Uncle Doug

Boyohowdy, this would be a great thing for any of us on the upstream side of downtown!

Great news. I'm not a big fan of Executive Orders in general, but this one definitely needed to be revoked.

I don't get it. Unlike the Cubans in the last immigration crisis, these Haitians and Africans have no special right to enter the United States. I thought Nicaragua had closed its border with Costa Rica for northbound immigrants. The last crisis was resolved by flying the refugees to Mexico, and it's hard to believe that's what is planned again. I am guessing the President Varela knows how the skids are greased all the way up to the US, or he wouldn't have allowed the immigrants to cross over from Colombia.

How can that be? Over 100 tons of plastic dumped each day into the ocean from Panama City?? Without using barges? There is no doubt at all that Panama Bay is highly polluted. I have no idea how far offshore one would need to be before seeing a fish, much less catching one. And Panama City actually has a modern landfill! That just seems like a huge volume of plastic each day.

Although I attended a hospice presentation at the library a few months ago, I learned a lot of new and important things here. Your courage and wisdom is invaluable. Thanks, Bonnie

I am incredulous. Doesn't anyone submit plans before getting a $25 million contract??

Yep, I misread the intro and assumed Kathy Reichs was on assignment for The Beast. Good catch!

I'm not sure how much to care about geographic names, especially when the primary audience is not local. I see flights to Nuevo York on the departure monitor at Tocumen. On the other hand, nobody at all refers to Rio Culebra as "Serpent River". The headline at The Beast was clearly crafted to make Americans click on the link. I don't know that this series will shed any new light on what most of us have previously learned from the tragedy and the investigation. We shall see. I'm sure it got the writer a trip to Boquete on her expense account. Nice job if you can get it.

Oh boy. This could get ugly.

Death on the Serpent River: How the Lost Girls of Panama Disappeared The mysterious deaths of two young tourists in Panama puzzled examiners and shocked nations on both sides of the Atlantic; now secretly leaked documents could reveal what happened. This is the first in a three-part investigation into what may have been a savage crime or a tragic accident. In addition to a trove of documents and photographs revealing hitherto unexamined aspects of the case, The Daily Beast has consulted several top sleuths in fields as varied as wilderness survival and photographic analysis, with the expert opinion as well of forensic anthropologist and best-selling author Kathy Reichs. BOQUETE, Panama — Welcome to the jungle: specifically, the cloud forests of the Talamanca highlands. It’s a rainy Saturday in early June, at the height of the wet season here in northern Panama, and we are—quite literally—on the trail of a deadly international mystery. This mud-slick, root-choked footpath is called the Pianista, or Piano Player, because it climbs—in a series of ladder-like steps reminiscent of a keyboard—up from the tourist town of Boquete to the Continental Divide, at about 6,660 feet. Bright-tailed quetzals flit through dwarf species of cedar, oak, and wild avocado along the trail. At this elevation the trees are stunted and wind-warped, their twisted limbs draped with moss and epiphytes. The raining is falling in surprisingly cold gusts by the time our small party reaches the Mirador, the overlook at the top of the Divide, about three hours after leaving the trailhead. On a clear day you can see all the way to Boquete. Today, however, the only thing visible from here is the white sea of mist atop the canopy below. But the Pianista is known for more than just its pretty birds and haunting vistas. Back in April 2014, two Dutch tourists—Kris Kremers, 21, and Lisanne Froon, 22—disappeared after setting out on this same three-mile stretch of trail. (DJ--Rest of this installment here at The Daily Beast. Typical of many American articles about Panama, it gets the oceans, directions and geographical orientation incorrect, Sloppy, but incidental. Next Saturday—The Search)

Good! Watch those school zones tomorrow!

Price controls almost always lead to problems with supply. If there is little or no profit to be made selling at the legal maximum, then the producer would be stupid to continue to produce that item. If the price is set too high, the consumer is harmed and being forced to pay windfall profits to the producer. It's not helpful to anyone if the price is 60 cents/lb. and none are available at that price. Perhaps price controls make sense as an emergency measure following a disaster or disruption to prevent price gouging, but an argument can even be made against that. In general, price controls just ultimately backfire. My two (price controlled) cents...

Yes, I accidentally took the wrong fork at Albrook and entered the toll road. I realized my error in less than one second. Too bad. You may be able to discreetly work it out with the officer at the side of the road, but there is no way to simply pay a toll, or apologize and turn around. Once you are on the onramp without a Panapass, it's going to be no fun at all.

Smuggling drugs into Panama?? That seems unnecessary. In any event, the attacks on e-shop were unwarranted. I have had everything from a small envelope to a large rug shipped through them without a hitch.

Does anyone know the logic behind the prohibition of foreign ownership of lands along the border?

The cost of obtaining an E-Cedula is certainly far less than the cost for border hop trips over the life of the card. And of all the forms of ID I can carry (passport, permanent visa carnet, drivers license, or cedula,) it seems to me that the "expected" form of ID to present is my E-Cedula. I can keep the visa card and passport safe at home. Other than having to make a trip to Panama City for the photo, it was pretty painless.

Holy smokes, I had no idea that the waiting list was so long here in Panama. I had a hernia caused by shoveling snow a year and a half ago (no, I don't miss snow here) and I thought waiting three weeks was a long time to get it repaired in the USA. Time goes by a little more slowly when you have a painful hernia. I don't know how your gardener does it, Bonnie. Best wishes to your friend, Fred.

Looks must be deceiving. I've seen bigger surf on lakes. I guess that what makes the riptides so dangerous.

How difficult would this be to implement in town, even unofficially? It's really not that complicated to cooperate to number a block of buildings. Business owners should be motivated to help new customers locate their place of business, I'd think. This isn't exactly a radical concept that has never been successful when implemented.

Thanks, Keith. That's not a very big quake, but when the epicenter is smack in the middle of your own living room....

I felt it, too. Of course, we're neighbors. One sharp jolt. If the epicenter was directly under Palo Alto, I would estimate something under a 4.0. It was very brief, though.

I have yet to see a scorpion (disclosure: I've only been living here fulltime for the past 5 months), but I seem to be getting increasingly allergic to insect stings. A wasp popped me on the back of the neck a couple of weeks ago, and I started itching everywhere and developed some hives. The symptoms passed within a couple of hours, but I think I'd better get an epi-pen in case I do run into scorpions eventually. If they aren't available here, then it might make sense to get one on a trip up north. I've actually been amazed at how few bugs I see around the house, even outdoors.

Thanks, Phyllis. I've given some clothes to my gardener, but I have plenty more that he can't use. I'll hang on to them.

When I moved here last year, I brought far more clothes than I should have. This is even after donating what I thought was half of my wardrobe to Goodwill or other charities in the US prior to loading the container. Does Boquete have any charity that receives gently used clothing? My closets here are much smaller, and I really don't need 500 shirts and 700 socks after all...

To bring a little closure to the question, I decided to contact the County Clerk in Pennsylvania directly. In my former life up there, I had a lot of interaction with the clerks in various counties in the region. While state law governs (and each state can set their own requirements), the sad fact in many counties is that the County Clerk runs his or her own little fiefdom, and if they don't want to accept a document for recording for any reason, too bad. They will return it to you until you prepare it to their satisfaction. In my case, it is going either obtain the consulate notarization or get a local notary but have it apostilled in Panama City. Only those two choices. There is no visit from the Consulate scheduled for David at this time. So, I must travel with my wife to PC. The Consulate doesn't notarize after 9:45 in the morning, so arriving on the 9 am flight into Albrook probably doesn't allow time to get the deed notarized the same day. I would think that US Government employees might work a whole morning each day, but apparently not. Since they charge $50 per acknowledgment, you'd think they could afford to be open all day.