NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

While I was away in St. Vincent attending the UN C24 Regional Seminar, i nobia-hu Dr. Isa Kelley Bowman, penned a simple, insightful and incisive bilingual! article about the very issues that were being discussed on the other side of the world. Her article is below and deals with the difficult realities of having a colonizer who has convinced themselves no matter what they have done or continue to do, that they represent freedom and liberty. Having colonies like Guam for more than a century belies that idea in obvious and easy ways. And that doesn't even go into the more nefarious history of the US, featuring slavery, displacement and genocide. But like all countries, the US can change. There is a commonsensical power in that notion that mala hechura asta sepultura, but there is nonetheless always the possibility for changing course, for social or political movements to change the course of a country towards something more just and more invested in equality, peace or righteousnes

What a strange moment we live in, where political loyalties and alliances are reforming and even crossing national and ideological boundaries in ways difficult to comprehend. When Obama says that Ronald Reagan is turning over in his grave right now because of the behavior of Republicans today and their new party leader Donald Trump, he is right in a very troubling sense. Having two main political parties is supposed to neutralize a lot of potential conflict, but also requires that the two factions ultimately hold above all partisan politics, the nation itself. In essence, like all political systems, a two-party one still requires that both parties but country first, and that be willing to accept losses for the betterment of the country and not seek all international or foreign means of achieving victory. What we see today however, is that the Republican party has been taken over by those who are willing to side with those who want to weaken American power and its place in the world,

Gaige yu' giya Albuquerque, New Mexico para este na gefpå'go na dinanña', i fine'nina taiguini un "Indigenous Comic Con." Gof excited yu' put este na oppotunidåt, sa' gi este na såkkan, hami yan i dos che'lu-hu in na'magåhet un hagas na guinifen-måmi anai in na'huyong i fine'nina na kamek yan lepblon-måmi. I na'an i iyon-måmi na kompañia, "The Guam Bus." Siempre ti meggai na taotaogues Pasifiku gi este na dinanña', lao malago' yu' maneyak meggai put taimanu i otro na klasen natibu ma cho'cho'gue este na bonito lao makkat na cho'cho'.

Gof malago' yu' na bei hanao para este na dinanña' giya New Mexico gi November. Anggen un gof tungo' yu', siempre un komprende esta na este un guinife-hu mumagåhet. Bai hu fanaplika para salåpe' gi che'cho'-hu, sa' gof umaya este yan i che'cho'-hu komo tekngo' na scholar.

The Guam Bus is the creative team that consists of myself and my two brothers. Over they years we've talk about alot of creative projects, and even started some of them, such as Battle for Kamchatka, but we haven't ever really finished any of them. We made ashcans a few years back when we had a table at WonderCon in San Francisco, and I did write the script for four issues of Battle for Kamchatka and Jack did pencil three of them, but we never actually formally published anything. Jack is back on Guam for the next few months and I am taking advantage of his presence here by making him create for me on my various Chamorro Studies and Guam Museum projects. He is also working on a one-shot comic book script I wrote last year about "Makahnan Mimu" or "Warrior Wizards" in Ancient Chamorro times. If all goes well, he should be done with the pencils by the end of next month. Here's a panel from the comic so far:

George Takei discusses Gay Rights, "Star Trek" and Being a Comic Book Hero Christopher Rudolph chris.rudolph@huffingtonpost.com Huffington Post 6/29/13 Decades ago George Takei was warping through space aboard the USS Enterprise on the legendary television series "Star Trek." Lately he's been embarking on some new journeys as an LGBT rights activist and the unofficial "King of the Internet."   With over four million fans on Facebook and over 700,000 followers on Twitter, the beloved actor is a social media force to be reckoned with and he uses his magnificent reach to champion lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender causes. In honor of LGBT Pride Month, the Huffington Post caught up with Takei to chat about everything from his time on "Star Trek" to guest starring in a comic book with Archie Comics' first gay character to bringing his new musical to Broadway and more. The Huffington Post: You wrote a blog a

In the film The Matrix, the Agent Smith played by Hugo Weaving holds a short, but memorable philosophical session with his captive, resistance fighter Morpheus. He tells him about the first versions of the Matrix that were created in order to keep the imprisoned human population occupied while their energies were siphoned from them like batteries. In the early versions of the Matrix everything was perfect. It was like paradise, free of conflict and problems. It was a perfect world. That perfection is what made it impossible for humans to accept, and so when confronted with this perfect world humans rejected it wholesale and so those early versions of the Matrix were total failures. So instead of having the Matrix make people happy and give them a perfect world, the machines decided to give them a world similar to what they already knew. Imperfect, full of struggle, pain, loneliness, doubt and rejection. People accepted this and the Matrix continued to functi

The 2nd Guam International Film Festiva l is this weekend. Here's the films I'm looking forward to watching. You can find previews for each film on the website linked above. The information before each film is how much they cost and what time they are at: ************************* SCREENING INFORMATION: Screens with “ THE STUDENT WRESTLER “ Admission: $7.50 USD Date: Saturday, September 29, 2012 | Time: 1:40pm Venue: STADIUM TBD, Micronesia Mall Stadium Theatres | GIFF Guide: contains adult material BIBA! ONE ISLAND, 879 VOTES! Documentary Feature | Northern Mariana Islands | 75 min. | English, Chamorro w/English subtitles | PACIFIC ASIA PREMIERE It’s the fall of 2007 and there’s a storm brewing on the tiny island of Tinian. BIBA! follows Trenton Conner and Henry San Nicolas in their battle for control over the island, documenting a unique mixture of traditional family clan culture and wester democracy that we know all too well here in the Mariana Islands. (G

Happy Valentine's Day!!!! *************  "You Is All I Want" Michael Lujan Bevacqua 2011 The waitress at Coco’s is happy I am not. She sashays to my table as if she has just stolen the sunshine of everyone in the room and beams at me with her conquest I am not in the mood for anything. I miss you, and it is the kind of missing that makes you feel like something is pushing your heart through your chest, giving it the sense of being released and set free as it is being choked to death by the bars of your rib cage. As the song says, there ain’t no sunshine when you’re gone, and every sunny soul makes me wish I was some cartoonish DC universe villain, with a ray-gun that would suck out your happy soul and then stab you in the eye with a spork afterwards. The waitress leans over and asks me, smile stuck between her teeth, “What do you want today?” I look at her wishing I was the protagonist of a movie and so when I glare, extras jump, cameras zoom, the soundt

Texas has made my teaching a lot easier lately for a variety of reasons. When trying to talk about Guam's political status, it's experience of the colonial difference, or to use the imagery of Du Bois, its own personal veil, the story of a Chamorro woman who recently attempted to apply for a Federal childcare program for her children, but was rejected on the basis being born on Guam made them not U.S. Citizens. When she confronted the agency about this "mistake," this was the conversation she had with a supervisor. "He laughed about it and said the letter is true and he actually had gone to college and he has never been taught or never had heard anything about Guam existing or even being a territory of the U.S." She later received an apology. Where did this most recent example of the everyday manifestations of Guam's unequal political status in the lives of those who call it home take place? Texas. The rhetoric of Texas Governor Rick Perry in the f

Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies and, Along With it, Reason and Justice Tuesday 28 December 2010 by: Randall Amster J.D., Ph.D., t r u t h o u t News Analysis While much condemnation has rightly been expressed toward Arizona's anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, a less-reported and potentially more sinister measure is set to take effect on January 1, 2011. This new law, which was passed by the conservative state legislature at the behest of then-School Superintendent (and now Attorney General-elect) Tom Horne, is designated HB 2281 and is colloquially referred to as a measure to ban ethnic studies programs in the state. As with SB 1070, the implications of this law are problematic, wide-ranging and decidedly hate filled. Whereas SB 1070 focused primarily on the ostensible control of bodies, HB 2281 is predominantly about controlling minds. In this sense, it is the software counterpart of Arizona's race-based politicking, paired with the hardware embodied in SB 1070's "sho