NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Things do you should know about: The " suicide " of PFC Lavena Johnson To act go to Color of Change.org On July 13, Minutemen in San Diego protest the 40th National Council of La Raza meeting. Israeli military shoot at protesters and kill a 9 year old Palestinian boy in the occupied West Bank. Senator John Mccain takes another step towards war with Iran. Randy Pausch , famous for his "Last Lecture" died on July 25th. Alaska Senator and longtime political ally of other non-quite American "political communities" is indicted on seven counts of failing to report a combined $250,000 worth of "favors" from Veco Corporation. This is not a big surprise to anyone who knows anything about Ted Stevens, and isn't not a surprise either that he's still gonna run for re-election this year. A B-52 scheduled for a fly-over of Guam's Liberation Day parade on July 21st, crashes into the sea. It is the seventh incident involving military aircraft on Gua...

I just came home from watching The Dark Knight . I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were parts though that I felt were rushed. Where it seemed that a scene had been stripped to its bare minimum in order to keep things flowing and moving. So characters end up talking to each other in ways which are way too concise and compact, its as if (even if they are good actors) they nonetheless appear like robots speaking one after another. Its always a hurried mixture of surreality and unreality watching this sort of thing, because of the way it unintentionally might reveal that in our own lives, when we speak in ways which are perfectly witty, perfectly timed, is there some sort of matrix at work as well? Editing our lives to create that illusion of discourse moving smoothly along? Other than this sort of thing, which is understandable, since they were struggling to squeeze as many story elements from as many different Batman storylines as possible, and somehow make all of them fit into 2 1/2 hours....

FROM The Courage Campaign: Stop Arnold: Sign the petition to protect 200,000 state workers Tell Governor Schwarzenegger to halt the wage cuts and close the Yacht Tax loophole Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just announced that he will sign an Executive Order on Monday slashing the wages of over 200,000 state employees to the bare minimum. Not California's minimum wage of $8 per hour. The federal minimum wage of $6.55. Six dollars and fifty-five cents an hour. Imagine trying to pay your bills on $6.55 an hour. Now imagine what will happen to thousands of vital service workers forced to live on poverty-level wages. A nauseating irony: many state employees may need to seek aid from the very state services that employ them. This is absolutely outrageous. And the only way we can stop Arnold is by raising our voices as loud as possible in protest before 9 a.m. on Monday. Please sign our petition to Governor Schwarzenegger. On Monday morning, we'll deliver thousands of your signatures ...

'Liberation or US re-occupation day?' From the July 4, 2008 Marianas Variety ********************** On July 21, 2008, the people of Guam will again celebrate our so-called "Liberation Day." It is sad that our Chamorro leaders back in July 21, 1944, did not know that the American liberators became the re-occupation forces for the next 64 years. As a result, Guam and the Chamorro people continue to remain under U.S. colonial rule to the present day, without any hope of exercising our human right to self-determination. Dr. Dirk Ballendorf has stated in a 2004 letter that "?the Marianas was invaded and captured in order to build bases to launch planes to bomb the home islands of Japan. The liberation of the Chamorros was incidental to this main military objective." The professor went on to say that "Guam, as an unincorporated territory, is a piece of property which, technically, Congress could sell if it desired." We now celebrate our recapture from Ja...

Hunggan, esta hu tungo' na sina Guahu ha', gi entre todu i Chamoru, ni' ya-na umegga' cricket. I'm pretty sure, and people have backed me up on this, that I am the only Chamorro who likes watching and following cricket. Ai adai, hunggan makkat este na tinaiga'chong. Lao esta payun yu' nu este na klasin siniente. Estaba, sina Guahu ha' ya-na umegga' Bollywood lokkue'. Fihu masangan yu' na likidu na Chamoru yu'. So, not belonging to a "cricket culture" I don't have much access to cricket, and I'm not really sure how to get access to it. I'm not sure what channels I could watch it on, what websites you can see matches for free through. If there is radio stations that I can listen to matches online, I don't know which they are, or how to sign on. Its a little bit frustrating. When there are games on that I want to follow, my only real option is to follow them through websites such as Cricinfo. Cricinfo is (probably) ...

A B-52 crashed on Guam yesterday, and at present two of the six crewmembers are reported dead, while four more are still missing. The B-52 was flying on its way to take part in the Liberation Day festivities yesterday, by flying over the parade route with two 5-15s and an F-22. I've spent the past week writing my dissertation and so Liberation Day completely crept up on me this year. Its a well known fact that I am no big fan of Liberation Day, my main reason being the first three words of the title of this post " Hafa na Liberasion?" This is the 11th in a line of posts, featuring my writings and the writings of others that I started last summer to create a space for alternative knowledge and ideas about the whole idea of Guam being liberated, yet continuing to be a colony. As most people on island take this time of the year to celebrate the United States military and its positive presence on our lives and in our history, I would also like to take this opportunity to rem...

I haven't been posting much lately, and I've been out of phone and email contact with most everyone lately since I've been struggling to finish an article that I'm writing about American colonialism, war and Chamorro resistance. The article is taking longer than I had anticipated and I'm now two days past my deadline. I won't be writing anything new on this blog for a few days, because right after this I've got my dissertaton to write as well. Comic Con is next week and I swore to myself that I would only be able to go if I finished drafts of at least two of my chapters before the first day. So far I have one and a half done. If I can just finish this article in the next day or so, I should be fine for the remaining half of my second chapter. I'm thinking about dressing up for the event. With not much time left, I don't think I have many cosplay options. One suggestion ginnen i che'lu-hu Si Jack is Tsume from Wolf's Rain. Hmmmm, hekkua'....

I came across a post on my friend Maile's blog the maile vine, where she posted a request for support recently made by South End Press . I'm posting the entire request letter below for you to check out and learn more about their situation. This year, the financial woes of Borders bookstores have hit South End Press especially hard. As a way to deal with its own troubles, Borders returned massive amounts of books. This means fewer copies of classics by South End authors like bell hooks, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Vandana Shiva on the shelf for book browsers to happen upon. And as Borders returns came at the same time as end-of- semester returns it also means that for several months South End Press will receive no payments from our trade distributor–our main source of income. It hurts living paycheck to paycheck, especially when the checks don’t come. Our worry about how to deal with the immediate cash crisis saps time that we would otherwise spend on publishing and promoti...