NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Every year, at some point during at least one of my classes I'll mention the name "Janet Benshoof." It isn't a name commonly known on Guam, at least among the general population, but it was a name that was notorious for a short period in the early 1990s, and one that probably deserves more attention. Janet Benshoof was the ACLU attorney who came to Guam to lead the fight against the strictest and harshest anti-choice, anti-abortion law within the US and its empire as of 1990. She was the only person arrested under that harsh anti-abortion law that made national headlines. Reading her obituary though I saw that her work was truly international, joining causes for the betterment of women's lives across the globe. In her obit below from the New York Times there is even a section that deals with her time in Guam and a quote from Former Governor of Guam Joseph Ada. One day I'm gonna write an article about that time in Guam's History, because it represents

Comedian Samantha Bee bid a fond "adios" to the campaign of Ted Cruz on her show Full Frontal last week. I said "fond" not because of her affecting for Cruz as a politician or what he stood for, but rather because Cruz had been such an incredible mine for political humor. As evidence of this, even in his departure, she was able to tweet at him and mock him in one of the most incisive ways I've ever seen in less than 144 characters. See the tweet below. Ai gof tahdong na tinekcha' enao. Ha botleleha i baba na hinengge-ña yan i gef annok na ti maguaiya gui' gi patidå-ña achagigu. As she said adios on her show, she rattled off a list of the gof na'chalek nicknames that she had given Cruz, which still make me laugh even after hearing them several times. Here is the list, with the video below: "Born Again Tyler Durden" "Princeton's Unwanted Fetus" "Fist-Faced Horse-Shit Salesman" "The World's On

Some of the Guam Mentions that can be found on the website Common Dreams .  They cover an interesting spectrum of political possibilities. The list of Guam Mentions is so oddly diverse, it was collections like this which made my dissertation such a strange trip to write. Guam is a military base, an independent country, a territory within just a few hundreds words of text. It is quintessentially American in one article, a foreign country in another, the edges of its empire in one and then the breakdown of its soul and its morality in the next. To see what I mean, check out the articles below: ********************* World Watches North Korea, But No Missiles Yet Deadline came and went, but US intel believes chances of test launch remain 'very high' by Jon Queally, staff writer Common Dreams April 10, 2013 Following weeks of growing tensions, Wednesday April 10 was the day officials in Pyongyang had threatened to test one or more of its Musudan

Faces and Fake Names Behind the Planned Parenthood Attacks Videos Democracy Now! July 31, 2015 As the Senate prepares to vote to defund Planned Parenthood, we look at the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-choice group behind the attacks on Planned Parenthood. The group was founded by David Daleiden who is seen in the undercover sting videos using a fictional name. We speak to RH Reality Check’s Sharona Coutts, who wrote the piece, "Exclusive: The Faces and Fake Names of People Behind Planned Parenthood Attack Videos." This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN : I want to turn to who David Daleiden is, of the Center for Medical Progress, the group responsible for attacking Planned Parenthood. This is Daleiden speaking on Fox News. DAVID DALEIDEN : For the past two-and-a-half years, the Center for Medical Progress conducted a long-term, in-depth, comprehensive, investigative journ

Gi este na tinige' para ta bisita iya Kansas ta'lo ya faisen hafa i prublema-na? Gof matungo' Si Thomas Frank put este na finaisen. Gi este ha bisita lokkue' i orihinat na hinasso-na put i pulitikat "conservative" yan "liberal" giya Kansas, ya hafa i otro na estados siha sina ma eyak put i kosas pulitikat giya i US pa'go. ******************* Sunday, Nov 2, 2014 10:00 PM CST Righteous rage, impotent fury: Thomas Frank returns to Kansas to hunt the last days of Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts On eve of a possible GOP rout, Frank goes home to rediscover the matter with Kansas and all American politics Thomas Frank Salon.com   PRAIRIE VILLAGE, KANSAS – One of the treasured vanities of my home state of Kansas is the idea that, although we are the nation’s laggards and

I am in Saipan this weekend for the Flame Tree Festival. I am so excited for this opportunity to travel here and take part in what is the CNMI's largest cultural celebration. I have heard about the Flame Tree Festival for years but never attended it before. It has been intriguing after spending a few hours at the festival this evening, to see the it is similar to a festival like the Guam Micronesian Island Fair, but still different. I'm sure I will be writing more about it later. But as the day is long over, my mind for irritating reasons is stuck thousands of miles away on the comments of Cliven Bundy. With his comments on blacks and slavery, his anti-government rhetoric and the way conservatives rallied around him and then quickly scattered, there is so much to write about, even if it is such a pathetic little thing to talk about. It is frustrating to the way people celebrate improvements in race relations and in race conversations by making it about policing speech and all