NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

You might have noticed a slight change in my blog. For several months I've sported i banderan Guahan as my profile pick, due to the obvious nationalistic and ethnocentric character of my blog. It was also an important strategic choice, since when I started the Decolonize Guam blog, I wanted people who stumbled across it to still connect and feel familiar to it, even if the news posted on the blog might be completely new and strange to them (since the posts on the blog portray the US in a hardly benevolent light). When I started that blog though my profile pick was an interesting and confusing choice to many, this still from the film Mangal Pandey: The Rising, starring Amir Khan as one of the heroes of the First Indian Rebellion in 1857. Surely only those familiar with my random Nihi ta fanchat gi fino' Chamoru put Hindi Movies would have understood the choice. The choice was not only related to my love for Hindi movies, but also part of a much deeper affinity for revolutions ...

I've been busy lately, in so many different ways, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed at the prospec of just trying to write about all of it. So instead of doing so, then I just thought I'd let everyone know about the two other blogs that I help run. The Decolonize Guam blog was created several months ago to support the Peace and Justice for Guam Petition. The desire behind the Peace and Justice for Guam Petition is simple. Right now the United States is militarizing Guam at an incredible rate, and few people on Guam seem concerned about it . There are 8,000 Marines and 9,000 dependents on their way from Okinawa. They will most definitely be joined by some of the troops being downsized from South Korea . They will be supporting the American remilitarization of the Philippines . There are then the war games, the first of which, Valiant Shield , took place this June, which was described by one news report as a "massive armada." These games will be now be done regu...

A quick update on the Max Havoc GEDCA scandal. Apparently the producer of th Max Havoc move has now decided to sue the Government of Guam for $2 million! There was a tremendous buzz around Guam several years ago when it was announced that Hollywood would be coming to Guam in the form of the film Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon. A number of stars were announced to be attached to the movie who didn't appear in the film. For example, Qi Shu (from The Transporter and So Close ) and rapper Fat Joe were supposed to be in Max Havoc, but were eventually replaced with David Carradine and Richard Roundtree. Semi-superstar Carmen Electra was the only "big" contemporary name to make it into the film cut of the film, albeit for only a few moments. Of course, this film was mostly hype and not even hype of a digestable type. It was almost ridiculous hype when you think about the horrible director that Albert Pyun is and then the incredibly low budget and bland martial arts film they wer...

Tåya' hu chagi muna'atok i sinappote-ku nu Si Robert Underwood. Guiya i gayu-hu ya achokka' guaha nai linemlem yu' nu Guiya yan i matulaikå-na, ni’ ngai’an bai maleffa i impottante na bidå-ña siha nu i Chamoru siha. Guaha Chamoru activists siha ni’ sumasångan na esta sen tahdong ti matulaikå-ña siha Si Underwood, pues todu I bididå-ña pa’go kalang ha traiduduti hit. Lao nu siha bai hu sångan este. Ga’o’-ku i gayu ni’ mumaleffa i guinife-ña siha kinu i gayu ni’ taya’ nai manguife. Gi i minalalago-ña pa’go na sakkan, hunggan fihu nina’desganao as Guiya, sa’ fihu taigue i Chamoru gi i sinangan-ña yan pinagat-ña siha. Pat gaige i Chamoru gi hafa na mamamaila ha promemeti i taotao Guahan, lao chumecho gui’ yan i Filipino. Put hemplo, yanggen un atan i emails na hu na’chetton gi pappa’ este, todu i tiempo ma na’daña i sinangan fino’ Chamoru yan fino’ Tagalog. Gi todu i mimilak Estoria, hunggan bai hu konfotme yan Si Underwood nai ilek-ña na “achaigua’ña kinu diferentes i Fili...

Two tidbits of information which if I throw together might just get me a bit more hate mail than usual. The first is the statement by North Korean government justifying their recent nuclear tests and ambitions. The position of the North Korean government is clear, and its the difference between Iran/North Korea and Iraq. If we have nuclear weapons, then the risk of invasion goes down considerably, and despite all the talk about Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction, the reason it was invaded was because it most likely had no such thing and therefore represetned far less danger. North Korea, like so many other nations is investing in this for their survival. Although my island is currently within range of his missiles and was named recently as a target for their attacks if the United States continues its aggressive posturing, this is just a sliver of the dangerous picture geopolitical machinations and manipulations of the world's largest countries have created. The second pasted p...

For those of you who don't know, my dissertation in Ethnic Studies will deal with sovereignty, most specifically Guam's role in producing America's sovereignty, or what role its invisibility or nothingness plays in producing America as sovereign. One of the thing which is currently frustrating me is the fact that part of the writing of a dissertation is the preparation of a literature review, or a sometimes helpful, sometimes useless review of what others have said about your topic of choice and how you will use them or defy them. If you are familiar with the bulk of work on sovereignty it all basically says the same things nowadays, drawing mildly different conclusions around assertions that no one can really contest. In historical terms, meaning the development of sovereignty over the past 500 years for example, the ideas of the late Senator Alan Cranston are not so different then the conceptions of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. (they draw the same basic geneaology and...

I decided to take a sort of intellectual break this weekend, since thinking about my dissertation was starting to drive me nuts. While I was driving down from Los Angeles the other day, I did have a number of breakthroughs, but still the whole process of social science writing is so meaningless to me now, I almost wish I had gone into a philosophy program instead of an Ethnic Studies program. ************* My statcounter is almost to 30,000, so in celebration of the popularity of my blog, I thought I'd try something a little fun and a little narcissistic. What I did was google around different combinations of keywords and then see where on that list my blog showed up, if it showed up at all. Guam Blog = # 39 Chamorro Blog = # 1 ( BIBA!) Chamoru Blog = # 1 ( BIBA ta'lo!) Zizek and Guam = #1 (BIBA UN BIAHI MAS!) Shinji and Rei = # 5 ( Ti hu hongge este, sa' bula na website put Evangelion) Malafunkshun = # 18 J.D. Crutch = # 7 Guam and Colonialism = # 15 Cowboy Bebop...

FAMOKSAIYAN MEETING!!! November 19, 2006 10 am - 5 pm Guam Communications Network Office 4201 Long Beach Blvd. Suite 218 Long Beach, CA 90807 We are looking for Chamorros and other people from Guam, from all walks of life, students, activists, manamko' , i manritirao esta, professionals, etc. who are interested in working towards a better and more progressive future for Chamorros and their communities. Contact Michael Lujan Bevacqua for more info mlbasquiat@hotmail.com Maila ya nihi ta fanagululumi put i kottura-ta yan i taotao-ta! Just want to give everyone a heads up on the next Famoksaiyan meeting, which will be next month in Long Beach. Since the conference in April, we've had a flurry of informal activity, all of it working to get this group closer to some sort of sustainability. Building off of all the energy of April and then the first follow up meeting in Berkeley, a number of our members went recently to testify before the United Nation's Committee on Decolonizati...