Rare 2014 presents

The year just receded can’t serve as a scaffold of hope. There’s nothing inspiring about it nor is there a reason to be optimistic of 2014. Not after chasing the elusive “better times” that seems to have disappeared into the horizon a long time ago. People at the helm have apparently fled reality or the nightmarish and troubling pile of fiscal issues screaming for help.

It was time for diversionary reading. I decided to review Buddy Magoo’s script on a book he’s slaving to complete. I finally found time to do syntactic and content analysis. A lot of his sentences aren’t necessarily grammatical but its secret is in your being equipped with Chamorro-Iñglis in order to put context into his essays. Afterwards, I decided to quiz him on a number of issues he raised in his script.

Smiling, he showed the cover of his book inscribed, Don’t Broke!

“Why talk about bankruptcy?”

“Because the NMI government is, in fact, bankrupt!”

Quickly noted that governments are usually broke.

“It’s indicative of its inability to measure its ‘fiscal gap’ or future debts versus future receipts.”

Pressed him further, “Your view of government spending?”

“Every dollar spent without a dollar in the treasury is debt or deficit spending,” he pointed out.

“But government does that all the time,” I noted.

“Yep! But it’s a spending habit that shows lack of conscious leadership,” he pointed out.

“But government has revenue streams to cover its debts,” I refuted guardedly.

“It’s the accrual system—spending before actual collection—which is bad,” he said.

We basically agreed about the need for some sense of frugality and he should give the guys and gals on the hill a copy of his book to review this year. I mean, the guys still go junketing when paradise is burning in the magma of bankruptcy! How could they miss this fiscal inferno?

Isn’t the NMI floored in the filthy swamp of debts and deficit spending, i.e., shortage of $12 million for pension pay, $18 million for CUC utility bills, etc.?

Just as I was leaving the store where Magoo was sipping his beer, Lia pulled in and asked that I also review her script. Wow! Looks like this must be the literary season penned in frustration!

Lia has a simpler theme on health, Don’t Sick. Interesting coincidence in the use of the contraction “don’t” but both had meaningful issues.

“So what pushed you to write about staying healthy?” I quizzed Lia.

Said she, “Hidden its cost, it’s a very expensive item in any family or government budget.”

In agreement, having gone through it from A-Z. I asked her how does the indigenous population deal with genetic predisposition? Lifestyle is easy to deal with. Genetics simply means a certain serious illness is in your blood and you’d get hit at some point in your life.

“The genetics aspect needs to be addressed by public health officials,” she said. “It’s hidden and a mapping of sort is needed so we begin addressing how to deal with heart problems, Type II diabetes, kidney failure,” among others. Heavy stuff, huh? Don’t sick!

Headed home to the quiet corner of my back porch when my spouse handed me the phone. It was Tan Chu` Chiba who also wanted a review of his script.

His book title is a bit unforgiving, Don’t Stupid!

His material is largely a warning to voters to elect quality candidates and a stern admonishment of legislators who travel amidst the bankruptcy of the local government.

He included a chapter, “Don’t Airplane,” you know, traveling when this government is literally broke, drowning in the filthy swamp of budgetary shortfall.

Or how about the Guangzhou trip where legislators claim their integrity isn’t compromised. Well, people, we’re not as stupid as we look, are we? Read carefully now, a “freebie” is itself a compromise of your integrity, isn’t it? It’s ludicrous to deny it, only to confirm hypocrisy.

As educated voters increase and register to participate, the more the challenge intensifies for politicians to justify and navigate their way to victory.

The list of books won’t be complete unless I add my own scribble, I Don’t Know Maria! It’s a mix of satire, comedy, and the entire nine yards of indigenous common sense that doesn’t make sense. It’s a literal tossing of hope into no man’s land where you simply declare “No mas!”

Some are hard hitting, others pure humor, the rest fodder for leisurely reading. But then my material is written in the vernacular. Well, most of the humor is best told in the vernacular with moral messages. There’s also a chapter on what I’ve coined, “Mysterity” where politicians redefine the term integrity. Woe!

Frustrating though our inability to define our future. That too has a chapter that vilifies the combined lack of definition and our special ability at problem identification. You push the needle into the resolution stage and everybody panics, chiming, “It’s not my job!” Then whose is it?

The quality of leadership plays a key role in how well we address and, yes, resolve issues. If half the time leadership is clueless, it’s the repeat in computer lingo, “Trash in, trash out.”

Lest we forget, the NMI has a lot of indigenous resource, people it could employ to remap the future of these isles. The disorientation that suffocates the quality of livelihood of simple villagers can’t be allowed to settle in mediocrity and apathy. It’s time to move the needle forward collectively.

Perhaps we ought to use the Laffer Curve as a reminder that we’ve been down the path of failure and we need not repeat history. Otherwise, we’d all be chiming, “I don’t know Maria!”