NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

From Truth-out.org . The best take on last night's VP debate that I've read all morning. There's even a Marianas Trench mention in there. Kalang un machalek na tigiri Si Joe Biden gi painge. Ya Si Paul Ryan i na'-na. Humugando na'ya Si Joe ni' na'-na, ya pues ha galamok ha'. ************************* Big Joe and the Joyful Noise Friday, 12 October 2012 08:58   By William Rivers Pitt ,  Truthout | Op-Ed Vice President Joseph Biden of Delaware dropped the hammer on Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan on Thursday, and it was a powerful thing to see. Anyone who tells you the vice presidential debate was a tie, or that Mr. Ryan prevailed, is trying to sell you a diamond mine that ain't worth a dime. The ultimate impact and import of what went down during Thursday's debate won't be immediately known, but the simple fact is beyond dispute: Joe Biden owned the night, and owned his opponent, in a way ra...

Below is the resolution for the First Stewards Symposium that I attended earlier this year. It was a historic gathering and I am pleased to announce that there will be another First Steward's conference in Summer of 2013. **************** RESOLUTION of the First Stewards Coastal Peoples Address Climate Change Symposium National Museum of the American Indian Washington, DC, on July 20, 2012 Whereas, we, the indigenous peoples, were and are the First Stewards of the lands and waters of North America, Alaska and the Pacific Islands, having lived in these areas millennia before the establishment of the United States; Whereas, about 300 First Stewards and others convened July 17 to 20, 2012, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Indian, Washington, DC, at the First Stewards: Coastal Peoples Address Climate Change Symposium; Whereas, the Symposium reemphasized the First Stewards’ awareness of the interconnectedness of the clouds, forest, valleys, land, streams, fis...

Sometime last year I spent a morning with some members of We Are Guahan preparing for an upcoming round of Heritage Hikes that we hoped would visit Spanish Steps, Tweed's Cave, Pagat and Haputo Beach. Our initial round of Heritage Hikes featured places that are open to the public, but have some relationship to Guam's militarization, either in a contemporary or historical sense. For later rounds we tried to choose sites on bases in hopes of testing to see how sincere the US military is that the public have good and regular access to historical and culturally significant places. That morning we went on a tour of the historic sites that can be found on Navy Base Guam, including a walk around the area where songsong Sumay used to be. In a way, a historical tour around Naval Base Guam is actually a depressing trip. It is a tour of absence. Almost a tour of nothing, a tour of the long gone traces of something. There is plenty of recent history on the base. It has only exi...

I'll be here tonight at University of Hawai'i, Manoa.

Gaige yu' giya Hawai'i gi este na simana. Humahanao yu' para i konferensian i "Council on Native Hawaiian Advancement." Makombida yu' ni' WESPAC. Para bei hanao lokkue' para un "festival" para i mampeskadot yan i guihan siha gi Damenggo. Gof tinane' yu' gi tiempo-ku guini. Meggai malago' yu' na bei tuge' guini lao tailugat yu' pa'go. Puede ha' lamo'na sina manuge' yu' mas put i sinisedi-hu guini.

Gi este na simana, Si Obama yan Si Romney para u afana' gi i fine'nina na minari para i botasion 2012. Ti hu tungo' hayi para u fanggana' este na inafana'. Sigun todu i "polls" yan i inestudia siha fumo'fo'na Si Obama gi i inacha'igi para i "states' ni' impottante. Taya' fitme pa'go. Achokka' i "data' ha sangagani hit ni' este pa'go, meggai sina matulaika put este. I "polls" ma fa'nu'nu'i hit na anggen ma cho'gue i botasion pa'go, siempre manggana' Si Obama. Ti ha kombebense todu, lao ha kombebense i taotao gi i impottante na "states." Anggen un atan i mappan botasion gi Estados Unidos, fihu ma penta ayu gi tres pat kuatro na kulot. I agaga' na patte siha, ayu siempre ma aguguiguiyi i "Republicans." I asut na patte siha, siempre ma aguguiguiyi. I lila yan amariyu, ti siguru i fuma'titinas i mappa, hayi este na patte siha ma aguguiguiyi. Gi ...

For those looking to practice their Chamorro I have a Chamorro sentence email list. Every few days or so I send an email to a list of people that contains a sometimes simple and sometimes complicated Chamorro sentence. The sentence will sometimes deal with mundane issues of what is your favorite cereal, what type of car do you drive, what village to you live in? When you receive the email you can respond to the entire list or just me if you'd like any feedback. If you'd like to be placed on this email list you can send me a request at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com. It is free and open to anyone. For the 50th sentence that I sent out I decided to make it special. Instead of a single sentence it became a sprawling story about a guali'ek with a question tacked on at the end. If you want to take a crack at the sentence you can see it pasted below: *********************** Kao guaha manli'e' hao gualiek gi tasi yan kumekematmos gui'. Ha a'agang hao gi i batko-mu...

The 2nd Guam International Film Festiva l is this weekend. Here's the films I'm looking forward to watching. You can find previews for each film on the website linked above. The information before each film is how much they cost and what time they are at: ************************* SCREENING INFORMATION: Screens with “ THE STUDENT WRESTLER “ Admission: $7.50 USD Date: Saturday, September 29, 2012 | Time: 1:40pm Venue: STADIUM TBD, Micronesia Mall Stadium Theatres | GIFF Guide: contains adult material BIBA! ONE ISLAND, 879 VOTES! Documentary Feature | Northern Mariana Islands | 75 min. | English, Chamorro w/English subtitles | PACIFIC ASIA PREMIERE It’s the fall of 2007 and there’s a storm brewing on the tiny island of Tinian. BIBA! follows Trenton Conner and Henry San Nicolas in their battle for control over the island, documenting a unique mixture of traditional family clan culture and wester democracy that we know all too well here in the Mariana Islands. (G...

We're here to nominate a President, and I've got one in mind. I want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty. A man who ran for President to change the course of an already weak economy and then just six weeks before the election, saw it suffer the biggest collapse since the Great Depression. A man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how many jobs were created and saved, there were still millions more waiting, trying to feed their children and keep their hopes alive. I want to nominate a man cool on the outside but burning for America on the inside. A man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation. A man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama. I want Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States and I proudly nominate him as the standa...

2012 Democratic National Convention: Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Elizabeth Warren, Candidate for U.S. Senate, Massachusetts   The following is a copy of a speech, as prepared for delivery, by Elizabeth Warren, Candidate for U.S. Senate, Massachusetts, at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, September 5, 2012. Thank you! I'm Elizabeth Warren, and this is my first Democratic Convention. Never thought I'd run for senate. And I sure never dreamed that I'd get to be the warm-up act for President Bill Clinton—an amazing man, who had the good sense to marry one of the coolest women on the planet. I want to give a special shout out to the Massachusetts delegation. I'm counting on you to help me win and to help President Obama win. I'm here tonight to talk about hard-working people: people who get up early, stay up late, cook dinner and help out with homework; people who can be counted on to help their kids, their parents, their neig...

Translating songs from English to Chamorro has been a favorite hobby of mine for a while. When I was first learning to speak Chamorro this was a fun necessity. It helped me, albeit in small fragments, practice the structure of making short sentences in Chamorro. One of the first songs that I translated was a favorite of mine at the time, "Yellow" by the band Coldplay. The lyrics, like many of that sort of generic, but somehow epic pop songs are incomprehensible. They are meant to be so fehman, but don't really make sense. They feel as if they make some sort of higher sense, but when taking in a literal and direct way, you might wonder how bulachu or bileng the songwriter was when he was penning these lines. Needless to say, after so many years "Yellow" remains one of my favorite songs to sing in both English and in Chamorro. I often sing along in Chamorro as its droning tune and repetitive lyrics wind their way to their conclusion. Note that the translatio...

The Honorable Xavier Becerra Democratic Caucus Vice Chair and Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, California 2012 Democratic National Convention Thursday, September 6, 2012 The American dream—it’s built not with words or speeches but from sweat and tears. Its heart and soul reside not in the boardrooms on Wall Street, but in the shops and factories on Main Street. Its promise is simple: work hard, play by the rules and you can make it in America. That’s Barack and Michelle Obama’s story. Like so many of you, that’s my parents’ story, too. My father was a construction worker who dug the ditches and laid the pipe and concrete to build our highways. My mother arrived in this country as a newlywed with no money, no English and no family of her own. Together, they realized their dream of sending their four children where no man or woman in our family in America had ever gone before: college. El sueño Americano! The American dream! In any language, that’s wha...

Sesso ti sina hu komprende Si Mitt Romney. Anai hu atan gui', ti taisensia gui', ti taitiningo' gui'. Bunito gui' yan buente malate' gui' lokkue'. Lao, sa' hafa fihu manlachi gui' taiguihi udu gui'? Manaitai yu' meggai pa'go yan nigap put i sinangan-na siha gi me'nan i manriku ni' sumoppoppote gui'. Gof baba i sinangan-na, gi fino' Ingles ma sangan na este na klasin kuentos "divisive." Gi i sinangan-na ha fa'sahnge lamita na taotao gi i nasion, ya ilek-na na ayu siha taibali nu Guahu. Ti para siha na bei gubetno. Ayu muna'klaru i hinasson i Manrepublicans gi este na botasion yan gi este na sakkan. Fihu ma fa'attende i manakpappa' yan i manggaige gi tinalo' na klas. Lao gi este na botasion kalang ma yuyute' ayu siha. Anai estaba Si Romney i gubetno giya Massachusetts mas maolek na gayu gui'. Achokka' Republican gui', ti mampos "conservative" gui'. Gum...

I remember many years ago hitting a wall in my learning of Chamorro. I had gotten the basics and could carry on conversations with people. I could express myself in a casual and sort of everyday way. The basic topics of how is this person doing, how is this going, weren't any problem at all. But when the conversation would become a little bit more complex, when the subject matter got more detailed or more sophisticated the Chamorro language would politely be set side and English would prevail. Chamorro would make cameo appearances afterwards, but never ever truly gain control over what was being said, until the "adios, esta agupa." For me this would happen because I was still learning the language and there were still plenty of thing I wasn't sure how you were supposed to talk about in the Chamorro language. But what depressed me was that sometimes it would be the other person, the one who was far more fluent than myself in the language, who would switch to Engl...