Package deal

Something happens to mail on Saipan. Much of the time it works well, considering we all live thousands of miles from the nearest sizable hub and even more thousands away from the U.S. mainland, our mail manages to get here most of the time. True, a Priority Mail envelope takes a week or 10 days or two weeks to get here, but it does get here, most of the time. But not all the time.

Everyone I have talked to about the “disappearing” mail seems to have experienced it. In casual conversation it has come up many times. That tells me it is a significant percentage of loss, one worth talking about. After you read this, start asking around. I’m betting you will find most everyone you talk to about it has either sent mail that did not arrive or has waited to receive mail that never got here, multiple times.

I have noticed that a package sent from the States to be received here has a much greater chance of being “lost” than one being sent the other way. I’m not sure why that would be, but it is noteworthy. I have noticed that a package sent “insured” for any amount has a far greater chance of being received than one that is not. Insurance provides not just a financial buffer against possible loss but also a mechanism for tracking. Perhaps the tracking capability is what causes the successful delivery ratio to rise.

Missing mail is not just an inconvenience; it is a crime…and a federal crime at that. Mail that goes missing is almost unheard of in the U.S., maybe that is because the penalties for stealing it are so severe. A recent case in North Carolina turned out to be an inside job where a USPS employee was stealing mail that looked like greeting cards. She would keep any cash, then destroy all the checks and the cards themselves. She kept quiet about it but still got caught because of internal security systems in place. Those systems don’t seem to be working too well on the route that gets mail out here.

The above is a rare event stateside; an inside job doesn’t happen all that often. Mail is sometimes stolen from corner pick up boxes (which we don’t have here) or from exposed multiple outside mail delivery boxes near apartments or office buildings (which we also don’t have). Those mail thieves are usually caught and do severe prison time. We had a case a while back where someone broke in and stole mail from the Capital Hill post office branch and was caught fairly quickly.

I think it is more than distance, more than coincidence, more than a logistically complex path of mail delivery. I think there is a security breach somewhere up the line and that someone inside USPS internal affairs needs to take a hard look and find the cause of Saipan’s “Missing Mail.” Since it travels via commercial air carrier, maybe that is the source of the leaking mailbags.

Missing or not, we should count our blessings about having access to one of the best, most efficient and even with all the increases, one of the cheapest forms of mail and package delivery on the planet. I is a pretty darned good deal to send a letter from here to Omaha or Boston, for the same price it takes to send it to Chalan Kanoa or Guam. I would just like it to arrive more often.

***

I see in the news where ex-attorney general Pam Brown is ringing in with her negative opinion about whether or not our government should sue the U.S. government to get the federal court’s opinion about the legality of interference with our local labor laws.

Is this the same Pam Brown who has remained conspicuously absent from public scrutiny since her foray into paid “philanthropy” a couple of years back? Pam’s “last great hurrah” as attorney general was a regulation change snuck into the Commonwealth Register public record under a phony cover name so it would hopefully not be discovered.

Her scheme to kidnap Vietnamese hookers, bring them to Saipan and “rehabilitate” them for fun and profit was a low point in CNMI history and rightfully drew mass public criticism when Ruth Tighe (perhaps the only person who actually reads the Register) exposed the sordid affair. Ms. Brown didn’t even show up at the “hookers for hire” public meeting, she was so embarrassed at being caught.

Right…hers is an opinion I sure want to give a lot of credence to. Not.

***

On a more important note, the legal question posed above is an interesting one. It is a question I would like to see answered, and one that many other residents and business owners and a good number of attorneys and scholars in the CNMI would like to have answered. Does the U.S. Constitution trump the CNMI Covenant when the only reason the U.S. Constitution has any sway here at all is through the enabling provisions inside the Covenant itself?

The answer to the question may well determine the fate of “local self-government” as promised in the Covenant and as promised to the people who voted to accept the help and assistance of the United States as they transitioned from a public ward to a free people. A promise was made to the world. Will it be kept?

***
Quote of the week: The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.

—Thomas Paine, patriot and philosopher (1737 – 1809)

Put another way: He whose representative does not have a vote has no representative. That person and that nation of persons without representation are slaves and colonists, not free men.

—Bruce A. Bateman, pundit and curmudgeon (1918 – )