NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Polar bears are so cute, and from this video I realize, so much like humans...

Me and Jessica, i nananpatgon-hu, had discussed for several weeks the idea of making a thank you card or picture for Sagua Managu , the birthing center where our daughter was born in April of this year. During Jessica's time there, I saw decorating the hallways, pictures of families, and thank you notes addressed to the nurses and doctors at Sagua . Although all were nice, sweet and most likely heartfelt and well-meaning, they were all kind of boring. It didn't seem like anyone had gotten too wild or creative with their thank you, and no one really tried to make a statement about the awesomeness, coolness, or chubbiness of their child or children. I'm not saying that those gifts sucked or were poor, but only that when I saw them, I knew I wanted to do more for Sumåhi. Maybe in time, this feeling that I have will fade or will seem stupid, but for now, I always find myself obsessing over ways that my baby is the bestest, smartest, fattest, loudest, friendliest, meanest, or m...

I was searching around Youtube last night, looking for videos and music to keep me company while I was cleaning up my room and working on an article I intend to submit to the journal The Ethnic Studies Review. Gi i umaliligao-hu, I found these videos of General Bice speaking on KUAM News Extra speaking about the proposed military build up to the island. Its important whenever you read or listen to i fino' i militat, through speakers such as Bice, to not simply believe what they are saying, but to connect what they say to the history of the island (and not just the "liberation" of the island in 1944), namely the treatment of Chamorros by the United States military, and thus pay very close attention to what the military is not saying or intentionally being vague and coy about. For instance while the military is always more than willing to throw around figures like $15 billion, they are very hesitant and unwilling to tell us what exactly that number is supposed to mean, and...

Minagahet Zine and this blog No Rest for the Awake - Minagahet Chamorro were both started several years ago by myself and The Chamorro Information Activists, and as the names of both websites and even the organization itself indicate, our primary interests are always information and truth. From the mission statement I wrote to accompany the starting of Minagahet, these websites were created with the intent of finding and providing new access to truth, and getting beyond the very limited ways that both the media as well as the community at large in Guam tend to know their history, perceive their present, and plan for their future. Guam faces a terrifying future. On the horizon, we are being told by so many sources, Federal, local, military, Chamber of Commerce,( puru ha' atmariao) , that there is nothing but fantastic prosperous shores ahead with the impending American military build-ups the island is confronting. The only snag that we could possible hit, is if we screw it up by n...

My brain has been a little off lately, and I think its because my mind has been persistently occupied by a strange mixture of things. Lately I've developed this unnerving habit of having two songs in my head at once, both of them playing at the same time, and in their unholy mixture insisting very forcefully that I seek them out in the real world and listen to them repeatedly until the barrage is gone. Sometimes the yinalaka isn't too bad like when the songs go well together, or just sound like an exciting new mix. Or sometimes its not even obvious that two songs are intertwined because the songs sounds so similar or are from the same artist. Its common for instance for me to get the songs "Crazy" and "Crying" by Aerosmith stuck in my head at the same time, and think that the song I need to listen to is "Amazing." The past few days have been slightly strange, because my brain has been a muddled mess of two very different songs, and the Cricket Twe...

Estague i palabras para unu mås ya-hu na kantan Chamoru, Hågu Inan i Langhet or "You are the Light of Heaven." Gof ya-hu kumantåyi i haggå-hu Si Sumåhi ni' este na kanta, pi'ot annai la’la’lu gui’, ya malago bei na'suheta gui'. Hiningok-hu lokkue, na este na mås ya-ña na kanta i Maga’obispo Si Anthony Apuron. ******************************* HAGU INAN I LANGHET Hågu i inan i langhet O pulan klåru yan gåtbo Ai na’silensio na puengge Un alibia, un alibia i piniti-hu Yanggen triste hao gi puengge Atan hulo’ ya un li’e Hågu siempre un konsigi I minagof i alibio para siempre Ayu na mineggai puti’on Manma’lak yan ti tufong’on Lao meggaiña ti li’e’on Mas ki sien mit, mas ki sien mit miyon

Published on Sunday, September 16, 2007 by CommonDreams.org The Banality of Evil Revisited by Bud McClure Hannah Arendt was exactly right in 1963 when she had an epiphany while writing about Adolph Eichmann, realizing in a profound moment of clarity that the great evils in the world are not the work of a few sociopaths, but are committed by ordinary people who accept what they are told by their government and then proceed to normalize whatever actions they might take. Sadly, under the right circumstances, we are easily persuaded to do the bidding of the state when it comes to killing. Six years ago we were rabid for revenge and war making. Many thought that killing bin Laden and his protectors, the Taliban, would settle the score for the attack on our country. However, the President and his men wanted a wider battle, so they used lies and propaganda to sell a war with Iraq. Through the power and resources of the state, war making with Iraq was promoted as honorable, clergy gathered to ...

I first heard about Fan Translations or "fanslations" of manga books several years ago from my friend and fellow scholar in waiting, Marianna Hernandez. At that point, I had watched a few anime, but never really gotten into manga, and actually had no idea that it had become a huge thing in the United States. I was told last year that manga sales in the United States had far surpassed comic books sales, and at that point I could barely believe it, but today, after reading several mangas and seeing their shelves expand in bookstores, it seems obvious. Outside of Japan though, the process of getting mangas translated can take a while, and sometimes the publishing in Japan will be years ahead of what it is elsewhere. Apparently, in a million instances of caring for their fellow fans and geeks, there are people out there who fanslate, or take the comics in Japan and scan them, and actually type in translations from the Japanese into their language of choice. When Marianna had fir...

Esta gaige yu' tatte gi sanlagu, lao ti bei maleffa i tano'-hu... Para hamyo ni' sigi ha' manasaga' guihi, na'safu gui' put fabot, bai hu biran maisa yu' ta'lo guatu guenao!

As should be obvious from my current Blogger profile image, I am a cricket fan. I haven't been one long. Gi espiritu, ya-hu cricket desde hu egga’ Lagaan, noskuantos na sakkan tåtte na tiempo. Lao gi minagahet, kasi un sakkan ha’maloffan desde hu tutuhun ya-hu manegga’. I've been reading plenty of articles, scorecards and watching what few matches I can find on youtube or google video, and slowly I'm becoming more and more of a hardcore fan. One of the first sites I visit kada ogga'an yan kada puengge when I turn on my computer is Cricinfo.com , to find out what the results are for the latest ODI, Test or Twenty20 matches. Unfortunately, over the summer, there wasn't much activity save for the Test and ODI matches between India and England. Which were very exciting in their own right, but hardly enough for a new fan to satisfy their appetite. India is my favorite team right now, even if they aren't the best, they are still an amazing collection of powerful playe...

Published on Monday, September 10, 2007 by The Guardian/UK The Age of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein The following is excerpted from Naomi Klein’s recently published book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism : As George Bush and his cabinet took up their posts in January 2001, the need for new sources of growth for US corporations was an urgent matter. With the tech bubble now officially popped and the DowJones tumbling 824 points in their first two and half months in office, they found themselves staring in the face of a serious economic downturn. John Maynard Keynes had argued that governments should spend their way out of recessions, providing economic stimulus with public works. Bush’s solution was for the government to deconstruct itself - hacking off great chunks of the public wealth and feeding them to corporate America, in the form of tax cuts on the one hand and lucrative contracts on the other. Bush’s budget director, the think-tank ideologue Mitch Daniels...

I began discussing this subject yesterday in my post " How the Activists Hurt Guam (...and America )," and want to continue my palakpak-hu magi in this new post. In this whole discussion of fantasies in the 1990's of the American military limping, its feelings so mortally wounded by the protests signs of Chamorros, as well as the general powerlessness of all people on Guam in the most recent slate of intended military increases to Guam, there are two difficult, but crucial lessons to be learned here. 1. The military is becoming very adapt at invoking publicly to the community of Guam the language of “partnership” in hopes of stirring up governmental and public support for their increases. Images of the military and Guam, working together as they always have, to bomb Japan and Vietnam, to defend freedom, to barbeque and help civilize the world. Its almost as if the military is coming back to us now, they’ve learned the lesson of treating us like partners, and we are learni...

The base closings and the loss of civil service jobs that took place in Guam in the 1990’s are often brought up as the reason for us to celebrate the current proposed military increases intended for Guam, lobby actively for more military presence, and finally to make the military know in everyway possible that we love them and want as much of them as they are willing to give us. By welcoming the military now, we can make up for our sins of the past. Hagas ha’ in isaogue hamyo! Ti in kemprende i minaolek-miyu! Lao på’go in tingo’ i balin-miyu! In her recent trip to Guam in August, where she facilitated a number of CNMI and Guam related hearings and meetings with Donna Christensen the non-voting delegate from the Virgin Islands, Guam’s Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo was very much invested in using this idea though to deflect any criticism or questioning of the positive impacts of this military buildup. She was very careful however not to outright yell kulang machålek that the “activis...