Elections, Kmart, and Multiculturalism

More of my drivel from this thing we refer to as "The Guam Desk"......

The campaign season is almost over, with the election set to happen a week from today. It’s a good thing, because the race for governor has gone past the point of being ridiculous and pathetic. Both the Calvo-Tenorio and Guiterrez-Aguon camps are doing shit that is so pathetic and stupid that Richard Nixon and Ferdinand Marcos are both rolling in their graves.

The latest bit of weirdness involves the Calvo-Tenorio camp. The day after they filed a complaint with the FCC, stating that one of the local television stations is not allowing them to advertise on their station while providing the other camp with free ads, they have an ad running that is just bizarre. Tenorio’s mother goes on TV stating that her son is a good man, blah blah blah fucking blah. This after the other camp raises questions about Tenorio failing to provide child support for his five kids from a previous marriage. Explain to me how this is supposed to make me support their camp? “Oh, his MOTHER says he’s a nice guy, so I definitely must vote for his ass”. Last night, we got to see Carl Guiterrez's wife on TV, telling Guam how wonderful her husband is.

I for one say “a pox on both houses”. Never in recent memory has it become more apparent that the voters here on Guam have to pick the lesser of two evils for governor. Both candidates are spending massive amounts of money, so that they can get the power to sodomize the people of the island once they get into office. Anyone who doesn’t believe that will be EXACTLY what happens when whoever wins takes office is not living in reality. It’s utter bullshit to believe that either Guiterrez or Calvo will do anything but find ways to line their own pockets or the pockets of their own families.

Calvo is one of the richest men on Guam, owning all or large chunks of several businesses. I’m not buying the bullshit that says he “wants to make Guam a better place to live” at all. He merely wants to get the power so he can initiate changes to various laws that will benefit him and his family, the rich getting richer. That helps to explain the fact that his campaign has spent over $1.8 million dollars to get him into office. “Uncle Carl” Guiterrez, who held the office of Governor before, is so corrupt that he has to have two guys help him screw his pants on every morning. All a person has to do is Google his name to see some of the shitty business he has been connected to while governor and in the last 20 years.

From where I’m sitting, either way you slice it, the citizens of Guam are going to get fucked next Tuesday when the polls open.

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I have to explain to my wife sometimes that while Guam is a US Territory and technically part of the United States, in many ways it isn’t. It’s a place that has more of an Asian feel than anything, even more so than Hawaii does. It’s not just the fact that the majority of the population is Chamorro, Filipino, Chinese, and Korea, with a large Japanese tourist influence as well, it’s more about attitude and the way things get done. In many ways, there is a Third Worldness about the island due to some rather horrid problems with infrastructure. Power and water outages are common, especially in the southern third of the island. The roads suck ass, and improvement projects seem to last a lifetime. Add to that the fact that a large part of the population is on some sort of public assistance like food stamps or welfare (some estimates are 60% of the population).

I’m not saying that it isn’t a pretty cool place to live, because in many ways it is. Temperate climate, nice people, beautiful scenery, a laid back attitude about many things. Make no mistake, there is a lot to love about living here. Still, with all of that said, there is no denying the feeling that, while it may be a US territory, in many ways it isn’t the US.

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The Kmart here is probably the only Kmart in the entire chain where a person can be walking down the aisles and here English, Chamorro, Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, Chinese, and Spanish all within about 50 feet of walking. Multicultural, indeed.

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Thus Endeth the Rant/Lesson, for now anyway.

Elections, Welfare Weirdness, and Shitty Driving

Notes and observations from here in the heart of Hagatna, from what we affectionately call The Guam Desk………………..

As the general election draws near here on Guam, the race for governor has been getting uglier and uglier every day. Both the Calvo/Tenorio and Gutierrez/Aguon campaigns are really slamming each other hard in the media, especially in the newspapers. It’s at the point where it’s getting very personal and very ugly. The latest bout had the Gutierrez/Aguon campaign slamming Tenorio for allegedly failing to pay child support for his five kids. I have to ask, what’s next? Are the candidates going to start talking about each others mothers? “Yo mamma is so ugly…..”.

I’ve also heard some interesting stories about former governor Uncle Carl Gutierrez from longtime residents here. While I don’t normally pay a lot of attention to rumors, when you hear the same stories from different people, there has to be a kernel of truth to all of it.

Here’s how I see the gubernatorial election in a nutshell. Both sides have spent a ton of money on the campaign, in the hope that they get elected to a job where they can rape the island, and steal as much as possible. There are no real reasons to spend what these guys have spent to get elected unless they expect to cash out big-time once they get into office. That’s not me being my usual cynical self; that, my friends is the reality of the situation.

Somebody’s going to get rich, and the rest of us will continue to be screwed by the system. It’s not exactly Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, but it’ll be pretty damn close, minus the martial law. I won’t be voting for either one of these idiots.

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I was in line behind him at the grocery store last night. He had loaded a bunch of shit on the counter, mostly junk food, snacks and crap, nothing vaguely looking like nutritious food items. As he waited in line, he farted around with what appeared to be a nearly-new smart phone, playing what appeared to be some sort of video game. He paid for his purchases, nearly $100 worth, with a QWEST card, meaning welfare had purchased his snack items. As the situation would have it, it turned out that the same guy was parked two slots down from me in the parking lot, walking a few steps ahead of me out of the store. Again, I noticed him, because he piled the stuff he had just purchased into a nearly new Ford pickup, the deluxe model, with all the bells and whistles. A serious machine that I knew for a fact could not be purchased for less than $30,000.

Something is SERIOUSLY WRONG with that scenario, and it would read as interesting fiction if it weren’t true. The guy has a far better car than I do, a better phone, but buys his groceries with welfare. This, to me, is more than a little fucked up. He has money for a serious vehicle and a kick ass phone, but somehow qualifies to buy food with welfare. Then again, it’s pretty much standard operating procedure on this island, where those of us who don’t get welfare or food stamps make do with the high food prices and avoid the stores on the first of the month (when the new food stamps go into effect).

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The wife and I had a long discussion the other day concerning driving on Guam, and the lack of skill behind the wheel that a majority of the folks have. In the end, we both came to the same conclusion. It’s as if someone took all of the shitty drivers from Korea, the Philippines, China, and Japan, threw them all on the island, gave them cars, and said “Have at it”. My road rage is something that I have to work at to control, because it’s hard not to scream at people who go well beyond stupid at times. If you happen to be driving horribly and hear someone screaming “Figure it out, motherfucker”, it’s probably me.

These are just some of the thoughts that cross my mind or events that have happened as I do the day-to-day here on the beautiful island of Guam.

Some Not So Subtle Ventage

Notes, vents, and general gibberish from that thing which we call The Guam Desk.

When a person is so grossly severely obese that they need a motorized cart to carry their asses around Kmart or the grocery store, they are not handicapped, and should not be entitled to handicapped parking. Their hands and arms are more than capable of transporting massive quantities of food to their mouths. I thought I’d seen horribly fat people before I moved to Guam, but there are some people here who give the obese a bad name. When you are wider than you are tall, you have a problem.

I have no problems with people who have struggled to keep their weight down, but there are folks on this island who never even put up a fight.

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Speaking of food, it’s about time to say something about the folks at Payless Supermarkets, the largest supermarket chain here on Guam. My questions are for the people who own and manage the stores. Are you out of your fucking minds with the prices you’re charging? I know, the price of food has risen over the years, but you people are really screwing us hard. Not all of us are on food stamps, and actually pay for the food we eat with the money we earn, so I’ll ask the question again: Are you out of your fucking minds with the prices you’re charging? And on the subject of pricing, how about making sure that every item on your shelves has a price located in the general vicinity of said item. What are we supposed to do, guess how much it costs?

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Good news on the cigarette front. The Bride and I have found a new source to purchase our highly illegal Filipino cigarettes from. “Illegal” in the sense that we pay no Guam Sin Tax (GST) when we purchase said cigarettes, even though they’re marked up nearly 1000% from what they can be purchased for in the Philippines. Still better than paying $6.50 a pack for American smokes, half of which is GST.

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I know that kids will be kids, and sometimes children act a fool. I am a parent, and I’ve been there and done that, even though my daughter was never one to act badly. I say this because there are parents who just let their children run wild, then wonder when something bad happens to them. This thought crossed my mind recently while at the laundry, when a small child stood on top of a table and screamed her lungs out while her mother stood beside her doing absolutely nothing. Just let her scream, not caring that there were probably 30 other people who really didn’t want to hear it.

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There is a group of older Korean men that meet every morning in the McDonalds next to where I work. They sit and talk and drink coffee every morning, babbling away in Hangul to each other. I wouldn’t have a problem with this except for the fact that they are extremely loud, and don’t seem to care that they might possibly be disturbing other people. That and the fact that at least one of them but probably more than one has some personal hygiene issues that they need to deal with. You can actually smell them from 10 feet away, and that’s not something anyone needs to deal with when trying to get their Egg McMuffin on.

That is all ye know and all ye need to know from here on the beautiful island of Guam, where the beaches are beautiful, the traffic horrible, and the children are all above average.