NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Published on Friday, June 30, 2006 by CommonDreams.org Bush Loses Guantánamo Case by Marjorie Cohn In the most significant rebuff to George W. Bush's assertion of executive power since he declared his "war on terror," the Supreme Court called a halt to Bush's kangaroo courts at Guantánamo Bay. Justice Stevens wrote for the 5-3 majority, "We conclude that the military commission convened to try Hamdan lacks power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate both the [Uniform Code of Military Justice] and the Geneva Conventions." Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter and Kennedy joined Stevens in the majority opinion. One of Hamdan's lawyers, Georgetown University Law School Professor Neal Kayta, called the ruling a "rebuke" to a system of "fake courts." Shafiq Rasul, speaking for himself and two other former Guantánamo detainees, said, "We are ecstatic at today's outcome. This is another step in our collective efforts t

Premier Gala Exhibition July 14th at PTC To All Art Patrons!!! There will be an Art Exhibition on July 14th, 2006... Please join us in celebrating our Culture Through the Arts. The Guam Gallery of Art, The Chamorro Artists Association and PTC (Pacific Trading Club) in the Agana Shopping Center present...FAKMATA... "Just like the latte... We withstood the test of time... The Chamorro Artists Association Returns". The Premeir gala event celebrating the opening of the exhibit and the return of The Chamorro Artists Association takes place on Friday July 14th and begins at 6 p.m. and continues to 9 p.m. After 9 p.m. open mic begins... We are putting out a call for poets, writers, musicians, etc to participate in presenting their "spoken word" for this major art event. If you are interested in performing please contact Filamore Palomo Alcon at The Guam Gallery of Art in the Chamorro Village.: Contact numbers: (Cell) 688-0320 (Gallery) 472-9659 or 472-1352. Organizers and

In a presentation I made earlier this year, I made the interesting claim that the film X-Files: Fight the Future is a better film to identify with for conceiving and articulating indigenous resistance in the Pacific than the film Whale Rider. Naturally to alot of people, this was a wild and outlandish claim, that most wrapped their minds around, by guessing that the humans are the indigenous people and the aliens are the colonizers. In this guess however, people tended to forget that when I make strange claims such as this, I am usually situating myself within a Lacanian psychoanalytical framework. The incredible popular emphasis today on interpreting dreams and water cooler dreamwork stems from Freud's work in shifting the meaning of dreams away from both divinity and meaningless to become a link with something internal (or it could be argued depending on how you conceive of the unconscious as external) to man, a bewildering clue to his processes. Most take this as a cue to delve

Madonna: Buenas Miget, hafa na klasin kachidun Hindi na ta egga' pa'go? Miget: Hu ayeki hao un gof interesante na kachidun Hindi, na'an-na Raja Hindustani. Madonna: Ilek-mu gof interesante. Sa' hafa? Hafa fuma'sahnge este yan i otro na kachidun Hindi siha? Miget: Ti sina kumuentos yu' put todu i kachidon Hindi, lao nu Guahu, gof interesante este sa' este i fine'nina na kachidun Hindi nai hu li'e i aktors siha umachiku. Madonna: Guana? Miget: Hunggan, estaba gi todu i kachido ti sina mana'fanannok chinikuku siha. Pi'ot gi i labios. Fihu ma fa'chiku gi i labios, lao mismo i lahi pau chiku i palao'an gi i fasu-na. Sesso lokkue, ma bira i ilu-niha, pues ti annok, ya ti un tungo' yanggen hunggan umachiku, pat ahe' ya mafa'bababa hao. Madonna: Maolek este, sa' ti un na'lamas kontiempo i estoria, sa' sesso un cho'gue enao nai. Miget: Ai adai, ti hu hasngon lai. Madonna: Hafa na klasin chiniku este ni' gof liki

Before starting my post I want to urge everyone to head over to this website to sign the Petition for Peace and Justice for Guam and the Peace, which was drawn up in response to the United States military buildups and exercises currently taking place in Guam www.PetitionOnline.com/haleta/petition.html For more information on these increases, head over to the petition's supplemental blog, http://decolonizeguam.blogspot.com I have long called commonsense the enemy of Guam's future, but I only say this because of the current dominant forms that it takes. If a revolution in values and meaning, in the perceptions, perspectives and understandings of people on Guam were to take place, then I might be in a different position, commonsense might then be on my side, instead of something I constantly find looming over my head, listo para u u'tot i aga'ga-hu . Answers as to how the current form of commonsense came to be on Guam today is something I have discussed in my academic work

Just giving everyone ( ni' tumaitaitai este) a head's up that I started a new blog last week to support a petition that will be going out this week, which decries the latest military increases in Guam. Here's the link: http://decolonizeguam.blogspot.com Mungga en fanatge! It is a very important issue, especially in light of all the posturing recently between the US, Japan, North Korea and China. We are right in the middle of all the nuclear build ups and threats, both grave and empty. Sure, in the United States press we read about the dangers of North Korea and the missile test that they are planning, but what we should be more concerned about is the current clear leader of the nuclear and military arms race, and the one whose nuclear attack body count is by far the highest, the United States. On The Daily Show recently, one of their fake correspondents discussed the World Cup and why Americans just don't seem to care about it. The telling response was that the World Cu

Taitai este siha na punto siha, sa' gof impottante nu i mina'gasin isla-ta. Si Sabina Flores Perez tumuge' este, ya malate' gui' sa' ha komprende yan ha ekslipakyi hit sa' hafa na fihu taibali yan ti guailayi i fina'privatization i utilities giya Guahan. I CCU yan i Chamber of Commerce ya-niha fuma'privatize todu giya Guahan sa' ayugue i minalagon i Militat United States. Yanggen un atan i estorian privatization gi todu i tano' siha, gof baba para i meggaina na taotao (pi'ot i ti manriku na taotao siha), lao sen maolek para i didide' na taotao gi i tinakhilo'. Ya-niha i estrukturan i militat este ginefsaga' na "gap" ginnen i manakpappa' yan i manakhilo', sa' manmapepedde' i lugat siha i eriyan i bases. Put hemplo, este na fact mampos impottante na matungo' put i manmamaila na Marines siha, lao taya' sumasangan. Kao un tungo' na achokka' i mas militat gi todu Hapon gaige giya Okinawa, G

Published on Friday, June 16, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times A Man, a Plan … Baghdad The president's secret trip to Iraq yielded a new strategy: Let the Iraqis figure it out by Rosa Brooks FINALLY! The Bush administration has a plan for Iraq. A new one, I mean. The old plan — accept flowers from grateful Iraqis, locate WMD, create democracy and the rule of law, depart in five months — had definite appeal, but it didn't work out. The new plan is that we're going to get the Iraqis to come up with a plan. That's why the president paid a surprise visit to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki this week. Perhaps sensing that Maliki's response to a cheery "See you shortly!" from George W. Bush might be something along the lines of "Not if I see you first," Bush dropped in on Baghdad's Green Zone unannounced, giving Maliki only five minutes' notice of his arrival. That's leadership for you. As the president explained: "One reason I went to I

Ever since the Famoksaiyan meeting in April I've been living in a beautiful reality bubble. A sort of insulated sphere where my ideas are not radical, not maladjusted, not insane, but rather commonsense, important and vital to thinking about the place of Chamorros past, present or future. Famoksaiyan has in a way functioned for me the way San Francisco has functioned for the American left over the past few years, a sort of fannuhong'an, a haven where commonsense is structured slightly different, where people seem to be thinking at least a little bit more than usual about human life, human freedom, dignity and justice. As I prepare to go back to Guam this summer, I am also preparing for this bubble to be rudely broken. Of course, what I believe and what I may think about Guam's past, present or future may be shared by many people on Guam, but the gap between what we feel and know and what we can say is huge. In my master's thesis in Micronesia Studies for example, I did

From the Los Angeles Times L.A. Garden Shut Down; 40 Arrested Protesters are forcibly taken from the site that had flourished for years in a poor area. The owner refuses the city's $16-million offer. By Hector Becerra, Megan Garvey and Steve Hymon Times Staff Writers June 14, 2006 Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies shut down a 14-acre urban farm in South Los Angeles on Tuesday, arresting more than 40 protesters as they cleared a plot of land that has been the source of discord and controversy in the community for two decades. The evictions occurred during a frenzied morning both at the farm and at City Hall. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other city leaders continued negotiations with the landowner even as deputies used bolt cutters and power tools to remove protesters who had attached themselves to concrete-filled drums and mature trees. In an afternoon news conference, Villaraigosa said owner Ralph Horowitz turned down $16 million an offer that met the asking price. Talks

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I'm defending my master's thesis in Ethnic Studies tomorrow. Here's the notice. --------------------------------------------------------------- Ethnic Studies Department, University of California, San Diego Somewhat proudly presents THESIS DEFENSE! "Everything you Wanted to Know About Guam But Were Afraid to Ask Zizek." Michael Lujan Bevacqua Sumasaga giya San Diego Taotao Chumalamlam Familian Kabesa yan Bittot 12:30 pm June 12, 2006 Room 103 Social Sciences Building University of California, San Diego Please email mlbasquiat@hotmail.com for more information SI YU'US MA'ASE!

I read in Electronic Gaming Monthly this week that a new version of Phantasy Star Online will be coming out soon titled Phantasy Star Universe. For those of you know I was once a huge video game geek, lao strictly Nintendo, puru ha' fanboy with a iron tight allegaince to the house that Miyamoto built. NES, Super Nintendo, 64, Gamecube, Game Boys and most recently the DS, all of them have helped raise me and either enhanced or neutralized large tracts of brain cells. Since I started my current graduate program, Ethnic Studies at UCSD, I've had to swear off most video games in my life, to ensure that I actually do my readings instead of losing a couple days to an RPG. The only game that I'm currently devoted to is Killer 7 for the Gamecube, which for those interested plays like a dissociative disorder/schizophrenia. I will post something about it at some point. My first and only forray in online gaming came through Phantasy Star Online on the Gamecube. I had played it offline

Published on Wednesday, June 7 2006 by The Nation Citizens 1, Corporations 0 by John Nichols In states across the country Tuesday, primary elections named candidates for Congress, governorships and other important offices. But the most interesting, and perhaps significant, election did not involve an individual. Rather, it was about an idea. In Northern California's Humboldt County, voters decided by a 55-45 margin that corporations do not have the same rights -- based on the supposed "personhood" of the combines -- as citizens when it comes to participating in local political campaigns. Until Tuesday in Humboldt County, corporations were able to claim citizenship rights, as they do elsewhere in the United States. In the context of electoral politics, corporations that were not headquartered in the county took advantage of the same rules that allowed individuals who are not residents to make campaign contributions in order to influence local campaigns. But, with the passa

My brain almost caved in when I read this, it shows the type of meaning manipulation that Republicans wish they could get away with and unfortunately do tend to get away with. Bush press secretary says gay marriage amendment civil rights measure; Stumbles when asked to define civil rights RAW STORY Published: Monday June 5, 2006 At the White House press briefing today, Bush press secretary Tony Snow signaled that Bush considers an amendment barring same-sex marriage a "civil rights" matter, then stumbled when asked to define civil rights, RAW STORY has found. A video of the comments can be found here . Relevant transcript from White House press briefing follows, followed by full transcript relating to all questions about the Federal Marriage Amendment. # WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY TONY SNOW: Whether it passes or not, as you know, Terry, there have been a number of cases where civil rights matters have risen on a number of occasions, and they've been brought up for repea

Since the political season is starting in Guam, I thought I'd write about politics for the next few days. Last week the Camacho/Cruz camp started advertising on website http://www.peoplefromguam.com and so I've been seriously thinking about the upcoming election and how we can see so many of the things wrong with Guam at play. I figure today I'll give a background on stuff and then later write specifically about the campaign that Camacho ran in 2002 and why he has a good shot at winning again, much to the detriment of most that is good and sacred on Guam. Few people know this but when I was in the Micronesian Studies Program at the University of Guam in 2002 and searching for a thesis topic, my first inclination was to do research on the 2002 gubernatorial campaigns. I had attended more than a dozen fundraisers for Underwood with family members and friends, partially because he is my relative, but also because I felt that he was the best candidate for the job. I have never