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| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
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| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
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 Click HERE for
great
hotel discounts
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Another way to cheat
U.S. citizens living here? Dear A.M. Costa Rica: I just got off the phone with the U. S. Embassy, Social Security Department. I called to find out why I haven't received that $250 check that President Obama said "would be sent to all Social Security recipients." The representative said that the payment is not being given to U.S. citizens who receive Social Security who live outside the U.S. It was announced last November or December that instead of getting the usual annual cost of living increase we would get the $250 check instead. But we got niether, (That's right, we did not get the cost of living Increase or the $250) because we live outside the U.S. even though we paid into it for our entire lives. Can that possibly be true or is it a mistake of the embassy? Is this just another way to cheat U.S. citizens? Gene Mc Donald
Escazú  Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía
Three men await transport to jail after the
Policía dey Seguridad Pública photo Control de Drogas raided their home in Barrio Curime, Liberia Centro, Wednesday. Agents confiscated 21 doses of crack cocaine and 2,000 colons. Lawmakers give themselves two week traffic bill deadline By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Lawmakers are trying to wrap up a partial rewrite of the nation's traffic law within two weeks. In addition to technical problems with the law, there are substantive issues among lawmakers, including whether the stiff penalties for drunk driving should be lessened. These penalties already have been on the books for a year. The full traffic law is supposed to go into effect March 1. Spanish minister to visit By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Juan Pablo de Laiglesia, the Spanish foreign minister for Iberoamerican affairs, arrives today in Costa Rica. He and his delegation will meet with Bruno Stagno, minister of Relaciones Exteriores y Culto.
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| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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 Ministerio de Cultura. Juventud y
Deportes photo
Trash, brush and remains of past industrial activity have to
be cleared from the park site. |
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Area's newest park will
feature educational botanical garden
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
There is not a lot to see now at the Parque Metropolitano La Libertad. There are high weeds, trash, industrial remnants and a lot of dust. Workmen are preparing the site for a botanical garden and for reforestation of the entire 32 hectares, some 79 acres. This is the park that is taking shape in both Desamparados and La Unión, south and east of downtown San José, where government officials hope to create a location similar to Parque La Sabana. The 13-acre (32-acre) Jardin Botánico will be a major addition. The garden will not be just a collection of plants and trees, but a carefully planned educational area, officials said. The botanical garden has been planned with the help of the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, known as INBio, according to Tobías García Fernández, a biologist. The plantings are in several areas, including domestic crops like lettuce but also plants that are insecticides, used in art work, like bromelias, ground covers and soil protectors, those that produce dyes and medicinal and aromatic species. The park has a strong educational emphasis. In fact, the first |
arrival
was a school connected with the national music system that opened there
more than a year ago. Apart from the botanical garden, workmen are using heavy equipment to clear the ground for reforestation with native tree species. The planning of La Sabana has been criticized because the trees put there are eucalyptus. The trees are aromatic, and a run through the park after a gentle rain is a treat, but the trees are getting old and will have to be cut down. They also lose branches endangering park users. That park is on the site of the former international airport. Parque La Libertad will have a mixture of fast- and slow-growing species. Like La Sabana, there is water. The Río Damas and some of its tributaries drain the park. There also is a small lake in the area of the botanical garden. Plans also call for building structures for art expositions and classes, space for technology training and areas for the performing arts. President Óscar Arias Sánchez, a strong proponent of the park, toured the site Wednesday. Traditionally presidents cut a lot of ribbons and preside at many inaugurations as their term winds down. Now there is little to see at the park, but Arias wanted to see what had taken place while he still was president. |
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Ms. Chinchilla to join Arias
at Cancún presidential meeting
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
What do you do when you have just been elected president? Disneyland is out of the question, but there always is the gathering of Latin American and Caribbean heads of state in Cancún, México. That is where Laura Chinchilla, the president elect, is going next week after being invited by President Óscar Arias Sánchez. He said in a press statement that the meeting in |
Cancún is an ideal
opportunity to present the president elect to the
international community. Ms. Chinchilla was a vice president to Arias,
and he has not been shy about saying that he is happy she was elected. The election of Ms. Chinchilla, has given the country significant positive publicity. The session in México will be Feb. 21 to 23, and the host is Mexican President Felipe Calderón. |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page |
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| 100
tons of supplies to begin the trip to Haiti By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Friday the Cruz Roja will send about 100 tons of food, personal items and first aid supplies to Haiti via the Dominican Republic. All of the shipment comes from donations by individuals, companies and groups here who chose to help Haitians after the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed about 200,000 persons. The supplies are in storage now at Rex Cargo in San Joaquin de Flores, Heredia, and Friday the tons of donations start the trip to Limón where the containers will be put on a ship. Cruz Roja is crediting APL Logística for moving the containers and coordinating transport. The goods are estimated to be worth 170 million colons or about $303,000. In addition the Cruz Roja said it has received money donations, the bulk of which were sent to the aid agency's international organization for use in Haiti. The agency also said it was awaiting the delivery of money that the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad collected in a campaign that used the telephones. |
 Cruz Roja photo
Young volunteers help pack a container for Haiti. |
| Older investors seem to make mistakes
in value decision |
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By the Stanford University news service
Old age traditionally brings with it respect, experience and wisdom. But when it comes to making risky financial investments, an older mind is likely to make more mistakes than a younger one, Stanford psychologists say. In a paper published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers show that older investors make more errors when picking stocks compared to younger people playing the market. And that's not because of senility, memory lapses or other cognitive declines often associated with growing older. Instead, the problem rests with a senior's ability to estimate value. After having 54 men and women between the ages of 19 and 85 play an investment game while their brains were being scanned, the researchers found that older subjects were more prone to mental misfires while deciding to invest in one of two stocks. Functional magnetic resonance imaging results showed that greater variability or "noise" in a subcortical region of older people's brains was related to making the investment mistakes. This subcortical region – the nucleus accumbens – is critical for evaluation, while higher cortical circuits are more important for storing symbolic information like numbers and words. "When we looked at their neural activation we didn't see problems in memory circuits, but we saw a noisier signal |
in value
circuits," said
Brian Knutson, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience. Knutson conducted the research with fellow Stanford psychologists Gregory Samanez-Larkin and Daniel Yoo, along with Camelia Kuhnen, assistant professor of finance at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Their subjects played a game in which they repeatedly chose to invest in either stocks or bonds. Some of the stocks performed well and had positive earnings over time, while others performed poorly. The study showed that older people were just as willing as younger investors to make the riskier choice of buying stocks instead of bonds. But the seniors more frequently picked the stock with worse performance, usually because they made their choices before having a full picture of the stock's ups and downs. While 20-year-olds made those mistakes 20 percent of the time, 80-year-olds made the errors 30 percent of the time. The older subjects didn't seem to forget information about a company's gains and losses when it came time for them to pick a stock. Instead, their brain signals seemed to wander more while they were making their decisions. "We don't know what causes the noise," Knutson said. "The subjects might have been thinking about their grandchildren or something else of value. The problem is that this signal variability may be leaking into the financial risk-taking task at hand." |
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Latin American news Please reload page if feed does not appear promptly |
Reviving
Mexican music became a career by accident By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Leading a Mexican folk music revival was the furthest thing from Eugene Rodriguez's mind while growing up in a white middle class suburb of Los Angeles. The third generation Mexican-American earned a master's degree in classical guitar at the San Francisco Conservatory. But, just as Rodriguez was about to embark on his career in classical music performance, an unexpected family crisis made him rethink his plans. "Our baby was born but he ended up having a heart defect and died in surgery. It required a lot of soul-searching. It's a sign that life is very short and you need to do what is most important to you." Rodriguez enjoyed playing classical guitar, but admits it felt isolating. "It was a lot of practice and little opportunity to be on stage connecting with people." So, in 1989, with a grant from the California Arts Council, Rodriguez started what became the Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center in San Pablo, an impoverished town northeast of San Francisco plagued by poverty, drug dealing and gangs. It soon became a safe place for local kids to hang out, do their homework and learn about Mexican culture. Los Cenzontles means "the mockingbirds" in Nahuatl, the ancient Aztec language of Mexico. "I have seen many, many young people fall through the cracks," Rodriguez says. He and the center's teachers have tried to intervene in many cases but are not always successful. "You see people dropping out and there's really nothing you can do about it. It's sad and it's heartbreaking. But you work with the ones who stay and you try to create more and more success to create a stronger magnet for others, for the up-and-coming kids." Every week, hundreds of young students attend Los Cenzontles classes in dance, voice, guitar and arts and crafts, in a safe haven away from the town's crime and violence. Over the past 20 years, that effort has cultivated dozens of young musicians and music teachers. "Many of our musicians have been here for a great deal of time. We have a 15-year-old girl who's performing with us now who started when she was four. We have 30-year-old teachers who started with us when they were eight years old," says Rodriguez. Students from Los Cenzontles have visited parts of Mexico where the music they're learning originated. Rodriguez says they learned that many of the indigenous folk traditions, corridos, rancheras, and old-style mariachi music, were dying out and are no longer being played by Mexicans themselves. So Rodriguez's mission now includes revitalizing old musical styles by teaching them to young students and then performing them in Mexico with the Los Cenzontles touring band. |
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