Bad times

Bad news for some Micronesian neighbors: Guam Greyhound is closing and Palauan meatpackers face tough times in Iowa.

It's been apparent to outside observers that John K. Baldwin and company bought Guam Greyhound in 2006 with a business plan tied to adding more gaming. It appears they gave up after their latest attempt failed.

Not Kosher

Meatpacking giant Agriprocessors has filed for bankruptcy protection, according to the New York Times.

The company has been slammed nationally for alleged immigration, child labor and overtime violations. The news led to a boycott by some Jewish groups on ethical grounds.

That's led to shortages of kosher meat, according to the article, so the company may be able to come back if it gets new owners.

Agriprocessors made the local news by recruiting in Micronesia. Vice President Elias Camsek Chin reportedly visited more than 60 Palauan workers at the plant recently. Just checking on their welfare, mind you, nothing to do with his Presidential campaign.

I'm often entertained by the idiosyncratic reporting in the Palau Horizon and Marianas Variety. The story manages to avoid mentioning Agriprocessors' name. That one won't pop up in a Google search.

While I'm picking on them

What a difference a plural can make. The Marianas Variety headline Police arrested for firing gun captured my attention today. I'd probably read the story anyway, but it wouldn't have been the first.

An outsider might have been confused for a moment if they read "HISTORY was made yesterday with the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American U.S. president and the CNMI’s first delegate to the U.S. Congress." Or not.

That's just me. I pick at these things everywhere, for instance the vaunted New York Times. Even the author got confused by this ragged sentence and wrote the opposite of what he meant: "Significantly, though, among American troops in Iraq, the hope seemed tinged with skepticism that change in the White House would not automatically mean change in American doctrines that have meant deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan."