Columnists

BC Cook THE following story comes courtesy of Father Eric Forbes’s blogsite, “paleric.”  His often insightful and never boring blogs can be found at https://paleric.blogspot.com/.  He is from Guam and often writes about Marianas history. “Sometime in 1909, Chinese fishermen discovered a canoe, with…

IN the P.I. back in the day, students as young as first graders were taught that an ever growing population would lead to Apocalypse Now. As Dr. Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University professor, would put it in his bestselling book published in 1968, “The Population Bomb,” “The battle to feed all of hum…

Rosemarie D. Embile THE first month of the new year is an excellent opportunity to reflect on the past and set intentions for the future. Welcoming 2024 with open arms encourages us to think about how to make the new year a time of growth, fulfillment, and positive change. One effective way to star…

BC Cook THERE are people who have won the lottery more than once. There are those who have been struck by lightning multiple times. But so far, Tsutomu Yamaguchi is the only person officially recognized as having survived both atomic bomb blasts during the Second World War. His extraordinary story …

WHENEVER the pundits and the experts make a “prediction” they are actually just guessing, like most of us. To be sure, some guesses are better than others, and could be based on data or analysis. But they still involve an element of guesswork. Why? Because we can’t see the future. If we could, life…

Gregory Huffman BUENAS yan Hafa Adai! As 2023 comes to a close, and we look toward the New Year, I would like to take a moment to thank our island community for your warm hospitality, support and patriotism. Since taking command of Joint Region Marianas in June, my wife Judy and I have had the plea…

IN his short story titled “The Beheading of the Heads,” the late, great Italian writer Italo Calvino recounted a visit to the capital of an unnamed country where the heads of government served a fixed term, at the end of which they were publicly beheaded. Why? Because otherwise, “everybody would wa…

THE TRUTH of the matter is scatterbrain efforts by Government Officials & Private Activists still continue, as there is NO continuity between these two all-important variables with the Governor when it comes to working as a Team WITH the Governor to achieve the SAME goal of a thriving economy. …

Christopher A. Concepcion ON Jan. 13, 2024, the first ever Rota Marathon will be staged, drawing athletes and media attention to this stunning gem of an island in the Marianas archipelago. The idea for a Rota Marathon took root at the Marianas Visitors Authority just a few months ago, where my prop…

Ambrose M. Bennett THE TRUTH of the matter is every politician should strive to MAKE-SURE that she/he does some things that their constituents can see, feel for themselves or family or touch something like a structure like Rep. Thomas John Dela Cruz Manglona and his family did for Precinct 5 for Ch…