NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

During the 2016 election, I followed the website FiveThirtyEight on a daily basis. I found the commentary to be very enlightening, as it wasn't just their reporting about polls, but also their analysis on what makes a poll informative or effective. The media in general often times picks polls that fit the narrative they are trying to promote, or they have their own internal hierarchy over what makes one poll useful and another less so. But these critical information points are rarely discussed openly, even if more astute media viewers or consumers can make their own best guesses. Although after Trump's victory in the election, I stopped consuming that type of poll-focused news. But as the US mid-term election season is starting up again, and we've ahead a round of very interesting special elections, I've slowly been drawn back to the website. This type of coverage, in the form of a group chat around the recent apparent Democratic-victory, is what makes it su

As someone who also went to community college (3 semesters prior to transferring to UOG), I support President Obama's plan to make community college free, and also concur with the message of Tom Hanks in this column from the New York Times.  ********************** I owe it all to community college by Tom Hanks New York Times 1/15/15 IN 1974, I graduated from Skyline High School in Oakland, Calif., an underachieving student with lousy SAT scores. Allowed to send my results to three colleges, I chose M.I.T. and Villanova, knowing such fine schools would never accept a student like me but hoping they’d toss some car stickers my way for taking a shot. I couldn’t afford tuition for college anyway. I sent my final set of stats to Chabot , a community college in nearby Hayward, Calif., which, because it accepted everyone and was free, would be my alma mater. For thousands of commuting students, Chabot was our Columbia, Annapolis, even our Sorbonne, offeri

The pay raise controversy is now largely moot, but it did bring up some very important points about governance and about the connection or lack of connection that people feel to their governments in a democracy. In a democratic society, the government is supposed to represent the people, but that responsibility that people have is sometimes rejected, primarily because people want to cover their apathy or their lack of engagement. They complain more ferociously because they are not engaged, because they may not actually know what is going on. This does not mean that their critiques are not without merit, but only that they are often not very productive because the passion or conviction with which they are spoken has no bearing to how effective they are, or how much those critiquing actually understand. It was intriguing in this controversy to see how so many people would direct their ire to the Guam Legislature, simply because they were the ones doing the listening. The

Eight years ago on my blog, I started a series titled "Paluman Marianas," meant to feature different native birds of the Marianas and my drawings or paintings of them. I only did one, for I Tettot or the Marianas Fruit dove, and never got around to posting another one. I have plenty of drawings and paintings that feature Guam's birds, in fact with my daughter Sumahi, I've added quite a few more. Sumahi loves to draw in general, but I've tried to teach her as much as I can about the native birds of the Marianas. She can name many of them, probably more than most kids nowadays. But sharing this part of our heritage with her reminded me of my long forgotten series of Paluman Marianas. I wanted to add another one today, #2: I sihek, the Micronesian Kingfisher. ************** Micronesian Kingfisher - Guam Information courtesy of http://guamendangeredbirds.com/wst_page4.html The Micronesian kingfisher (Halcyon cinnamomina cinna