NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Pete Seeger, the American folk singer known for songs such as "If I Had a Hammer," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" and popularizing the protest song "We Shall Overcome" died recently. Below is an article from the Huffington Post about his legacy. Directly below is a song that he wrote and dedicated to the victims of the A-bomb attack at Hiroshima. We come and stand at every door But none can hear my silent tread I knock and yet remain unseen For I am dead, for I am dead. I’m only seven, although I died In Hiroshima long ago. I’m seven now, as I was then. When children die, they do not grow. My hair was scorched by swirling flame; My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind. Death came and turned my bones to dust, And that was scattered by the wind. I need no fruit, I need no rice. I need no sweets, not even bread; I ask for nothing for myself, For I am dead, for I am dead. All that I ask is that for peace You fight today, you fight today.

I have not painted for a while. Apmam desde mamenta yu’. Halacha’ gof tinane’ yu’ ni’ i che’cho’-hu, ya sesso gof machalpon i hinasso-ku siha yan ti nahong i semnak gi i ha’åni. The other day, as if to start the new year fresh, my daughter Sumåhi pressured me to paint with her and her brother. They had received a brand new set of paints for Christmas and had been eager to use them. So even though I had plenty of things to do, I relented and got out several sheets of paper for us to paint with. When Akli’e’ paints, he primarily uses his fingers. Dipping the tips into the paint cups and then smearing them on his arms and occasionally on the waiting paper in front of him. Sumåhi is much more controlled when she paints, and sometimes appears stoic and almost pained as she attempts to force the paints to form familiar animal shapes. She ended the night with an impressive painting of two afula’ or manta rays. The manta rays were pink, while the ocean around them was a color-coordinated gr

If anyone out there ever wants some quick insight into what I am like as an academic or a teacher, you simply have to remember that before I became an academic, an activist or a professor, I was an artist. So no matter what I am writing, what class I am teaching or what I am researching, there is always this festering, Duchampish, avant garde impulse to either push some boundaries or to infuse some creativity. So for instance, I am currently teaching three English composition classes at the University of Guam. Its something I never imagined teaching, and to tell you the truth, there isn't much about it that I've enjoyed (although the job ( yan i salape) is appreciated), but I still find ways to make my pedagogy or what I'm teaching match my instincts as an artist. Sometimes this has gotten me into trouble, thankfully, no serious trouble yet, but enough irritating little spats to ensure that I never want to teach English at UOG again. But to give you an example of my desir

The dreaded DEIS public comment period is finally over. I made the blog banner above (at the top of the page) to help highlight the importance of the past three months. For those of you who can't tell, the image is a drawing of Sumahi, while she is struggling to read through the many volumes of the DEIS, and sitting next to her is a timebomb, whose clock indicates that the amount of time left during which Sumahi has to defuse to bomb is simply "not enough." Annok na ti magof i mata-na, ya gi este na halacha na tiempo, dipotsi todu i manmata-ta (giya Guahan) taiguihi. The past few weeks and months have been crazy, literally too many things happening for me to keep up. As I've been writing about in my " Buildup/Breakdown " posts, the island has changed significantly since last November. The urgency of the deadlines for DEIS comments, generic fears over what sort of negative impacts the buildup would bring to Guam, and the everyday sentiments of colonial fr