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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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Mother Nature continues
Our readers' opinionsto serve up surprises By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The weather may not be getting strong influences from Hurricane Ike that is just south of Cuba, but strange things are happening in Costa Rica. A second day of ominous black clouds generated two strong windstorms south of San José Monday afternoon. Trees were down in Sabana Oeste, including the Parque La Sabana where an aging tree collapsed about 1:30 p.m. over the Autopista Próspero Fernández. All four lanes were closed until workmen could chop up the tree. Workers from the Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz and the Consejo Nacional de Vialidad were involved with firemen to clear the route. In a nearby parking lot, another tree inflicted heavy damage on parked vehicles when it fell. Hatillo, as is usually the case, got another dose of strong winds and a home and a store lost part of the roofs. Weather forecasters say Hurricane Ike will remain a concern as it moves west into the Gulf of Mexico, where it may regain strength over warm waters. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says the storm is on a similar path to Hurricane Gustav, which entered the Gulf of Mexico and struck the U.S. gulf coast one week ago. Forecasters say Ike could reach the Texas coast by Saturday or Sunday. Despite the possible backhand from the hurricane, the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said that today would vary from cloudy to party-cloudy with warm temperatures and high humidity from the Pacific. This will lead to the likely downpours in the afternoon. Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Bringing hookers to your apartment is tempting but dangerous. Buyer beware. It is becoming more common to hear of American men being robbed and sometimes killed in their apartments here. They all have the same MO. They pick up girls and bring them home. Not just one but many. This, of course, increases the odds that the one they do bring home will have more ambitious plans than just earning money for sex. Many of the working girls here are from Colombia, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. These are all dangerous, violent, countries and they seem to be bringing their “rob the John” tactics to Costa Rica. Tips to Americans with the same MO: Don’t bring strange women home. Get to know them first. We have plenty of love motels in Costa Rica, they are inexpensive and the girl doesn’t see where you live and what you have. Ask the girl where she is from. Most will tell you they are from Colombia, Nicaragua or the Dominican Republic. Be especially careful with these foreign women. If you are planning to pick one up, don’t carry a lot of money and leave your credit cards at home. Fun to visit, but be careful if you are planning to pick up women at the well-known hook-up bars and other bars where the women are anonymous. If you do, however, don’t be afraid to ask to see her ID, write down her name and ID number. Prostitution is legal here, if she is age 18 or over, and there is no reason why she wouldn’t give you her ID to look at. It is a business. They have to show their IDs when they go to hotels with a guy. This is how the hotels protect their clients. If she says she doesn’t have an ID, it is not a good idea to pick her up. She obviously wants to remain anonymous for some dark reason, or she is illegal, another reason not to mess with them. We have plenty of places where the girls and the rooms are in the same building. You don’t have to take the girls somewhere else. The rooms are right there. The managers of these places know the women and have copies of their IDs. The women work on a regular basis, and if any funny business is reported by the customers, the managers won’t let the woman work there any more. Also, coincidently, most of the women in these places are Costa Rican women who don’t have to worry about being threatened by the tough foreign girls at other bars which seem to be dominated by foreign women, many of whom are illegal here. Be smart, be safe and have fun in Costa Rica. We don’t need this kind of bad publicity in Costa Rica. For the most part, the legal working girls here offer entertainment that is hard to come by legally at home, so enjoy, but be smart. Ideally, if you are living here, you should look into finding a steady girlfriend or wife, like many of us old timers who have been living here for years. Edward Bridges
Speaker Forum clarificationDesamparados Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Thank you for your mention of the upcoming Speakers' Forum Sept. 16 at 7 p.m. One clarification: It is the conclusion of the video by Aaron Russo ("America: Freedom to Fascism") that there is no law justifying the IRS taxing wages and salaries, based upon Russo interviewing some former IRS personnel, tax attorneys, etc, which interviews will be shown in the video. It was not my conclusion, as was stated in your write-up. I am not an attorney, and I re-iterate my caveat: " CAUTION: Even so, you need expensive legal backup and money to win against the government." I appreciate the publicity from A.M. Costa Rica and thank you for it. Contact me at samjcr@pobox.com. Further info about the forum event: 2289-6333 or 8821-4708. Sam Butler
Escazú
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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| A proud child beams over her
custom-made farol, while a runner heads to Cartago from San
José. The evening of Sept. 14 always is full of worthy
photographic subjects. |
 A.M.Costa Rica file photos
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Nation gears up for its 187th
independence celebration
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Somewhere in Honduras a group of school children are running with the torch of independence held high. In a few miles they will pass the torch to another group. Eventually the torch will reach Costa Rica and then Cartago, the colonial capital, the night of Sept.14. This is the annual relay that brings the torch from Guatemala City to all the former Spanish provinces. The torch actually makes better time than the news of independence did 187 years ago. Costa Rica was left out of the loop for months and learned about independence from Spain long after it had taken place with the overthrow of Spanish rule in México. Monday, Sept. 15, is a legal holiday and additional celebrations will take place, mostly at Parque Nacional with speeches by dignitaries. The evening meeting in Cartago almost always is right on |
time even
though the runners come from a distance. The stop in San José
for a
ceremony earlier, and duplicates of the torches are carried to most
major population centers where festivities are held. Crowds gather. A unique feature of the evening are the faroles, replicas of 19th century street lanterns. Making an elaborate farol will keep many a student occupied in the next week. Typically they are hung on a staff. The idea is that the city fathers and other citizens gathered in the streets when the news of independence arrived illuminated by their personal lamps. The torch relay has been going on since at least 1960 and it is a unifying force in Central America. Employers have to give workers the day off Monday. If the employees work, they get a double salary. Public and private buildings are draped in the national colors for the Día de la Independencia, and that noise every morning are school bands practicing for their parades. |
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Murder investigator does not
see obvious connections in deaths of tourists
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By Elise Sonray
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Judicial investigators don't think the recent murders of two U.S. citizens are connected, said a director in the homicide division Monday. Friday night four masked and armed men jumped the fence to Robert Salberg's Sabana Sur apartment and killed the 62-year-old. Wednesday night a visitor found the body of Thomas Edwin Hendrix Jr., 50, in his apartment building in Barrio Escalante in east San José. The possibility of a connection has not been ruled out, but investigators say the cases have a number of differences. “It is clearly an option we cannot ignore, but to me it does not seem that the two are linked,” said Rolando Badilla Cascante, the subdirector of the Sección de Homicidios of the Judicial Investigating Organization. Badilla said it was too early to confirm anything but that in the case of Hendrix he suspects there was only one or two killers. Also Salberg was shot three times, and Hendrix was strangled. |
Badilla said both investigations
are going strong. The roommate and
best friend of Salberg, Mark Meyers, said Sunday that neither police
nor investigators had returned to question him since the night of the
crime. Badilla said that two investigators had been assigned to the case and had visited the apartment complex Monday before noon. He also said they had spoken with a family member in the United States. Badilla said investigators would put a sort of profile together of the type of person Salberg was. “They will find out where he frequented, if he liked to have parties in his home, the type of friends he had, what kind of company he liked,” said Badilla. The homicide agent said it was too premature to say whether any friends or girlfriends could have been involved in the robbery but that the idea would be investigated. Friends are planning a memorial service for Salberg, said Meyers, who added he would have more details in the coming days. |
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Ex-investigator who was a
judge becomes a victim of murder in Puntarenas
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A neighbor discovered the body of an ex-judicial investigator in Puntarenas Sunday morning. The victim was Marvin Hernández Araya, 48, who later worked as a traffic judge, said a Judicial Investigating Organization spokeswoman. The aggressor stabbed Hernández numerous times in different parts of his body, said the spokeswoman. |
The body of Hernández was
found inside of his home in San Isidro de
Puntarenas, according to the Judicial Investigation Organization. Investigators have not yet established a motive for the crime and are still waiting for autopsy results, according to the judicial organization. Neighbors said they last saw Hernández the previous night, according to the organization. |
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after parliament dissolved By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Sunday Canada's prime minister dissolved his country's parliament and called for general elections in mid-October. The prime minister, Stephen Harper, a Conservative, called for elections Oct. 14. In doing so, he dissolved parliament, ending his two and a half year old minority government. Canada follows the British parliamentary system, which means voters will only cast ballots for local members of parliament, or M.P.s. The party with the most elected M.P.s forms a government, and the party leader becomes prime minister. Heading into the elections, Harper's Conservatives had 127 members of parliament out of 308. That gave him a minority government. The Liberal Party of Stephane Dion heads into the elections as the official opposition, with 95 previous M.P.s. The Bloc Quebecois party, which advocates the separation of mostly French speaking Quebec from the rest of Canada, and the more liberal New Democratic Party also had elected members in the last parliament. After starting the election campaign, Harper told reporters that his government's record is the reason why he should be returned to office. "Between now and October 14, Canadians will choose a government to look out for their interests in a time of global economic trouble," Harper said. "They will choose between clear direction or uncertainty, between common sense or risky experiments, between steadiness or recklessness. Canadians will choose between this government's proven record and clear direction, or an opposition whose increasing strident criticism attempts to mask unclear or risky agendas." Liberal leader Dion says that the Conservative Party is not looking out for the long-term interests of Canadians In recent public opinion surveys, the Conservative Party is a few percentage points ahead of the Liberals — but within the polling margin of error. And general public opinion surveys are inaccurate when trying to predict the outcome of a series of local elections. The Bloc Quebecois, which is only active in Quebec, came third in last week's polls. The New Democratic Party placed fourth, with the Green Party, hoping to get it's first elected M.P. coming in fifth. While no specific issues are dominating the political agenda, the environment, the economy and Canada's involvement in Afghanistan are all expected to be debated during the campaign, which will last a little more than a month. This will be Canada's third general election in just over four years. |
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