Entering the black hole
Whenever La Prensa publishes a story on Panama City’s ongoing traffic nightmare and the government’s attempts to solve the problem, I can not help but to imagine large amounts of money being thrown into a black hole.
The latest story was about how the price tag for the new traffic lights is now more than $22 million. Now, I have never shopped for a traffic light, but this seems a bit steep to me, especially since I think they weren’t even purchased new, but rather used.
This system was supposed to ease traffic congestion, and cut commute times by 50 percent by working together to help vehicles move quickly through the city. While I wasn’t here for the test run of the system that took place earlier this month, I understand it was a complete disaster. I honestly don’t know how rush hour traffic in Panama could get worse, but apparently this new system achieved the impossible.
I for one was a bit skeptical of these claims when I first heard them. First of all, no one in Panama pays attention to traffic lights. They seem to be viewed more as suggestions than actual commands. So regardless of how intelligent the traffic signal is, its effectiveness is limited by the amount of influence it actually has.
I was also highly skeptical about the claim that any system costing a paltry $7 million was going to solve the traffic problem, even if it ended up costing $22 million.
Heck, if I had a magic system that could reduce Panama City’s traffic problem, my starting price would be double the cost of the Cinta Costera. And that would be a bargain, considering the fact that the proposed metro system is going to rival the Canal expansion in terms of capital investment.
Personally, I think the problem is that each new government has its own plan for solving this problem, and by the time a little headway is made, a new government comes in with a new plan. The result is millions of dollars wasted, and no real solution to the problem.
I would suggest that Panama appoint an independent Transportation Board that would be run like the Supreme Court. Appointments would last for 10 years, so no president could name more than two members.
This would provide much more continuity than the current system, and might actually lead to the problem getting solved. But I guess the chances of this happening are about the same as the intelligent traffic lights solving the problem, though my solution costs about $22 million less then they did.
The right thing to say
The lead story in the business section of Sunday’s La Prensa is about the government’s search for a slogan to promote the country to visitors and businesses.
It seems that the last government came up with the slogan, “Panamá Nación Destino,” which the new government didn’t like. While I think a little too much time is being spent on the issue, I agree that the old slogan was quite crap. Firstly, it doesn’t translate well into English (roughly, “Panama a nation of destiny,” or something like that.) Since many tourists come from English speaking countries, the slogan should make sense in both languages. Secondly, it doesn’t really capture the flavor of the country.
So I have come up with a few ideas that the Tourism Authority should consider.
One such possibility is, “Panama, way better than El Salvador.” I think this slogan would serve the dual purpose of promoting the country while also pushing anyone who may be on the fence between the countries solidly toward Panama.
If the government wants something more timely, it could go with, “Panama, a great place when it’s not raining.” This slogan is a reference to the recent flooding that took place at the Sheraton, which probably had a few guests concerned about their well-being when the water started rushing into the hotel.
If the government wants something more slanted toward the business community, it could go with, “Panama, not nearly as crooked as we used to be.” I think this would be a great way to highlight the country’s attempts to conform to standards being set by the OECD.
If the government wants to promote the Canal with the slogan, I think something like, “Panama, expanding the Canal despite the collapse of the world’s economy,” would work fine. This would highlight Panama’s plucky spirit in moving ahead with the project.
These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. I am sure I could come up with a lot more, but I am going to have to get on the government payroll before I do so.
Back in the saddle
After a week of traveling around the Caribbean, I am finally back in Panama. Ironically, it rained almost the entire time I was out of Panama, which I guess wasn’t much different than the weather we had here.
In fact, the only real sunny day I had during my trip was on the day I left, which was a pretty cruel move by the weather gods if you ask me. Hopefully, though, the dry season will start in the next few weeks, and I can go to one of the local beaches to make up for the times I didn’t get to go on my vacation.
There was kind of an interesting change that has taken place in the world of airport security. At the San Juan airport, passengers are now required to walk through a machine that shoots bursts of air at a person, then analyzes the results to scan for traces of explosives.
This is kind of a neat machine, but it adds another annoying step to an already long and involved process. Even more annoying, I have been trained to take my shoes off as soon as I get near the security checkpoint, and you have to keep your shoes on to go through the machine. So I had to put my shoes back on, go through the machine, then take them off again to go through the metal detector.
Like I said, this was annoying, but I guess it is better than having someone blow up the plane I am on, so I am not going to complain too much.
But security hassles aside, it is great to be back in Panama. After a week of eating out at restaurants with prices that were way over my budget, I was glad to visit some of my favorite local Panama City spots. One problem with living in Panama is that the salary I make here allows me to live a comfortable lifestyle, but it doesn’t allow me to live the same way in other countries. My friends didn’t blink while paying $40 for a steak dinner, which is pretty much what I expect the dinner bill in Panama to be for two people, with appetizers and drinks included.
In fact, next time I go on vacation, I am going to pack my suitcase with Panamanian food. I figure that will be the only way I can afford to eat when I travel. I just hope the machine at the airport is programmed to only look for explosives, or else I will have a lot of explaining to do to Homeland Security.
On my way
For the next week or so, I will be out of the country, so I apologize in advance for the lack of new posts until the middle of the month or so.
I am hoping that the rainy season is over by the time I get back, but I am not going to get my hopes up. When I lived in upstate New York, the onset of winter could take place anytime between the end of October and the beginning of December. Winter came to an end anywhere between late March and mid-May. In fact, I remember it snowing in May on one occasion, and I seemed to be one of the few people surprised by it.
Rainy season, though, seems to be much more predictable. It starts at the end of May and ends at the end of November, with a two-week variation at either end. So when I get back, rainy season may continue for another month. And El Niño might throw the whole schedule out of whack, so I better not start making any bold predictions about the weather. I may find myself up to my neck in mud in the middle of January.
On this trip I am visiting my old stomping grounds in the Leeward Islands, where the weather should be fantastic. Of course, that is with the caveat that a late-forming hurricane doesn’t decide to visit the islands at the same time I am there. Of course, my primary vacation activities are going to be eating, drinking and playing golf, and rain only disrupts one of those three.
But, if need be, I am not afraid to play in the rain, after all, I have had plenty of practice the last few weeks in Panama. Hopefully, though, I will have nothing but sunny skies, both while I am away and after I arrive back home.
Talkin’ baseball, and not much else
Well, as I predicted before it even started, a Panamanian has won a World Series title.
Whether it was the right Panamanian or not probably depends on perspective. Those of us from Pennsylvania or Chiriquí were probably disappointed to see Mariano Rivera emerge victorious over Carlos Ruiz. Then again, the vast majority of Panamanians are Yankee fans, at least judging by the hats I saw at the packed bar at a local casino where I watched part of the deciding game.
Heck, even Barack Obama got on the bandwagon, as he mentioned Rivera’s strong performance to the Panamanian ambassador during their brief meeting this week. Of course, it would have been nicer if Barack had been as talkative about trade agreements as he was about baseball, but at least he wasn’t down on the prospect of a trade agreement being reached between the two countries.
The fact that the U.S. keeps dragging its feet on the trade agreement with Panama is a huge mystery to me. After all, Panama basically doesn’t make much of anything. Sure, it grows some pineapples and catches some fish, but basically everything that we consume is made somewhere else. And since the U.S. is Panama’s largest trading partner, that is where those things come from.
So a free trade agreement would seem to benefit producers in the U.S. a lot more than it would producers in Panama. Of course, the other segment of the population that would benefit would be Panama’s poorest residents, as the flow of cheap items from the United States would help push prices down. It would also help Panama’s agricultural industry, which is an important source of jobs for Panama’s poorest residents, particularly those in indigenous areas.
So I can’t understand why the U.S. would continue to delay action on this agreement.
How refreshing it would have been for President Obama to announce while meeting the Panamanian ambassador that he was going to fight for the free trade agreement between the two countries because it would benefit poor people in this country and help boost the economy in his. I mean, the argument is pretty simple. Panama is one of the few countries in the world that has a trade deficit with the U.S. instead of the other way around, so why not sign a free trade agreement with them? Is there something that I am missing here?
Sadly, instead of trade deals, Obama decided to talk baseball. Apparently, relief pitching is a commodity that the U.S. doesn’t mind importing from Panama, as long as it doesn’t need a free trade agreement to do so.
Dias de libre
So we are in the midst of holiday week here in Panama, and the news cycle is predictably slow as everyone gets ready for their days off. La Prensa is down to a total of seven pages or so, not including the comics, and we are scrambling for whatever news we can dig up.
As for myself, I have to work all week, but am heading out of town for a week or so starting Sunday. So the blog activity will be thin from now until the middle of the month.
While there hasn’t been a lot of news happening at the moment, there have been some interesting stories. One gruesome item was the note about a pedestrian being hit by a drunk driver and dragged more than five kilometers before the driver realized what had happened.
I hope the victim died on impact or soon thereafter. On my list of crappy ways to die, being hit by a car and dragged three miles is pretty high on the list. As for the driver, I don’t think there is a proper penalty that can be applied in this case, especially since being drawn and quartered is no longer an option.
The driver’s blood-alcohol content was twice the legal limit, which isn’t all the surprising. The government recently passed tougher new laws regarding these types of crimes, and I hope he faces a long time in one of Panama’s detention centers to think about what he did.
Drunk driving is sure to be a big issue from now until the end of the year, with the large number of public holidays coming up. Just today on the Pan-American Highway I saw a car weaving from lane to lane with a guy hanging out the passenger window consuming what looked like a cerveza. Perhaps the driver was sober, and perhaps the sun will rise in the west tomorrow, but neither one seems very likely.
Hopefully a police officer noticed them before too long, and stopped them from hurting themselves or others. But I know that the odds of that happening are pretty slim.
If history is any indication, there will be no shortage of traffic fatalities in the next week, and alcohol will probably be involved in the majority of them. I am just hoping that the death toll includes as few innocent victims as possible. Though for one unlucky pedestrian, that has already turned out not to be the case.
Lost in translation
I went to the movie Inglorious Basterds, which was a pretty good flick, the other night, ready for a nice relaxing evening, or as relaxed as one can get during a Quentin Tarantino.
The problem, though, was that some of the dialogue was in French and German, with subtitles. If I was watching the movie in the States, this wouldn’t be an issue since the subtitles would be in English. In Panama, though, the whole movie is subtitled in Spanish, and the lazy basterds who did those subtitles didn’t include both the English and Spanish.
This meant that I had to keep up with the plot by reading the Spanish subtitles and translating them into English. So suddenly my nice relaxing night at the movies turned into a work day for me.
Now, since my job is translating from Spanish to English, I should have been able to keep up. And I did okay, though I could have used a Spanish to English dictionary. But it was definitely more of a mental exercise than I anticipated when I bought the ticket. And there were times when I was really lost.
I could have asked my girlfriend what was being said, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. That’s because there’s nothing I hate more at the movies than when she starts asking me questions about what is happening.
She used to do it all the time. She used to ask me what was happening even before the opening credits were finished. Now, she doesn’t do it as much because I lectured about how much it annoys me.
So there was no way I was going to ask her for help. Instead, I suffered in silence, and plugged in the gaps as best I could.
Now I will have to wait for the DVD to come out before I can enjoy the movie completely. And I am hoping that directors don’t start thinking it is “artsy” to film movies in foreign languages with subtitles, or else I will have to start staying at home more often. Either that, or I will start having to bring my English-Spanish dictionary with me.
A look back at history
The World Series began tonight, and the newsroom, as expected, is pretty much divided between supporters for the Yankees and Mariano Rivera and the ones for the Phillies and Carlos Ruiz.
Interestingly enough, this is not the first time that more than one Panamanian has appeared in the fall classic. Thirty years ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series with three Panamanians on their roster, Rennie Stennet, Omar Moreno and Manny Sanguillen.
Though Stennet and Sanguillen didn’t play much during that series, each did record a hit. Moreno, though, played in all seven games and batted .333, going 11 for 33 with three RBIs and four runs scored.
Since then, Panamanians have won a number of World Series rings, four by Rivera and one by Ruiz. And one of them will add to their total after this year’s series.
**** Just a quick update from the game, Carlos Ruiz hit a double in the ninth inning, then scored on a base hit two batters later. Rivera hasn’t made it into the game, so unless the Yankees score 6 runs to send this into extra innings or 7 to win it, it looks like the first round goes to Chiriquí (and Pennsylvania.)
Hard to figure
It seems like every day we have a story on Panama’s economy that either insinuates that it is showing signs of imploding or paints a rosy picture that life here couldn’t be better.
Today, for example, there’s a story that an index of economic indicators had dropped around 3.5 percent in August (as compared to the same month in the previous year) and the same amount in July. These two drops were the worst performance for the index since it was started in 1999.
That seems to be some scary news for those of us living here, but I wonder how much stock to put in these figures. Apparently, the Minister of Economy and Finance Alberto Vallarino feels the same way, as he predicted that the country’s economy will continue to grow in spite of this recent news.
The troubling part about this for me is the fact that so many people in Panama live on the edge of financial disaster. Decrease my salary by 3.5 percent and my life doesn’t change much. But decrease the salary of my maid by that much and suddenly she can’t afford to buy food.
And I think there are a lot more people in her position than mine in this country.
But like I said, for every negative report, there is always a rosy one right around the corner. Panama is still ahead for the year, as the good months have managed to balance out the bad ones, and the country is one of the few in the region that will experience economic growth this year.
So is the country heading for ruin, or is it full steam ahead to prosperity? I don’t think anyone really knows for sure. I guess all we can do is strap ourselves in and hope for the best.
Almost everyone loves a parade
Independence Day in Panama is rapidly approaching, and will be celebrated this year with a grand parade, which I guess is the drill every year.
Now, even though I am not Panamanian, I have been feeling especially patriotic lately. I, for one, can’t wait for Independence Day.
This is because every day for me is basically Independence Day. I live next to the headquarters of the Panama Naval Base, which is where the Navy bands that will participate in the Independence Day parade have been practicing for the last several weeks.
In the beginning the band was pretty brutal, but I have to admit that they have been sounding better the last few days, and should put on quite a show for the crowd. And they should sound better, as these guys have been out there every day, without fail, rain or shine, practicing their songs. It has gotten to the point that when they start playing, I start marching around my living room.
For those attending the parade, don’t expect any catchy numbers from the band. The line-up is pretty vanilla, navy-type marches. The drums seem to be the band’s strong point, although maybe they are just the loudest component.
But what these guys lack in musicianship, they more than make up for it with enthusiasm. Like I said, I have heard these guys playing when it is raining out, so they will be ready to go rain or shine.
And once Independence Day rolls around, I plan on staying home, enjoying the peace and quiet that has eluded me for the last month.
But I guess the sounds of silence won’t last very long, as Panama has two independence days, with the next one slated for the end of the month. I am sure that the band will take only a short break before starting to practice for the second independence day parade.
I guess I can put up with three more weeks of marching. Though I am hoping they decide to learn some new songs. Perhaps they will take requests. I am sure I can suggest some snazzy numbers that will get the crowd jumping.
But I have to be honest with everyone, I am really hoping that the band decides to skip this year’s Christmas parade. I could really use the peace and quiet.