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Yes, the Central American Percussion Festivals that are one of the cultural features of August in Panama City are promoted as a series of excellent concerts that one need not be possessed of beatnik tendencies to appreciate. But like all of the stuff that the Danilo Pérez Foundation does, it mainly has an educational purpose. The stars of the evening performances are the teachers by day. Nobody gets rich from these events — at least, not directly so in a pecuniary sense — but Panama does get enriched.
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[Editor’s note: The “www.dpanama.news” website is unrelated to The Panama News and never had any relationship. The former publication, of far more recent vintage than the latter, generally goes by the name “D Panamá” or “Democracía Panamá” and on its masthead sounds certain anti-oligarchic themes that one might also see played out in The Panama News. There have been a number of folks who have in one way or another pirated The Panama News name since we began publication in 1994 — some with the specific intent of sowing confusion intended to harm The Panama News — and there is the ever present apprehension that some thug who has pirated the name will go to court and pretend to be the “real” thing and get this website shut down and erased. The editor of The Panama News will refrain from trying to read the mind of the editor of D Panamá about this point at this time.]
The journalism as extortion racket meme has again come front and center in Panama. Historically it has almost always been bogus, but there is also a history of mass communications media being used for blackmail, for the most unfair sorts of political smears and in unseemly disputes with rival media organizations. The latest episode pits Aldo Lopez Tirone, an occasional PRD apparatchik and relatively minor business figure, against Emanuel González-Revilla, member of a noteworthy oligarchic family who has hydroelectric dam, banking, retail and media interests who is President Varela’s ambassador in Washington. Lopez Tirone was a Norieguista back in the late 80s when it became unpopular to be such. came back into influence with the PRD’s return to power in 1994, serving as deputy director of the SINAPROC disaster relief agency. Having served in various party positions, Lopez Tirone was rewarded with a major plum — big salary, juicy perks, immunity from criminal investigation, little public notice and almost no work — a seat in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) between 2009 and 2014. As is common with Panama’s political caste, in between rides on the public office gravy train Lopez Tirone has dedicated himself to private pursuits. This time around one of his ventures is a news and commentary website, D Panama.
Aldo Lopez Tirone studied agribusiness in Chile and bought a business and finance diploma from the “Rocheville University” Pakistan-based online diploma mill. Such knowledge he has of the news business comes from political activities on various campaign trails and as a reader, viewer and listener of various media. In a way, he would be a poster boy for the Sindicato de Periodistas argument that Panama should license journalists and restrict the profession to those who graduate from the University of Panama’s Faculty of Social Communications. (But of course, from the ranks of such graduates it would be easy to come up with poster children to illustrate one of the arguments for the proposition that this licensing scheme a bad idea.) That a man who has held elected and appointed public offices and party posts within the PRD flaunts academic fraud on his Facebook page reflects part of the corrupt world view that is widely held among Panama’s political caste.
Emanuel González-Revilla studied business administration in the United States, with a BS from Wharton and an MBA from the University of Miami. These days his main business interests are in hydroelectric dams. He is on the boards of directors of Cable Onda and of the Delta gas station chain. He has been a player on the Panama City banking scene, which is now consolidated under mostly Colombian ownership. His extended family, perhaps the richest and most powerful in Chiriqui province, owns a chain of pharmacies and a major stake in MEDCOM, which spun off Cable Onda and runs the RPC and Telemetro TV channels. While the Gozález-Revilla surname plays prominently in PRD circles, that Emanuel serves in a Panameñista administration reflects a tendency among rabiblanco clans to place their sons among the various contending political forces so as to maintain family influence no matter which political party gains the upper hand.
So what’s the scoop? According to Lopez Tirone, it’s that the ambassador’s son does drugs and beat somebody up.
Taken, for the sake of argument, that this story is absolutely true, it would still cross a bright red line in Panamanian media culture and social discourse. Public officials have private lives that are generally off limits to publicity, and the private lives of their children are yet farther out of bounds. But there are exceptions to this. Does a president hire his mistress’s worthless and fugitive from justice brother as a diplomat? That allows a breaking of the normal taboo about discussing politicians’ mistresses. Were illegal drugs transported in a government car, or was illegal business conducted from an official residence? If a relative of a public official is involved in that sort of thing, it becomes newsworthy. But a drunken or drugged out brawl among adolescents, one of them the offspring of a public official, is a tale that almost all Panamanian journalists ignore, or at least just file in their memory for reference if the day comes when said wayward son decides to seek public office. We can argue about the propriety of such standards and hypocritical distinctions in their application, but those are parts of the Panamanian peculiarity about privacy.
The charge is that Lopez Tirone shook down the ambassador for a payment in exchange for not publicizing the alleged incident involving the latter’s son. But the defense is that the elder González-Revilla came to the editor of D Panama with an offer of a bribe not to publish the story, this offer was rejected, and there ensued a set-up in which the big proof was a $5,000 check enclosed in an envelope placed under the windshield wiper of the editor’s car.
Lopez Tirone’s home and car were raided on August 17 and he was taken into custody by police. After two days of interrogation, assistant prosecutor Marcelino Aguilar ordered him jailed under preventive detention for extortion.
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Is his parachute gold or platinum? And is it diamond studded, or merely zircon encrusted? By the terms that have been published, it appears that it will be worth $184,320 to the rector who issued the decree.
He still could run afoul of the Comptroller General or the courts, but the disgraced and defeated outgoing rector of the University of Panama, Gustavo García de Paredes, is doing some major spending on his way out. Having lost the popular vote in 2011 but won on the strength of a weighting system that gave those professors with tenure and administrative employees whom he had hired extra votes, the self-styled Rector Magnífico had intended to run for another term this year but stepped down in the face of multiple scandals, audits and criminal investigations. Had his followers not fought among themselves, perhaps his political machine might have held onto power. But that was not to be and when it became apparent that the game was up many of those who owed their positions to García de Paredes’s patronage headed for the exits. His loyalists were able to be elected as deans of several departments and directors of several regional university branches but his 2011 opponent Eduardo Flores won this time by a wide enough margin to constitute a clear mandate for change.
The results of the June 29 voting took nearly a week to be officially announced. In the wake of the proclamation of physics professor Flores’s election, the winner called for an orderly transition and the avoidance of any major spending decisions. At the time rumors flew around of a mid-July resignation by García de Paredes.
But the outgoing rector ignored calls for the appointment of a joint transition team, decreed job tenure for his vice rectors and other political appointees, approved a $97.4 million contract for the construction of new campuses in San Miguelito and the Clayton Antenna Field, and most recently decreed a series of retirement bonuses. Those who retire early after 10 years of service get six months of their highest salary. Those with 30 years or more of service get 15 months of their highest salary. Considering that the university rector makes more than the president of Panama and the vice rectors make more than national government ministers, it’s quite the generous severance package.
The contracts for the new campuses, the freezing of political appointees into positions in the new administration and the retirement bonuses are all going to be challenged, before the Comptroller General and if they get past that filter in the courts. Look for all of the vice rectors to be locked out of their offices soon after Flores takes over on October 1, then a years-long legal battle over compensation for their ousters. But look at the bonuses as insurance and avoidance, or at least an attempt at these things. If the Rector Magnifico can arrange for these bonuses to be paid out before he leaves office, then he and his entourage can be on their merry ways, leaving the University of Panama that much poorer but at least with that crowd out of the way.
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La campaña electoral en EEUU ha tomado un curso pocas veces — quizás nunca — vista en el pasado. Los dos grandes partidos políticos, el Demócrata –fundado a principios del siglo XIX — y el Republicano — a mediados del decimonono — se han colocado en posiciones políticas sin salida. Por un lado, Donald Trump, el especulador de Nueva York, se tomó el ‘Partido de Lincoln’ mientras que las elites (el ‘establishment’) jugaban con evangélicos, conservadores y una masa de trabajadores frustrados que terminaron dándole vuelta a la mesa.
El Partido Demócrata se contentó con presentar a la señora Hillary de Clinton como sucesora y continuadora del presidente Barack Obama. El poder financiero que controla la maquinaria del partido de FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) al mejor estilo de la política mexicana del “gallo tapado” pretendió correr toda la distancia con su candidata imbatible. Las bases de su partido se rebelaron y se volcaron a favor de un viejo socialista quien presentó su candidatura a la Casa Blanca sin mayores pretensiones.
El ‘viejo’ senador Bernie Sanders hizo una campaña ‘esquizofrénica’ que le dio espléndidos resultados. Por un lado, atacó a los amigos de Hilary, dueños de Wall Street acusándolos de ser el un por ciento de los ricos que quieren acabar con la clase media y con el país. Su discurso se prendió a lo largo y ancho de EEUU y no pudo ser apagado, a pesar de los millones que invertía la cúpula agazapada en los bancos más grandes de Nueva York.
Por el otro, sin embargo, Sanders no atacó el flanco más débil de la ‘Secretaria de Estado’. Su falta de credibilidad y mensajes monótonos no fueron objeto de críticas por parte del candidato de la ‘izquierda’. Esta tarea la asumió el Partido Republicano y su candidato Donald Trump. Hillary tiene un largo historial desde cuando su esposo era el gobernador de Arkansas (en la década de 1980), después Presidente de EEUU (década de 1990) y cuando ella ganó un escaño senatorial a principios del siglo y renunció para ser la Secretaria de Estado de Obama. Un total de 30 años políticos escabrosos y llenos de problemas.
Trump no sólo le saca sus trapos sucios, acusándola de promover la pérdida de empleos y los tratados comerciales que exportan puestos de trabajo. También la coloca a la cabeza del grupo de ‘halcones’ liberales de Washington. La asocia a las guerras en el Medio Oriente, las amenazas a Rusia y el cerco contra China. Trump ha demostrado que Hillary es la peor candidata a la Presidencia de EEUU que pudo haber seleccionado la elite financiera del Partido Demócrata. Lo único que la salva es que Trump es aún peor. Desde la década de 1960 (Barry Goldwater), el Partido Republicano no ha tenido un peor candidato.
Trump ha alienado a vastos sectores del electorado norteamericano. Comenzando con los inmigrantes mexicanos, los negros, los musulmanes e, incluso, las mujeres. Según Hilary, el magnate de los casinos favorecería a los ricos con reformas tributarias y les daría contratos petroleros, minerales y forestales que destruirían el ambiente. La exprimera dama alega que Trump no tiene experiencia en política internacional y representaría un ‘peligro’ si llegara a tener las claves para desatar una guerra nuclear.
El problema que enfrenta el mundo actual es que ambos tienen razón. Hilary es asesorada por los ‘halcones’ más decididos a desestabilizar o a declararle la guerra a cualquier país que no se someta. Pareciera que en su orden del día está contener a China, arruinar a Rusia y, de paso, declarar las guerras necesarias para subyugar al resto del planeta.
Trump puede ser menos sofisticado pero sus objetivos son muy parecidos. Mientras que Wall Street y Hilary juegan a escala global, Trump tiene una visión más vinculada a la economía de EEUU. Sus enemigos son México y China que, en su opinión, juegan según las reglas de la banca financiera anglo-norteamericana. El discurso cae muy bien en los sectores más golpeados y frustrados en EEUU por la recesión económica casi permanente.
Este análisis, que no ha mencionado nombres propios, será ampliado en el XV Congreso Nacional de Sociología que se efectuará en la Universidad de Panamá la próxima semana. Los organizadores tendrán una mesa especial dedicada a EEUU y las aparentes guerras sin fin que ambos candidatos le prometen a sus electores. ¿Qué impacto tendrá esta política sobre Panamá y América Latina?
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Another day, another Democratic Party leak. Today’s leak includes internal party documents assessing congressional primaries. Guess what? The “party of the people” favors conservatives. And rich self-funders. And businessmen over people engaged in community service. Further, the party never hesitates to throw its weight around in such races, to bury the progressive candidates.
Sound familiar?
We cannot let corrupt party bosses dictate Democratic Party nominees. That choice belongs to us, not them.
Here’s what’s really going on:
Merge — watch the corporate puppets in both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party try to wipe out all dissent, and merge into one callous, monopolistic Big Money Party, remaking America into a land of cheap labor and debt slavery.
Purge — but before they can do that, the Democratic Party much perform a soul-ectomy, ridding itself of anyone dedicated to justice, equality, compassion and peace, so that we can all worship the God Mammon together.
Surge — and the only way that progressives — people with a head and a heart — can prevent that bloodless coup within the un-Democratic Party is to come together, and support progressive Democrats wherever and whenever we can. Especially when progressive Democrats are pitted against party tools and hacks. We have to show the party bosses that we’re the real bosses.
We. Can. Win.
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La Fundación Danilo Pérez y Panama Jazz Productions, compañía de producción que organiza el Panama Jazz Festival, les invita a la celebración del Quinto Festival de Percusión de Centroamérica (FEPECE 2016), a realizarse los días 19 y 20 de agosto, en Casco Antiguo San Felipe.
El FEPECE, es un evento académico, cultural y artístico, con clínicas musicales que se desarrollarán el viernes 19 de agosto entre 2 a 7 p.m. y el sábado 20 de agosto desde 9 a 2 p.m. y presentaciones musicales desde las 7:30pm con grupos representantes de Panamá, Colombia, Estados Unidos, Venezuela, y otros países invitados.
El FEPECE16, es organizado por Fundación Danilo Pérez, en colaboración con Panamá Jazz Productions, el Berklee Global Jazz Institute de Berklee College of Music (Boston, MA) y con la participación de reconocidos percusionistas de todo el mundo, percusionistas de todo el mundo. En esta quinta edición se le rendirá homenaje al destacado percusionista panameño Anel Sanders (padre).
Entre los artistas invitados al festival se destacan Luisito Quintero de Venezuela, ganador de más de 30 Grammy, entre El Grammy Americano y el Grammy Latino, ha grabado (participado) en su vida Artística en más de 500 producciones musicales, de todos los géneros habidos y por haber, es realmente un fenómeno en la Percusión ya no solamente Latina si no en el mundo entero. Roberto Quintero, Percusionista Venezolano,17 veces ganador al premio Grammy en géneros como Latin Jazz, Salsa, Música Instrumental entre otros.
También nos acompañará el Berklee Global Jazz Institute que incluirá a destacados estudiantes y dos de sus profesores, Marco Pignataro en el saxofón y Ernesto Díaz en la percusión.
Además, participará Pepe y Sus Tambores de Venezuela, Nicky Campbell de Panamá, Esteban Roa de Colombia, Sebastian Garzón de Panamá, Anthony Fung de Canadá (artísta residente), Osvaldo Jorge de Panamá y el grupo de percusión de la Fundación Danilo Pérez representado por Oscar Cruz, Chale Icaza y Omar Diaz.
La donación para entrar al concierto en el Teatro Anita Villalaz es de $10 para el público general, y se pueden adquirir en la Fundación Danilo Pérez y en la entrada del Teatro Anita Villalaz.
La donación para entrar a las clínicas del festival que se desarrollarán en las instalaciones de la Fundación Danilo Pérez, es de $5 diario por persona. “Las clínicas están abiertas a personas de todas las edades y destrezas…”
Para obtener más información sobre el FEPECE 2016 visite nuestro facebook: Festival de Percusión de Centroamérica, nuestro website www.fepecepanama.com o llame a Fundación Danilo Pérez al 211-0272, email: info@fundaciondaniloperez.org
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