Foreboden Island

Wasn't that a nice Forbidden Island photo in the Monday Saipan Tribune? I'd call and ask to use it, but I doubt if Jacqueline Hernandez or the Editor is in the office at four a.m. Check out HIDDEN AND FORBIDDEN in their Fotogalleria.

It looked better on paper. I'm usually pretty impressed by the Tribune's layout, even though I've never really gone for USA Today-type front pages. All of those colored boxes and other graphics are too busy and confusing for my taste, especially crowded onto a tabloid. But the Editor knows how to use good pictures and Hernandez delivers them pretty consistently. That's not as easy as it seems.

Haven't been down there in years, I never seem to have the energy or time. Oh well, maybe when the monorail is put in.

Of course, no monorail will ever function for more than a month, unless they can construct it without copper wire. Before copper was the fad, the boys used to round up stray dogs for beer money. I don't want to name the Korean businesses, because they've stopped buying. I think. Not to single out Koreans, dogs are meat on the hoof throughout Micronesia and Asia.

I was circling my bar about ten years ago, monitoring the guys finishing their road beers. One of my employees had a puppy tied up on the second floor yapping wildly. "What's its name?" a man called out. "Lunch," I replied, knowing it was going to be guest of honor at a christening.

My Bangladeshi neighbor just got a phone call. His ring tone is "The Can-can". I hope he turns it off when he goes to morning prayers. That would be too much of a culture clash.

That's better than a few months ago, when a couple of guys were waiting for the shower. They were just part of the background, like the birds, dogs and kids in the neighborhood. After all, I couldn't understand a word they were saying. They weren't really there, until one of them said "jihad" and and they both laughed.