NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I’ve had this blog No Rest for the Awake – Minagahet Chamorro since 2004, and one of the coolest obsessive technological gadgets that you can use nowadays, is that you can track (in some way) just about everyone who visits your website. You can see where they are surfing from, see what link or what search brought them to you. Although I am still several thousand light years away from Leo Babauta’s Zen Habit’s web traffic levels, I still get a decent amount of hits, a couple hundred per day. And because of all these cool new programs, I can divide up those hundreds of hits into several different groups. The largest group per day are people looking for raw scans of Naruto comics or images of Naruto characters such as Hatake Kakashi or Hoshigaki Kisame . The second largest group are people googling “Guam” and “sex” and are directed to an article I reposted on my blog from the PDN titled “ Guam: Sex Capital?” The third largest are people who want to know how to say “I Love You in Chamo...

For more info and updates head to the blog: Committee To Defend Academic Freedom at UCSB . ********************************* Dear colleagues, UCSB has become the latest front in the war against Academic Freedom. Professor William I. Robinson, a Sociology and Global Studies professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been attacked by the Anti-Defamation League and two of his former students. In January of this year, he forwarded an email condemning the Israeli attacks on Gaza. The email contained an editorial by a Jewish journalist condemning Israel's actions in Gaza as well as juxtaposed images of Nazi atrocities with congruent images of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. The email was an optional read for students, intended to spark conversation by relating contemporary events to conceptual ideas discussed in class. One week later, the ADL wrote him a letter charging him with anti-Semitism and sundry violations of the Faculty Code of Conduct (none of which ...

I'm writing a section of my dissertation right now on the narrative that Guam "has no culture." This has led me around the internet looking for different articles from travel magazines and the notorious Lonely Planet guide that discusses Guam as a horrible place to visit, with nothing on the island of interest except the world's largest K-Mart. As I often tell people on Guam, you may feel all sorts of warm fuzzy feelings for the United States or for Americans, but stroll around the internet for a bit and visit the blogs or pages of people sent to work on Guam or stationed on Guam and you'll find an aircraft-carrier-load of negative and nasty comments. If you think that Sherry from Myspace was bad, or that Mike Ogle's trash from ESPN.com was racist, then you have to read the comments and testimonials below from the website, Virtual Tourist. The section was " Guam Warnings or Dangers " and is full of people who call Guam "hell" and think of...

Venusian : Hoplessly Positive/Habitually Negative Sometime Maybe : Toba Tek Singh Latitude 13 : We the Chamorro People Tasi Thoughts : The Place of My Birth: Guahan Forever Ka'ili : Have You Seen This Movie Yet? Sepia Mutiny : What's in a Name? Right New Blogology : What Happened on Saturday Guamology : Alex Munoz - Filmmaker Uranium Diaries : On Environmental Justice the maile vine : Today in Settler Colonialism From a Tongan Daughter : Pacific Eye Radio Debut the scent of green bananas : First Look: Meskla The Insular Empire : Adios, Tun Carlos! Flip Flopping Joy : trust Indigenous Studies Engages Ethnic Studies : Mission Statement Overseas Territories Review : The Unfinished Decolonisation Agenda for 2009 Peach Sand Beach : Boonie Crab, Coconut Dog Beautiful Women and Lanzones : on the writing process One-Eyed Copy Ninja : s-a-s Waiting for Wonderland : The Real Question and the Tragic Answer The Hawaii Independent : On the US Supreme Court "ceded lands" Decision a...

I apologize, I won't be blogging much for the next week or so. I'm in the final stages of my dissertation writing and so I'm trying to put all my energy into that so I can actually finish this June. I might at least post some articles in the meantime, but for today I'll leave you with this video of Sumahi dancing to her new favorite song, Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies."

The 27th Guam Youth Congress was in the news last week after their passage of a bill supporting the legalization of same sex civil unions on Guam . For those of you who don't know, the Guam Youth Congress is a legislative body made up of Guam's youth, who are elected every two years and actually operate as a part of Guam's Legislature. They establish their own rules, can form committees, pass resolutions, and can even pass bills which are then transmitted to the Rules Committee for the Guam Legislature. The Youth Congress is like any other democratic body or community, it is whatever the people, those in it and those that it is meant to serve, make of it. It can be useless, it can be effective, it can just be a platform for higher office, or it can be a true vehicle for positive or necessary change. On the subject of same sex civil unions, I for one am glad to see this body taking the lead on progressive and social issues. This coming week, on April 15th, the Guam Youth Co...

Shiro's Head: The Muna Brothers (Kel and Don) are trying to raise money in order to fly to Los Angeles next month so they can screen their film "Shiro's Head" as part of the 25th Annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, from April 30, 2009 to May 7, 2009. A fundraiser will be held from 6 to 10 p.m. on April 21 at Ralphy's in East Agana. Proceeds from the event will pay for the Muna brothers' travel and accommodation expenses. For more information on their film Shiro's Head which premiered last year head to the its website: http://www.shirosheadthelegend.com/ *************************************** I Fuetsan I Taotao: The film's Director Alex Munoz has just received word that two NFL players, brothers Brandon and Femi Ayanbadejo are on board to play minor roles in the film, which will begin filming later this year. Munoz released the first issue of a mini-comic series to help build interest in the film and support Guam non-profits earlier this y...

A few weeks ago I had the honor of meeting a current and a former member of the Japanese Parliament that were on Guam for a fact-finding trip. They were on Guam in order to gather information about how Guam will be affected by the transfer of Marines from Okinawa, for which construction is scheduled to begin next July and the whole transfer completed by 2014. While here, they met with community members, activists and local leaders. The current parliament member is named Inoue Satoshi and he is a member of the House of Councillors, and a member of the Japanese Communist Party. A small mini-scandal was created after his party sent out a press release following his visit, which quoted that the Speaker of the Legislature Judi Won Pat stating that the majority of people on Guam are against the military buildup. Won Pat's response was that her words were taken out of context or that there was a glitch in the translation, and that in fact provided a balanced portrait of Guam, where many ...

Everytime I go to an event on Guam, I always see so many people with cameras running around. Filming everything, taking pictures. But then as I go around the "Guam" corner of the internet or the "Chamorro" corner of the internet, I don't see any of these things. I don't see the pictures, the videos, nothing. What do people do with the hours and hours of video they have? What do they do with all the pictures they take? Its s a real shame since most of these people have way better cameras than mine. For me though, there are so many things happening on Guam, and often times so little attention is given to them, even from people here. Often times, huge historic things will be taking place and people here will have no idea that they are going on. I guess when I upload my crappy videos of things happening on Guam, I'm doing my best to try and get the word and the visuals out to people. Here are some recent videos that I've uploaded onto either my Youtube a...

Taitai hafa pinost yu' guini. Para i mannatibu ni' sumusungon i "colonialism" ginnen i "mas maolek na nasion" hun, este i minagahet. Yanggen natibu hamyo, ya ma sakke' i tano'-miyu, i direchon-miyu yan kontodu i guinifen-miyu siha, ya i Amerikanu siha, ma sangani hamyo na "I'm sorry." Mismo kumekeilek-na "Lakis hao." Achokka' ma sangani hamyo "despensa ham," atan hafa i hiniyong yanggen en gaggao tatte i tano'-miyu pat un gaggao tatte para i direchon-miyu. Humuyongna este na na'ma'a'se na eskareng. Para i mannatibu ginnen Hawai'i, hafa sina hu sangani hamyo put este iyo-ta colonizer, na ti esta en titingo' pat siesiente? *********************************** Native Hawaiians Lose Claim By JESS BRAVIN Wall Street Journal April 1, 2009 WASHINGTON -- A unanimous Supreme Court rejected native Hawaiians' claims that a congressional apology for an American-instigated 1893 coup should block the...