Archive for the ‘Video’ Category
Collaborators / Memoirs / Non-Fiction / Panama Tourist Guide / Video
Tags: Across the Universe, Balbina Herrera, Beatles, Cambio Democratico, Come Together, Obama, Panama, politics, PRD, President, Ricardo Martinelli, trust, Tu Politica, United States, vote
May 5, 2009
The concept of voting for governments started out being all-powerful and integral to a healthy society. There’s an inherent trust in the people, granted by themselves, to know what’s best for them. It’s very meta, and perfect since there really is no omnipotent sheep herder to tell us what to do; most of the world has grown enough to make such pivotal decisions on their own. It seems to me that throughout the decades, centuries even, leaving us to our own devices in a social system that encourages self-growth without a ceiling, policed by ourselves, has made this fairly-simple system a convulsed affair.
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There’s not much to tell right now because I just recently became aware of this by way of my friend Antonio, but I had to post this and help spread the word: there is a man named Michael Morales and he recently took a 2-month leave of absence from his job to go out and climb Mount Everest. That is impressive in and of itself, but for our great delight he’s updating friends, family and anyone who stumbles upon his story via a blog called Panama – Everest 2009.
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Happiness joins the Extraordinary League of Emotions, sharing the round table with such greats as Love, Hate, Devotion, Lust, Faith, Destiny, et al. Be that as it may, the notion still doesn’t tell me a pip about what it really means. Since happiness is intangible it is also subjective; since there are as many definitions for subjective things as there are people on Earth, I came to the conclusion that a zeitgeist was in order. My discoveries, I’m happy to report, revealed the closest thing to “meaning” as I’m going to get to, despite my best knuckle-headed efforts.
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People love music. It’s one of the first and most important means of expression known to man. People fall in love, find a cause, discover friendships and cure their ills every day thanks to the power of song. As it is with our current societies, though, sometimes being a musician (or an artist, for that matter) must come with a degree of corporate compromise: money. Virtuosos or not, an artist has to eat, and sometimes he/she has to adapt to what’s popular at the moment. In the end, the people rule even though sometimes it would seem otherwise.
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Here’s a thought; In my daily commute of getting work done and my frag score up, I sink out and about into the internet. If you’re a regular here, this is no news to you. Anyway, one of my guilty pleasures is to peruse a couple of celebrity blogs… you know, those site where they [...]
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Love. In very few other instances does a word cause such immeasurable amounts of change. Some of the greatest events in the history of civilization have begun thanks to the power of love. Love for a person, a place, an idea, and by proxy the ideals of one and many. Such a transcending concept has fueled our world for as far as we can remember, and as it is with every other concept that we, as a society, value above most things, love was given a holiday… and its name is St. Valentine’s Day.
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Articles / Panama Tourist Guide / Video
Tags: azuero, carnavales, carnival, carnival_time, las_tablas, murga, Panama, peninsula, tourism, vacation
November 20, 2008
The capital and commercial center for the Herrera province, Las Tablas is located 282km (175 miles) from Panama City (capital of the Republic of Panama) and expands throughout approximately 12km along the Pacific coast, which houses the Mensabé Marina. There is no official story regarding the foundation of the city, but legend has it that Las Tablas was founded by Captain Jacinto Barahona on July 19th, 1671. 51 years later in 1721 construction of the Santa Librada church, national monument and epicenter of the city, was completed. In present day, the Santa Librada church is very popular tourist attraction along with the city itself, particularly during the Carnival and Easter holidays.
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Articles / Español / Memoirs / Panama Tourist Guide / Video
Tags: cabs, charter_buses, chump_change, culture_shock, diablo-rojo, emergency_doors, gross_understatement, occasional_bus, panama_city, public_transport_system, youtube
November 12, 2008
I was driving down towards my home one fateful Saturday night when I unexpectedly got into a car crash. Luckily no one got hurt and all damages were cosmetic, but the crash triggered a series of events that ultimately left me without a car for a number of weeks, having to rely on the Panamanian public transport system to take me places. Considering I left cabs and buses when I started driving about half a decade ago, this new status quo had some degree of culture shock packed within it. What follows is a reprise of the trials and tribulations of getting around in Panama City when you’re on nothing more than your own two feet with chump change to get you in the occasional bus or a cab, and the pros/cons of the current system. The funky colors and highly inaccurate likenesses painted on their emergency doors are about all that’s attractive about them, and cabs can come in all shapes, sizes, creeds and levels of danger. To say I will enjoy the catharsis this piece will bring is a gross understatement.
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Articles / Panama Tourist Guide / Porto Diao and Friends / Video
Tags: bella_vista, crimson_ghost, halloween_costume, halloween_parties, internet_portals, midnight_fireworks, october_31st, Panama, panama_city, Porto Diao and Friends, portodiao, rebels_motorcycle_club, social_calendar, social_phenomena, Video, vimeo, zombie_horde, zombie_movies, zombie_walk
October 22, 2008
Looking for something different to do this Halloween? If you’re tired of the club scene and Halloween parties that appear in the social calendar every October 31st, then you are invited to participate in a special event that will make the “dead” rise and walk the earth for one night only.
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Articles / Panama Tourist Guide / Video
Tags: acts_of_war, american_idol, common_goal, dollar_profits, Irving Saladino, latin_america, latin_american_idol, lethal_weapon, Margarita Henriquez, morbid_curiosity, Panama, panama-city, Panamanians, vocal_coaches, voting_system
October 10, 2008
The 3rd season of Latin American Idol ended Thursday night and in a barely surprising turn of events, Panamanian contestant Margarita Henriquez defeated Costa Rican Maria José Castillo thanks to the votes via chat messages from people in Panama and all of Latin America. Panama’s odds of winning were good from the start, with 3 Panamanians present out of the 10 finalists; Margarita has pipes and in the last three months she, surely with the help of vocal coaches and some of the most renowned Spanish-speaking performers in the world, has fine-tuned her instrument into a lethal weapon of song. She deserved to win the contest, and I’m glad that Latin America agreed with the notion. As black-and-white as Margarita’s indisputable win is though, what is truly fascinating is what she has managed to inspire in just a few short weeks simply by the raw power of her presence in LAI: Panama, as a whole, came together for a common goal in such a way that the I can only compare it to how a country deals with acts of war. In many ways (but by no means in the same scale), Margarita’s presence and win in Latin American Idol brought a country together in the same manner that 9/11 brought the U.S. to unity.
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Articles / Panama Tourist Guide / Video
Tags: awesome_concept, CNN, esposas de alquiler, female_counterpart, former_canal_zone, franquicias, handymen, latin_american_country, maids, maridos de alquiler, morbidity, Panama, Panamanians, panama_city, plumbing, sexual_context, spanish_name, youtube, youtube_clip
September 20, 2008
In the past couple of weeks, just for kicks, I talked about this with a couple of friends and loved ones, every conversation degrading into a discussion on what would the rates be for a “happy ending.” I’m not going to talk about the amount of time my mom was able to mine the hell out of this joke (answer: three days) and much less how far she went (hint: Gorilla Mask, anyone?), but it’s safe to say that everyone I talked to had a field day with the name of the company and their imaginations flew so, so far.
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Blog / Español / Memoirs / Music / Rants / Video
Tags: 2009, crooks, hellboy, juan_carlos_navarro, Panamanians, personal_opinion, political_ads, PRD, rap_sheets, Rob-Rivera, Video, youtube
August 30, 2008
This is the set-up: a man that’s known both online and off as Rob Rivera is lying down in bed thinking about the things people like Rob Rivera think about when they’re lying in bed (answer: chocolate) perusing the TV channels of his basic cable service. Mind you, my TV set has been busted for months.
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Articles / Panama Tourist Guide / Video
Tags: azuero, Azuero Peninsula, carnaval, carnivals, Chitré, city_slicker, enthusiastic_energy, foreigner, inexpensive_restaurants, las_tablas, luxuries, Panama Tourist Guide, Panama Travel, panama-tourism, panama_city, panama_tour, panama_travel, public_transportation, strip_malls, taxi_driver, tourism_package, tourist_destination, transportation_situation, youtube
August 29, 2008
One would think they have entered Prozac Nation upon arrival but that first impression is not something that can be held accountable to the residents of Chitré; on the contrary, the problem is that many of us that are so used to the hectic, smog-dominated city life that visiting such a tranquil place is nothing short of a system shock. You can literally feel the darkness of your soul slowly peel away the further you venture into the city. The air feels cleaner, everyone says “hello” to each other and, unlike Panama City and its traffic, modeled after the southwest ghetto district of the 7th ring of hell, drivers are actually courteous on the road. You can actually tell how many people from the capital are visiting Chitré by the way they’re driving… because they’re so damn rude.
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Articles / Non-Fiction / Panama Tourist Guide / Video
Tags: aranda, Beijing, el_canguro, eyes_of_the_world, Franz Wever, fundamental_principle, gonorrhea, incredible_victory, international_contests, Irving Saladino, ismael-ortiz, jahir, long jump, lucid_dreams, Martin-Torrijos, olympic_committee, olympic_games, olympic_games_history, Panama, Panamanians, PANDEPORTES, pantheons, playing_at_home, saladino, tricky_issue
August 22, 2008
Irving Jahir Saladino Aranda, or “El Canguro” (Kangaroo for you kids playing at home), made history as he became the first Panamanian in Olympic Games history to win the gold medal in any discipline. As it almost always is with anything that could, in an off-chance, bring us closer to the pantheons of glory, his road to the gold medal was not without its hiccups and controversy; still, I’m relieved that none of it could taint the incredible victory this man brought for Panama as a country. It was really a sight to behold, and in the eyes of the world we’ll come off as a nation that’s proud of its athletes. Now, on to the goings-on behind the scenes that every Panamanian knows (or should know) about just as everyone out there interested in this feat should in the interest of explaining exactly why this is such an important landmark in our nation’s history.
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Articles / Panama Tourist Guide / Video
Tags: animal_abuse_laws, banter, clinicians, crimes_against_nature, dog_fucker, el_siglo_panama, Herrera, human_animals, jail_time, los-santos, necrophilia, Panama, paraphilia, possession_of_marijuana, sexual_attraction, sexual_behavior, sexual_interactions, sexual_interest, sexual_orientation, time_in_the_netherlands, yegua, zeitgeist, zoo, zoophilia
August 11, 2008
It is true that the possession of marijuana is not punishable by jail time in the Netherlands, but one can’t smoke in peace while in Panama without getting paranoid about being told on by the neighbors. Such is the way of things. Some things though, certain acts are unanimously reviled the world over as they well should be: to say that acts of pedophilia, necrophilia and so on are frowned upon would be an understatement. Now, there seems to be one act in particular that, though often not discussed in public forums, has been a regular practice for as long as humans have roamed the Earth. I am talking, of course, about zoophilia.
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