NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Two things are filling up my inbox this morning and my Twitter timeline: the protests taking place in Madison, WI and the aftermath (especially the dangers from affected nuclear power facilities) of the tsunami and earthquake in Japan. I was torn over which to write about this morning, and found myself wasting an hour just reading through articles on both events. Since I don't have enough time this morning to write up my overall thoughts on what is happening in Wisconsin right now in terms of the labor movement, protests with over 100,000 people from around the country showing up, and even Tony Shaloub, formerly from TV's Monk has flown in to show solidarity. Instead, I'll turn to Michael Moore and his thoughts last week in terms of arguing the importance of what is happening in Wisconsin. A speech he gave last week is below, as well as a blog post about how he came to Madison to give that speech. *********************** "America Is NOT Broke" By Michael Mo...

Last weekend there was no Chamorro Village night market on Wednesday, the reason being because a terrible accident had taken place there. A man driving on Marine Drive left the road and jumped the curb driving directly into tents and vendors where the Sagan Dinana' used to be on the Chief Kepuha side of the Chamorro Village. The car didn't hit anyone, but smashed into equipment and tables, sending them flying which struck several people who were barbecuing. The car eventually was stopped when it ran into a concrete structure, the bathroom, breaking a waterfountain. The medical examiner stated that the driver died from the injuries from the crash, and could find no evidence of any prior trauma or damage, such as a heart attack which could have caused him to careen off the road the way he did. When I arrived at the Chamorro Village in order to open my grandfather's blacksmith shop, the police had put up yellow tape and had brought in a tow truck to take the car away. Doze...

Every night when I get home from work and turn on my laptop I do two things. First, I go to GOMTV to see what is happening in the GSL, which is the biggest Starcraft 2 tournament in the world today. I don't have any cable and so my evening of television is usually watching professional Starcraft 2 players smash armies of pixels into each other and then watching (if it's the right night) an episode of The Daily Show. Earlier tonight there was a particularly exciting set of matches between two Starcraft: Brood War pro players who are trying to make marks for themselves in the sequel. The first is (Startale) July, changed the way zerg was played in Starcraft, especially in terms of muta control, and is known for being hyper-aggressive, almost relentless in his style. The second was (oGs) Nada, who is one of the most successful Starcraft players of all time, known as "the Genius Terran" and who once whitewashed July (3-0) in an OSL finals. To see two such legends of Starc...

Where I spent my weekend. A cool video from Leevin below.

Sorry it took a couple months to get it organized but Heritage Hikes, organized with the help of We Are Guahan are back. Part of the problem that we had, is that for several months we were attempting to work with the Navy on Guam to have the next round of Heritage Hikes visit places on DOD installations on Guam such as Haputo or Spanish Steps. When the military has been confronted with why Pagat should remain in public hands and not in theirs, they often often stated that the historic or cultural sites which are within their footprint, behind their fences, are not totally blocked off to the public, but anyone can seek permission to visit them. We decided to test this out and asked to visit a number of sites in the Northern and Southern part of Guam on Naval properties. At first, things went very well, and we were allowed to visit a few sites and conduct test hikes there, where we checked out the terrain and also prepared what sort of historical lessons we could provide to people. But w...

It is always interesting how things can change in such a short period of time. Last week the Guam First Commission, something authored years ago in the hopes of creating a unified front for Guam on how it deals with the US Government and the military buildup, was allegedly on the verge of being empaneled by the Governor. All that remained was for one final member, a representative from the Chamorro Rights Groups to be selected and then the Commission could begin its work, whatever that may end up being (sa' achokka' un taitai i lai, ti klaru hafa ayu). The process by which this last member would be selected was a bit confusing. Close to two dozen groups were recognized as having the right to nominate someone for the position. I was nominated by 8 organizations and three other people, Trini Torres, Frank Schacher and Antonio Artero Sablan were each nominated by one group. Unfortunately, many groups thought each group gets to vote for someone and whoever has the most nominations...

The Guam First Commission was proposed several years ago as a means through which the Guam Legislature could help participate in the planning of the military buildup for Guam. Since the announcement of the buildup, all information and planning had happened through the Governor's office, and they had been far more secretative than probably necessary about what was happening. He created the CMTF or the Civilian Military Task Force to oversee things, but much of the information that the CMTF collected or reports they made weren't for the public, but were rather to the help the military with the writing of their Draft Environmental Impact Statement. It seemed that Camacho saw the buildup as his baby, his legacy for the island, something that he would shepherd through and be the one responsible for all the fantastic things it would bring to the island. As he kept everything close to his chest, the Legislature, for political reasons as well as general concern, wanted in on the loop....

From Crooks And Liars : This is heartwarming -- BREAKING: Wisconsin Police Have Joined Protest Inside State Capitol : From inside the Wisconsin State Capitol, RAN ally Ryan Harvey reports: “Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside.” Ryan reported on his Facebook page earlier today: “Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’ Unreal.” Don't tell me we can't win this. Wisconsin Police Have Joined Protest Inside State Capitol . UPDATE from John Amato: Looks like Scott Walker was booed out of a restaurant tonight . Digby says it may not be 100% . Obsidian Wings has a lot of info : Wisconsin blogger ...

I have had an online presence for quite a while now. I've had websites or some sort of presence here for so long that I started a geocities website when it was still cool to have one, and have lived long enough to see geocities close down and most of the sites wiped from the face of the earth (a few were saved by generous mirrors). I've seen the internet landscape of Guam change somewhat. Every year or so a handful of websites which are meant to be the ultimate or premiere online presence for all things Guam or Chamorro appear, and most of them fade away very quickly and very quietly. The creation and popularization of blogs didn't lead to any real change in the emptiness of Guam's online world. If you google around for Guam/Chamorro blogs you'll find several pages which were created and never actually started. You'll also find plenty of blogs with a few posts and nothing else for several years. I was jealous of Saipan for quite a while because while Guam langui...

For the Twitter account that I just started, I've decided to dedicate it for now to helping teach the informal Chamorro class that I hold every week. The Twitter account is open to anyone to follow should they want, but it's meant to help support the lessons that we learn each week. Everyday I ask a question or make a statement which draws upon the grammar or vocabulary that we learned that week and those learning are meant to respond. For example, in our first lesson we discussed the most basic forms of pronouns in Chamorro, the "Yu'" type pronouns. They go after adjectives, nouns and verbs and make the most basic stative sentences. With the pronouns we learned 15 vocabulary words, primarily nouns and verbs, as well as how you use the question marker "kao," the negative marker "ti" and the intensifiers "gof, gef, ges, sen, mampos" in a sentence. In the week after I tweeted some basic questions such as the following: The follo...

This was originally posted on the website Guamology which was run by the Muna Brothers, Don and Kel, but closed down recently after a two year run. I was a writer for the website, sometimes posting every week or so, sometimes once a month. It was a very fun and very informative website and I was happy to help build it since it started in 2008. I cut and pasted a few of the posts that I didn't have records of because they were on my old laptop which was stolen last year. I decided to share one of my painting posts below: ************************* Welcome to another installment of the Joy of Painting! Where I take pictures and write up the progress of a painting that I am making, to go beyond the surface of an artwork, and get into the evolution, the beauty, the struggle of making it. This week’s segment is dedicated to Sarah , who requested that I try out watercolor this time around. The joy in this post’s title is in quotes because watercolor isn’t always a joy for me. Its ...