Assuming you have no inherent ties to the islands. You enter the Internet and start reading headlines and stories about the Marianas from the two local papers.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure your impression would be far from the \u201cparadise\u201d travel writers have dubbed it to be but more like a \u201cThird World country.\u201d<\/p>\n
High collar crime: Impeachment, resignation, conviction and, yes, commutation all in quick succession. Bewildering? How about eight murder cases gone cold\u2014even the disappearance of four young women remains unsolved. Major travel cancellations, business slowdown and a protracted pace in recovery. The complete abandon of precious ancestral burial ground in favor of a casino\u2026no sense of heritage\u2026a confused juvenile mindset!<\/p>\n
It seems a perfect work venue in progress for \u201cThat\u2019s all she wrote!\u201d or a murder novel.<\/p>\n
With pants below our knees, we found out we don\u2019t even know how to deal with the normal conduct of business, much less dovetailed disasters. We love ad hoc planning\u2014plan by eventualities\u2014hoping to make it with another miracle. We fear discovering that we could also plan for our future!<\/p>\n
\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n
Curious that Tinian Dynasty has shot down casino gaming operations displacing over 140 workers. These aren\u2019t good tidings at all! What triggered the eventual fiscal inferno?<\/p>\n
Rota\u2019s casino never got off the ground, though someone thinks it\u2019s a lucrative \u201cglobal\u201d venture. Then why is it stuck in the filthy sand of non-operation?<\/p>\n
Does anybody care?<\/strong> Very troubling the lack of expression from among the 20-something students here how big corporations now dictate the electoral process. Does it matter we\u2019re being corralled for sale at the stock auction when such decision was once founded on personal integrity?<\/p>\n I think the origin of these anomalies came from within ourselves where we never gave the long thoughtful process a chance. It\u2019s the usual \u201cad hoc\u201d approach.<\/p>\n \u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n I kept bumping into grand inconsistencies in what is said about the preservation of Pagan. We don\u2019t want the military there but it\u2019s okay to destroy it with pozzolan extraction. Didn\u2019t know we have that many pirates venturing in and out of Smiling Cove Marina.<\/p>\n \u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n At the social or PTA level, have parents and teachers held consultation conferences to deal with how modern gadgets have ruined familial conversations, prayers and even the relegation of the local language? Or does this matter at all?<\/p>\n A lot of vital issues have been beaten into negligence land taking preference in shortsighted politics. It\u2019s politics over what\u2019s right.<\/p>\n Semantics!<\/strong> A truly people-oriented Delegate Kilili doesn\u2019t mince words when it comes down to extending help to victims of the recent superstorm.<\/p>\n He just reminded the administration to get over \u201csemantics\u201d and get as much help to those seeking assistance. How true that the duo\u2014Inos and Torres\u2014have placed greater importance on the maintenance of a bureaucracy over the single most important component of all\u2014assistance\u2014for hard-beaten storm victims!<\/p>\n Not a fan either of seasoned bureaucrats who often ignore fiduciary duty in favor of trying to sound vacuously authoritative. Hombre, let\u2019s keep it simple, otherwise we\u2019d be going in and out of the court of public jargons trying to figure out if a word is a synonym or an antonym, get it? And without an understanding of the term\u2019s definiens, where would you take your fully polished bureaucratic lingo?<\/p>\n Depth of destruction:<\/strong> My jaw still drops at the depth of destruction between Koblerville and Garapan on incidental cruise to the business center. Talk about being pulped at every corner. Everything comes to a screeching halt. The tons of debris inside villages would take months to clear.<\/p>\n Good to learn the military has flown in telephone poles. We could have done this ourselves if we had borrowed a former congressman his flying kite retrofit it so we begin hauling poles from the West Coast. Seriously, though, my personal salute to the strongest global defense team who volunteered providing direly needed potable water throughout the villages.<\/p>\n Folks aren\u2019t holding back on their expressions of the snail-like progress being made in the recovery effort. They were expecting something decisive. There\u2019s nothing up that alley. And so the band plays on \u201ctake me out to the ball game.\u201d<\/p>\n The combined eight teams erecting downed telephone poles are at it daily. No fanfare, just the appropriate emplacement or replacement of downed poles and lines. Imagine if you allow 29 other confused so-called policymakers pitch in even picking trash along main thoroughfare. The CUC, GPA and FEMA teams have done superbly well.<\/p>\n Folks, southern Saipan is back up as of last Wednesday evening. Lateral areas should be fixed soon just as the team identifies which area goes first. Thanks a million!<\/p>\n Tough sail:<\/strong> With serious revenue losses shortly, e.g., major visitor cancellations and its accompanying domino effects would be tough sailing trying to maintain the crew happy when revenue generation takes a nosedive this month.<\/p>\n In budgeting the decision boils to \u201cnice to have\u201d or \u201cmust have\u201d and I\u2019m sure this is no easy feat for budget hawkers. I wonder what would be the collection for September just as the nosedive takes full speed into the deep blue off Banzai Cliff! Bad time to be the chief navigator!<\/p>\n Let\u2019s be upfront about the fiscal mess, unpleasant it may be politically. How do we divvy $20 million when we still owe CUC over $30 million, $40 apiece to CHC and CUC and other Cs? Must employ the old juvenile fish split known as \u201cpatten tiau\u201d to ensure we make it through another day. And for as long as there doesn\u2019t exist a plan, how do we foster some sense of purpose and organization? \u201cI don\u2019t know Maria!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Assuming you have no inherent ties to the islands. You enter the Internet and start…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[56,256,49,122],"class_list":["post-209763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-business-3","tag-casino","tag-cuc","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}