{"id":236994,"date":"2016-09-22T06:06:04","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T20:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=236994"},"modified":"2016-09-22T06:06:04","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T20:06:04","slug":"moralist-mocks-prayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/moralist-mocks-prayers\/","title":{"rendered":"A MORALIST MOCKS WITH PRAYERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poet\u2019s note: The following poem and commentary refers in part to F.R. Agulto\u2019s letter to the Saipan Tribune on Sept. 15, 2016, titled \u201cA prayer for the MV Luta.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been reading the writing of nabobs of negativity
\nself righteous drivel in the local papers day after day
\nrepeating gripes and lecturing readers with \u2018their\u2019 reality
\ndripping with venom for CNMI powers that be today
\nI have read the BLASPHEMY and arrived at this conclusion
\nas negations of and accusations of our leaders continues
\nthat the \u2018nay\u2019 sayers live in a world of egotistic delusion
\nbacking their insults up with prayers from church pews
\nseparation of powers and separation of church and state
\nmake the United States of America and the CNMI great
\nbasic freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of press
\nexist constitutionally without the necessity to moralize
\nand quote holy prayers verbatim to justify and bless
\ntheir ranting and raving insults and current lawsuits
\nabout their objections to others legitimacy and pursuits
\nlet lawyers make presentations, judges listen, courts decide
\nwithout making fun of someone\u2019s family and last name
\nmocking it by using holy prayers shows rottenness inside<\/p>\n

Q. Am I (author) a case of the pot calling the kettle black? A. Yes.<\/p>\n

I have mocked and poked fun at Donald Trump, using his name, in many sonnets published in this newspaper. I have used children\u2019s nursery rhymes (Trumpty Dumpty, Trumpy Went a Courtin) and various literary allusions and alliteration. I will continue to do so. I have not, however, encased my satire and mimicry in two of the holiest prayers of the Roman Catholic faith, the predominant faith of most citizens in the CNMI. This was a blasphemous joke from the moralist writer\u2019s perspective. He has every right as pointed out in the poem above. How would he like to have that done with someone mocking his families name and place it inside a religious prayer for that matter? He infers by this that he is in a position of moral superiority and sits in judgement somehow on the right hand side of God. What a nice position. I wonder how he got there? Basta adai chatfino’. Enough of the blasphemy.<\/p>\n

Another nabob of negativity, who calls the Governor and Lt. Governor, \u201ctwo eggheads\u201d and 3,000 government employees including the \u201c\u2026superior and supreme courts and municipal governments and their staff\u201d \u201c gagament employees\u201d, castigated me just about a month ago, (08\/19\/2016) in the Saipan Tribune. He wrote, \u201cIn a vicious contest of survival of the fittest, would you help your competitor knowing it would crush your existence before you blink for the second time\u201d. My initial reaction was, are Saipan, Tinian , and Rota engaged \u201cin a vicious contest of survival\u201d? Is this extreme hyperbole or what? My adopted son, taotao Tinian, US Army veteran, two trips to and injured in Iraq, asked me rhetorically,\u201cAren\u2019t we a Commonwealth?\u201d The negative nabobs advice calling Lt. Governor Hocog and Senate President Borja\u2019s decision to vote for a casino on Tinian, \u201cpolitical braggadocio and expediency hardly the beneficiary of sober or deliberative discussion. Steer clear of that mindset\u201d. I\u2019ll try to steer clear of any further comments about this negative nabob\u2019s mindset.<\/p>\n

Joseph “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired CNMI PSS teacher who taught English on Tinian and Saipan from 1984 to 2014. He currently enjoys studying cosmology, Asian poetry, and life on Tinian.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poet\u2019s note: The following poem and commentary refers in part to F.R. Agulto\u2019s letter to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13519,26,9250,38],"class_list":["post-236994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-blasphemy","tag-cnmi","tag-governor-hocog","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236994","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}