NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Several years ago the Muna Brothers started a website called Guamology. It was a pretty cool website, even if it only lasted for about a year. It had regular columns and features about Guam cultural activities and current events. I was a regular writer for it and some of my favorite pieces that I've written recently were conceived initially as articles for Guamology. The Muna Brothers would conduct regular interviews with people they felt were making a difference or had a positive and inspirational message to share. One such interview was with David Khorram, who wrote the book World Peace, A Blind Wife and Gecko Tails, drawn from a series of columns he did for the Saipan Tribune. If you haven't had a chance to read it, you can find copies of it had Bestseller and sometimes the UOG bookstore. On his blog Marianas Eye, he posted the transcript of that interview that you can read below.  ********************** Guamology Interview David Khorram Marianas Eye August 7, 2

After serving eight terms as one of the most progressive members of the US House of Representatives, Dennis Kucinich is leaving Washington D.C. next month. Kucinich was often the most reasonable voice in very unreasonable and irrational times. He ran for President several times, once I got to see him at a campaign stop in Atascadero, California. He was proud defender of the often time embattled and much maligned label of liberal. He will be missed. Below is the text for one of his most famous speeches given in February 2002. ***************** A Prayer for America by US Rep Dennis Kucinich February 17, 2002 I offer these brief remarks today as a prayer for our country, with love of democracy, as a celebration of our country. With love for our country. With hope for our country. With a belief that the light of freedom cannot be extinguished as long as it is inside of us. With a belief that freedom rings resoundingly in a democracy each time we speak freely. With the unde

Published on Thursday, October 18, 2012 by Common Dreams Defeat Romney, Without Illusions about Obama Advice to progressives in swing states, vote for reelection by Daniel Ellsberg It is urgently important to prevent a Republican administration under Romney/Ryan from taking office in January 2013. The election is now just weeks away, and I want to urge those whose values are generally in line with mine -- progressives, especially activists -- to make this goal one of your priorities during this period. Romney and Obama exchange fingers in Tuesday night's debate. (Reuters) An activist colleague recently said to me: “I hear you’re supporting Obama.” I was startled, and took offense. “Supporting Obama?  Me ?!” “I lose no opportunity publicly,” I told him angrily, to identify Obama as a tool of Wall Street, a man who’s decriminalized torture and is still complicit in it, a drone assassin, someone who’

Published on Tuesday, February 1, 2011 by The Guardian/UK Why Fear the Arab Revolutionary Spirit? by Slavoj Žižek What cannot but strike the eye in the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt is the conspicuous absence of Muslim fundamentalism. In the best secular democratic tradition, people simply revolted against an oppressive regime, its corruption and poverty, and demanded freedom and economic hope. The cynical wisdom of western liberals, according to which, in Arab countries, genuine democratic sense is limited to narrow liberal elites while the vast majority can only be mobilised through religious fundamentalism or nationalism, has been proven wrong. The big question is what will happen next? Who will emerge as the political winner? When a new provisional government was nominated in Tunis, it excluded Islamists and the more radical left. The reaction of smug liberals was: good, they are the basically same; two totalitarian extremes – but are things as simple as that? Is the true long

Last week while teaching World History I, or history about Ancient Civilizations, we were discussing the meaning of the term history and what are the different ways we can see history as an essential and important part of our lives, but also the ways it fails us, as in what its limits or impossibilities might be. I always like to remind my students that for every reason or instance that you argue that history is important and good, you could come up with just as many reasons why it is useless or not important. Most students articulate their thoughts on history through its importance in knowing where one came from and not making the same mistakes of the past. Those who have a more critical edge to their minds often bring in anonymous bad guys, who may manipulate history and take advantage of ignorance and give people some sliver of history that serves their interests, hoping that people will follow without knowing any better. That is always a key moment in the class where people stop th

Conferences exists to bring together a large group of people who think and live on the same page, or who would at least like to try and do so. The conference is like a warm, safe blanket around which they can hopefully surround their thoughts, their identities, or at minimum at least something where they can trust the space as safe and will not threaten or antagonize them in certain expected, but unwanted ways. You could all have the same job, be of the same ethnicity or race, or have shared research, political or professional interests, but every conference tends to be a great big bubble. And in that bubble you can hang out, speak jargon, share the feeling of being in your own imagined community and feel safe and secure in the fact that this bubble exists to limit certain potential challenges or critiques. If you are at an Ethnic Studies conference, then it is unlikely that in the middle of your presentation, someone will stand up and defiantly call Ethnic Studies a useless pointless

Is the Surge Working? No, but the propaganda touting it sure is. By Justin Raimondo From Antiwar.com July 30, 2008 Barack Obama is getting plenty of flak for not acknowledging that he was wrong about the " surge ," i.e. the wisdom of escalating a war we should never have started in the first place – and this is being compared to John McCain's stubborn refusal to admit that we need to get out (although it appears McCain isn't against timetables anymore …). In any case, the whole question of the "surge" is really just another one of those exercises in irrelevance that the American media use to fill the vast void of the cable news universe. As Obama points out , anyone could have predicted that the sudden infusion of large numbers of American troops would reduce violence, albeit temporarily. So where does that leave us? Well, as Antiwar.com reported yesterday (Monday): " 87 Iraqis Killed, 288 Wounded ." Okay, so that was an unusual day, in w