NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

--> --> It is an old story. There are many different versions in many different cultures. One version goes like this: There is a family, mother, father and son. The mother is loving and caring while the father is angry and abusive. As the son grows older he comes to hate the dynamic in his family where his father is overbearing and monstrous and demeans and treats his mother (as well as the boy himself) terribly. He grows closer to his mother, loving her dearly and wishing that she could be spared this miserable life. He grows to hate his father. As soon as he is of age he moves out, unable to stand his father’s abuse any longer. From then on he tries to have as little contact with his home as possible. He still keeps in touch with his mother and wishes desperately she would leave her husband. In secret he hopes that his father’s anger will get the better of him and the world will be a better, more peaceful place if he would just pass away. Eventually t

Statement to the Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Third Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism Quito, Ecuador, May 28 – 30, 2013 Michael Lujan Bevacqua, Ph.D. University of Guam / Independence for Guam Task Force The world has come to a consensus that colonization was not right and that colonialism should be eradicated. Whatever rhetoric countries once used to justify exploitation and expansion and their domination over other free peoples has been disproven. Although progress and development can come about through colonization it is neither the most effective or the most moral way of carrying this out. The arc of history seems to clearly bend in one direction, from colony to decolonization. There are only 17 non-self-governing territories left in the world, and close to 200 independent nations, many of them former colonies. This truth however is not manifest in most of the remaining non-self-governing terri

Below are pictures from the Inagofli'e' Peace Vigil held in February in Tumon. Yesterday on my blog I posted my Marianas Variety column about it from last month. You can read it by clicking here .

Kao malago’ hao tumungo’ mas put este na islå-ta? Do you want to know more about this island of ours? Kao malago’ hao tumungo’ mas put i kutturan Chamoru? Do you want to know more about Chamorro culture? Kao malago’ hao tumungo’ taimanu fumino’ Chamoru? Do you want to know how to speak Chamorro? Kao malago’ hao tumungo’ taimanu månnge’ gi fino’ Chamoru? Do you want to know how to write in Chamorro? Chamorro Studies is a new major at UOG that can help you with all these things. Chamorro Studies is an interdisciplinary program, where students can choose from a diverse range of electives including Biology, Literature, History, Anthropology and Psychology and can choose what sort of emphasis they want to take in terms of studying Chamorros, their history, language and culture. Email me at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com if you would like to know more about Chamorro Studies at UOG.

Published on Monday, March 5, 2012 by The Guardian/UK How Ayn Rand Became the New Right's Version of Marx Her psychopathic ideas made billionaires feel like victims and turned millions of followers into their doormats by George Monbiot   It has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the postwar world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism evil, empathy and compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power. It has already been tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the belief system constructed by Ayn Rand , who died 30 years ago today, has never been more popular or influential. Rand was a Russian from a prosperous family who emigrated to the United States. Through her novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she explained a philosophy she called Objectivism.

“Beautiful Scars” Michael Lujan Bevacqua 12/14/11 The Marianas Variety For me there is only one certainty in raising a child, and that certainty is both inspiring and depressing. Your child will do many things. It may let you down. It may surprise you. It may accomplish all the things you never did, or leave your bucket-list untouched on the ground near your grave. Your child may love you a lot, or it may hate you. It may admire you, honor you, or spit on your grave and curse the day you were ever born or allowed to breed. But no matter what you do, how well-intended of a parent you are, or have loving and nurturing you are, you will scar your child. You will do something to them which will traumatize them, which will become a primal force in whatever formations their identity takes for the rest of their lives. If you don't love them enough, if you love them too much, anything you do, the smallest or largest thing can become a wound in the life of that child. It may becom

Minagahet Zine Fatfat'Nga'Fulu'Hugua Volume 8 Issue 2 "Critical Comments" August 25, 2010 There hasn’t been an issue of Minagahet for a few months, because I, like so many people on Guam have been waiting to see what will happen next in terms of the planned military buildup. Now, at last the time has come, and the FEIS ( Uttimo na EIS) is out, but in this issue of Minagahet, I want to take a look back at some of the comments that were made about the DEIS ( Draf na tinige’). The DEIS ( Draft Environmental Impact Statement ) comment period was an incredible three months. The public engagement and critique was far beyond anyone could have expected. 9,000 – 10,000 comments were submitted to the Joint Guam Program Office, thousands and thousands more than they most likely anticipated. The public comment meetings were dominated by people who were either against the buildup or at least suspicious about how this sort of massive movement of people and ra