NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

"Para Amot Ha'" by Michael Lujan Bevacqua Marianas Variety July 22, 2015 Last year the people of Guam vote to approve the use of medical marijuana. Since then the Department of Public Health has been preparing a draft of rules for setting up the infrastructure for the growing, distribution and use of medical marijuana in Guam.   Three public hearings on the draft regulations are taking place before the end of this month. They are on the following days and locations: July 29, 9 – 11 am at the Legislature’s Public Hearing Room July 30, 9 – 11 am at the Legislature’s Public Hearing Room July 31, 3 – 6 pm at the Castle Mall, Mangilao, Division of Senior Citizens Conference Room. If you are able, please come out and learn more about the regulations that are being proposed and speak your mind about what form they should take. I am part of the advisory board that is overseeing this process, and the input of the public is essential to make certain that the sy...

Anai matto yu' gi lamita gi hinanao-hu gi lina'la' Hu sodda' maisa yu' gi hemhom na halomtano' Sa' esta malingu i tunas na chalan

--> Public hearings on the medical marijuana regulations are taking place this week. Please try to attend them if you are able. Here is the information on them: --> July 29, 9 – 11 am at the Legislature’s Public Hearing Room July 30, 9 – 11 am at the Legislature’s Public Hearing Room July 31, 3 – 6 pm at the Castle Mall, Mangilao, Division of Senior Citizens Conference Room. Here are some recent articles about the issue. ******************* Marijuana meeting touches on farmers, tourism Apr. 11, 2015 by Maria Hernandez Pacific Daily News Draft rules and regulations for the island's medicinal marijuana program are expected to be approved and open to public comment by late April, said James Gillan, director of Guam's public health department. In November, voters approved legalizing the use of marijuana for the treatment of certain medical conditions, making Guam the first U.S. territory to legalize medical marijuana. The...

I'm currently reading Harper Lee's new novel "Go Set a Watchman." I am reading it after reading several dozen articles about how much people are detesting the book, because of the way it doesn't stand up to the "timelessness" and "beauty" of Harper Lee's first book, the widely read and praised "To Kill A Mockingbird." Gi minagahet, all the hate towards the book just made me want to read it more. I didn't enjoy "To Kill A Mockingbird" when I read it in school. I didn't enjoy watching the movie either. This new book is supposed to delve more deeply into many of the issues of race and class that the first book barely rubbed up against. I am excited to see where Lee takes this, or rather where she initially took it in her writing, because this book was actually written before Mockingbird. I found myself not really identifying with the Finch family in the first book and found myself more interested in the supporting...

Liberation Day is always proposed as being a day of remembering, but it is the ultimate day when Chamorros forget. When all the realities of militarism, imperialism, colonialism all around them become even more muted and dull and obscured than usual. When so many of the problems that exist around us, about our place or non-place in the world, are drowned out, engulfed within a cascade of red, white and bull. The critiques are choked out of our mouths, as the patriotism deluge fills us up, meant to shut up those who feel like asking questions. This article provides some good reminders. **************** Colonialism and America's Imperial Agenda in the Pacific: US to 'Rebalance" Military in Guam to Counter China and North Korea http://silentcrownews.com/wordpress/?p=3303 Silent Crow News by Timothy Alexander Guzman Guam, an Island nation of 160,000 people has been a victim of Imperialism dating back to the 16th century.  More than 65,000 of the population are ...

In a few days I'll be heading to Japan to teach there but also learn more about peace, demilitarization and antinuclear movements there. Later this year I'll be traveling to Okinawa to work more with independence and demilitarization groups there. Somewhere on the horizon is a trip I'm planning to take to Taiwan to meet with indigenous groups. I wrote an article several years ago on solidarity in the Asia-Pacific region, and argued a core feature of it was imagination and sharing an imaginary. One of the most intriguing aspects of human consciousness is the way we can feel disconnected to those right next to us and intimately connected to people on the other side of the world. Proximity or similarity don't necessarily dictate these things, because there is always the possibility of solidarity, that disparate groups can nonetheless find a common cause of purpose or goal together. If we consider all the islands that have been damaged by US military testing, training and...

Liberation Day is here again. I'm not on island for it and so in most ways I am insulated from it. Facebook is one of the main ways that I'm experiencing it this year. My dash is inundated with images from the parade, pictures of manamko', food, flags, uniformed troops and village floats. There are also quite a few posts weighing on the issue of Liberation Day itself, contending with the political meanings involved. Some people referred to it as reoccupation day or dependence day. They called into question, quite rightly, whether it is right to call this day a real liberation. Others pushed back against these critiques, some of them whining about the comfortable generations of today not appreciating the sacrifices of the past. They argued that if the generation of war survivors doesn't question the liberation aspects of the day, who gives us the right to? So much of this discourse relies on the idea that the older generation never complained and always endured, but it...

Desde sumaonao Si Donald Trump gi inachaigen Presidente gi sanlagu mas na'kaduku todu! Gof taffo' gui', taimamahlao gui'. Fihu ti hongge'on i sinangan-na lao gof klaru i motibu-na. Esta kana' bente taotao manhalom gi i inachaigi para i mas takhilo' na ofisina gi sanlagu. Gi ayu na batkada, taimanu unu sina gumefe'na? Para Si Trump, un konsigi muna'huyong i taihinasso na klasen kuentos ya sigi ha' mama'tinas hao "scandals." Humuyongna i media u ma tattiyi hao ya ma espiha hao para nuebu na taihinasso pat na'manman na klasen kuentos. Kao "serious" na klasen pretendente Si Trump? Buente ahe', lao para pa'go na momento guiya i mas annok yan i mas makubre gi i inachaigi. Debi di ta gof atan taimanu na para u inafekta i inachaigi ni i gaige-na. I mas halacha na scandal put i sinangan-na put Si John Mccain.Ya-hu este na tininge' ginen i Washington Post put hafa ilek-na. *********************** Wh...

--> The island of Pagan, in the northern Marianas has made international news as it might soon become yet another beautiful island to be destroyed by the US military for its testing and training purposes. Although now I regularly hear news about Pagan, in years past I scarcely heard about it in a Chamorro context, but rather always in either a strict environmental context or in a Japanese historical context. Environmentalists are the first line of defense in some ways against militarization, although history has shown they often have trouble working cooperatively with the locals and natives who claim those lands. For them Pagan is an ecological paradise and needs to be protected. I would hear random tidbits about Pagan in this regard, as being a place with exciting species (including snails) that should be researched and explored.  I also heard about it in the context of Japanese, as settlers lived there during the Japanese colonial period in the CNMI. In fact in histori...