Columnists

Del Benson THE Northern Mariana Islands, a small archipelago in the western Pacific, have undergone a series of dramatic transformations throughout their history. From colonial possession to modern U.S. Commonwealth, the islands have continually reshaped their identity and economy in response to gl…

THROUGHOUT recorded human history, many people have believed that 1) they are underpaid or not paid enough for the services they perform; and 2) they are overcharged for the services/commodities they need to buy. Corollary to this still widely popular notion is the equally unshakeable assumption th…

Jim Rayphand FOR someone who likes to overstate the obvious, I can be shockingly oblivious to foreseeable consequences of my own decisions and how they affect me personally.  Nowhere has this been more evident than in the compromised, weakened state of my body, mind and soul over the course of the …

Rosemarie D. Embile  AS a teacher, I often caught up in lesson planning and evaluating student work, and I didn’t take the time to appreciate the special moments I shared with them. However, in 2019, I decided to make a change and saw an opportunity to create something extraordinary with my student…

Christopher A. Concepcion WHEN I was a young student, tourism was the last thing on my mind. Fortunately, young people today are much more in tune with and a part of our Marianas tourism economy, thanks to the work of Marianas Tourism Education Council and Marianas Youth Welcome All Visitors Enthus…

BC Cook IT is not often when Saipan makes the international news cycle.  Julian Assange passed through a little while back, that caught headlines. The military’s plans to re-open the airfields on Tinian got attention. But other than the occasional typhoon, Saipan quietly goes about its business awa…

Kobler Field was Saipan’s main airfield until July 1976. THE NMI became self-governing in 1978. From 1945 to 1977, the islands were administered by the U.S. as part of a United Nations Trust Territory. It was the U.S. military, which invaded the islands in 1944, that formed the first post-Wor…

IT isn’t often that I get to participate in a debate between candidates for a seat in U.S. Congress; in fact, I’ve only ever done it once and that was just recently (a little over a week ago) in the U.S. Delegate Debate hosted by the Saipan Chamber of Commerce.  Overall, I think the audience got wh…

BC Cook JOURNALISTS have a saying that if a story is guaranteed to get attention and it fits the narrative they are pushing, it is “too good to check.”  That means that they take the story at face value and expect readers to take it also, without bothersome things like checking for accuracy.  After…

WE’VE heard it all before. Survey results indicating that many, if not most, Americans do not know who their state governor, their state legislator or member of Congress is. In the U.S., moreover, voter turnout has been consistently low compared to other democracies. We are told that these trends a…