NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I have spent untold hours in the collection of the Micronesian Area Research center going through stacks upon stacks of newspapers looking at ads of those running for political office in Guam. Although I don't mention it much, when I began my masters thesis at the University of Guam in Micronesian Studies, my initial topics was actually political campaigns in Guam and analyzing Chamoru discourse in campaigns. I conducted around 50 interviews over several months, with a wide range of people. My intent was to reveal what role Chamoru "culture" or "language" or "identity" played in the organizing of political campaigns, the outreach, the strategizing or rationale.

My own motivation for taking on this project was tied to the 2002 Guam gubernatorial campaign. I was a young Chamoru grad student, who had started learning speaking Chamoru the year prior and was functionally, albeit awkwardly fluent in Chamoru. I was spending most of my free time in MARC doin…

Travis Coffman, a notable figure in Marianas media over the past few decades passed away recently. He was best known for his role in talk radio in Guam at K57. And as such, he was someone that I would interact with quite frequently. I went on his show several times to be interviewed about various topics. He was always respectful to me in public, and I would sometimes see him at anime, manga and nerd conventions on the island. But for many Chamorro activists, they saw him as someone who could frequently be anti-Chamorro in his statements on the air. I definitely heard elements of that when he would be on the the radio, and I would sometimes get text messages or emails, telling me to listen to what Travis was saying today. When I say anti-Chamorro, what it usually boiled down to was being dismissing of Chamorro issues and Chamorro concerns, but not necessarily someone who would ever say that Chamorro culture sucks. But someone who would use his position to belittle activists fighting f…

The past few days have been quite hectic due to the threat to Guam by North Korea and President Trump's shocking response. I am trying to catch up on my posts on this blog, and so we'll see if I'll be able this month. Here are a few articles on the initial threat from North Korea to Guam. 
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North Korea Claims It’s Planning to Fire Missiles Near Guam 8/10/17
SEOUL/GUAM (Reuters) - North Korea said on Thursday it was completing plans to fire four intermediate-range missiles over Japan to land near the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam in an unusually detailed threat that further heightened tensions with the United States.
North Korea’s army will complete the plans in mid-August, when they will be ready for leader Kim Jong Un’s order, state-run KCNA news agency reported, citing General Kim Rak Gyom, commander of the Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army. The plans called for the missiles to land in the sea only 30-40 km (18-25 miles) from Guam.
T…

The past few days have been quite hectic due to the threat to Guam by North Korea and President Trump's shocking response. I am trying to catch up on my posts on this blog, and so we'll see if I'll be able this month. Here are a few articles on the initial threat from North Korea to Guam. 

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--> North Korea Claims It’s Planning to Fire Missiles Near Guam 8/10/17
SEOUL/GUAM (Reuters) - North Korea said on Thursday it was completing plans to fire four intermediate-range missiles over Japan to land near the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam in an unusually detailed threat that further heightened tensions with the United States.
North Korea’s army will complete the plans in mid-August, when they will be ready for leader Kim Jong Un’s order, state-run KCNA news agency reported, citing General Kim Rak Gyom, commander of the Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army. The plans called for the missiles to land in the sea only 30-40 km (18-25 miles)…

The newest train wreck in more than a hundred days of constant train wrecks. Once again I can't turn away, and I find myself reading everything I can about President Trump firing FBI Director James Comey. So many comparisons to Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, and still so much resistance from Republicans to take their role as a co-equal branch of government and provide oversight to the chaotic Trump administration. Here are some articles out of the deluge I've been wading through the past two days.

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Comey's dismissal may turn the anti-Trump wave into a tsunami
by Dana Milbank
Washington Post
May 9, 2017

This will not stand.
President Trump performed his latest impersonation of a Third World strongman, firing FBI Director James B. Comey late Tuesday in ham-handed fashion as it was becoming clear that the FBI probe into Trump’s ties to Russia, which Comey was overseeing, was becoming a bigger problem for Trump while new testimony expos…