The Real Challenges
Since I've come back on island I hear all the time, from the radio, the TV, I read it in the paper, and I hear it in offices, businesses, about the incredible and massive challenges that Guam is facing over the next few years. Challenges could mean anything, but in this context is almost always means, how are we going to prepare for the massive population increase, which the most recent conservative estimate claimed would be 43,000 people, that will result from the proposed US military buildup to the island? The challenges are things we all think about, utilities, economy, education, social well being, roads, pollution, environment, etc. But these challenges are divided into two dangerously narrow categories. The first is, how can we change ourselves and improve ourselves in order to best take advantage of the coming invasion? The second is, how can we mitigate the inevitable damage it is going to cause to just about everything on the island? Although we can see and feel the poor