The Sageness of the Pubescent

Students in an 8th grade class at one of the private American schools here sent in letters to the editor as an assignment this week, which I had the joy of editing. Here is their* most poignant prose, emphases mine:

As someone who is interested in the environment and likes chocolate, this article caught my attention right away. I am a supporter of the belief that fun and interesting facts help us preserve this wonderful planet.

– Michael

It is always good to find new things in nature that can be useful to us, and it has many advantages. But ambition is dangerous. That is why I ask Costa Ricans to please take care of Tirimbina Rainforest and be respectful to nature.

– Pam

Based on the information this article has provided, and as a person living in Costa Rica, I’ve reached the conclusion that unlicensed taxis should be banned. There are several reasons as to ban these taxis. There is no organization, if something occurs, there is no record of the taxi, and if one thing fails in the country’s structure, the whole country will come crashing down. If they enforce the laws regarding unlicensed taxis, the country will be more organized and an organized nation is a happy nation.

– Angela

The author provided really good examples and points of view from the taxi drivers. I think that maybe she could explain a little better what happened and why the taxi drivers were so mad and why they went on strike. Also, I think that it would have been good for her to maybe put her own opinion in it.

– Phyllis

I agree that the Petroleos de Nicaragua CEO did a good job on signing this deal. I was a resident in Nicaragua for almost four years and I clearly understand the situation the country is living in.

– Andy

The taxistas have finally decided to take the issue into their own hands and will eventually try to solve this issue with violence. I truly agree with this behavior; sometimes we have to fight and use violence as a last and desperate resource in order to get justice and fairness.

– Dwight

*All names have been changed, since the travails of middle school are enough in themselves to at least merit suffering the snark of an incorrigibly caustic editorial assistant in anonymity.

Nudity solves everything.

Sadly, her last name was not Paris:

Dear Tico Times,

We love Costa Rica. We were lucky to find a beautiful nudist resort located at the edge of a rain forest. This rustic Costa Rican hotel and club also has a restaurant with fantastic food. Everything about being nude in Costa Rica seems so natural. I read so many letters where people express their unhappiness in Costa Rica, but there are just as many problems in the U.S. Instead of picking on Ticos, go find a place like Mi Amor Resort, enjoy yourself, and be glad you were lucky enough to spend time in Costa Rica.

Twyla
Zephyrhills, FL

I Love 'My' Dog As Much As I Love You

The neighbors' little lady made my day today while I was taking out the trash:

The Corn Islands

Photos, in which Rachel and Holly go on a bona fide vacation to a tropical oasis, Nicaragua's Corn Islands, on the Caribbean:

When Words Get Tired

Granada is a photogenic city:




Starring: a haircut at Hilda's, the Boy Jesus Laboratory, the Man of the Mauve, and more colors and patterns.

Both Equally Commanding

While buying a sno-cone in Granada, the big-bellied man in a red button-up shirt takes the book from my hand to read the cover:

him: cor-MACK?
me: si, COR-mack.
him: mc-car-tee ... el general?
me: (pause) ah, otro mccarthy.

Hilarity did not ensue.

Oh sweet lord, thank you, Deadspin, for this:

Massachusetts U-7 Girls Soccer Coach Resigns Over Hilarious, Possibly Insane, Email:

This is not a team, but a family (some say cult), that you belong to forever. ... We do not cater to superstars, but prefer the gritty determination of journeymen who bring their lunch pail to work every week, chase every ball and dig in corners like a Michael Vick pit bull. Unless there is an issue concerning the health of my players or inside info on the opposition, you probably don't need to talk to me. ...

America's youth is becoming fat, lazy and non-competitive because competition is viewed as "bad". I argue that competition is good and is important to the evolution of our species and our survival in what has become an increasingly competitive global economy and dangerous world. ...

Who's with me? Go Green Death!

Best Lines of Late in Correspondence

"So I don't get to hear from my dear high school friend for years, then am excited to find her on the face book contraption, then all I get is a picture of a scary rug? What is the world coming to?

In other words, how are you doing?

... I dream of starting my own blueberry farm. I am much calmer, happier and more clear sighted than when I was in high school, but still a dreamer. Also, you probably noticed, I changed my last name for that of a high desert plant.

I hope this note finds you in good spirit. It would be great to hear some about the adult you; I miss communicating with you. Do you have a snail mail address?"

I've missed this girl.

Latin American Beauty

Setting the colors and patterns of my walk to work down the railroad tracks through urban San José to urbane Swedish indie, and in the process flattering Lauren's artistic genius, possibly to the point of plagiarism:

Starring: graffiti tags in Japanese, the Alaska-shaped bough, my jelly-clad foot 30 feet up on railroad tracks over the road, et al.

(The track is "Young Folks" an older one by Peter Bjorn and John, who, incidentally, have a new album out this week. And no, there is no comma, Oxford or otherwise, in that name.)

I cannot wait to frame this.

He has a tooth in the middle of his upper jaw.

"What Is the Relation Between a Code of Ethics and Actual Behavior?"

Earlier this year, I did a story on a career Tico law enforcement officer who was a student of the School of the Americas in early 1980, and is now speaking out against Costa Rica's decision to continue to send Ticos to the school's modern reincarnation, WHINSEC, to train. For the story, he let me borrow his old training manuals and study guides from his courses. Most of them were boring: lessons on field skills, leadership qualities, etc.

But the following was one of the few gems of a passage:

These guidelines are given in terms of the ideal way to do something, and cannot be achieved in this way all the time. In fact, for various reasons, times in which the ideal is achieved are rare. consequently, we have to distinguish between people's ideal and actual behavior. There are many reasons for which there is "failure" in the battle to follow the code of ethics: to work at a job that has a big salary but little personal satisfaction; to say all races are equal but then not permit your children to play with a child of a different skin color; and to buy furniture for the whole house now without carefully planning monthly payments; these are only some examples of codes of ethics in conflict. There is a difference between the ideal behavior according to the code of ethics and the actual behavior that takes places. Even when the ideals of a code of ethics are achieved rarely, those in charge must try to reach for those ideals that ensure efficient leadership qualities, and lastly, the survival of their soldiers.

Estos lineamientos se indican en terminos de la forma ideal de hacer algo y como tal no se pueden lograr todo el tiempo. De hecho, por diversas razones, son raras las veces en que se lograra el ideal. En consecuencia, tenemos que distinguir entre el ideal y el comportamiento real de la personas. Hay muchas razones por las cuales se "fracasa" en la batalla por cumplir con el codigo de etica: dedicarse a un trabajo por un gran sueldo y poca satisfaccion personal; decirle a todos que las razas son iguales, pero no permitirle a sus hijos jugar con un nino de un color de piel diferente; y comprar muebles para toda la casa ahora, y sin embargo no planear cuidadosamente los pagos mensuales, son solo algunos ejemplos de codigos de etica en conflicto. Hay una diferencia entre el comportamiento ideal segun lo expresa el codigo de etica y el comportamiento real que tiene lugar. Aun cuando los ideales de un codigo de etica se logran con muy poca frecuencia, los jefes deben tratar de alcanzar aquellos ideales que aseguren un don de mando eficiente y en ultima instancia, quizas, la supervivencia de sus soldados.

Yes, racial prejudice and poorly planned furniture purchases were equivalent ethical decisions. in the '80s. Nostaligia is nice and lowers your blood pressure and all, but I am so relieved we've progressed since this.

Untrust Us

A friend of a friend is the Mexico correspondent for a German news network, in Juárez right now on assignment and sent this little report. You will note he did not write in Spanglideutsch. The second paragraph from the end is endearing if you've ever seen or can imagine a Western European try to reconcile themselves to Latin America. (English is below.)

*

Estoy desde hace una semana en el centro de Juárez, según los medios la ciudad más sangriente, más mortal y más desesperada.

Y encuentro una ciudad en paz, o tal vez en paz premortal, pero nada. Ni balaceras ni muertos ni violencia, ni drogas ni un carro mal estacionado. A partir de las 8 pm., tampoco hay gente en las calles. Patrullan 10 000 tropas en toda la ciudad, armados hasta los dientes - y ya. Se acabó la violencia, simplemente, desde febrero, cuando el presidente mandó los soldatos.

El escandalo verdadero son los medios de comunicacion. Porque siguen sacando historias de los cuales gota el sangre. Me topo con corresponsales de Australia, de Alemania, del CNN (con guardaespaldas! los Juarenses se rien), de Brazil etc. .... y escriben historias como si fueran en una zona de guerra.

Claro estoy en el mismo dilema. Me pagaron un viaje para reportar sobre los asesinatos, las drogas, la migración, la corrupcion. Pues nada. Entonces escribiré sobre los medios de comunicacion. De como se fabrican mentiras.

Juárez era el lugar mas violento. Pero ya no lo es. Si vas al barrio de la cueva (las cuevas?) en San JOsé será más peligroso que aqui en México.

Y ademas: México es un pais hermoso, con una cultura y una variedad sorprendente. Ahora ando otro día por Juárez, la gente se comporta como una mezcla de Gringos y Méxicanos. Siempre puntuales, bastante ordenados, y al mismo tiempo sonriente, relajado y abierto.

El lunes voy de regreso a Guanajuato, donde vivo con mi familia, y el próximo festival cultural. Entonces: Me siento MUY BIEN en México y mucho más seguro que en Costa Rica. Sin embargo, el sabado en el partido de futbol apoyo a los Ticos, como no.

*

I've been here in Juárez center for a week, which is, according to the media, the bloodiest, deadliest, and most hopeless city.

I've found a city at peace, or maybe a nascent peace, but nothing. No shootouts, no deaths, no violence, no drugs, not even a badly parked car. After 8 pm, there aren't even people in the streets. Ten thousand troops patrol the whole city, armed to the teeth, and that's it. The violence simply ended in February when the president sent the soldiers.

The real scandal is the media, because they keep doing stories on anything that bleeds. I've run into correspondents from Australia, Germany, CNN (with bodyguards! the Juarenses laugh), Brazil, etc. ... and they all write stories as if they were in a war zone.

Of course, I have the same problem. They paid for me to come here and report on murders, drugs, migration, corruption. But there's nothing. So, I wrote on the media and how they are fabricating lies.

Juárez was the most violent place, but it's not anymore. It would be more dangerous to go to the La Cueva neighborhood in San José than here in Mexico.

What's more, Mexico is a beautiful country, with an amazing culture and variety. I'm now staying an extra day in Juárez, because the people act like a mix of gringos and Mexicans. They're always on time, very ordered, but at the same time smiling, relaxed, and open.

Monday I go back to Guanajuato, where I live with my family, for the next cultural festival. All in all, I feel GREAT in Mexico and much safer than in Costa Rica. That being said, I'll be cheering for the Ticos this Saturday in the soccer game, how could I not?

Just like 2nd grade ...

... when you got to be special person for a whole week, and when, on your "Things About Me" questionnaire that hung on a posterboard along with pictures spanning all of your seven years in our classroom for that glorious week, under the item "Things I Do Best!" you listed 1. Play the piano, 2. Read, and 3. Be alone. "Holly, you can't put 'Be Alone,'" said your mother. "But, Mom," you said, "It's true!"

Nay

Against Depression:

Like rheumatoid arthritis, depression turns your own body against itself. It chews not on your cartilage, but on your brain cells and your sense of reality. It’s as seductive as a wife-beater, shutting out other voices to turn itself into your only friend. The only one who tells the truth about the bleakness of the world. All your energy goes towards getting through whatever stands in your way – struggling, slogging, pushing, through work and small talk and getting food – whatever it is you have to get through until you can be alone again with the voice who can be trusted.

And the last thing it feels like is an illness. No, this monumental, world-swallowing suckage sits outside you: it comes from the project, the job, the love affair, the city, the family, or the decade. For me, these low cycles have always led me to abrupt life changes. It’s a kind of shock therapy: uprooting jobs, careers, relationships, and countries. Those shifts feed the craving for anonymity and reinvention, and they leave behind the shame of a condition that breeds shame.

If you asked me why I move to a different continent every year, I'd tell you it's because I couldn't stay where I was. Why couldn't I stay? I would give you a list of legitimate external motivations for each move, but reading this, I realize the whispering portents of depression were probably playing a role before I really acknowledged they were. Of course, one could also argue that those external tensions upended the internal ones. Either way.

I appreciate so much having been able to live abroad, but, too, the idea of being condemned to the life of the inveterate nomad breaks my heart. Shocks the moves indeed were, but therapy? Ha. I had more than a few people tell me the move/change/blah here would be good, while in my head, though, I'd be snarling, How on earth is this going to help? Don't you see how this only exacerbates all the feeling of precariousness and arbitrariness? No one needs you anywhere because no one anywhere needs you.

And still to see that sentence written there pains me to think of all those times I lay in my bed or sat on my floor, rocking back and forth, shaking as that damn thought terrified me, and how utterly defenseless I was to convince myself of something I knew in theory to be untrue, and yet could not eradicate from my heart or head. But mercifully it doesn't hold sway over me now, and I can correctly identify it as a lie.

Some of the details she describes above hit home, others not quite. But I posted it up there because I love how she so categorically dismisses the idea that being sad is just some thing we accept. Some people will tell you it's just a part of life, although more often I think those people just want an excuse for their own malaise, to indulge their indie street cred, or worse still, have some artistic/writing material, because if you do it prettily enough, giving up is noble, as if faint hearts ever won fair maidens or something like that. (This is why businesspeople aren't (often) artists: They're far too bold to succumb to some silly ironic conviction that success is only found in tragedy. I respect them very much for this.) And I do know being sad is an inherent part of things, but it's not one I want to resign myself to. This is not how I want to be. And it won't be.

If anything brought me out of last year, it has been finally being able to identify that infernal mantra above as a lie; I don't trust depression's intentions anymore. Not that that means it goes away, and batting down that vertiginous existential reeling still takes its daily toll, on my energies, my memory, my patience. But as long as I can dismiss the lie's insistence, which I do thanks in almost exclusive part to support from you all, it's ok.

And by 'ok,' I don't mean in the nonchalant sense, but in the sense of "not dramatic." A steady sort of ok. A state that gets challenged and threatened daily, but one that holds.

foto courtesy of the rrs

Best Inflatable Doll Ever Award

300 colones ($0.60) at the Tres Rios farmers' market. There was also a yellow one on a scooter.

That's the Way You Need It

This is one of the sectors that could keep Costa Rica from being completely sucked in the economic undertow.

This guy's going back to the states.

This article is everything everyone already knows about Costa Rica, and epitomizes everything I so dislike about how people approach Costa Rica, or tourism in general, like these countries just their playgrounds. "Any way you want it," indeed. Just go traipsing around, stay in hotels that sport some logo they know will appease your ecoconscience, have your tour guide (the only Tico you'll meet) explain to you in English what pura vida means over an Imperial, and then write a letter to the newspaper about how all the trash or other Issue X is such an unsightly blight on the otherwise attractive country.

Pure life, far as I'm concerned

• lavender tea with milk
  
• fresh tortillas
• watermelon-mango-cucumber
• text with no hyperlinks
• una vista
  

Maniquies Machitos

Glitzy costumes from a (literally and figuratively) flashy Latino parade on morose Aryan mannequins:

The Proof Is in the Picture

What does a copy editor do all day? you ask. This:

This page reminds me of getting a Prob & Stat test back fom the Major, "This was just not your guys' test, huh? Don't get me wrong: I had a great time. My favorite color pen is red, man! I went through a whole BOX of them this time!"

I think this is my record number of proofs for one page. You can click the image to peruse all the minutiae, or don't and be glad that's exactly what you don't get paid to do. But copy editing does suit me in its own way. Granted, about 80% of these never should have even made it on the page, which is lame because it means it will take that many more revisions until the page is all good, but so it goes. So, I just put my head down, turn my music up, and keep sharpening and resharpening my pencil.

As tedious as proofing can be, I'm really glad I'm not editing the content here, because most of the letters this week are so opaquely asinine they make me want to eat tacks.

The irresistible temptation of the 'reply' button

From: Frances
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 1:58 PM
To: Tico Times
Subject: KATE'S ARTICLE

Kate’s article was most wonderful, cutting through all the confusion of diets. Would it be possible to know more exactly what is her daily menu in the context of cutting out carbohydrates?

Could she answer this directly, or how do you suggest I reach her?

Thank you very much.

Frances

I forward this to the freelancer, Kate. (Standard procedure.)

----- Original Message -----
From: Kate
To: Holly
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: KATE'S ARTICLE

Dear Francis,

[...]

Kate

I forward this to Frances.

----- Original Message -----

From: Frances
To: Holly

Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 4:40 PM

Subject: Re: KATE'S ARTICLE

Dear Kate,

[...]

Saludos, Frances

I forward to Frances, then reply to them both.

From: Holly
To: Kate; Frances
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 5:00:16 PM
Subject: correos

I've been forwarding your emails to the other, but now you two can correspond directly with each other. Thanks! Holly

Three weeks later:

From: Kate
To: Holly
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 2:11 PM
Subject: Re: correos

Dear Francis,

Again, I apologise for the delay. I have had a terrible flu.

As for what I eat: I began by eating only chicken, fish, eggs, textured soy meat, veggies, yogurt, almonds, and cheese I don`t like red meat). Then I found my Atkins carbohydrate counter and discovered lots more that I could eat. For example, I discovered that eggplant had very few carbs, and I started making eggplant parmesan all the time. I also discovered that fresh coconut had few carbs, so that is one of my treats. Lately, since I`ve been sick, I have been eating creamed vegetable soups. I often buy surimi (fake crab) and do a cheese melt over it. I also make a lot of quiche. Instead of Splenda for sweetener, I use stevia (They sell it in Mas por Menos, at least here in Cartago). I have read a lot of negative reports on Splenda. Basically, it really depends on the tastes of the person. The important thing is to understand which fooods are carbohydrate and to eat just as much as you want to of protein, fiber, and fat. If you make yourself go hungry, it will lower your metabolism.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Kate