NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

For the past month and a half I've been working for the Guam Humanities Council, putting together their exhibit "Transitional Table" which opens next week, on Tuesday October 13, at the T. Stell Newman Visitor Center at the entrance to Big Navy. The opening reception is at 6 pm, but if you can't make it then the exhibit will be open unil November 21st. The title itself doesn't sound very interesting, but the exhibit ( gi minagahet) is. Its a combination of a national Smithsonian exhibit that has been brought to Guam, which covers changing food practices in the United States over several centuries. A locally made exhibit has been added to it, which deals with the history of food in the years immediately before, during and after World War II. I just went down yesterday while the exhibit was being put up and although the space is a bit tight, I still think it's going to be great. In the middle of the exhibit room the Smithsonian panels have been put up, and along...

For those Al Franken fans, despensa yu', Senator Al Franken fans out there, just thought I'd post a little update about his time in the Senate thus far. Yesterday, Franken got his first ammendment passed, when he attached the Jaime Leigh Jones Ammendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill, and it successfully passed 68 - 30 . The bill is named after a woman of the same name who suffered sexual harassment and was gang-raped while working at Kellog Brown and Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton) in Iraq. Here's the short version of her story from an email release by Franken's office: When Jamie was 19, she was working for then Halliburton subsidiary KBR in Iraq, where she was placed in a barracks with 400 men. She complained about sexual harassment, but KBR took no action and she was eventually drugged and gang-raped by co-workers. When she tried to report what had happened, KBR locked her in a shipping container under armed guard. One of her guards smuggled her a cell ...

Right now Chamorros are gathering in New York City, to prepare to give testimony tomorrow on the current state of affairs in Guam, before the Fourth Committee of the United Nations. I'll have more on their trip and their testimony soon. In the meantime, here is the report on the proceedings from the Overseas Territory Review : ************************************* The United Nations (UN) Fourth Committee convened its 2009 session in New York on 5th October. Decolonization is its first item on the agenda of the Committee which is comprised of all 192 UN member states. At the first meeting, statements were made by various member states in their national capacity and on behalf of the respective regional groups. Various perspectives on the self-determination and decolonization process were to expressed. Non governmental organizations, officials, experts, indigenous peoples groups and private citizens will address the Committee on 6-7 October. Unfortunately, territorial government offi...

After months of waiting, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the much talked about, less known about, military buildup of Guam is almost here. Certain GovGuam and Federal officials are already peeks at it, or are being given presentations on it. I haven't heard much about it from the Governor's Office and very little from the Feds whom I know have received parts of it. But, today after a Joint Guam Program Office briefing of the Guam Legislature, its apparent that there will be plenty to worry or complain about. The KUAM News article I'm pasting below discusses the water issue, and the possibility of the United States military digging their own wells into Guam's aquafier. This is a very serious issues, but one which hasn't received much attention, especially since the problems that GovGuam had with the Navy's control over water at Fena have quieted down. A commentor on the Guam Pacific Daily News website, recently said something which was gof dongkalu ...

Minagahet Zine "CHULE' TATTE GUAHAN" Volume 7 Issue 1 September 27, 2009 h ttp://www.geocities.com/minagahet minagahet@lists.riseup.net Hafa Adai, yan welcome to i mina'kuarenta na Minagahet . Gof apmam desde humuyong un issue Minagahet. Desde i ma’pos na December. Ai adai, kalang ti hongge’on este. The absence of Minagahet for the past nine or ten months should not be interpreted as implying that nothing much has happened in Guam recently. So many things have been happening lately, and a few things which were supposed to happen, haven’t yet. There is definitely a change on the horizon, and as always, it will depend upon the activists and the people as to whether those changes benefit the few with the most, or the majority. In this issue of Minagahet, you will find links to several dozen articles dealing with the military buildup, the relationship between the Government of Guam and the US Federal Government, how the current political climate in Japan m...

Olaha mohon na sina manuge' yu' taiguihi Si Arundhati Roy. Anai hu taitai tinige' kalang iyo-na, guaha nai nina'malago yu' na bai hu dingu i che'cho' eskuela, ya tuge' mas political na lepblo, ya saonao mas political na kinalamten pulitikat. Achokka' pa'go, este na minalago, kalang magahet, esta hu gof tungo' na ti mismo magahet gui', ti anggokuyon. Sa' meggai biahi lokkue', gof malago na bai hu dingu i tinige' pulitikat yan activist, ya para bai hu tutuhun manunuge' kameks pat manga. I minagahet na minalago gui', ti unu na klasin tininge'. Gi minagahet, i mismo na dineseha-hu guini, na Guahu la'mon, na para mo'na, para bai hu tuge' maseha hafa malago-hu.

A 2007 letter from Bolivian President Evo Morales to the member representatives of the United Nations on the issue of the environment. Sister and brother Presidents and Heads of States of the United Nations: The world is suffering from a fever due to climate change, and the disease is the capitalist development model. Whilst over 10,000 years the variation in carbon dioxide (CO2) levels on the planet was approximately 10%, during the last 200 years of industrial development, carbon emissions have increased by 30%. Since 1860, Europe and North America have contributed 70% of the emissions of CO2. 2005 was the hottest year in the last one thousand years on this planet. Different investigations have demonstrated that out of the 40,170 living species that have been studied, 16,119 are in danger of extinction. One out of eight birds could disappear forever. One out of four mammals is under threat. One out of every three reptiles could cease to exist. Eight out of ten crustaceans and three o...

A series of storms are currently surrounding Guam. When I was younger, I would pray for typhoons, since it would mean no school (although no power and cable too). As a professor at the University of Guam, I pray for typhoons since, there would be no classes to teach, no power (internet, video games) to distract me and then I can finally catch up on my grading. I dreamed all day of coming home and finding that classes at UOG were cancelled tomorrow, but after logging on to the UOG website this evening, I found that there were indeed classes tomorrow. Lana, I just went back to the website to see if anything had changed in the past hour, but it hadn't. I guess that means I'll need to stay up a few more hours finishing my prep for my four classes tomorrow. Nina'hasso yu' ni' i mubin Equilibrium. Gi ayu na mubi, un petsona ilek-ña este: Manmahafye i guinife-hu gi sanpappa’ i patås-mu. Adahi månu un pokkat, sa’ hu gagacha i guinife-hu siha. Dalai UOG. Sa' hafa ti un ...

The media on Guam seems obsessed with the conflict of interest represented by Matt Rector being both a Senator in the Legislature and the President of the Guam Federation of Teachers . I don't see anything inherently wrong with this inquiry, it is something which can be questioned and should be looked at, but I think its almost hysterical how narrow or selective the idea of "conflict of interest" is in this case, (and the way it is usually conceived of). In any community, the ideological glue that holds it together will always mark the interests of some as being a conflict or something which will taint the governance of said community, whereas a myriad of other equally or more dangerous interests will go unnoticed, or worse yet, be seen as essential or positive. So in this case, the idea that a Senator is the President of a labor union on Guam becomes the ultimate sin, whereas the fact that various businessmen on island have repeatedly obstructed legislation or passed le...

Fihu gof hosguan yu’ nu Si Stephen Colbert. Guahan iyo-ña programman telebishon, ya kontat ki na’chalek i fina’tinas-ña, Guiya la’mon hafa pau na’fanhuyong. Maseha hafa na gof "silly" na hinasso, siña ma na'magåhet gi i show. Gof suette este na klasin taotao, sa' este na inebra i guinife todu. Desde ha tutuhun i show-ña, meggai na’chalek na bidå-ña. Gi i ma’pos na sakkan, ha kesaonao i botashon Amerikånu pare Presidente. Matakpånge un patten i Space Station para Guiya. Ya gaige un to’lai giya Hungary, ya dipotsi matakpange para Guiya lokkue’. I mas na’chalek na patten i show-ña, annai mama’mumumu Si Colbert yan un otro sesso “random” na taotao. Mama’mumu Si Colbert yan Si Sean Penn, Si Barry Manilow, Si Kongresa Eleanor Holmes-Norton (ginnen Washington D.C.) yan Si Willy Nelson. Gi este na ti mismo na yinaoyao, Si Colbert ha chanda i otro taotao, ha fa’enimigu gui’, ya sångan meggai båba put Guiya gi i show-ña. Ya pues ma kombida ayu na ti magåhet na kontrariu halom g...