NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

A 2014 study by The Guardian/UK shows that in 50 different colonies/territories since 1860, 88% of the time they chose independence as their option. Very very few chose to become integrated into their colonizer, it was almost natural to seek their own fortune and destiny, even if it might lead to a time of difficulty. The study looked at places such as Samoa, East Timor, Mongolia, Iceland and Iraq. Given the way in which independence is often imagined in places such as Guam that remain colonies today, it is intrigued to see how normal seeking independence was in the past, but how today it feels so fearful. Most people would argue that the resistance that people in Guam feel today is tied to the island being too political immature or the island being too small or too far away from the centers of power. All of these points make some sense, but not enough to really build up the type of fear that people experience when discussing the notion of Guam becoming independent. As the United N

More troops lost to suicide By John Donnelly Congress.org For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reasons are complicated and the accounting uncertain — for instance, should returning soldiers who take their own lives after being mustered out be included? But the suicide rate is a further indication of the stress that military personnel live under after nearly a decade of war. Figures released by the armed services last week showed an alarming increase in suicides in 2010, but those figures leave out some categories. Overall, the services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty personnel reported in 2009. The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat, excluding accidents and illness. In 2009, active-duty suicides exceeded deaths in battle. Last week’s figures, though, understate the problem of military suicides

  I'm writing my column for next week's Marianas Variety and I've hit a bit of a dead end. The month of October is full of Chamorro related events, with the Micronesian Island Fair next week, as well as the Mina'Kuattro na Konferensian Chamorro. The week after there are Chamorro Language Forums for Senatorial and Gubernatorial candidates at UOG. With all these things going on, I decided that for next week I would write on the Chamorro language. A few weeks ago, Pa'a Taotao Tano' released the results of its six-month study on the state of the Chamorro language on Guam. Two years ago, I helped write a similar grant for the San Diego-based Chamorro organization CHELU Inc, which was meant to study the health and use of the Chamorro language in the San Diego area. These sorts of studies are always both depressing and irritating. First, since the data is based on self-reporting the almost always over-estimate the levels at which people are using the language and