the cnmi’s first member of congress, enjoying some noodles at raku

There are people who say Saipan’s labor and immigration problems are so terrible that the feds should have come in and taken over labor and immigration a long time ago.
The Washington Post is running a series on medical care in immigrant prisons that should really make people think about whether federalization is the panacea they’ve […]

oh, yeah, and federalizes immigration and labor in the CNMI, and gives the CNMI a nonvoting delegate thus undoing all of Jack Abramoff’s hard, expensive, quite possibly illegal work - - and designates the National Museum of Wildlife Art of the United States!!
S. 2739 is some big bill

The Myth of the Lazy Local
with a special appearance by my favorite client when I was at the AG’s office (hi Kilili!)
I hear the CNMI Legislature is looking for a new lawyer, too

this is kind of a big deal - and yet it gets no more attention in the paper than the story about some dude winning a blackjack tournament (congratulations Mr. Shimada!)

also: grow, eat your greens
also also: the letters to the editor in the Saipan newspapers are really quite impressively nonsensical and digressive and personal […]

says Vault
and another thing, since I like the sound of this play, which seems to share a theme with my novel, by which I mean both  have as themes this idea that paradise doesn’t exist - except my novel doesn’t have Aristophanes in it, and I suspect that this play is lacking in good old-fashioned […]

I got it into my head yesterday that I should walk from Bethesda to Adams Morgan, to see what interesting things turned up along the way, and so I did it, and there were many interesting things, including a teeny tiny Filipino grocery store in Tenleytown.

I went inside the store and got all teary because […]

The Saipan soap opera lives on

(phone booth in paradise, Saipan)
you move away and still can’t move on, I tell you

cockfighting banned?
or
marijuana legalized?

update: I checked with NORML, the group that the Marianas Variety reported was coming to Saipan for their annual conference, to see if the newspaper report was correct. A NORML outreach coordinator told me that the group is absolutely not holding a conference on Saipan. In the o.c.’s words: “Our […]

According to the paper, the plan to entice marines to these-a-parts includes training, education, recreation, begging, pleading, cajoling, and good old fashioned horse heads in bed

still life with governor, light bulb