The Ground Beneath Your Feet

I hardly ever get scared, so rarely in fact that sometimes I've wondered if I have some chemical deficiency. But last year, we had an earthquake in Costa Rica, and it was completely unsettling.

We were sitting there on the second story of our cute but shoddy stucco office building when it started to shake. The three of us sitting at our desks immediately turned to look at each other and let out collective "whoas" as we waited and waited for it to end. Things shake often, but this one was stronger and more sustained. After about ten seconds, the editor dove under his desk while the weekend editor and I stared at each other with our eyes wide and jaws slightly unhinged, thinking it was going to end any second now. It did after about 15 or 20 seconds.

We went downstairs to see the others. The heavy-set receptionist had had a panic attack in the doorway during the quake and nobody had been able to get out. Local reports were that I was a 6.2, with an epicenter about 30 km northwest of San José. USGS said 6.1.

We were an hour away from deadline for our weekly paper. We jumped to our computers and phones. The photographers jumped up and headed out to see if there was any damage in the capital. Our one reporter who was on twitter was paralyzed by the huge influx of information. I got my first worried mother's letter to the editor within a half hour. A stream of aftershocks kept my Ichiro bobblehead nodding furiously.

The reporter finished his brief article, and the editor slipped it into a one-column slot on the front page below a picture of a sunset over the Pacific. The article then jumped to the next page and was accompanied by a picture of a blue government building with a crack in it. We'd just got news of the first reported deaths – two girls – as I was writing the photo caption.

We turned in the paper not terribly late. No government reports with confirmed fatality numbers had been issued yet. The reporter got me set up on twitter and showed me the #crtemblor hashmark. We debriefed the issue, teased the editor for having jumped under his desk, and went home.

The next day, our staff reporter and photographer went out at 6:30 am. The intern reporter and photog left an hour or so later, while the online editor and I sifted through different reports of the morning. It was looking like most of the people had died in the town right by the epicenter in landslides, which had also wiped out the main roads. The two girls who had died were roadside candy-sellers who'd been swept up in a landslide. Two different government agencies were reporting death statistics and only one of them had a spokesperson who would pick up his phone.

By mid-morning, the death toll was by most accounts at 15 when our reporter got wind of two more bodies they'd recovered. I called the editor, who was still at home, and asked him if we should go and report a death toll of 17, noting that we'd be the first to do so. He said ok. I emailed him an hour later and asked him if he was coming in. "Yeah, why?" he responded. Most other media took a couple hours, and for a bit an LA Times blog was quoting our 17.

The editor came in at 1 pm and online ed and I briefed him on bits, and the reporters called in a couple times, too. We heard that private helicopter companies were charging hundreds of dollars per person for an evacuation to tourists who'd been stranded at a popular hotel that'd been right near the epicenter. I called one of the companies posing as a distraught gringa who had a sister at the hotel who needed to be evacuated and they quoted me $600. A Tico paper quoted up to $1,700, but, from what we heard, that was the rate for one helicopter evacuation for four people.

One television presenter, when queried as to where she was during the quake, said she was at the salon getting her nails done when all the old ladies screamed. She likes earthquakes because people really overreact and she thinks it's funny. They even had to give one lady Baileys with ice and white wine [to calm her down]. She thought it was so much fun. Everything was falling in the salon. She would have rather been on the beach in a red thong. Really fun.

At 3 pm, all the media were at a secondary airport outside the city where evacuees were landing when a storehouse, full of Red Cross supplies, down the hill exploded. They sent me out to report on it. I got a few furtive shots of the smoking warehouse and one really good shot of the stern fireman coming at me telling me I needed to stop taking pictures. Workers had been welding, ostensibly trying to repair the walls of the warehouse, when sparks caught on the foam mattresses stored there. I found the president of the National Emergency Commission, asked him for the most recent death toll. He told me 15.

I got back to the office at about 5, right as the editor was leaving for the weekend. The interns, who were on their first week, were still out. The others were back at the office. The government agencies had nominated the (completely inept) crime police to handle the bodies and the official death count. I called a dozen foreign embassies to confirm they had no reports of injuries or deaths, and responded to more letters to the editor while waiting for the stories to come in for edit and listening to Turn on the Bright Lights, which was in hindsight not a good listening choice for that day.

The online editor and I went to work on the stories reporters had turned in for the online edition. I edited the intern's story, which included a quote from one "Louise Alce." We turned in that day's Daily Page at midnight. The photographer finished editing two dozen photos for a photo essay, and he and I wrote captions until 1 am.

I took a cab home. I got back and realized I hadn't eaten since that morning. I pulled out a pack of Ramen, curled up, and ate it on the couch while poring through all the reports people were posting online. I looked through our photo essay one more time and went to bed. The next day I pitched the story of the extorting helicopter companies to a few U.S. outlets, but no one bit. The reporter got a letter into that LA Times blog and wrote on his own.

*

For our next weekly print edition, we had all the requisite pieces: field reports from the emergency tent cities, an interview with the government official saying how most of the city would have been flattened if the quake had been centered in San José, projected losses to the agriculture sector, the role Twitter & Co. played in it all, an interview with the woman whose husband and three children were among the dead, and a photo page. The final official death toll was 23, with seven who were never found or confirmed dead.

I did the article on the science on the quake. While interviewing a USGS geologist in Denver, I accidentally dropped "logarithm" in a follow-up question to him, and he got really excited and started asking me if have scientific background because most journalists' questions are really superficial but I seemed to really know what I was talking about and where did had I gone to school and what had I majored in? Poli sci and philosophy, mae. He sent me a great graphic that detailed all the plates and fault lines that unite to make Costa Rica a "diffuse" and "highly" seismic zone.

The manager of the paper let us all know that there was a second exit through the advertising office, and they'd moved the desks to accommodate that. There was one bit of levity from the earthquake. It got remixed, naturally. On Sunday, my downloads refreshed and I got Live at the Old Quarter.

*

Monday night there were three aftershocks, and I felt all of them. Normally, I sleep on my stomach, but that night I was lying on my back. I felt the second one as I was going to sleep. They weren't strong, but I knew they were aftershocks and not trucks going by on the street up above rattling the thin walls and window panes. Once they passed, I looked at that ceiling and thought about it falling down on me. I wasn't sure if it would be strong enough to seriously injure me.

I tried very hard to figure out how I would know if an earthquake were serious enough to duck for cover. The doorway was too far away, but I had a hard time believing my red metal twin bed would give me much more protection even if I could get under it in enough time. Would it be better to flip over on my stomach and let things try and shield my neck with my hands, or curl up in a fetal position and try to get my pillow over my head? I figured it was a question of which one I could do more quickly. But this was all probably moot, since the floor would probably cave through too, what with its airy slats that let in light from the open-air garage below, in which case it'd be better for me to stay on top of my mattress if we were to go falling to the cement below. I thought about this for a few hours until I felt the third aftershock at 1 am. It took me two more hours to fall asleep. I woke up at 6 am.

*

Of course, things still shook all the time. For a several weeks, every time a large truck would go by at work, the windows would rattle, and I'd stop typing, hold still, and look at Ichiro to assure myself those rumblings lasted only as long as the truck was passing and were not prolonged. It happened at home, too, what with the big flimsy window panes and vents in the living room that let the trucks' lumbering sound waves come in as easily as they let the cigarette smoke at parties out.

*

There were two more moderate earthquakes, 5.7 and 5.9 in March that we felt. The epicenter, though, was thankfully in the middle of the Golfo Dulce, and no one was hurt, although the bay bubbled for a while as the plates readjusted themselves. I wrote a short, and eventually wandered out to get lunch at 3 pm at a bar where I sat next to old men drinking whiskey and watched a Champions League match.

*

It's been a year since the main quake. Compared to Haiti or China or Pakistan, it is nothing. I have anxieties; they have horror. But a year later, even though I'm long gone from San José, I remember all of this, and not from any notes. There was a draft lingering, but it only had links to the Cinchona blog and the jueputa video. The rest of it and all the feelings of being utterly small and realizing the awesome power of a mantle that can literally pull the ground out from under you and everyone around you regardless of the best laid plans, those stay crystallized.

I eventually threw away the bobblehead.

Marinating

It's been four months since I left Central America, which to some might mean these videos are overdue. On the contrary.

This is the point by when I usually start to miss Latin culture, when I feel myself settling back into the constant hum of the anxieties of living in the states. No moment feels simple here, what with thinking about how the $5-10 I'll need at least to buy anything (anything) will all add up, about my wrist that now has a chipped bone after I smacked it on the back of a glass doorknob and will this cheap brace I bought actually heal it because lord knows there's no chance in hell of getting an x-ray for the uninsured, especially for a non-life-threatening injury, and just the constant barrage of being around people who must fill their days and do not know, could not if they tried to comprehend, how to sit, say nothing, and absorb a moment.

There is nothing complicated about any of these scenes, all from my trip to Nicaragua this Semana Santa. "Quotidian" in English has an implied negative connotation: a chore to dread, the day-to-day, a monotony. In French and Spanish, the connotation is neutral-positive: the word is more of a reassurance, something steady, something you can rest in, not something you're confined to. Most anything I ever do will be about trying to get back to or recreate communal, quotidian moments like these:

And, an addendum to my ode to Latin American buses last year:

The movies they play on the buses are legendary, or rather, the fact that the bus ayudante is actually being democratic in his selection of such cinematic œuvres is ... remarkable. On countless 8-hour bus rides between La Paz and Cochabamba, which I had to take because I couldn't splurge $50 for the 30-minute plane ride, I would to drown myself in Broken Boy Soldiers on my iPod as I watched the altiplano go by and try in vain to block out the gratingly dubbed apocalyptic Jean Claude Van Damme movies they played back-to-back-to-back, because of course I'd been stuck right underneath the speaker.

I infinitely prefer the Marco Antonio Solís.

In Which We Magnetize Mangoes

Translating can be great work. It's straightforward, pays well, and people love to see their stuff in English, which gives them an affinity for you.

On the other hand, the material is often so tedious it makes my brain seep out of my skull and down my back. Plus, in April I had full days at home, we were one of the few houses in town with a grassy lawn, and I could count on a fork's tines the number of clouds I saw that month.

Nevertheless, in my last month in San José, I'd had my hours cut and taken a trip to the Corn Islands, and so I (happily, I'll add) took the work and so managed to come back both financially solvent and with a decent tan.

For this job, I translated a series of podcast scripts from Spanish to English on the Multiple Intelligences and other recycled mediocre teaching methods that were probably translated from English to Spanish 10 to 15 years ago. (How do I know this? Because they used this Multiple Intelligences schtick on us when I was in 6th grade because we were one of the district's "experimental" classes! And they were trying to be really avant-garde! With a suburban elementary school curriculum! I digress.)

Oh come on, you say. It can't be that bad, can it? Watch and weep:

Nos enfrentan a nuevos tipos de texto a nuevas formas de leer, nos hacen aprender de una forma distinta y nos plantean un reto mucho más interesante, y es cómo relacionarnos con los demás en ese proceso educativo. Entre estas tecnologías no cabe el rechazo, la indifrenecia, pero tampoco la aceptación ingenua, tenemos que aprender a usarlas.

Sin embargo otras personas que consideran que estas tecnologías más bien disminuirán dicha brecha. La utilización de las TIC en los centros escolares por aquellos que no tienen acceso a ellas en el ambiente familiar, es un elemento de justicia social.

We are faced with new forms of text and new ways to read. We are required to learn in a distinct way, and this poses a much more interesting challenge for us: how do we relate with others in this educational process? Among these technologies, there is no end of rejection, indifference, but neither of acceptance, ingenuity, and we just learn how to use them.

However, others say these technologies will breach this gap. The use of [information and communication technologies] in learning centers for those who do not usually have access to such technologies in their usual routine is an element of social justice.

Yes! Watch the pedagogy and social justice fuse! (I'm sorry, I'm doing the exclamation point injustice here by condemning it strictly to sarcasm. What I really need is this mark. Or this one.)

The problem is that, as I've had it explained to me by professional Ticos and Bolivians alike, is that in Latino government, NGO, and professional writing the idea is somehow that the more you write, the more intelligent you are. And so they reiterate everything. Several times. The same sentence, with its subject, verb and dependent clauses flipped around and rotated a few different times. Those 50-page USAID quarterly reports I used to translate in La Paz? Probably could have been written in ten. And that is not hyperbole. It violated every holy precept of editing and writing I know. (It does not help that I mostly learned writing from those who were of the New England writing persuasion. And New England inevitably is used in the example sentence for what SAT word? Taciturn.)

Usually, I just tried to plow through the gelatinous blather as quickly as possible. But there was one bit that actually presented a challenge that I found amusing, almost fun. Demonstrating the musical intelligence, the student needs to remember a list of elements in a specific order and makes up a mnemonic chant to help himself do so.

I'm looking at the list of elements (line 23) and the rhyme he comes up with (line 27), and I cannot figure out where he's getting "Mango Sin Fe" from "Manganese Zinc and Hierro (Iron)". And then it hits me: They're using the chemical symbols. Of course. But this was fun. Nothin' like being subversive with ridiculous, but structurally correct, parades of elements:

And thus "Magnetizó Al Mango Sin Fé Ni Estaño, Pobre Hidrógeno Cuando Haga Ache Ge Pe Te Au" became "Magnetized All the Mangoes Singing Faith – Nigh, Sin – Public Hydrogen Cures Aging, Hugs Paint Auras".

I also gave all the people in the scripts American names from characters in The Wire.

And that is how we do translating.

Best of, Final Round

"Fw: FUERZA PÚBLICA DETIENE A DOS MUJERES POR SUPUESTAMENTE HERIR Y ASALTAR A OTRA!!!!!!."

-email subject line from the Public Security Ministry's press office

Corcoveándolo

Heidi and I went to La Palma, on the edge of the Corcovado National Park, on Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula last weekend as part of my last-hurrah trip in Costa Rica and some relief for her from the economic oppression to the north. It was rad, and I documented this with photos.

Starring: A Somali flag, Moustache Pedro, the pickle tree, a mathematical beach line, the burliest window cleaner ever, and the fly that died by the hand of the hitchhiker's guide.

The Blue Firmament

... 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven, to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.

Playa Colibri on Golfo Dulce, La Palma, Osa Peninsula, and Keats.

Ahem, Fido.

Turns out he's a little man, I just happened to first meet him before The Fall. He still breaks my heart.

(Soundtrack by The Magnetic Fields)

"Vultures pee down their legs to cool off."

Over a month ago, one of our regular freelancers wrote short feature, maybe 600 words, about vultures. It's been the one article our readers have specifically written in response to in the last month or so. (Emphases, again, mine.)

MARCH 20

Costa Rica Home to More
Vultures Than Reported

The article by Mitzi regarding vultures of Costa Rica last week was interesting, but there were a couple of inaccuracies. Mitzi got her information from a staff member of Zoo Ave.

[Three paragraphs detailing said inaccuracies.]

Zoo Ave does very good work and employs lots of people, but most are not experts regarding birds.

– Henry

APRIL 3

Vultures Are Omnivores
And Cannibals, Too

Concerning Mitzi's article about vultures: Having spent much of the past 50 years in rural Latin America, I have some knowledge of the habits of vultures, mostly the black vulture. It may be a surprise to some to know that a favorite food of the black vulture ... is each other! That is to say, they will fiercely and voraciously devour each other when they can. I have seen a large flock of them feeding on a carcass of livestock at the edge of the road, when a passing vehicle smashes and injures some of them, whereby, those feeding on the carcass will leave it and attack and eagerly devour their brethren.

This vulture seems to be omnivorous, as I have also seen them eating rotting coconuts (discarded pipas) and baby turtles. I don't think there is much in the way of organic matter they won't eat, just so long as they can get their beak on it without a threat to themselves.

– Samuel

APRIL 24

Vultures Play Dead,
Vomit and Urinate

It's not widely known, but owners of vultures that are in captivity for a broken wing, for example, have learned that they can be very endearing pets, squawking and rushing happily over to greet them.

Owners have also learned not to startle vultures.

When frightened, vultures will over and play dead. If that doesn't work, they then proceed to throw up. You cannot imagine what the smell of vomit can be like from an animal that only eats dead things.

In addition, when overheated, vultures pee down their legs to cool off.

Vultures also, it appears, are hard to get rid of. The Dade County Courthouse, which had vultures roosting moodily on the roof, peering down at people going to trial, tried electricity, noise, gunshot and who-knows-what to encourage them to perch elsewhere, to no avail at the time.

– Susan

Crossbred Vultures
Are Fun to Name

As a follow-up to the letter concerning the common American black vulture, I submit the following experience that persons interested in this topic may find of interest.

Many years ago when at the market in San Salvador, I was approached by a rustic looking individual carrying a cardboard box, and in the box was a brood of the strangest looking birds I have ever seen: The feet and head and neck were those of the black vulture, beady eyes, hooked back, etc. However, the body was not that of a vulture, but of a different shape, while the plumage was multicolored. The vendor offered them for sale, and giggling, related the following to me: His children on his farm had captured a black wild vulture and he had enclosed it in a pen of domestic fowl to keep as a pet. The vulture had crossbred, and the progeny were those birds he carried in his box, he said.

I would suggest that any reader in a rural area having domestic fowl catch a male and female black vulture and enclose them, out of contact and sight of each other, as follows: The female with several male turkeys, chicken cocks, and ducks, and the male with females of the same or more species. Keep them continuously together for a few moths or a couple of years and see what, if anything, results – meanwhile, think up a good name to call them. One may go to the Internet for information about distinguishing male and female vultures – I suppose one could use slabs of old meat as bait.

– Steve

A Superlative Twitter Day

ME: What’s your favorite book?

BIZ: I loved Sherlock Holmes when I was a kid.

ME: But you’ve helped destroy mystery.

sǝʌoɯ ʇı ʇǝʎ puɐ

Shameless

You know a copy editor's job by what you don't see: misspellings, misplaced commas, or – heaven forbid – an incorrect style reference to the Public Works and Transport Ministry and things of that sort. Mostly it's a thankless job, but on the other hand, we're also the ones who get to help write the quippy headlines, teasers, kickers and photo captions that entice all of you to buy the actual substantive articles, thereby saving profitable journalism.

We don't have to write 700 words of concise, objective text, just a couple dozen witty ones within set character limits. The most readily available bits involve some pun and/or pop culture reference. I've also finagled nods to Keats and Coleridge, Boyz II Men and Salt-N-Pepa. Of course, as happens in 92% of my day, something that strikes me doesn't quite strike everybody else the same way, and I have to go around and poll the editorial staff to support my claim that "The Windmills Cry Mary" is not too obscure a reference. (That one passed. Many others did not.) These are some of my favorite flourishes I've snuck in there in the last year.

For the Daily News subscribers' email, which gets two photos, when I edit it, I try to get the two photo kickers (the word/s in bold before the caption) play off each other. It may seem like an added layer of difficulty, but it actually helps to direct and pin down the creative possibilities swirling overhead. I know that maybe only a pair of readers actually notice the tandem wit – on a good day – but, hey, nerds have to entertain themselves somehow:

Who loves themselves some Velvet Underground? Moi:





But this was, and will always be, my all-time favorite:

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