so new. Some of them are folks from the old paradigms — CBS News may have washed its hands of Dan Rather and MSNBC may have discarded Cenk Uygur but they live on in their own media. As do, on the Panamanian scene, folks like Ebrahim Asvat and Mauricio Valenzuela.
It’s a problem for political dynasties, government agencies, rabiblanco media barons and those who consider that by holy anointment or superior bloodlines their stories are all that matters and all that ought to be told. So the state, and now the church, instead of educating people on how to determine what is fake, instead of going down into the trenches to call out social media falsehoods that can get people killed, run this facile argument that if information is not from them, it’s false.
Yet the piranha school of small media nibble away, much to the discomfort of those in high places, especially those who flaunt bad behavior on the presumption that nobody who is anybody will talk about it.
And seeing how the anointed ones act, there are these social media imitators. You often don’t know the “who” of upstart or breakaway “movements” with no identified leaders and tiny followings, which also try to invoke authority against the small media. You can generally figure out the “what” by looking at the messages they put out.
Ah, the nationalist ploy, by an anonymous “movement” with 19 followers. Garden variety US-inspired religious right, it appears. Is it one of the same old demagogues’ new additions to its cast of social media trolls? Notice to whom they address their “nationalist” plea.
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What route did the first settlers to colonize the islands of the Caribbean take? 
