Help!  I'm marooned on a tropical island in a U.S. territory surrounded by idiots. 

Let me tell you about where I live.  Saipan is an island in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory.  Saipan is a small island with beautiful uncrowded beaches, drop-dead gorgeous sunsets, and the only place I've ever been where you can see both ends of the rainbow.  The snorkeling and scuba diving is amazing, and it is never "sweater-weather".  Sound great, right?  Now imagine this amazing place being run by incompetent morons, who have paychecks and programs funded by your taxpayer dollars.  YES, your money.  Let's talk about some of the brilliant decisions of this government.  The legislature thought the government run utility's power bills were too high, so they put a cap on what they could charge.  Surpisingly enough, they ran out of money to fuel and repair the generators...bingo-- power outages.  Rotating four hour long power outages.  Multiple times per day.  Oh woe is us, Uncle Sam-- save us!!  Oh, then there was the amazingly generous government employee retirement program that let everyone retire at 20 years of service-- that the government decided to stop funding.... surprise surprise, now they're out of money and can't pay those fabulous retirement benefits to anyone anymore, including retirees. And then there are the "conservatives" in leadership who don't want the U.S. to tell them who can visit this lovely little tourist trap (like Russians and Chinese citizens) so, they sue the U.S. government, despite public outrage.  Oh, and they won't tell anyone where the money is coming from to pay the lawyers... despite several judges telling them to do so. (Hmmm-- it's either Federal funds used to sue the Federal government or its being funded by a deep-pocketed "mystery man.")   Meanwhile, these same "leaders" are frantically recruiting grant writers to suck more funds out the Feds.  This wonderful government turned a blind eye to human rights abuses in the garment industry and human trafficking happening under their noses. Why?  Because who cares about people when gobs of money are rolling in.  Thankfully, those industries are disappearing, along with their money.  I don't think the native island languages have a word for "ethics", or "plan"-- for that matter. 

 

A "fly on the wall" in one particular government program heard a man complaining about how we are misusing his hard earned taxpayer dollars to serve ethnic groups that he felt were undeserving.  The "fly" stifled a laugh at his petty bigotry and realized that this man doesn't PAY any taxes-- Federal taxes anyway.  U.S. Territories don't pay any Federal taxes, but they sure recieve them!!  U.S. Territories don't get to vote for President, either, but that is probably a good thing, though.  Ignorant people should probably avoid ballots, for the good of the people.  Unfortunately, it is the ignorant people ON the ballots here. 

 

So, why live on this crazy island?  Well... the natural beauty can't be beat, and those great big fat government grants bring big bucks for people who can read, write and spell their name that they recruit from the mainland to teach in their schools and practice medicine in their hospital.  (Which, by the way is rapidly bleeding doctors who prefer to work for competent administrators in JCAHO accredited facilities).  What can I say, it's nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.  Unfortunately, an employment contract insists that I do so for a while longer.  Sigh.  So.... thank you for reading my letter in a bottle.  And, although California has a financial disaster, the nation's real estate market has tanked, and Obama is the devil incarnate--- it could be worse.  Thank your lucky stars that you live in a free country, instead of a banana republic on welfare run by incompetents .