Whether or not you are a supporter of the police, the one unassailable fact is that they represent just about the only line between you and a very nasty group of people who pay little attention to the law.  A complete lack of respect for law enforcement is a harbinger of anarchy.

When I arrived in Costa Rica, I rarely read or heard about violent attacks of any kind. There were some home invasions, but never if the home was occupied. Street crime was limited to pickpockets or street punks (chapulines) seldom armed with anything other than a knife and tough talk. Few or no gangs. Typical city crime.  Outside the cities, the crime rate was negligible.

Crime has changed here in Costa Rica. Now the street punks have guns just like in the USA. Assaults are more common. Home invasions occur whether the home is occupied or not. Costa Rica is reacting, hiring more police and if anything, I seem to have noticed a drop or at least a leveling off crimes here.

What has me troubled, though, is the ever increasing attacks on the police themselves… and worse, how the bad guys are seemingly getting away with it.  Just three days ago, a young (23 I think) police officer was shotgunned while making a check of a home. He survived… losing a lung. Another officer is in the same hospital after having been shot in the face.

I do not know any police officers here nor any agents of the OIJ, so I have no access to the hot skinny, but I am concerned that there is no news followup of the progress and activities and what they are doing to catch (avenge!) these shootings.  This could be just crummy reporting or perhaps the culture is different and the harming of a police officer simply is not a priority. I am hoping for the former!

My point is, the police and the government simply must make crimes against law enforcement a priority… even above crime to the populace. If they are not doing this, I believe the results will be disastrous for Costa Rica.

I received another comment yesterday and again I have decided to reply here as I think more people read the posts than the comments. OK OK… it is sort of another rant and probably should have been posted on July 4th, but here it is. It started out as a simply enough reply… then grew. However as my readers know, at times my self control fails me…which might be why I am not exactly thin!

Ohhh. Haters of the USA or those embarrassed to be an American will probably find this post not to their liking.

Below is a comment sent in yesterday and the stimulous for this reply. If my response might interest you… read on!

I don’t want to come off as a conspiracy theorist, but I do find it to be interesting that this is a problem for you now. My point, a lot of people are disenchanted, to say the least, regarding the current political, economic, etc… here in the US, and are hoping to relocate. Well maybe the powers that be prefer this not to be so easy to do. And therefore prefer not to have someone help make this possible, meaning you. You provide us with the much appreciated, and needed info. Seems as though with the recent CAFTA activity, that Costa Rica wanting to do trade with the US, is going to be pressured to do whatever Uncle Sam asks of them. Remember the disintegration of the middle class, means the corporate big wigs need all the slaves to stay here and consume in order for them to continue to make a profit. Now if we want to live elswhere, we are not here to keep them nice and fat. Ok, after previewing my post, I have to admit I do sound like a nut, or do I? (twilight zone music plays in background).

Yeah… a bit

But I think you are a little confused… at least about me and my status. My permanent residency renewal is not dictated by the US government and the renewal process seems to be going exactly as it should. I doubt there will be issues, but I thought I’d post my experiences so others could follow along to see how it goes. I expect it to go smoothly.

The USA has serious issues for sure, but to blame the current administration is just naive. The fault lies with every administration and congress for the past 20-30 years that exhibited not one modicum of leadership and a complete failure to deal with unpleasant problems like the current oil crisis, social security and numerous other issues.

The current Democratic congress does nothing… no leadership at all… preferring to blame the woes of the world on Bush.

Bush does nothing to demonstrate his leadership preferring to fall into stupid disagreements with congress about Iraq. The result is that nothing gets done on critical domestic issues. What people seem to forget is that either congress or the administration can take a leadership role and begin an initiative. Neither does and neither has for many, many years, preferring to pander to the George Soros’ of the world and to the other big campaign contributors and lobbyists. Want an example? In almost eight years neither Bush NOR congress has made even the slightest real attempt to ween the populace from being just plain pigs when it comes to using fossil fuels… nor did the administration before that nor the one before that… ad nauseum.

The US has about 4% of the world’s population yet uses 20% of the worlds oil. What is wrong with THAT picture?? Now we are at the mercy of high oil prices as China and other countries bid up the price of oil. Everyone blames big oil but they just don’t get it. Oil is a commodity… nothing more. Simple supply and demand. We now buy a ton of oil from the Saudis who then use their profits to fund terrorism and anti-American activities. Really intelligent! I like to think that every time you fill up, you are paying a nice little terrorist tax. We buy from the Saudis because we cannot seem to develop our own oil supplies or better yet, cut back on the use of oil completely. No leadership… again!

This current scenario was clearly visible decades ago, and MANY people warned that this would come to pass. EVERY administration and congress did NOTHING to keep us from being in this position… and they could have! We could have built refineries, encouraged or even forced the use of alternative fuels… Can’t be done? Pottywash! Take a look at Brazil if you want to see how it could have been done!

Now everyone bitches about the $4.00 per gallon gas prices. How silly. If you live in the Netherlands, you pay $12.00 per gallon. England? $11.00 last time I checked. Costa Rica? Over $6.00 probably starting this week! $4.00 fuel is nothing.

People have to leave the USA every day because they can no longer afford to live in their own country. My sister is in the process of moving here as she is in the same position. She gets a nice social security check and has savings, but is living hand to mouth… no room for anything unexpected and she is scared to death. Now she must leave her country.

She and many others will have no choice… but be aware it is not the rich and famous coming here. The ones with money might buy a vacation OR rental home here, but they have no intentions of moving. The ones that are moving here (not all of course) tend to be the less conspicuous consumers e.g. the middle class. I can promise you that a few tens of thousands of people planning to try ex-pat living and who are not at the top of the spending food chain, will not affect the economy of the USA one iota!

CAFTA is enormously complex and I am sure it will both help and hurt some Costa Ricans. Time will tell. In general, I think it will help more than hurt, and clearly the Costa Rica people agreed as it was they who voted YES to the TLC though admittedly not by a huge margin..

I would urge you not to fall into the trap of thinking that anything done by the USA is automatically bad. Those big (and sometimes small) businesses that everyone loves to hate is why the USA is by far and away the greatest country in the world. They were and are the engine. People forget, in the face of the all the recent anti-American press, just how wonderful IS the USA.

I believe the USA has serious issues and is broken. I believe we have wandered away from the basics that made us great. I also believe that it can be fixed, but not with the current lack of leadership in the congress and the white house. Nobody wants to rock the boat, and for sure, the boat needs some serious rocking.

The person who seems to be the forerunner in the US elections has 143 days of experience in the senate and it seems likely he will be soon be in the most important post in the world. To ME this is incredible! Talks nice though. He is, however, sadly lacking in experience and woefully ignorant of world affairs… but there you have it. The system continues.

We elect people simply not up for the job or simply not qualified. Many of those who could do the job want nothing to do with politics. Go figure! Obama will be surrounded/supported by a completely useless democratic congress that has already demonstrated that it is incapable of doing anything positive on behalf of the people they represent, and like all the congresses before, is totally lacking the leadership to make tough and unpopular decisions to save our country. They are far more interested in kowtowing to their monied supporters than in doing what is necessary to save our country.

The once honorable press distorts or fails to report the news unless it serves their own interest. They feed a never ending stream of untruths and encourage Americans to hate their own country. I mean can you IMAGINE actually working for The New York Times or CNN?? How embarrassing! How can they face their children at night?

I do not have a solution. I’d like to see people elected who care about the USA and will take strong and decisive action to lead and protect the USA. Ain’t gonna happen this election year I fear, and soon, I think the USA will soon become vulnerable once again to terrorism and attack as Obama tries cut the military and to placate an armed force whose only interest is the total destruction of the United States.

In summary, I love the USA and I am very proud if its accomplishments and forgiving of its failures.

Every once in a while I like to listen to a broadcast from back in 1973. Thirty five years have passed, but listening to and reading it still makes me want to just stand up and cheer. Thanks to our press and the naysayers, we can easily forget just how great is our country.

Thirty five years have passed, but the intelligent reader/listener will still see amazing similarities to our world today. Listen, read and think.

To read and listen to this broadcast and learn the background, click here … or you can just listen here to the The Americans

I listen to it a couple of time a year. Every time I do, it make me feel very proud to be American with all the good and bad that comes it.

For sure we are not perfect. We stumble and fall… but wow. What an honor to be called American.

Stand Proud America

Here is her email, and if the topic interests you (and you can deal with my rant)… read on!

My family plans to relocate to Costa Rica, and I would like to know what your thoughts are regarding the recent activity by the Costa Rican Congress ending it’s 84 year old insurance, and telecom monopoly (CAFTA). How do you think this is going to effect the citizens of Costa Rica that have enjoyed a universal health care system, and what do you think the implications are for Americans residig in Costa Rica, that have been able to partake in this system?.

From the tone of your comment, and I get a LOT of these emails/comments, you are one of those believing anything having to do with CAFTA and the big bad horrible USA must be bad for everyone else. If I am wrong, I apologize in advance.

But you got some words right.. just not the facts which are more obscure… so let me explain.

1. The telecom monopoly, like the vast majority of monopolies is a huge, cost wasting enterprise, employing tens of thousands of workers, and is roughly 7 years behind the rest of the world in providing the things over which they have responsibility (technology).

In addition, as with most monopolies it gives awful customer service at ridiculous prices (for Internet and power, not for cell service). The “high speed Internet”, when it DOES work, is painfully slow, and the vast majority of Costa Ricans have access only to dial-up modem service in their homes. It has held the country back economically. strategically, and educationally.

The cell rates ARE well priced, but of the two systems here, the only one that works at ALL is the old TDMA system popular in the USA back in the 1990s. It works great!!

The “new” GSM system is absolutely horrible, works at best only 90% of the time and does not work at all in many locations… yet the monopoly is telling many, many thousands of Ticos to turn in their old working cell phones and buy the new GSM phones. For many Tico families, this is a MAJOR expense. Gotta LOVE those monopolies! In 2009, they will discontinue the only system that works.

This telecom also controls the electric power. Last year we went days and weeks suffering brownouts and blackouts. This was the result of an astonishing lack of simple population planning, and numerous families and businesses suffered greatly. The president had to spend a TON of money buying emergency equipment just to keep the lights lit.

In the history of the world, there have been good monopolies I am sure, but the vast majority provided lousy customer service, a crummy product, at unfair prices… This is why monopolies were outlawed in the USA about 50 years ago.

This model fits here… because there is no competition, they do as they please while giving the customers the one finger salute.

Insurance

You wrote …”the recent activity by the Costa Rican Congress ending it’s 84 year old insurance… monopoly” and “How do you think this is going to effect the citizens of Costa Rica that have enjoyed a universal health care system”

You have things pretty mixed up. First, the congress had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.

The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was voted through by referendum…and was voted on by all Costa Ricans. The PEOPLE passed this treaty… not the congress. Hmmm. I wonder if the overwhelmingly super service provide by their telcom monopoly had anything to do with that vote!

After CAFTA passed, the congress had to alter existing laws to bring them into concordance with the terms of CAFTA that the PEOPLE OF COSTA RICA approved.

This is something that sorta grinds me in emails I receive… the perceived arrogance of those who think THEY know more than the Costa Rican people. I am not saying the writer said or implied this, but others have many times. The Costa Rican people are bright, intelligent, well educated people and right or wrong, they made their will known. Time will tell if it was a good decision, but I can assure you that never in my life have I EVER seen a more informed public on a topic up for referendum. Costa Rica could give civics lessons to any country in the world after the manner in which they handled the TLC (CAFTA).

So now there will be other insurance companies offering policies with wider coverages with larger groups and therefore possibly lower rates. There are dozens of huge international insurers who can now legally sell their products to those of us who live in Costa Rica. Now, perhaps a 50 year old women driver will not have to pay $1,400 per year for car insurance the same as her 19 year old son.

Oh… that’s right! There IS no compulsory insurance so only a very few people ever buy insurance because it can represent more than 10% of their annual income! Enjoy your next trip here! Drive defensively!

Your email implies that the “Universal Health Care” is going away. It is not. THE CCSS (CAJA) is alive and well. Good thing as my wife works for a CCSS hospital!

Oh… and to be clear… “Universal Health Care” is just socialized medicine… and just as in Sweden, Canada, England and other places, the system does not work for anyone except the very poor and seldom works well for them. Lines are huge. Several hours is common at my wife’s hospital. Generic medicine are prescribed to save money, but sadly they are purchased from a variety of countries and there is no quality control and therefore many medicines just do not work. I can vouch personally that that is true.

Waits for a doctors visit can take months and often DO. Waits for major surgery or even some minor surgeries can take years. The poor suffer with this crap as they have to… same as they will soon in the USA. Everyone else buys private insurance so they can see the doctor of their choice at the hospital of their choice a the time of their choice. For those of you who are “Universal Health Care” fans… I wish you well. It looks great on paper, but I have yet to see it work well. I can assure any middle class Gringo tht moves here that you will eventually get CAJA and buy private insurance in case you get sick.

So what do I think the implications are for Americans residing in Costa Rica, that have been able to partake in this system?. Not much… Nothing has changed, just more offerings and some of those are years away. If they use CAJA now, they will continue to use CAJA. If they buy private insurance now, they will soon have other options and perhaps better prices. If they are tired of paying car insurance as though they were an 18 year old male overdosed on testosterone… they will likely be happy with premiums that reflect their age, driving history and experience! Someone may come in and actually offer true hi speed Internet for less than $80 per month WITH reliable service and connections that actually do not die every day at 3 PM. Note I am referring here to TRUE high speed as you would find in most developed countries.

Costa Ricans will benefit I think by better services lower prices (or more for the money they do pay).

Even now, with the arrival of those big awful businesses from the bad ole USA, (like Walmart), customer service policies are changing country wide! Why imagine a Tico who can actually exchange a brand new and very costly TV (but one that was totally DOA right out of the box), instead of having to wait 3-4 months while it gets returned to the factory in Korea for repair!

Can you imagine?

And again… if I misread your email, I apologize… but that’s the problem with email… no visual or aural clues to clarify.  Also, enough others have written about how they hate the USA, big business, Bush, Obama, and God that I am just getting fed up with it.  As a famous bird once sang… Get Over It.

To provide a bit of background for newcomers, visitors and tourists, there are currently two cell phone systems here in Costa Rica. The first, TDMA , often referred to as “the old system” and GSM, “the new system”. New is better, right? Often true, but in this case… totally not true.

The GSM system was installed some years ago by Alcatel, a French company under contract to ICE the government-run monopoly that controls all telecommunications in Costa Rica. Apparently not satisfied with just trying to win this huge contract in a competitive manner, Alcatel decided to spend some cash in order to bribe some key decision makers in ICE and in the Costa Rican government. About $11 million as I recall! This was also distributed to at least two and probably three ex-Presidents of Costa Rica, two of whom spent some time in prison for accepting these bribes, and a third who is currently hiding out in Switzerland, unable and apparently unwilling to return to Costa Rica for fear of also passing a few hours in the slammer.

This is important to know because the GSM system installed by Alcatel simply did not and still does not work well at all… and it will soon be the only system available.

Recently, ICE announced, in their incredible wisdom, plans to phase out the TDMA system over a three year period beginning in 2009. I am presuming that their intentions are good, pehaps wanting to update and maintain a more current technology. I would support this decision enthusiastically if only the GSM system worked! It does not.

There are huge areas where the GSM system simply does not work and far more areas where it just works poorly. I live and work midway between San Jose and the San Jose airport, and a GSM phone will not work in the home or office. I need to walk down the road 200-300 yards to get service. Many parts of Santa Ana, Urica, and other populous suburbs of San Jose have spotty coverage at BEST!

Even if you are lucky to be in a zone that does have coverage, you are often told that you cannot connect or are told to place your call later. I have lost count of the times I have called my son only to hear that service is not available. This does not mean he is out of service zone; it means the stupid system cannot process the call. During rush hour or bad weather, just forget calling anyone or receiving calls. Theoretically, GSM phones can be set up via Bluetooth to provide Internet access. Internet is offered as a costly service on GSM phones. I tried it and the service is terrible, often not working at all.

The Southern Zone (near the Panama border) has fine TDMA coverage but crummy GSM coverage. As many people use their cell phones as the only form of communication, when the TDMA system shuts down, they will be without communications. Remember it can take years to get a land line installed, so mobile communications is often the only option.

I think by now you get the point. GSM is not a good solution!

So how does this affect Ticos? It screws them of course!

ICE has announced that they want those TDMA phones back so they can be recycled. Good idea. So that means every person who is currently using TDMA must go out and buy a new GSM phone and return their old one. But… GSM phones are not cheap here. All are sold at retail. Buyers could easily have to pony up $300 or more for a new (basic) GSM phone. Some readers might think that $300 is not too bad, but you must consider that that is more than the entire monthly income for hundreds of thousands of Tico households! To place this in perspective, if you currently earn $60,000 per year in the USA, you would need to shell out $5,000 for a cell phone! That is a big expense and this will most assuredly be a burden on low and even middle income families. I am guessing that this will leave many low income families completely without communications. That, or they will buy on credit further exacerbating the huge outstanding credit problems in CR.

Another problem! Costa Rica is now becoming home to more and more foreigners who do not speak the language. The voice mail system on the GSM phones is not available in any language other than Spanish. Now I admit to not feeling real bad about this as it is my opinion that if you are going to live in a Latin country, you must learn the language! However few foreigners arrive here already speaking Spanish, and a cell phone really is a necessity.

All and all, this is a bad idea that helps nobody except the cell phone retailers and the credit card companies. It will hurt a lot of low income families. There should be a better plan.

Caution! Rant coming!

As most expats, I watch the current political battle for the Presidency of the United States. I watch as Barrack Obama and others make their stupid claims that they will “do something” about the price of gasoline in the US, now over $4.00 per gallon in 23 states. They just don’t get it. To me, it as is stupid as their claims that they will stem the outflow of jobs from the USA to other countries. I have news for them. The first will not happen without strong leadership and new ideas (which neither candidate has even remotely shown) and it is years too late the do anything about the second.

People love to blame big oil. It is so very convenient to blame those big companies rather than accept responsibility for what is the real problem. We are pigs, and this is not limited to those in the USA. The same is true here.

The USA has about only 4-5% of the world’s population yet uses 25% of the world’s oil! Oil is a commodity and nothing more. All countries use oil and therefore all countries must buy oil on the world markets. Demand affects this price as does supply. The new big kid on the block is China, a country that is now flexing its economic and manufacturing muscle and their needs are huge. Demand! They buy a LOT of oil and that is not going to stop. In fact, it will be just the opposite. The oil companies in the US, as the government of Costa Rica buy oil on the world markets and they pay whatever is needed to meet their demand. There is no real negotiation as someone else WILL pay the asking price.

So who is to blame? George Bush? YES! Bush and every single President of the United States for the past 25 years of so. Also, every member of congress, Republican or Democrat. Not ONE of these clowns has evidenced a modicum of guts and taken a leadership position to wean us off oil, and that CAN be done. Look at Brazil, a great example. Any action we start today will take years to bear fruit, so our leaders bicker, blame each other, blame the other party, blame the oil companies… whatever! Can you imagine a politician standing up and saying that he or she accepts responsibility for the lack of leadership? Many members of congress have been there for years, decades even… and they do nothing! It is time to throw the rascals out!

So what is needed and needs to be done? To answer that, we need to look at both supply and demand. To drop oil prices, either supply must go up, demand go down, or (preferably) both.

Supply

Drill new wells. Simple huh? It is not. Why? We now run afoul of the environmentalists. Everyone wants to do something about the environment. Hell, it is our earth, but oil is in places we want to protect and the oil companies cannot drill there. Much easier to drill in someone else’s country right?

The result? We become subservient to that bonehead in Iran, the Saudis, Hugo Chavez. An entire cadre of world creeps. In fact, is there one major oil producing country that even likes the USA? Between them, they exert enormous control on the USA and its economy. This can not continue. We are at peril.

So the big decision needs to be made. If we are not going to use self control and use less gasoline and oil products (reduce demand), we need to increase supply, but only from our own country (USA). That means drilling new wells in places that will give the environmentalists heart failure.

Even here in Costa Rica, that decision may need be made as there is evidence of offshore oil deposits on the Pacific coast. So far, Costa Rica has not even permitted exploration. I wonder how they will think when gasoline hits $9.00 per gallon. I cannot see how we can have it both ways.

Then there is nuclear power! Oops, here come those pesky environmentalists again. Coal? There is enough coal to produce electric power for the entire USA for 90 years! It is also VERY cheap and there have been new techniques to clean up burning coal. Not as clean as nuclear, but much better than years before. Do you think that 90 years will be long enough to find some real leaders who will wean us, forcibly if necessary, from suckling the breast of big oil? Well certainly not in this election year if McCain and Obama don’t stop stroking us with platitudes and start addressing the real issues.

Besides, silly me! The environmentalists will never permit us to use coal. Heaven forbid!

It also probably does not help that there has not been a new oil refinery built in the USA in 30 years. Why?

Demand

Everyone complains about the high gas prices but that seems to be it. Of course some folks have switched to using public transportation, riding a bike to work, etc. Do you know a lot of them? I do not. I keep in touch with people in the US and no one has really made a lot of changes. Couple of canceled drive vacations.

Here in Costa Rica, they interviewed a bunch of people and asked about the gas prices and how it is affecting them. The poorer folks already use buses as they never had a car in the first place, but the others? They are buying fewer clothes! No kidding! Rather than cut back on driving, they are using discretionary spending to buy maybe one less pair of shoes. Go figure. And Costa Rica has a huge and extensive public transportation network. Get the impression that folks are resistant to the process? Someone needs to do a similar poll or survey in the USA.

But some places in the USA, Los Angeles comes to mind, were never designed around a public transportation system. So how do they cut back? CAN they cut back? If they could, would they? People love their cars and love their freedom to hop in and get away.

Alternatives

So all this us with the alternatives. Hybrid cars are cool, but it takes about two years for the increased cost of those cars to be offset by the decrease in fuel cost. Down here it takes 3-4 years to offet the higher price.

Work from Home. Telecommute?

Alternative fuels? Brazil uses a fuel made from sugar cane I think. Far cheaper. Efficient. Clean. They are far less dependent on oil than most any other developed country. Odd then that our US congress has placed HUGE tariffs on the import of alternative fuels. Yup! Cross my heart!

I can go on, but I am tiring of my own rant. We need leadership. Someone who will maybe place a tax of 100% on any vehicle that uses less then 35 miles per gallon. Imagine a world sans SUVs, gas guzzlers, etc.

Back to Costa Rica. Today’s increase is the sixth this year with another most assuredly coming in July. Gas prices here are government controlled and prices at all gas stations are fixed.

Gasoline today is $5.10 per gallon for super, $4.97 for regular and $4.82 for diesel.

In July, you can pretty much be assured of an $.11 per gallon increase across the board.

When I arrived in Costa Rica, I bought the car that I currently own. Still runs great. To fill up cost me about 7,000 colones (about 8,000 colones in today’s valuation or $15.23).

Today, it costs 30,000 colones or $57.47.

I was gonna go out and buy a new pair of shoes for my wife’s birthday this week.

Changed my mind.

From Karin:

One thing that worries me about trying to live in CR is the thought of having to be on guard all the time against house thieves. I’m originally from NYC and am used to watching my back in public, but I’m not used to having bars on the windows, etc.

Your page on Culture Shock mentioned that the concepts of right and wrong vary from culture to culture. I’ve heard Ticos blaming most of the petty (and violent) crime on Nicas that have come into the country.

Have you formed an opinion on why “Thou shalt not steal” and “Do unto others, etc.” are ignored by so many people there? Are they less attached to their “stuff” than we are?

So sorry to go astray Karin, but your answers are (buried) here.

I think “stuff” is relative. If the best you can afford is a radio, the loss of that radio is maybe equal to another person losing their DVD player or cell phone… Just my thoughts.

And… if you think the ten commandments or golden rule have anything to do with our 2008 world, you are probably pretty disappointed daily in your life. Ethics and morals have been under attack by the far left for many years, and the US is an example of how a society can deteriorate when it shifts from basic values, religious or otherwise. In fact it is my opinion that it is far worse in the US than here in Costa Rica, though of course there are areas in the US where people still respect one another, the laws of the land and their own God as they define Him or a higher power if that word is better. Of course, they are ridiculed for their beliefs.

I think the USA is broken.

I am not a particularly religious person, but I think people need to respect other folk’s belief systems and not try to impose their own. Oddly, the terrorists are trying to export and enforce THEIR version of Islam to everyone in the world… The basic Islamic beliefs, while different, are still basically good unless distorted for personal use. Still, there is a huge faction in the US that minimizes and makes fun of those (religious or not) who want and choose a simpler and more basic approach to life and family. They change the words to Silent Night… heavens! Nobody wants to offend! Merry Christmas is now offensive? To whom? Ever had a non Christian tell you not to say Merry Christmas as you walk down the street?

These people want to change how we address each other or groups of people, yet they use words often even more offensive! Example? How about the ridiculously named, “Native Americans”? Ever actually speak with a “Native American”? I have, and I know of none who care to identify themselves as “Americans” at all! They identify themselves with their own Nation (OK, tribe if you want to get silly). Oh… BTW… they actually WERE sovereign nations unto themselves and doing quite well before we decided to relieve them of that overwhelming burden of self governance. All in the name of Manifest Destiny, but really sort of a military assisted living program.

The PC police monitor your words and thoughts and tell YOU how to think, act, and what is right based on what THEY think is right. Free speech, while technically still on the books, is really pretty much gone. No, I am not advocating the use of hate words… I just think this PC crap is another example of what WAS maybe good idea with good intentions now gone horribly wrong.

I consider this attack on people for how they think, speak, worship, or express themselves to be little more than domestic terrorism. It may not be as destructive as Islamic terror, but it sure seems to be having a similar effect… maybe just a tad less bloody.

The Bad Guys!

Yeah… the Nicas and Colombians are blamed for everything… but the Blacks and Latinos were blamed for everything in the US as I recall. I doubt that has changed since I jumped ship. Anyway, all those groups tend to be on the lower end of the economic scale, so I suppose that blame is at least partly justified… Have to eat right?

Crime here? The Cost?

It is FAR cheaper to live in CR than in the USA, but there is a cost involved that people conveniently forget. Those high taxes you pay in the US for (normally) buy those superb services like ambulances, paramedics, police that respond instantly and are well paid and well trained (though seldom well appreciated). Taxes also pay for (generally) well equipped schools with vast sports facilities, computers, after school activities… the works. Even urban schools in the US (Chicago for example) generally are far better equipped then nearly any public school in Costa Rica.

Down here, you pay almost NO taxes, but you also get almost no police services and the Cruz Roja ambulances are often equipped with not much more than an oxygen bottle. With no police, you make do! You may chose to live in a gated and protected community that hires it’s own security. Ironically, those Gringo hideouts are the least secure and most dangerous places to live… a favorite, Escazu, had well over 700 reported home break-ins last year. The really important word is REPORTED? As there is little point, a lot of folks never report crime here.

However all is not bad! There are a zillion safe and wonderful places to live where you can have great neighbors and be safe in your home. I meet people all the time who live safely and without fear! Is that what you want? Well that carries with it the responsibility to learn Spanish and actually BLEND into the Latin culture. That is a price tag that many expats do not wish to pay. They’ll stick with each other, learn 9 words in Spanish, and tell their friends they live in Costa Rica.

The COOL thing is that this is changing! I am seeing more and more over-50ish North Americans moving here, living in areas that are predominantly Tico, adjusting to and LOVING life here. They are safe. They are contributing. They are learning the culture and have discovered that just because you speak Spanish does not mean you are a Mexican gardener. They watch out for each other. Basics. Like holding hands in kindergarten.

The bars on the window? Deal with it. They are everywhere and while many folks will explain them away as part of the Spanish influence (and they are partially right) they have evolved into a requirement depending on where you live. Close to bigger cities and tourist areas… expect to see more bars.

How about the younger expat?

My son 28 lives here with his wife and three year old daughter. He is very concerned that while here in Costa Rica, she will never be exposed to or have access to the zillion things US kids take for granted every day! He is right of course. Kids here play soccer. Few other sports. Very few computer labs… in fact, very few computers at all… few tennis or basketball courts… little track and field. Few if any after school activities that are school sponsored.

My son’s high school and his frame of reference (Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinos) had pools, a TV/radio station, clubs, probably 20 different sports and may about 400 extracurricular things to do. Granted, that may be an exceptional high school… but my point is that down here, those things simply do not exist at all even in the high priced private English schools. They are just not available. He is considering a move back to the USA… not a bad idea, but he simply has NO idea how much all those things cost in the higher taxes he will pay. I paid $7,000 per year in taxes for his fine high school, a super police department that patrolled my neighborhood 20-30 times per day with under 2 minute response time, and paramedics that drove mini hospitals in case we got sick.

Phrases like “Pay me now or pay me later” or “Ya gets what ya pays for” or the ever popular “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” all work fine in Costa Rica. If you move here, bear these in mind. You can NOT have it both ways.
Although I am pretty sure I’ll get blasted for saying this, but I think that those parents who move here from the USA with kids of school age just so they can “expose them to another culture”, while well thinking, are NOT doing them any favors. I am referring here to permanent moves, not a one year visit to another culture thing which I DO support.

The REAL thing I see in the younger expat (not including business transfers) is these people seem to be using the kids as an excuse for their own inability to cope with life in the USA… conveniently blaming Clinton, Bush, the system, the Republicans, Democrats, banks, Britney Spears … whatever/whoever… for their lot in life. I am already getting a ton of email from the Hillary and Obama haters getting ready to leave the USA if either are elected. That is just wrong, You cannot escape your life. It follows you.

To Karin… I do apologize. Poor woman asks a simple question or two and gets the whole enchilada of pent-up crappola.

To you 8,000 or so who get this Blog via email, sorry to jam up your email and use your bandwidth. If I have offended anyone… well, that is why people have Blogs… to say what they think. To spew!

Comments of a polite nature are, of course, welcome so long as they agree with me.

Many locations are important population centers like parts of Curridabat, Tibás, Heredia and Cartago. S anto Domingo de Heredia had just FIVE connections remaining.

Outside the Central Valley, there are the same issues in Ciudad Quesada (San Carlos), Liberia, Nicoya, Santa Cruz and Jacó. In several areas, NO connections remain, and people are now faced with a waiting list similar to the ever-popular bi-annual cell phone fiasco. ICE in Tibás states there are no services because the central station is saturated and because there are modems no available. HUH? There simply are no more connections in those central offices AND even if there were, there are no routers!

So now ICE has to go to the Contraloría (the bean counters for the Republic) and ask for money to expand the system that should have been expanded 4-5 years ago but was not because they did not ask for the money nor make a case for expanding these services that are strategically critical to Costa Rica and its development.

Seems like every day or so, we have ICE telling us “NO TLC” (free trade agreement) and ICE employees marching in parades to demonstrate that “Costa Rica don’t need no Stinking TLC”. The parade was probably lead by the guy who heads strategic planning.

So tell me if I am wrong here. If YOU were a monopoly charged with providing electricty and communications services to this country, and you did not want foreign competition to come in and clean your clock, would it not make sense to provide the best available services to those voters who will soon decide the fate of the TLC?

But no… I guess not!

Instead we have graft, lousy or non-existent cell phone service and no cell phone lines, rolling electrical blackouts affecting the entire country, and (now) no capacity to expand those Internet service that affect world wide communications and the growth and development of this nation!

I have stayed out of this TLC thing as 1. I do not fully understand all of its implications for Costa Rica and 2. I frankly think ALL foreigners, legal or not, are guests and truly have no right to stick their noses in these issues unless they are actually citizens and must (by law).

That said, I sure am wondering when the Costa Rican people will tire of taking it in the shorts from ICE, CAJA and the rest of the monopolies that exist here.

In that post, I left readers hanging a bit regrading BAC San Jose and their policies regarding the depositing of checks from outside Costa Rica. You may recall they have this little “gotcha” policy that prohibits the depositing of any check from outside Costa Rica for the first year, a truly stupid and needless policy for most people and for businesses especially. After 18 months of 100% trouble free banking, I asked that my company accounts be allowed to deposit checks, all from the USA. Here is what I was told:

“BAK San Jose no longer permits the depositing of checks drawn on foreign (non Costa Rica) banks.”

“HUH”, says I. “That makes no sense. I maintain a large balance and have been a totally trouble free account for almost two years. I am a legal Permanent Resident and own multiple businesses”.

“Sorry”, says she, manager of the branch. No explanation.

“Does this affect all account holders or only me?”

“It affects everyone”.

I believe that statement to be 100% false, but have no way to disprove it. With no other options, I transferred nearly all the money to Banco Nacional who had no problems accepting foreign checks. I left open the accounts with small balances so my Costa Rica customers could continue to make transfers.

As this bank policy is so utterly STUPID and devoid of any logic whatsoever, I now change my rating of BAC San Jose to ZERO and would caution all to be cautious in their dealings with them. Something is amiss I fear!

Not long ago, President Óscar Arias Sánchez signed into law (”Ley de penalización de violencia contra las mujeres”) a truly controversial measure that provides tougher and longer sentences for the murder of women than of men.

While that in itself seems odd to me, the kicker is it also makes it a crime to insult a woman. Here I am not just speaking of a woman on the street or in the workplace. I am referring to any woman… even a wife or daughter. The law punishes men who are physically and/or psychologically abusive of women, especially a wife, live-in partner or girlfriend.

Theoretically, the law was designed to place some limits on the famous Latino “macho” behavior prevalent here and in many Latin countries.  Good luck!  Like a law is going to change a culture!

Like most, I have been in a lot of relationships in my life, but I have never struck a woman (other than my sister Pam when I was 11 and she deserved it) though I am sure that I have said things that were just wrong while in the heat of battle. The women also certainly did not remain mum during these conflicts. Couples fight, at least just about all the couples I know. This law certainly places some interesting new rules on the average couple in Costa Rica.

The new law provides sentences of from six months to two years in prison for a male who ridicules or frightens his female companion. It also provides protection against something called “psychological aggression.” That is defined as saying pretty much anything negative to your partner that would cause her distress. WOW!  How is THAT determined?

A comment like “you seem to be gaining a little weight” or the like, is now cause for imprisonment! Say that to a woman in menopause (like my wife), and it would be the man (me) who would be dodging a knife!

Kidding aside, I often call my wife Gordita… a (true) term of endearment but literally translates to “little fat girl”. Does that make me eligible for the slammer? Guess so!  She also calls me Gordito, a far more accurate word when used for me as my wife is quite thin whereas I have problems seeing my feet without tilting forward a bit.

The new penalty for actually killing the female companion is 20 to 35 years. The penalty for a “typical” murder, (read that as killing a man I guess), is 12 to 18 years. Huh? Good to know my life is worth about half of any woman’s life. (Please, no comment from my ex-wife). The current law sets outs the same sentence in the case of murder of a wife or live-in partner but only in the case where there are one or more children created from the union.

So I guess it is best to kill her before you have babies?

I am certainly not against women here, but am I the only one who thinks this is just nuts??

The bill was passed 45 in favor and 3 against after having been in the asemblea for 7 or 8 years. It never got close to passing before, but seemed to have 9 lives as it would always be resurrected after some particularly nasty domestic violence resulting in the death of the female. We even have a new word! Femicide!

Jails here are already badly overcrowded, crime is on the increase and now this?

I cannot see how this law can possibly withstand the sure-to-come appeal to Sala IV, the constitutional court of Costa Rica, but I am getting very concerned that CR is now on its way to being as dumb as the USA in making biased unreasonable laws based on PC and various “causes”.

One of the companies I own deals with tourists coming to visit Costa Rica. This often involves having one of my people meet them at the airport. This is normally no big deal. We give them detailed instructions and nearly always, we are able to hook up without issue.

So it was odd that we sent a rep to the Liberia airport to meet a woman traveling with her 14 year old daughter. Often our customers are also being met by a tour company, so in this case, our rep met them and they both waited for the arrival of our mutual clients. After waiting an hour, it was clear they were not coming, so the tour agent and our rep left the airport.

Later that day, I received a phone call from a very, very unhappy customer calling me from Houston.

It seems that when she and her daughter arrived, the immigration official did not like the condition of the photo on the mother’s passport. She then spoke to a person who she thought was a representative of Continental Airlines who gave her the bad news that she could not enter Costa Rica and must immediately re-board the Continental flight and return to the city of her departure, in this case, Houston.

She asked to contact the US Embassy, but that request was refused. She also call her Senator, but was told she could not wait in Costa Rica and must leave the country forthwith.

She detailed this adventure to me in an email that I have included for all to read. See below.

Now this really amazes me! Here is a 50 something year old woman traveling with a minor child on their first visit to Costa Rica. Why did this have to happen? More important, how? As she points out in her email, her passport was examined at least four times during her flights from Boston to Houston and from Houston to Costa Rica. Presumably, the employees of Continental Airlines not to mention the Homeland Security people have been trained to recognize potential or real passport issues and deal with them while the traveler is still in their home country. Alas, not.

They were hustled back on the Continental flight and summarily expelled from Costa Rica.

Now I fully understand that all countries have rules about passports, and Costa Rica certainly is within their rights to refuse entry to any and all at their discretion.

Saying that, Costa Rica depends on tourism and to treat this woman and her daughter in this manner, was to me at best poorly thought out and at the worst, just another case of making people feel unwelcome in this country. That is just not good business.

This story does have a somewhat happy ending though. Continental gave them two round trip tickets to Costa Rica (but did not have the common courtesy of paying for the four nights they had to stay in a hotel in Houston in order to get a new passport for the mother). This despite the fact that Continental clearly screwed up by not dealing with this while the woman was still in Boston or Houston! This occured last Friday, so the federal offices were closed over the weekend and on Monday, Washington DC was locked up with bad weather and the feds in Houston could not communicate with Washington to get this resolved.

In any case, they arrived on Tuesday and are happily enjoying their stay in Guanacaste. They were also apparently able to add the lost days back on their schedule so they will be able to enjoy their full eight days in paradise.

Here is her email to me:

My 14 year old daughter and I flew out of Boston on Friday the 13th. ( Maybe traveling on Friday the 13th was our first mistake.)

After going through at least 4 passport check points on our journey to Costa Rica, upon arrival at the Liberia airport my passport was taken from me at immigration. At that time I was not told what was wrong and told to wait 5 minutes.

A woman that appeared to work for the airline returned and told me that my daughter and I were being sent back to the states on the flight we just disembarked from.

My passport picture looked as if an area of my eye had peeled. The passport issue date was flaking. The immigration official removed it. (This is the first time I ever traveled out of the country with a copy of the front page of my passport. This shows the askew issue date.) Expiration date was perfectly clear along with the stamps from other trips. I have taken.

I asked to speak with the American consulate and was told that was 4 hours away in San Jose and I was not leaving the airport, I was returning immediately. I was not allowed to speak with the person making the decision after several requests.

I placed a call to a US Senator but, was not allowed to wait for the return phone call. The airlines representative acted as if he worked for immigration and said we were leaving the country immediatly.

Upon arrival back in the US, several customs and immigration officials expressed great surprise that my passport was denied after they looked at it.

Hope to be able to obtain a new passport tomorrow and return to Costa Rica on Monday.

Tagged:continental airlines