Odds and Ends from paradise
Federalization remains the stubborn two headed snake on our agenda. Senator Daniel Akaka who hails from the nation’s most highly unionized state has returned to revive compromising the very essence of the Covenant Agreement .
It is an issue which we must defend with every ounce of our being or forever lose our rights to self-government. It is agreement upon which rests the sacrifices we’ve laid on the lap of Uncle Sam in good faith.
To arbitrarily impose the federal minimum wage right smack in the midst of a deepening economic crisis is to forcibly render these isles total economic meltdown for generations to come.
If it matters to leadership and posterity, then all must rally behind the need to convey with simple sincerity how such a scheme would forever turn the CNMI into a tiny though grand replica of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico holds the trophy of the largest welfare state.
I often quiz myself what would have been accomplished if in fact this matter makes it through both chambers of the US Congress. Would the chief sponsors be responsible to extending millions of dollars in US mainland taxpayers money just to fulfill a ruinous agenda against this group of US Citizens?
Be prepared for the worst in the event this issue takes another twist in US labor unions’ quest to kill the very industry that has served these isles for the last several years when nothing else works. Perhaps this is the price that we must pay in defense of our political and economic freedoms!
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The law requires seat belts and infant car seats in automobiles here. It’s a good law but equally riddled with hypocrisy.
For instance, I’ve followed pick-up trucks with young kids sitting at the back without seat belts.
Police officers ride around their bikes without seat belts. Students board school buses and ride and from school without seat belts.
Where then is the consistency in this apparently buckled law?
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A majority of my physiological chemistry is Chamorro. The balance is a mixture of Carolinian and a rainbow of everything else that I’ve never been able to resolve with definity.
Born a DelRosario, I know that my blood name is a Dela Cruz. But I am leaving history at peace for there’s nothing I could do to untangle it.
The Chamorro part of this soul is straightforward and often crusty. The Carolinian end of my chemistry is the more compassionate and considerate part of my being. It allows this islander to retreat and smell the roses or fresh scent of newly mowed grass.
The balance is a rainbow of everything else, the clarity of the picture blurred by pixels that have faded with time. With less than 10 percent Carolinian blood, I take pride that it’s the only portion though that serves as my real anchor. The majority floats like drifted wood so battered by history’s iffy assertion of the origin of Chamorros.
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I was taken aback by a businessman who flips hot dogs lecturing a highly successful corporate executive with over 5000 employees how to run a business. Talk about arrogance riddled with stupidity! But then these things happen even on an island, yeah?
Strictly a personal view. John S. DelRosario Jr. is publisher of Saipan Tribune.
