More New Rules for the CNMI, MV 24

By Jeffrey C. Turbitt

It always warms my heart to delve into satire and unabashed ridicule of the strangeness all around us. Thus, I offer more new rules for the CNMI.

New Rule. Enough with the morning radio traffic report in the CNMI. We don't have traffic here, at least as the term is commonly known, we have traffic predicaments. Stuck behind a school bus is the most common traffic predicament. No wonder we have a juvenile diabetes problem on this island because apparently kids can't walk more than ten feet to their house judging by how many stops and bizarre U-turns the school buses make. I'll have to take a pass on the stuck behind a funeral procession predicament, but the next most common problem, stuck behind the hideous and ridiculous political rally convoy is most worthy of vitriol. At least this one is seasonal. How much does gas have to cost before people decide to get out and walk to support their candidate or cause? If I wanted to see an endless stream of cars polluting the environment, moving slowly and making a statement, I'd just move to Manila where the statement is: "Yes I can fit my 6 foot wide taxi in a non-existent lane 6 feet 2 inches wide. Look out and watch me!” Incidentally, none of those predicaments involve a "Mitsubishi Outlanderrrrrrrrr!"

New Rule. People need to start buying their own picnic tables and tents. If everyone had their own barbecue equipment, we could stop being bought off so cheaply and allow the army of lawmakers we overpay to have their focus and foresight, two dirty F words apparently, on the lousy power plant, the college that might have useless degrees or the hospital that can't retain physicians or supplies. Besides, being a real islander means being prepared for a barbecue. I’m from New Jersey, and I wouldn’t give my representatives there my vote if they let the colleges, hospitals and power plants fall apart, but tried to make up for it by loaning me the Bruce Springsteen box set.

New Rule. Complaints about single, middle aged white guys with hot, young Asian girlfriends need to cease. The dollar falls more often than a sorority girl doing Bacardi 151 shots, gas is higher than Bob Marley ever was, prostate cancer research gets a pittance of breast cancer research dollars and the NFL games come on here at 4 a.m. Cut these guys some slack. The ability to get a girlfriend half their age isn't ridiculous, it's the carrot that got them to risk life and limb in the military or to spend vast amounts of time on a merchant marine ship with a bunch of sweaty dudes. A young Asian girlfriend is one of the few remaining perks to being an American in the CNMI.

New Rule. Both newspapers need to stop writing stories about some random contract worker that was ordered to leave the CNMI. Everyday there are several hundred people leaving the CNMI on a large airplane -- probably because they ordered a hamburger at Hard Rock Cafe and blew their entire vacation budget. Newspapers don't write about those people. I don't really care that contract worker XYZ was ordered to depart the CNMI. Get back to the important news such as telling us what Greg Cruz’s ghost writers want him to think.

New Rule. If you're going to have your picture in the newspaper every week, you need to submit one that doesn't make you look like the left fielder on the Sunday morning beer league softball team. In the newspaper business all the pictures and graphics are referred to as "art." Something tells me this stock photo of Tom Pangelinan, who I'm sure is a nice guy, won't be hanging in the Louvre with all the other "art," yet this is the image repeatedly offered on all the Republican stories in this paper. Maybe the committee should buy one less picnic table and invest the savings in a photo shoot. Drop the "up all night jack and coke look," and at least for the press shot, dress like a real Republican -- wear a suit and tie, and don't forget the accessories like the pitchfork and cape, and show those horns and the long tail prominently. Remember, you'll be at the Republican convention this summer to cheer on calls to repeal social programs that feed half the island. It's important to "look the part" of someone heading up the local contingent of a national party that has absolutely no use for most of the people on these islands.

New Rule Tom Pangelinan

New Rule. If you're going to have your picture in the newspaper every week, you need to submit one that doesn't make you look like the left fielder on the Sunday morning beer league softball team. In the newspaper business all the pictures and graphics are referred to as "art." Something tells me this stock photo of Tom Pangelinan won't be hanging in the Louvre with all the other "art," yet this is the image repeatedly offered on all the Republican stories in the Marianas Variety. I doubt Nick Nolte uses this shot to elicit studio interest in yet another 48 Hours movie. Maybe the committee should buy one less picnic table and invest the savings in a photo shoot. Drop the "up all night jack and coke look," and at least for the press shot, dress like a real Republican -- wear a suit and tie, and don't forget the accessories like the pitchfork and cape, and show those horns and the long tail prominently. Remember, you'll be at the convention this summer to cheer on calls to repeal social programs that feed half the island. It's important to "look the part" of someone heading up the local contingent of a national party at least that has absolutely no use for most of the people on this island.

Even More New Rules for the CNMI, MV 18

It is the new year, so it seems appropriate to bask in the absurdity all around us. Alas, I offer even more new rules for the CNMI.

New Rule. If you let your pre-teen shoot off fireworks over the holidays, you earned a nomination for worst parent of the year regardless of whether junior escaped the event without blowing off his testicles. Kids are supposed to do do stupid things, which are even more prevalent when they are handed over cheaply made explosives. The "pretty colors" aren't worth the price of a couple fingers, not to mention the public nuisance being inflicted. You the parent are supposed to stop your kids from doing these dumb things, not enabling them. Junior is not that far removed from trying to eat bugs and not being able to dress himself. Handing your kids cheap fireworks from China -- a place where people think a good business proposition is borrowing thousands of dollars or several times your net worth from a loan shark to hand over to a recruiter for the right to work for $3.55 in the dying CNMI garment factories -- probably isn't very wise.

New Rule. When boonie dogs are lying in the middle of the street either indifferent to death or actively seeking suicide from the incoming traffic as they are now, it is time to stop talking about it and actually get the dog shelter built. Man's best friend is treated worse here than the Gimp in Pulp Fiction with a resident even opening fire on one like it is a rival rapper, yet the anti-animal cruelty bill and dog shelter languishes like broccoli at a movie theater concession stand. Here is a radical plan, do the job you have the money and have had the time to do.

New Rule. The burgeoning graffiti artists must learn to spell better. It's bad enough juvenile delinquents are tagging the island while others are trying to clean up the place, but the hoodlums can't spell simple three letters words. They're an offensive to English teachers the world over. There is a phrase criminals who can't spell need to learn, and it goes like this: "Would you like fries with that, sir." If and when the graffiti artists are caught, the judge should require remedial English classes after their jail sentence. Ron Hodges can't be the instructor.

New Rule. Stop building office space. Who do you think is moving in here, the Pentagon? Haven't you seen what happens to dormant space at La Fiesta Mall? That albatross around all our necks is as hairy, overgrown and messy as a pack of French travelers stuck for three days in an airport snow storm. Do we really need more office space? The empty space inspires as much investor confidence as CUC.

New Rule. If you are a tourist escaping northeast Asian winter, maybe you should actually embrace the sun you flew hours to feel and not wrap yourself up in enough towels and blankets so you look like you just joined the Taliban. It's called sunbathing, so try taking a little of it in. I wouldn't travel to the Great Wall and put on a blindfold.

New Rule. People driving on Middle Road need to stay in their lane and stop bouncing around like they are playing a real life Frogger video game. The average person here hasn't gotten a brake job since there was a coherent Bush in office, so maybe speeding along and jumping lane to lane isn't such a good idea. This is Saipan, there aren't that many places to go, and there aren't too many urgent meetings to get to, so just chill out there Mario Andretti and let's get home in one piece.

New Rule. Both local newspapers need to see what it is like to publish a paper without the half baked thoughts of Taotao Tano dental adviser Greg Cruz. The local papers are covering this man's scientific take on fluoride in water. Huh? Cruz in general makes as much sense as the black KKK member on the Chapelle show-- a worker's rights advocate fighting tooth and nail for our local government's right to continue to bloat the labor supply and keep his people's pockets emptier than the Paseo De Marianas. And memo to Greg, there is a body that chooses whether Tina Sablan should be one of their leaders, and it's called the voters in Precinct One, not you.


Jeffrey C. Turbitt is the language arts department chairman at Saipan Southern High School, as well as an avid scuba diver and traveler. He offers more thoughts in his blog Hypercritical Thoughts at: www.turbittj.blogspot.com/ He welcomes feedback, tips and story ideas at turbittj@yahoo.com. His column appears regularly on Wednesdays.

New Rule Greg Cruz

New Rule. Both local newspapers need to see what it is like to publish a paper without the thoughts of Tao Tao Tano Greg Cruz. You couldn't get a greater assault on grammar and writing if you had Ambrose Bennett ghost write a Bush State of the Union. Cruz makes as much sense as the black KKK member on the Chapelle show-- a worker's rights advocate fighting tooth and nail for our local government's right to continue to bloat the labor supply and keep his people's pockets emptier than the Paseo De Marianas. The day I need Greg Cruz's thoughts on dentistry with my morning java is the day I need to sign up for a seminar with Professor Brad Ruszala on the virtues of monogamy.

More New Rules for the CNMI, MV 14

Bold is Beautiful

By Jeffrey C. Turbitt

By popular demand I offer a second installment of New Rules for the CNMI.

New Rule. If locals are going to continue to talk with their eyebrows, someone needs to write an eyebrow dictionary for us confused haoles. When I ask a question, and my local friends respond with eyebrow movements, I'm never quite sure if they are saying "yes," "no" or "want to come to a barbecue." My eyebrows have the muscular development of a baby chick stumbling out of the shell, so I can't eyebrow respond, not that I can speak eyebrow anyway. I'm just assuming option three from now on. If you see an unfamiliar short, stocky, bald man on the weekend with your crew at Kilili Beach, please pass me a plate of ribs and be confident that this translation tool hasn't been published yet.

New Rule. Saipan gas stations must stop charging separate prices for self service and full service gas when both pumps are really full service anyway. It's bad enough that fueling a mere Toyota Echo nowadays feels comparable in price to fueling an aircraft carrier, but with all the motorists clamoring to the self service pump like a pack of boonie dogs on a live one in heat you're just insulting us now. Since Bush was installed into office you people at Shell and Mobil have lived it up better than an Enron Executive on expense account in the clubs of Manila, so do us this small favor and stop wasting our time and half of your pumps. There are no people with money to burn at the higher priced pumps in Saipan. Didn't you hear Arod is staying in New York, not Saipan, for $300 million?

New Rule. The police can't be obsessed with me wearing a seat belt if they are going to just smile at the idiot sitting ten feet high on the "Leaning Tower of Patio Furniture." Sitting in a pick up truck ten feet high going down that hill next to NMC is slightly more dangerous than a Sunday stroll in the Sunni Triangle wearing a Bush/Cheney shirt while eating a bacon sandwich. My lack of a seat belt is just not that bad in comparison. Focusing on the seat belt situation when that goes on is the police equivalent of our lawmakers spending their time renaming streets and trying to exile its citizens in a time when two households making toast simultaneously causes an island wide power outage.

New Rule. Joeten Motors must offer a lunar rover to dive enthusiasts trying to get out to the Lau Lau Bay dive site. Buried somewhere in those holes is my transmission and I think an axle. I lost my tackle box fishing in those pothole lakes along that thing suggestive of a road as well. People on vacation should feel relaxed and comfortable, and a drive to Lau Lau or Obyan feels more like the opening plane crash sequence in the Lost pilot. They must be half expecting to meet the Others before seeing the Lau Lau pipe underwater.

New Rule. Anyone who gets stuck behind the avalanche of humanity crossing the street in front of the Saipan Garment Manufacturer's Association in San Antonio at 1:00 pm gets a second lunch hour. I read about General McCarthur's plight at the Yalu River in history class, I don't need to see a re-enactment -- I'm just trying to get somewhere for lunch. You couldn't get a bigger crowd than that on this island if you had a free betelnut and beer barbecue hosted by the bikini babes from Beach Road Magazine.

New Rule. The business community must make one giant store and stop the scavenger hunt that is grocery shopping in the CNMI. Any mildly complex food preparation means going on more trips than the folks following the Snoop Dogg Tour around the country. This isn't North Korea. "Nothing" isn't an appropriate answer when I ask what aisle I can find chicken or a lemon.

New Rule Subway Restaurant

New Rule. Subway Restaurant must stop asking me if I want a meal with my sandwich. Your sub par sandwich is my revolting meal. I don't need to gorge myself on 24 ounces of sugar water and a cookie to complete this horrid experience. Why not just ask me if I would like my feet amputated or if I want a side order of "insulin plunger?" I guarantee Jarred wasn't making it a meal. It's upsetting enough that I eat that disgusting slop once a week because it is a bit less awful than the high school cafeteria at six times the price, but the fiftieth "do I want a meal" inquiry, like an email about an ex-girlfriend who drops twenty pounds and gets a boob job, only reminds me that I left good sandwiches 10,000 miles away in New Jersey and I'm stuck with the horror that is Saipan Subway.

New Rules are Meant to be Broken

New Rules are meant to be broken, so Hafa Adai, Si Yu'us Ma'ase and all that happy island stuff.

New Rules for the CNMI, MV 10

By Jeffrey C. Turbitt

Each Friday comedian Bill Maher offers a segment called New Rules on his brilliant show Real Time. I offer my own CNMI version of New Rules.


New Rule. Instead of seats, Wallace Theaters must put igloos into their Arctic like movie theaters. The power rates are at an all time high, yet for unexplained reasons, the A/C is cranked so high people need to bundle up as if prepping to watch the Alaskan Iditarod. People go to the movies for whatever unimaginative sequel Hollywood has pumped out this week, not to feel like they’re on an expedition to the Arctic Circle . I shouldn't feel like I'm on the March of the Penguins just because I'm watching the March of the Penguins.

New Rule. Elections have to be about something other than signs and waving. With all these signs, the CNMI wastes more “good wood” than a night club in the Middle East . To get a vote, you should have to prove you have an original thought on the issues. A picture of you dressed in island regalia accomplishes nothing, which is usually symbolic of most candidates’ stance on the issues. If island regalia is all that is needed to be elected, I can just vote for the folks from the hotel dinner shows.

New Rule. Online businesses must stop acting like the CNMI doesn't exist. These islands aren't philosophy classes, so we shouldn’t have to prove we exist. I have the sunburn to prove it. I've often tried to order something online, and when it comes time to order, a list of countries pops up, and while something called New Caldonia makes the cut, the CNMI is often harder to find than Osama Bin Laden.

New Rule. Betelnut chewers must stop opening their car doors while driving 30 miles an hour and dangling them at passing traffic like a matador tweaking a bull. There are inevitable pauses in driving called traffic lights and stop signs. Those stops are the places to put those two fingers together and shoot that frozen rope of reddish brown spit at a passing car with the laser guided precision of a smart bomb.

New Rule. The Saipan Municipal Councilmen must change their title from Councilman Tudela, Camacho or Atalig to Appendix Tudela, Camacho or Atalig. There were three candidates running for three useless positions – perhaps because everyone else had a sense of shame and wouldn’t run for an office like this. I refused to vote for this office in this election as the municipal council seems about as necessary as a civil defense system against spaghetti monsters.

New Rule Redux. White people in Saipan can't say Hafa Adai, Si Yu'us Ma'ase or wear a mwar. There are some things that just don't go together. Karl Rove and rap, dogs and walking on their two hind legs and the CNMI government and competence. When pasty white folks in Saipan say Hafa Adai while wearing a mwar, you're not doing as the Romans, you're trying too hard -- straining like you're having a stubborn bowel movement. You're white and in Saipan , hit the golf course, have a beer at Hamilton 's or bitch about the government at Bobby Cadillacs. Leave the indigenous culture to the people who really understand indigenous culture -- the Chamorro and Carolinian teenagers in ski hats, baggy jeans and the Tupac Shakur shirts.

New Rule -- Jane Mack

New Rule. If you're a prissy, moralistic, schoolmarm like Jane Mack who assails a popular local actress's reputation with an over the top criticism on a trivial matter, you don't get to expunge history like Bush ala Scooter Libby by deleting the comment that created the shitstorm in the first place and made you look like an ass. (See the now blank space at comment two.) There is this new mechanism in place for screw ups, and they're called apologies. When you screw up publicly, you get to apologize publicly. John McNamara did it for Vietnam, Clinton did it for Monica Lewinsky, though the dude who invented karaoke is still holding out with defiance. But if you're not sorry, and you really do pride yourself on being a self righteous liberal who feels it's OK to tell a theater teacher in one of the most difficult schools imaginable how they should be doing their job, embrace that status and don't play the phony like John Kerry in hunting gear by trying to hide your statement just because "approved" liberals in the theater community thought you were being a jerk.

New Rule

New Rule. White people in Saipan can't say Hafa Adai, Si Yu'us Ma'ase or wear a mwar. There are some things that just don't go together. Karl Rove and rap, dogs and walking on their two hind legs and the CNMI government and competence. When pasty white folks in Saipan say Hafa Adai while wearing a mwar, you're not doing as the Romans, you're trying too hard -- straining like you're having a recalcitrant bowel movement. You're white and in Saipan, hit the golf course, have a brew at Hamilton's or bitch about the government at Bobby Cadillacs. Leave the indigenous culture to the people who really understand indigenous culture -- the Chamorro and Carolinian teenagers in ski hats, baggy jeans and the Tupac Shakur shirts.


What can I say, Bill Maher is my idol.