Word: canals
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...reset America's relationship with the global community. And while there's a chance that Obama's foreign tour might be overshadowed by recession-related news at home - summit meetings aren't as juicy as excessive Wall Street bonuses - he'll at least be further afield than the Panama Canal, the site of the first foreign trip by a sitting U.S. president, Theodore Roosevelt...
...been nine years since the Panama Canal was returned to sole Panamanian rule following almost a century of U.S. control. Since that time, Panama - a slim slice of a nation wedged between the Pacific and the Caribbean - has quietly emerged as Central America's must-discover hidden gem. And no wonder. With its mix of the eco (dense tropical rain forests), urban (a Miami-like skyline) and aquatic (crystalline diving sites), Panama is an all-in-one destination where the dollar is legal tender - and still manages to go a long...
While most of the development is still to get under way, a clutch of Casco cafés, hotels and cultural sites have already had their makeovers. The most eye-catching is the Canal House Hotel (www.canalhousepanama.com), an elegantly renovated late 19th century mansion where actor Daniel Craig stayed during the three-month Bond shoot. The hotel's three guest rooms are named after the Canal's massive locks - Miraflores, Pedro Miguel and Gatun - and each has a wrought-iron balcony with views of the Casco's Cathedral Plaza and surrounding red-tiled roofs and cobblestone alleyways...
...ease with which men died in the Canal Zone: "Dynamite explosions, landslides, steam shovels toppling over, cranes swinging quickly by and crushing heads as they went, railroad accidents, falls from scaffolding while building the enormous locks and gates, and all the various diseases generated significant anxiety. A man named Albert Banister worked in the boiler room at Cristobal and related how casually death appeared in conversations: 'Man died get blow up get kill or get drown during the time someone would asked where is Brown he died last night and burry where is Jerry he dead a little before dinner...
Building the Panama Canal involved more than the moving of great steam-powered digging machines. The most difficult task was quickly establishing what amounted to a brand new nation. Cities had to be built, diseases had to be eradicated, and thousands upon thousands of workers had to be shipped in, and housed, and fed, and entertained, and jailed, and cared for, and buried when that caring for failed. Greene sees the Canal Zone as a melting pot whose constituent pieces never quite came together; her book explores the racial and economic conflicts that arose as a result...