NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

  The election for President in the US in 2016 has already started, and even though I am only casually following the coverage it does already seem like every single Republican or every possible stripe is teasing that they are running. It is interesting to see the bubbles in which people live and how it sustains their egos and gives them delusions of grandeur and potential power. All of these Republicans keep telling us that everyone they know is compelling them to run for President, and most of the country is wondering how many followers on Twitter or Facebook count as "everyone" nowadays. This video here from Bill Maher who has created a convenient guide for billionaires out there who are interested in buying a candidate and want one that matches their ideology or would be willing to say the craziest things. Some other articles are included below as well. ******************** Sarah Palin and the Demise of the Tea-Party Media By Eric Boehlert Huffingpost 1/30/2015 ...

On January 15, 2015, the capital of Guam, Hagatna was shut down due to Marine Corp training that was happening in the area. Roads were blocked off by Guam Police Department. Helicopters were flown over the area and explosions were heard. This created an uproar amongst some on Guam who saw this as another militaristic intrusion into life on Guam, a place already heavily militarized. People often misinterpret the militarized exterior of Guam or extrapolate high levels of patriotism or support for military policies based on the amount of people serving in the US military. This disconnect leads to so many problems. The myth of Guam as being a place where the military is adored is partially true, but the military, because of its intimate and often times invasive and disrespectful nature is also reviled. What is often lost in this is that while Guam is overall very pro-military, that attitude can change quite quickly once people feel like they are being taken advantage of and not being t...

--> I'm already quite tired from a long day, but before I go to bed I wanted to post some articles about American Sniper. I tried to watch the film last weekend on a Sunday night when usually theaters are empty on Guam, but to my surprise it was sold out. In just a week it is now a huge blockbuster and seems to be a commercial and critical success. Amidst all the buzz, people have been criticizing the film because of the incredible amount of fabrication that went into creating the movie figure of America's most lethal sniper. The Chris Kyle in the film is very different than the Chris Kyle of history and who published a memoir and loved to exaggerate his history of violence, even to the point of boasting and lying about fights he was never in and murders he never committed, all in the US, not the Middle East. I have written so many times over the years about the way in which national policies become conflated with the soldiers who enact, in some cases illegall...

When the Solorzano skull was brought to Guam there were several events held to discuss the meaning of the skull and also the legacy of the violent time during which the priest Solorzano was killed in fighting between the Spanish and Chamorros. The event that I helped organize at UOG was pretty well attended, with more than 150 people there on a Saturday morning. The discussion never got too heated, with the biggest conflict being over the statement made by Father Fran Hezel that the Chamorro-Spanish Wars was a result of cultural misunderstandings. Religion wasn't touched on much, despite the fact that religion was at the core of the history involved. The Spanish priests were assaulting the religion of Ancient Chamorros. They were forcing them to give up their religion and take a new one. Solorzano himself, as a priest was driven to go into places where he would put himself at risk in the name of his religion and in hopes of dying in the name of his God. But very few people mad...