More good news and short takes

I applied for, and received today at last, a teacher's license in the state of Virginia. I'm fully certified to teach language arts and social studies there, as I am here. There is a significant chance I'll be a social studies teacher at SSHS instead of language arts next school year. I'm up for a change, and my passions are more in social studies. My language arts class is kind of a language arts/social studies hybrid, and as a dedicated social studies teacher I expect to do the same.

I'm pretty happy with my current position here, even the salary, but I want to be prepared for nuclear economic meltdown. In theory in the states a person can get a teacher license alternate route, but that is very hard to do and leaves few real job options. Getting a teacher's license has been a long process that led me through three Praxis tests and an MA in Education, as well as four years teaching here, plus two in Korea. Cynthia's green card is moving along, which is the third and now final leg of my bureaucratic three headed monster of adoption, teacher's license and spousal immigration.
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I wrote a piece for the new version of In Transit that will be performed in the Fall, and may be my acting debut if I can pull that off. It will be a series of monologues on life intertwining. Mine is about life not turning out as you planned. I've had one friend love the piece, my dad not as strong an endorsement, but I think it is pretty good. I'll have to see what Galvin and Barbara have to say.

I wrote another piece based on my Guam Airport blog that I want to get published in a large publication like Rolling Stone or the Village Voice. That piece was also in the Variety. I think it is about time I did that. My father thinks if I toned it down a bit it would actually be suitable for the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps the best part of blogging, and I thank other Saipan bloggers for jump starting this in me, is that it has got me writing a lot now, a skill I had actually left long dormant despite my semi-frequent rants in the local papers over the past few years. My $40,000 newspaper journalism school education is getting some exercise at last.
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I loved the dichotomy in Friday's Variety. On one hand there is a request for $155 million from Congress, which "isn't a handout" and then a typical racist rant from Danny Aquino in both papers. Danny wants the CNMI to secede from the Union because workers are getting a little bit of a break at last via minimum wage and immigration. He is also upset the CNMI is not represented in Congress, which I actually agree with him about. Of course, the vast majority of people aren't represented here in reality, so I don't know how much it matters. I blasted Aquino on his white bashing a while ago, which led to the Eric Atalig dustup, which several people told me Danny actually wrote and submitted under Eric's name. Eric got blasted by many people. My kid was in Danny's Day Care center, Little Darlings. Frankly, if I knew in the beginning it was his place, he wouldn't be in there, but I didn't want to disturb my son over his ravings. My kid won't be returning since a racist whose public opinions are insulting to his Filipino workers has an influence on the morale of people with the extremely challenging job of guiding small children, which is completely unacceptable. There is a close battle between Danny and garment mouthpiece Richard Pierce on who is the most vile person on this island. Flip a coin on that one.
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A bill was introduced to revise CNMI immigration. As they did on the minimum wage, the government want a "study" done. Did they do a study before they paid millions to Jailbird Jack Abramoff to rig the game?

“That is a significant development,” said press secretary Charles P. Reyes
Jr. “It's troublesome because we've repeatedly asked that a study be done for
any action is taken. We hoped Congress would consider our economic vulnerability
and give this piece of legislation some thoughtful analysis. Unfortunately, our
calls were not given much credence.”

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The loser prosecutor who bent over justice in an attempt to get re-elected got disbarred. This is something that restores my faith in America, which seldom happens under the rule of George W. Bush. Actually the court did the right thing and said we still have to follow the Constitution and actually charge and try Americans and not just hold them indefinitely in our own Gulag as enemy combatants, so there are two encouraging things. If they executed this prosecutor I don't think it would be unreasonable. For a prosecutor to use state power to ruin people's lives on a fact ignoring witch hunt to get re-elected is so beyond appalling. I hope Mike Nifong has a locker one day in hell next to Ken Lay of Enron infamy.
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I have two confirmed yesses on the Thursday afternoon dive on Bruce Bateman's boat. Let me know y'all.