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¿Wappin? End of June homage mix / Mezcla de homenaje de finales de junio

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KF
The late Kinky Friedman, US-born son of Russian Jewish immigrants, musician, composer and writer, human rights activist, friend of animals and would have made the best governor of Texas ever. Wikimedia / Good Shepherd photo by Stephen C. Webster.
Kinky Friedman, nacido en Estados Unidos, hijo de inmigrantes judíos rusos, músico, compositor y escritor, activista de derechos humanos, amigo de los animales y habría sido el mejor gobernador de Texas de todos los tiempos. Foto de Wikimedia / Good Shepherd de Stephen C. Webster.

Mid-summer heroes, fallen and riding on
Héroes, caídos y en marcha

Kinky Friedman — Ride ‘Em Jewboy
https://youtu.be/Co3I0GYGaSY?si=UckfaLpTFubQUFI1

Alanis Morissette – Live at The Woodlands 2024
https://youtu.be/S2Qr_r1pO3E?si=_DRZHSTdd8RUgbnK

Adele with Billie Eilish & Christina Perri – A Thousand Years
https://youtu.be/wlcVuDaLWYQ?si=4M_EKZcxACOpjvo2

Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill
https://youtu.be/wp43OdtAAkM?si=cd8fmZQO38IPwLYW

Lord Invader – Reincarnation
https://youtu.be/pwXxbMUrYsk?si=OMfwq9NaHI2gjEjN

Lauryn Hill – Rotterdam Reggae Festival 2023
https://youtu.be/PhP-x6kUICY?si=9x3ARbusgAzFeiQI

Natalia Lafourcade – María a Curandera
https://youtu.be/a8eDeLKWx74?si=B1FpqPa1CvyT1qtT

Joan Baez & Mercedes Sosa – Gracias A La Vida
https://youtu.be/rMuTXcf3-6A?si=wdG6FmCyElkqpahi

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Powderfinger
https://youtu.be/tdPs5YXQTSw?si=1_qjFrEaupvYVs0i

Beenie Man – Reggae Geel Festival Belgium 2019
https://youtu.be/9kBhprAOyZU?si=4sURb_rm88XDRehT

Willie Nelson – The Border
https://youtu.be/8b3ckldWoX8?si=p3OgDfFUrUJdscuc

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Pierce, Comedians and the Catholic humor tradition

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Pope and his jesters
Pope Francis meets with comedians at the Apostolic Palace on June 14, 2024, in Vatican City. Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Image.

Pope Francis may have surprised many by inviting comedians to the Vatican
but the value of humor has deep roots in Catholic tradition

by Joanne M. Pierce, College of the Holy Cross

When Pope Francis addressed a group of top international comedians on June 14, 2024, he called them “artists” and stressed the value of their talents.

To many Catholics, this meeting came as a surprise. Traditionally, the themes of detachment, sacrifice, humility and repentance appear far more frequently in religious writing and preaching than the spiritual benefits of a good laugh.

But as a specialist in medieval Christian history, I am aware that, since antiquity, many theologians, preachers, monastics and other Christians have embraced the role of humor as a valuable part of Christian spirituality. Some have even become popularly known as the patron saints of comedians or laughter.

Comedy is natural

Many Catholic saints have considered laughter to be an integral part of nature itself. For example, the 12th-century German nun St. Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic poet and musician, wrote in a poem on the power of God:

I am the rain coming from the dew
That causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.

In the 13th century, St. Francis of Assisi called himself the “Jongleur de Dieu” – troubador or jester of God – because of his ministry. He probably used a French reference because his mother came from France and spoke French at home. Francis and his followers wandered from town to town, singing God’s praises and preaching joyfully in the streets. People laughed when he preached to birds in trees, and he once had to politely ask a large flock to stop chirping first.

The 16th-century nun and mystic St. Teresa of Avila wrote in a poem, alluding to the voice of Jesus Christ as love:

Love once said to me,
‘I know a song, would you like to hear it?’
And laughter came from every brick in the street
And from every pore in the sky.

Humor and play are an important part of human nature. They provide opportunities for relaxation and relief and offer a way to cope with the challenges of human life.

In the 13th century, Dominican scholastic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas composed a lengthy summary of theology that became one of the most important resources in the Catholic tradition: the Summa Theologica. In it, he argued that humor and other kinds of joyful recreation offer the mind and soul the same kind of rest that the body needs.

Aquinas cautioned, however, that these kinds of words or activities must not become hurtful or indecent.

Comedy can heal

The shared experience of laughing can break down barriers across cultures and bring people together.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits in the 16th century, is said to have danced a jig to raise the spirits of a despondent man on retreat; he also praised a Jesuit novice for his healthy laughter.

A statue of Saint Ignatius Loyola with an angel holding a book.
St. Ignatius is distinguished by his heart-shaped face and the Latin motto of the Society for Jesus, ‘Ad maiorem dei gloriam,’ or ‘for the greater glory of God.’ Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, Assunta Sommella Peluso, Ignazio Peluso, Ada Peluso and Romano I. Peluso Gift, 2010

In the same century, St. Philip Neri, who has been called the patron saint of humor and joy, was reputed to be a mystic and visionary. To put others at ease, he engaged in pranks and jokes, once attending a gathering with half of his beard shaved off.

Some famous Catholic saints even faced death with a smile, such as the second-century deacon St. Lawrence, one of the patron saints of comedians. The legend goes that as he was executed by being roasted alive on a gridiron over a hot fire, he joked with his executioners, saying, “Turn me over … I’m done on this side!” This legend has carried over into the official story of his life.

The Carmelite nun St. Therese of Lisieux also lived a life marked by humor in the 19th century. Even as she lay dying from tuberculosis at the age of 24, she is said to have joked with the other nuns and her doctor. Supposedly, when a priest was called to give her the last rites, he refused because she looked too healthy. She replied that she would try to look sicker the next time he was called.

Popes and humor

Francis is far from the only pope to stress the value of humor in Catholic and Christian life. Pope St. John XXIII, who in 1961 summoned the Second Vatican Council, calling all Catholic bishops worldwide to a series of formal meetings at the Vatican to update Catholicism, was known for his humor. Famously, when asked once how many people worked at the Vatican, he replied, “About half of them.”

The next pope, St. Paul VI – elected in 1963 – was an accomplished administrator known for his wit. One of his papal documents was on the importance of “Christian joy.” Now on the path to sainthood as “blessed,” John Paul I, who reigned for only a month in 1978, was known as “the smiling pope” because of his cheerfulness.

Pope St. John Paul II, the first non-Italian elected pope in almost 500 years, was only 58 years old when elected in 1978, and he was well-known for his sense of humor.

The German cardinal who succeeded him in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI, also valued the role of humor in a balanced Christian life: “Humor is in fact essential in the mirth of creation.”

And before this 2024 audience with comedians, Francis discussed the topic of humor more fully in his 2018 apostolic exhortation. In this important document, addressed to the whole Catholic Church, the Pope stated that holiness is within the reach of every believer and is achieved through a joyful life. Humor has a section of its own within the exhortation.

In the audience with comedians on June 14, Francis, who took the name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, the troubadour of God, has very publicly affirmed that for Catholics, humor is an important part of a faithful life.

The meeting even concluded with one of the pope’s favorite prayers, for good humor, attributed to St. Thomas More, the chancellor of England under King Henry VIII – fitting, given More’s legendary sense of humor. Executed for treason in 1535, More is said to have asked the constable of the Tower of London to help him up the steps of the scaffold, with one of his last jokes: “For my coming down, I can shift for myself.”

The prayer asks God for, among other things, “a good sense of humor … to share with others.”The Conversation

Joanne M. Pierce, Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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Editorials: Post-colonial Panama’s defense; and Plan B

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SENAFRONT
A new class of SENAFRONT border police graduate from basic training. Panama needs to strengthen our defenses along the Colombian border, not hand the problem over to somebody else. Ministry of Public Safety photo.

With more foreboding than hope

This is not just any week, this is the last week of the worst government in history.

Miguel Antonio Bernal

In Panamanian history? We had Noriega times. We had Arnulfo Arias’s short-lived racist 1941 constitution. We had the Conservatives in Panama City during the Thousand Days War, who allowed massive famine and prohibited publicity about those who were dying of starvation. Way back when we had Pedrarias The Cruel, who killed Vasco Núñez de Balboa and then took his reign of terror to Nicaragua. We had the brutality of the Spanish Conquest of indigenous Panama. We had the centuries of slavery here. And then we have had awful kleptocracy since the bloody 1989 US invasion.

The Nito Cortizo years will be remembered as times of massive theft that left the government unable to pay its bills, setting off two huge national strikes. Bad enough to rate truly awful, but does it take a history major to look askance at the superlatives?

Let’s not hear that “He stole but he got things done” stuff. Martinelli stole tens of millions and was properly tried and sentenced to prison for it. His continued presence as a prominent factor on our political scene would be toxic to Panama’s international relations. Including with the United States, whose State Department has branded him a crook, and whose justice system jailed his two sons for laundering their father’s Odebrecht bribes. Including with Spain and through them the European Union, where he is suspected of corrupting the police and using illegal electronic surveillance to spy on a former mistress.

We get an alarm from an interview that President-elect Mulino did with Andrés Oppenheimer of The Miami Herald:

Mulino may want to solidify Panama’s status as a top US ally, in sharp contrast with Nicaragua, Honduras or other Central American governments that are either anti-American, or have tense relations with the United States.

And how would Mulino go about ditching the protection of Panama’s neutrality, which is designed to avoid the temptation of any foreign power to attack us and our canal? “Today, the US border isn’t in Texas; it’s in the Darien in Panama,” he told Oppenheimer. That’s a dangerous thing to say. As in, nearly a quarter-century after the last US military bases here closed with only semi-covert “forward operating locations” left behind, leave it to US forces to seal our border with Colombia and the US treasury to fly would-be migrants back to their countries of origin. Stated with the servile omission of any suggestion that Washington should stop the economic warfare against Venezuela that’s driving most of this migration, of course.

We’ve had an outgoing PRD government that looted Panama to the point that our government couldn’t pay its bills, generating a mostly nonviolent national uprising, and posited as its “solution” the recolonization of the isthmus by selling large parts of it off as a foreign mining colony. Is it now to be replaced by a Martinelista government that proposes to recolonize Panama by bringing back the Southern Command?

‘Don’t be alarmist,’ some might suggest. But to seal off the border with Colombia would be a huge, expensive and perhaps impossible undertaking. Panama is well nigh broke and faces severe austerity, without any proposal coming from Mulino about how we are to mobilize Panamanians to meet such a daunting challenge.

The US border does not run through Panama. We are an independent country, nobody’s “back yard.” The US “lot line” is far to our northwest, largely along the Rio Grande. Suggesting otherwise to a great power that can be and has at times been belligerent at Panama’s expense is irresponsible.

A US “technical solution” with electronic sensors in the jungle like the ones along the network of trails through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia that were supposed to win the Vietnam War for Washington? How about our own economic and technical approach, where people living along the border all have their cell phones and laptops connected to the Internet, so that they can call the police if they see a group of foreign intruders in their neighborhood? How about better cooperation with our closest neighbors there, the Colombians?

Looking farther afield for international help with a serious problem of ours can be reasonable enough. A mainstream political culture in which rival establishment parties push different versions of selling off Panama as a colony is only reason for despair. People died, people fought uphill battles over their long lifetimes, for something better than this for Panama.

There are certain toxic thoughts that are the bane of Panamanian history. “What’s in it for ME?” is one of those. So is “Let the gringos solve it.”

 

KH
Kamala Harris takes the oath as Vice President of The United States of America. DoD photo by US Air Force Senior Airman Kevin Tanenbaum.

The US system has a backup if a president becomes disabled

Set aside a rush job rerun of primaries, all the possible intra-party chicanery, exaggerated ambitions, celebrity politics. We have our stand-in, if need be, and she’s very well qualified.

 

JA

           

            If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth.

Julian Assange            

Bear in mind…

We have only the people’s hearts and minds to depend upon. If we cast them aside and lose the people’s hearts, what can we use to sustain the country?

Empress Dowager Cixi

Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.

Ann Landers

To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.

Benjamin Disraeli

 

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Assange’s original sin: publishing the truth about government lies and murder

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A US military attack on a Reuters news crew in Iraq, about which the US government lied. The attack continued against civilians who came to the rescue of the journalists and their assistants, including against several children. Nobody has ever been penalized for the deaths or the lies. US government video, obtained, decoded and released by WikiLeaks.

Don’t think that it can’t happen here

It has. The George H. W. Bush administration denied the mass civilian casualties in the invasion of Panama, falsely accused Noriega’s Dignity Battalions of starting the firestorm in El Chorrillo, and killed Spanish photojournalist Juantxu Rodríguez while he was walking down the street near the ATLAPA convention center.

When the editor of The Panama News, at the time an associate editor with the Ann Arbor newsmonthly Agenda, who came to Panama to report and visit a few days after the December 20, 1989 US attack on Panama, returned to his undergraduate alma mater, Eastern Michigan University, and spoke about the mass civilian casualties and the secret mass burials, a black ROTC sergeant called it a pack of lies, denied the mass graves and called the editor “a Zonie who sympathizes with the Hoochies.” Neither the Pentagon nor the university ever disavowed the racism.

(In its own way that was a perfect illustration of the opinion of Malcolm X, that racism is a malady that can afflict any person of any race anywhere, which in the USA of his time was a small problem among black people but a big problem among white people.)

At his sentencing in a US courtroom in Saipan — the venue carefully chosen in Washington to avoid press coverage — the judge tacitly admitted the years-long campaign of lies against Assange, noting that nobody was personally killed or injured because of what Assange published. The possibilities of reparations for the defamation campaign appear to be remote. However, individuals and institutions that participated in it go on with forever-stained reputations. 

 

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STRI, El busito de la ciencia vuelve a rodar por Panamá

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STRImobile
El Q?Bus del Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales llevará la ciencia a los colegios públicos del país. Foto por STRI.

Recorrerá las escuelas cargado de instrumentos, colecciones científicas y actividades interactivas

por STRI

De junio a noviembre, el Q?Bus del Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI) recorrerá las escuelas de Panamá cargado de instrumentos, colecciones científicas y actividades interactivas. Este minibús forma parte del programa público de STRI y desde 2018 visita colegios públicos en distintas partes del país, llevando la ciencia de manera divertida al aula para despertar la curiosidad innata de los niños, niñas y adolescentes. Uno de sus objetivos es eliminar las barreras logísticas y económicas al conocimiento científico.

Este año, el Q?Bus llegará a nuevas regiones del país gracias al apoyo de la Iniciativa Adrienne Arsht de Soluciones de Resiliencia Basadas en la Comunidad. Por primera vez, visitará las provincias de Bocas del Toro, Chiriquí, Veraguas y Coclé. También estará en Colón y Panamá Oeste. El programa se enfocará principalmente en aulas de Premedia (7mo a 9no grado), una etapa de muchos cambios y crecimiento a nivel social, emocional y académico.

Además de ampliar el alcance geográfico de las escuelas a visitar en 2024, el Q?Bus se estrenará en diversas ferias a nivel nacional. Estas estrategias le permitirán exponer a una población mayor y más diversa al conocimiento científico.

En 2020, debido a la pandemia, el Q?Bus puso en pausa su programación presencial y se volcó a las plataformas digitales con la creación de Q?Digital. Este programa público de STRI es una plataforma de aprendizaje virtual dirigida a niños, padres y educadores.

Para conocer más acerca de los programas públicos de STRI, visite este enlace. Para solicitar una visita del Q?Bus a su colegio, feria u organización comunitaria, puede escribir a: striqbus@si.edu

 

Contact us by email at / Contáctanos por correo electrónico a thepanamanews@gmail.com

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.

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The guy Mulino chose to oversee railroad construction…

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2d suspension
There are caveats. Should one or two mistakes over the course of a career be all that matters about qualifications? Should the conflicts of interest of those who raise the issue count in the calculations? Are there more specific qualifications that should be demanded for running a national project with a price tag in the billions? Screenshot from the Gaceta Oficial, wherein the man chosen to head the biggest project that President-elect Mulino advocates had his engineer’s and architect’s license suspended for a year for negligently building a San Miguelito housing development on a landslide-prone spot.

Questionable appointment, questionable questioners

by Eric Jackson

La Prensa has pointed out that Henry Faarup, the man chosen to head a Panama City to David train project, has twice had his professional license suspended for negligent work by the Engineering and Architecture Technical Board (JTIA, an agency of the Ministry of Public Works).

So what, exactly, has been Mr. Faarup’s career, and why might La Prensa be sensitive to any issues arising from it?

For one thing, La Prensa’s founder, Bobby Eisenmann, is a real estate developer like Faarup. That daily is set up to have no one controlling owner, but other heavyweight families in the real estate and allied banking and construction industries — the Tribaldoses, the Planellses and the Sucres, for examples — have their current or historical associations with La Prensa or with the political and social circles in which those folks move. Not to get into the conspiratorial world view that’s all the rage in parts of US society these days, but in business and social circles they’d tend to be aware of real estate developers and their reputations. But on the other hand to the extent that they might be business competitors it could create conflicts of interest that might lead on to expect an undue slant in reporting.

2006
From the Gaceta Oficial, a prior suspension for Mr. Faarup, for six months in 2006.

Set aside this old Panagringo hippie’s distrust of Panama’s elite families, if you can, but without forgetting that there is no such thing as “completely objective journalism” where the experiences, upbringing, schooling, native tongue and social situation of the reporter impart no bias. Both a ruthless late Chinese politician and an outstanding Chinese-American reporter, Chairman Mao and Joie Chen respectively, in their own ways warned us that there is no such thing as writing without a point of view. With those two boulders of salt about bias in mind, and given Faarup’s public record, consider two things:

  1. Does a career as a real estate developer especially qualify an engineer to direct the construction of a railroad?
  2. Given the common faults of Panamanian transportation construction — bad drainage or no drainage is a biggie — and a changing climate, can we expect prudent routing and construction techniques with a longer view than toward the immediate future with respect to to this expensive railroad project?

I don’t know. I’m not an engineer. I just have a decade on a small Rust Belt city building code appeals board, and a couple of terms on that place’s city council to instruct me, which doesn’t and shouldn’t get me an engineer’s license.

Plus, I do know that people learn from mistakes, that the guy who is knocked down can get up and win the fight.

It does, however, seem to be a time for rude questions.

 

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Steve Steuart’s glimpses of this year’s National Artisan’s Fair

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ceramics
Ceramics in an ancient style. This we know from grave goods of the pre-Columbian Coclean culture, and from objects unearthed in Colombia and elsewhere of the Chibchan culture from which five of Panama’s seven indigenous nations descend.

We most reliably attract visitors to Panama with shows like this

photos and video by Steve Steuart, captions by Eric Jackson

International tourism? Better we give people something interesting and fun to do, rather than subsidize redundant hotels. National tourism? People come from all over Panama to the ATLAPA convention center to celebrate the Artisans’ Fairs that celebrate the cultural expressions of who we are. Some come for utilitarian reasons, to buy a new hat or a new chacara (woven bag of a variety that Ngabe and Bugle craftspeople make. A lot of those who attend do Christmas shopping, or add to the decoration of their homes, at these fairs.

mola hats
The applique and reverse applique molas that Guna artisans make are perhaps the best known by outsiders bit of Panamanian indigenous culture. Less well known is the baseball fan aspect of the Guna nation.
sombreros pintados
WHAT?!?!?!? These aren’t what’s internationally known as Panama hats! True enough. When part of the California Gold Rush crowd was coming through here, and later when the French were working on a canal, 19th century visitors noticed the popularity here of hats made in Ecuador and brought a lot of them with them to North America and Europe. Hence the technically incorrect name. OUR main national style in hats is the sombrero pintado, like these examples here. If you are going to live in Panama, better to protect your eyes and skin by wearing a hat while outdoors.
diablito interiorano
A potter’s hands and a ceramic version of a diablito mask. This one is in the Interiorano style that prevails in Panama Oeste and the Azuero Peninsula.
congo diablito
This diablito mask looks like it’s right out of West Africa, and is typical of the congo culture found on Colon’s Costa Arriba and in the Darien. Many African slaves brought to toil in the Spanish colonial shipping industry had ideas of their own — they ran away to the jungle and set up African-style villages. These were the Cimarrones, who with some British encouragement fought a war led by Bayano against the Spaniards. The rebellion was crushed but not the culture, nor the population. Ultimately the Catholic Church added overlays of symbolism and allegory to congo dancing — don’t want to have devil worship or anything like that when missionaries can change the story.
pollera
A beautifully embroidered pollera. Panamanians will and do argue about the origins of the emblematic national dress. Back in 15th century Spain, something like these sorts of dresses were common and perhaps got their name from the practice of feeding the chickens by carrying a bit of the grain in the folds. But before the fall of Granada and expulsion of Spanish Muslims and Jews in 1492, Jews were something around one-quarter to one-third of the population of Arab Spain, and the Christian takeover meant to many Spanish minorities conversion to Catholicism rather than exile. But habits continued, like a tradition of modesty wherein women covered up, not necessarily as in the Muslim veil, but still. THEN, brought over to Panama and evolving into the intricate embroidery that only the rich could afford, WHO did all of that needle work? Mostly slaves, but you still have a lot of white Panamanians who steadfastly deny the black origins of the polleras we know, and who insist that the congo dancing polleras descended from the Cimarrones aren’t actually polleras.
tembleqies
So, what to wear with a pollera? To be traditional, tembleques like these.
Performance art is also a big attraction at the Artisans’ Fairs.
furniture
Hardwood and leather furniture? Also a utilitarian part of our culture on display and for sale.
Embera art
These days, people decorating their skin is more popular than it used to be. In the Panamanian tradition, it need not be in the form of permanent tattoos. Here a woman gets some traditional Embera art painted onto her arm. It’s a plant substance, usually the liquid from boiled unripe genip fruit, that eventually washes or wears off. The Embera and the Wounaan, unlike the other five indigenous nations here, speak languages of the Chocoan family rather than Chibchan tongues.
jewelry
Jewelry based on some truly ancient designs. How old? We don’t precisely know, but figure that goldwork like this was being made in the village where Pedrarias The Cruel founded Panama City, and that things like this are found in graves both in Panama and in Colombia. THEN, get into metallurgy and geology. You can tell more or less, by the composition of the gold / silver / copper alloy, from whence the metal in a piece of pre-Columbian gold jewelry came. Archaeologists digging in Panama have found gold that was heirloom stuff when buried with its owner very long ago, of South American provenance. It’s probably evidence of what people brought with them on migrations more than 1,000 years ago more than it indicates pre-Colombian trade networks, which also did exist.
stained glass
The Republic of Panama emerged from Bolivar’s Gran Colombia experiment after decades of intermittent 19th century warfare, often about whether the Catholic Church would be the official religion, or on the other hand if we would have a secular state. Talking about the religious aspects of our history is still controversial. Yet there is no denying that at key moments Christianity provided the bond that kept Panama together as a society, notwithstanding our religious diversity. Thus at celebrations of Panamanian culture that the Artisans’ Fairs are, you will find Christian art, not only as in this work in stained glass.
 

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Beluche, Prólogo al libro Geopsiquis de una nación

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book

“Geopsiquis de una nación. Ensayos sobre una
forma terrestre” de Ariadna García Rodríguez

prólogo de Olmedo Beluche
Es grato presentar a continuación esta excelente trilogía ensayística de la escritora e investigadora Ariadna García Rodríguez titulada Geopsiquis de una nación, no solo por la calidad literaria que ella ha alcanzado, y que le ha sido reconocida también en campos como la poesía y el microcuento, sino también porque creemos que estos escritos constituyen un aporte trascendental para la comprensión del hecho nacional panameño.
 
El libro Geopsiquis de una nación, neologismo creado por la autora, y producto de investigaciones previas ya publicadas, poco conocidas o no conocidas en el país, contiene los ensayos titulados: “Vasco Núñez de Balboa y la geopsiquis de una nación” (2001, 2013), “De inauguraciones y traiciones: Travesía por la Mar del Sur” (2005) y “Por una poética de lo transitorio: Panamá, paso y frontera” (2006).
 
Dichos ensayos deben ser estudiados tanto por quienes se dedican a la literatura o la docencia literaria como por quienes pretendan incursionar en un estudio acerca del Istmo de Panamá desde la historia, la geografía, la filosofía y la sociología. Estos ensayos trascienden los límites disciplinares de la crítica literaria para situarnos en una reflexión profunda, más abarcadora, acerca de lo que es la nación panameña, o de lo que se ha querido que sea y sobre cómo se ha construido su imaginario, incluso más allá de las fronteras nacionales.
 
Aunque los ensayos han sido publicados en momentos diferentes, para públicos distintos, forman parte de una misma unidad temática y su lectura debe ser tratada como piezas de un todo. En este sentido son una reflexión crítica que no se limita al análisis de una novela, como es el caso de “Vasco Núñez de Balboa. El tesoro del Dabaibe” de Octavio Méndez Pereira, sino que se extiende a los íconos en torno a los cuales se ha cimentado el imaginario ístmico global a través del tiempo, por ejemplo en un poema de John Keats y un cuento de Carlos Fuentes. Entre todos los abordajes de la intelectualidad panameña sobre el “problema” nacional, estos escritos destacan por su originalidad.
 
El primero de estos tres ensayos fue presentado en 1999 en el Primer Congreso Internacional de Literatura Panameña y publicado en la Revista Iberoamericana en 2001. Posteriormente, fue incluido en una antología de la Academia Panameña de la Lengua, en una edición conmemorativa titulada Núñez de Balboa” de Octavio Méndez Pereira, con motivo de los 500 años del “descubrimiento” del Mar del Sur en 2013.
 
Este trabajo ha sido citado por escritores e investigadores como Luis Pulido Ritter, en su conocido libro titulado Filosofía de la nación romántica. (Seis ensayos críticos sobre el pensamiento intelectual y filosófico en Panamá, 1930 – 1960), al igual que Rafael Ruiloba, Carlos Fitzgerald, Danae Brugiati, entre otros. No obstante, a pesar del largo recorrido de dicho artículo el mismo sigue sin alcanzar un público más amplio en el país, y los otros dos no son conocidos, con lo cual la presente publicación busca solventar dicha ausencia en las letras del istmo.
 
Ariadna García Rodríguez manifiesta que se interesa por la obra de Octavio Méndez Pereira porque “la misma se convierte en la ‘biografía novelada’ de la nación al incorporar lo geográfico como razón de ser y justificación de lo nacional”. Mediante esta novela, publicada en 1934, el conquistador adquiere la nacionalidad panameña a la vez que se constituye en su fundador, nos dice la autora.
 
Ella establece muy bien la relación de esta novela y el momento histórico que atravesaba la república de Panamá, habiendo nacido de una separación de Colombia motivada y tutelada por Estados Unidos, partida en dos por un canal, convirtiéndola en una zona que funcionaba como la “quinta frontera”. Respecto de esa novela, Pulido Ritter dice que la nación necesitaba un héroe que encontrara su realización en la muerte. La obra de Méndez Pereira fabricó ese héroe.
 
En su conocido libro sobre “Comunidades imaginadas”, Benedict Anderson afirma que dos de los instrumentos decisivos en la edificación de las naciones modernas, han sido el periódico y la novela, en especial a partir de su masificación en el siglo XVIII.  La novela en particular, género nacido con la modernidad, influye en la forma de entender el mundo por parte de las personas. La novela contribuyó a la construcción de las mentalidades modernas.
 
La novela crea “comunidades imaginadas” de lectores, como apunta Anderson; mundos geográficamente localizados, con personajes ficticios que viven realidades con las que se puede identificar su público lector, para quienes los héroes y heroínas se pueden sentir como propios. Las novelas históricas, que exaltan pasados descritos épicamente, que en la mente del lector se visualizan como “hechos” reales, han tenido un papel central en la construcción de las las naciones en el sentido moderno de la palabra.
 
García Rodríguez disecciona al héroe, a la novela y a la identidad nacional panameña, obligándonos a repensarla. Como ella misma afirma en “Por una poética de lo transitorio: Panamá, Paso y Frontera”, el tercero de sus escritos, en donde podemos leer:

Y justo cuando la encrucijada de las rutas se trasluce en la movediza transición del enunciado, Panamá se inventa y re-inventa mucho antes del canal bien como estrecho de tierra, como camino de cruces, como comunidad hanseática, como estado federal, como Istmo, como Caribe, como aldea global e incluso como puente del mundo o corazón del universo, de acuerdo al dictado bolivariano y lema popular para referirse al país. Este adjunto, este anexo, esta pieza movible del rompecabezas que suele brillar por su ausencia, este enunciado de lo accidental, el “and Panama” o el “step on the way” parece invitarnos a recorrer, a re-pensar, re-pasar, como también a detenernos —justo en esa acepción o sentido académico-disciplinario del vocablo frontera— en una travesía de paso por lo transitorio.

Somos de la convicción de que estos ensayos de Ariadna García Rodríguez se convertirán en un referente obligado para quienes estudien la historiografía literaria panameña y para quienes estudien la historia de nuestra nación. Es así porque la pluma de García Rodríguez hace parte de un conjunto de ensayistas nacionales que, en pleno siglo XXI, una vez liberado el país del enclave colonial de la Zona del Canal, habiendo alcanzado el país su madurez estatal y nacional, pueden mirar de frente nuestro pasado para desnudar los mitos, bajar a los próceres de sus estatuas y acercarnos a la verdad histórica.
 

 

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Mikhalchan, ¿Son reciclables los nanotubos de carbono?

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nanotube yarn
Nanotubos de carbono hilados para formar un hilo. Imagen Wikimedia por CISRO.

Antes de salvar el mundo con nanotubos de carbono, ¿sabemos si son reciclables?

por Anastasiia Mikhalchan

Pueden reemplazar materiales intensivos en CO², como el cobre, el acero y el aluminio en las industrias de construcción, aeroespacial, automotriz y otras. Son la apuesta global para una transición energética en marcha.

Los nanotubos de carbono, filamentos 2 000 veces más finos que un cabello, ya se utilizan en las baterías adecuadas para dispositivos electrónicos portátiles, y cada vez en más compuestos estructurales, cables eléctricos y sensores en textiles inteligentes y tecnología ponible. Pero ¿pueden reciclarse? ¿Y si llenamos el mundo de nanotubos de carbono y acaban siendo el gran problema del nuevo siglo?

Actualmente, la capacidad mundial de producción de nanotubos de carbono (CNT) está en el orden de los 10 kt/año, una tasa que aumenta aproximadamente un 30% anualmente. Y esto podría acelerarse a escala de megatoneladas si los esfuerzos de iniciativas como Carbon Hub tienen éxito y los nanocarbonos comienzan a estar disponibles como coproductos del hidrógeno turquesa. Incluso se espera de ellos que sirvan para desplazar a los metales.

Sin embargo, hasta donde sabemos, no ha habido ningún intento de explotar el reciclaje de materiales de nanotubos de carbono (CNT) a macroescala a partir de sus compuestos. ¿Son útiles después de su uso? ¿Merece la pena empezar ya a investigar el proceso de reutilización de los nanotubos de carbono?

¿Reciclables?

Desde el Instituto IMDEA Materiales acabamos de publicar en la revista Carbon un trabajo innovador que demuestra, por primera vez, la capacidad de reciclar láminas de nanotubos de carbono (CNT) de alto rendimiento preservando su forma, alineación estructural, propiedades mecánicas y eléctricas y su flexibilidad intrínseca.

Los macromateriales del futuro son un sustituto novedoso de los polvos comúnmente conocidos como CNT individuales. En IMDEA Materiales desarrollamos fibras, hilos y tejidos únicos hechos de miles de millones de CNT interconectados que forman redes a nanoescala. Son flexibles, ligeros, resistentes y conductores de electricidad y calor, y pueden utilizarse en muchas aplicaciones de ingeniería.

Estas fibras y láminas de CNT poseen una alta resistencia estructural y flexibilidad, así como propiedades mecánicas, eléctricas y térmicas elevadas. Esto permite su uso en el refuerzo estructural en laminados compuestos, así como en sensores de deformación/estrés imprimibles, conductores eléctricos y ánodos de baterías flexibles, entre otras aplicaciones. Estas propiedades son las que los hacen tan versátiles.

Nuestro objetivo era comprobar hasta qué punto sus propiedades se mantienen intactas después de someterlas a un proceso de reciclado.

Tratamiento térmico

Sometimos láminas de distinta densidad (incluidas las comerciales) a un proceso de tratamiento térmico de dos pasos.

Las láminas de CNT recicladas demostraron una retención casi total de las propiedades mecánicas y eléctricas. Esto demuestra que los materiales de alto rendimiento hechos de nanotubos de carbono son reciclables y pueden ser reutilizados en la misma aplicación como refuerzo estructural o conductores eléctricos y ánodos de baterías flexibles, entre otras aplicaciones.

Como un Lego®

Las láminas recicladas podrían volver a su estado inicial, como bloques de construcción. Los CNT pueden disolverse y convertirse en soluciones cristalinas líquidas, que luego podrían ser rehilados en una nueva fibra de alta calidad.

Sería como descomponer un modelo Lego en sus ladrillos individuales, y luego reconstruir el modelo original con la misma forma, robustez y calidad.

Esto no es posible con las fibras de carbono convencionales porque su estructura está formada por cristalitos que se fusionan, por lo que no pueden ser descompuestas en cristalitos individuales y volver a grafitizarse en un filamento de fibra continuo.

En cambio, los nanotubos de carbono son capaces de disolverse y pueden ser rehilados en una fibra, algo que ya se hace a escala comercial.

Reutilizar los nuevos materiales permitirá que no volvamos a cometer los mismos errores del pasado. ¿Empezamos?The Conversation

Anastasiia Mikhalchan, Investigadora Asociada Senior de Compuestos nanoestructurados, IMDEA MATERIALES

Este artículo fue publicado originalmente en The Conversation. Lea el original.

 

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Clarence Thomas defends “gun rights” in domestic violence cases

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Trump and Thomas
“The Thomas dissent is only further proof that he is simply a threat to America,” said the father of a mass shooting victim. Trump and Thomas at the October 2020 swearing-in of Justice Barrett. White House photo by Tia Dufour.

‘Truly evil’ Clarence Thomas defends guns for domestic abusers

by Jessica Corbett – Common Dreams

“Thank goodness. Also, Clarence Thomas is truly evil.”

That’s how one progressive pollster responded Friday to the US Supreme Court’s 8-1 ruling in United States v. Rahimi, which upheld a law prohibiting individuals subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm.

Critics across the political spectrum called Thomas’ lone dissent in the case “insane” and blasted the right-wing justice as “fucking awful,” a “corrupt lunatic,” and a “contemptible POS” who “continues to undermine the safety of women and disgrace the court.”

Some pointed out that after Thomas was nominated to the court in 1991 by then-President George H. W. Bush, during the Senate confirmation process, Anita Hill accused the future justice of sexually harassing her. More recently, Thomas has faced demands for his recusal or even resignation because he took gifts from right-wing billionaires and declined to report them.

Journalist Matt Fuller highlighted a portion of Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion that describes various instances of Zackey Rahimi behaving violently with a weapon, including a December 2019 interaction with C.M., the mother of his child.

“C. M. attempted to leave, but Rahimi grabbed her by the wrist, dragged her back to his car, and shoved her in, causing her to strike her head against the dashboard,” Roberts wrote. “When he realized that a bystander was watching the altercation, Rahimi paused to retrieve a gun from under the passenger seat. C. M. took advantage of the opportunity to escape. Rahimi fired as she fled, although it is unclear whether he was aiming at C. M. or the witness.”

Amid expressions of relief that the court’s other members joined Roberts’ majority opinion—with several also writing concurring opinions—Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts said that “the Rahimi case should never have been taken up by SCOTUS. To even question whether domestic abusers should have access to guns shows just how extreme this court has become.”

Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was murdered in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, said that he was “glad to see the Supreme Court got it right” in Rahimi, compared with the 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

“This case only existed because of the horrible Bruen ruling, a decision written by Justice Thomas who was the lone dissent here,” Guttenberg noted. “I am hoping that they cleaned up some of the Bruen issues with this case. The Thomas dissent is only further proof that he is simply a threat to America.”

Bruen struck down New York state’s restrictions on the concealed carry of firearms in public but had a broader effect on various gun control laws—which legal experts said could be further disrupted by the new decision. Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern explained Friday that while “both the majority and several concurrences are attempting to narrow and refine Bruen,” Thomas “says everybody else misunderstood his opinion” in the 2022 case.

Thomas wrote Friday that after Bruen, “this court’s directive was clear: A firearm regulation that falls within the Second Amendment’s plain text is unconstitutional unless it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Not a single historical regulation justifies the statute at issue.”

However, given the majority, Stern predicted that “A LOT of lower court decisions that interpreted Bruen as a maximalist cudgel against virtually all modern gun safety measures—and struck down a bunch of laws accordingly—are about to get vacated and remanded by the Supreme Court for reconsideration in light of Rahimi.”

This is a win for the gun safety movement and another loss for the gun lobby hellbent on putting lives in danger.

Gun control advocates cheered Friday’s ruling—which overturned a decision from the far-right US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit—and what it could mean for future court battles.

“Today, we’re celebrating that the Supreme Court ensured that the lives and safety of millions across the country will be protected over the desires of gun rights extremists. This is a win for the gun safety movement and another loss for the gun lobby hellbent on putting lives in danger,” declared Moms Demand Action executive director Angela Ferrell-Zabala.

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who has worked on gun violence prevention since surviving a 2011 shooting, said that “this is a win for women, children, and anyone who has experienced domestic abuse,” and it “would not have been possible without the work of gun safety and domestic violence advocates across the country.”

People for the American Way President Svante Myrick called out the “extreme, ultraconservative 5th Circuit” and stressed that while “we’re glad” the justices “made a reasonable ruling” in Rahimi, “we can’t lose sight of the fact that far-right majorities on the Supreme Court and a lower court set the stage for what could have been a disaster.”

“In fact, the majority of the court made clear that they may well invalidate other gun safety rules under Bruen even after today’s decision,” he warned. “That’s why we have to keep courts in mind when we go to the polls in November.”

In the November election, Democratic President Joe Biden is set to face former Republican President Donald Trump. While Trump’s three appointees to the high court sided with Roberts in Rahimi, they were also part of the majorities in Bruen and Garland v. Cargill, a ruling from last week that struck down the Trump administration’s bump stock ban.

Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday that “while President Biden and I stand up to the gun lobby, Donald Trump bows down. Trump has made clear he believes Americans should ‘get over’ gun violence, and we cannot allow him to roll back commonsense protections or appoint the next generation of Supreme Court justices.”

“This case is yet another reminder that some want to take our country back to a time when women were not treated as equal to men and were not allowed to vote—and husbands could subject their wives to physical violence without it being considered a crime,” Harris added. “Trump is a threat to our freedoms and our safety, and we must defeat him in November.”

The US National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), by texting “START” to 88788, or through chat at thehotline.org. It offers 24/7, free, and confidential support. DomesticShelters.org has a list of global and national resources.

 

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