NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

This article is interesting. On the one hand, you could argue that it isn't necessarily talking about sovereignty in a overt political sense and so the title or the thesis is very overstated. It deals with an exchange over surfing and a sports article. But on the other hand, the article is a good reminder about the way that sovereignty can be woven into everything, and is something that can be fought at multiple levels, even the most basic of conversations. That it can begin with an idea, with a community formed simply by shared memories or shared desires and that it can grow from there. As I once wrote many year ago, "kada mumon linahyan ha tutuhon ni' un sinangan ha'." ***********************   Surfing as Sovereignty: How Native Hawaiians Resisted Colonialism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker Indian Country Today Media Network 11/14/14   In Hawaiian culture, surfing has always been more than a sport. So important was it that prayers and chants

I am currently working on an exciting comic project for a friend of mine. My brothers Jack and Jeremy are joining me in the project (and spearheading it), which will look at Guam's political status in a very new way, through the unlikely narrative of sports. To comic will follow the story of Roque Babauta, a Chamorro basketball player who gets wrapped up in national and international politics. As part of it, I wrote up a concept draft which outlined everything the way I was seeing it. Jeremy has gone on to shake things up and make flow better and add in more realism and details. Part of it is a sequence where a sports commentator is ruminating on the connection between politics and sports. Here is the first draft of it: Too often even we who love sports, dismiss it as a diversion, as an opiate for the masses, a distraction from the world. But sports is the world itself. It is not a diversion, but a reflection, a mirror image. The wars between na

I hope to one day be a speaker in the UOG Presidential Lecture Series. It is unlikely to happen though because I'm here and the speakers are usually guests visiting Guam. Olaha mohon na un diha ma'ayek yu' yan i inaligao-hu pat i hinasso-ku siha para este na klasen onra. In the meantime, I'll probably go tonight and attend the lecture by the 28th speaker in the series, Royce Gracie, a MMA champion. Taya' tiningo' put ayu na dibetsion, lao gof annok gi iyo-ku Facebook na i taotao guini gof yan-niha. Este na dibetsion rumepresenta un interesante na enkubukao. Kao ta disisde hafa i kottura-ta put hafa hagas ta cho'cho'gue lao buente ti ta cho'cho'gue pa'go? Pat kao mas presisu hafa mismo ta cho'cho'gue pa'go, achokka' ti gof tradisionat?  ************** Royce Gracie, a pioneer of mixed martial arts (MMA) and UFC Hall of Famer, will be the 28th speaker in the University of Guam’s Presidential Lecture Series. The lecture wi

For the past year I've been working under Dr. Faye Untalan on the I Ma'adahen Fino' Chamorro gi Koleho project, a grant funded by the Administration of Native Americans to create a standardized curriculum for teaching Chamorro at the college level. I've been working with Chamorro teachers from the Marianas and Hawai'i to put together a draft curriculum and we are currently pilot testing it at GCC, NMC and GCC. With the drafting of this curriculum we've gone through months of editing and polishing. Hundreds and perhaps more than a thousand potential pages were produced for the curriculum thus far, and the majority of it has been edited and erased. These pages contained exercises, activities, drills, vocabulary lists, grammar lessons and of course dialogues. Alot of these materials I've been holding on to since it can always be used somewhere else, even if it doesn't make it into this particular project. Below is one of the dialogues that was cut. It w

"America the Beautiful" Author is Rush Limbaugh's Favorite Lesbian Socialist Peter Dreier – February 5, 2014  Talking Points Memo Right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, former Congressman Allen West, and others are freaking out about Coca Cola's Super Bowl ad featuring "America the Beautiful" sung in different languages as faces of people of different cultures are shown. Typical was the reaction of Michael Leahy of the wacko website Breitbart.com: “The company used such an iconic song, one often sung in churches on the 4th of July that represents the old ‘E Pluribus Unum’ view of how American society is integrated, to push multiculturalism down our throats.” The reliably reactionary Glenn Beck said that the ad will "divide us politically." He added: “That's all this ad is. It's an in your face -- and if you don't like, if you're offended by it, then you're a racist. If you do like it, well then

Sesso mangguife yu' put North Korea. Ti parehu este na klasin guinife yan i guinife-hu siha put i otro tano' taiguhi iya Okinawa yan iya Pagan. Para ayu na tano' siha yan ayu na guinife siha, hu guiguife siha put i ginefpago yan taimanu na debi di ta prutehi ayu na lugat kontra fina'militat. Gi i guinife-hu siha hu keketachuyi pat ayuda i taotao guihi gi un mimo ni chumilong yan iyo-ku pat iyo-ta guini giya Guahan. Lao sahnge i guinife-hu put North Korea. Gi i guinife-hu siha kalang puma'ya'ya gi hilo' i tano'. Hu ripapara todu gi oriya-hu, lao ti hu gogof komprende hafa hu li'e'e'. Tano' estrana este. Na'aburidu este na tano', ya gi guinife-hu siha ti hu hulat muna'klaru hafa este na lugat. Sumasaga' yu' giya Guahan. Fihu hiningok-hu put North Korea, lao sesso nina'manman yu' ni taimanu to gof chumilong i tiningo'-hu put Guiya yan i hiningok-hu put Guiya. Kada simana, kalang kada diha hu hungok

Grooming the Champions of the Keyboard Alan Feuer The New York Times 9/28/13 ALAMEDA, Calif. — On a picture-perfect East Bay afternoon — 75 and a clear blue sky — a few top players for the Evil Geniuses were holed up in the Lair. Preparing for a qualifying match, a StarCraft prodigy named HuK was sitting in one of the gaming rooms, communing with his monitor and limbering his fingers on a keyboard. Down the hallway, his teammate DeMusliM was running through a replay of his own last match and working on his manual dexterity, swirling a pair of worry balls in his hand.  It was 3 p.m. and the California sunlight was beating at the windows, but the Lair’s front shutters were drawn tight, leaving the gamers to focus in the darkness on their training, which meant playing video games from dawn to dusk each day, or from dusk to dawn each night. Their physical needs had been seen to: the kitchen refrigerator was stocked with bagels, the living room cooler with

I don't follow sports much anymore, unless you include eSports as I am an avid spectator of professional Starcraft 2 gaming. I did catch this though earlier on MSN and so I thought to post it here. It isn't really about sports, but more so about politeness and respect for differing opinions and the role that Facebook and other social media plays in terms of creating the public identities of people. As people create a virtual world that is an overlay of their everyday lives, is something lost when they tend to favor their Facebook world instead of the world around them in terms of their expression and the meaning they find in their lives? For example, is something lost when you are sitting in a room with friends talking, but you are continually on your phone chatting with people on your Facebook? Or are both circles the same? Can they co-exist or does favoring one make you value less the other? I always wonder about this as it is becoming increasingly difficult to get students

Matto tatte Si Olbermann. Ya ha ususuni sumangan i minagahet, lao gaige gui' gi un nuebu na Channel. Current TV . Gof ya-hu Si Olbermann, ya gi este na segment ha na'hasso hit put i impottante-na na ta adahi mo'na i tiguang-ta. Gaige gi todus hit i minalago na ta fanadahi i manatungo'-ta i mangga'chong-ta, lao i mimun gi kada korason-ta lokkue', taimanu na para ta fantrata i bisinu-ta, ayu ni' ya-ta ya ayu ni' ti ya-ta? Ha mentona este na gof tahdong na sinangan ginnen Si Jackie Robinson, estaba bumebesbol ya i fine'nina na attelong Amerikanu ni' humagando gi i profesionat na level. Gi fino' Ingles, Guiya yumamak i rayan kulot. "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." Debi di ta fangatga mo'na este gi korason-ta kada diha.

Gi painge manegga' yu' huegon cricket gi entre India yan Pakistan. Gi i halacha na estoria, fihu umakontra este na dos nasion yan sesso lokkue' manakontra i taotaogues este na dos. Guaha na biahi na manggera este na dos. Ya este na klasin gera ti gaige ha' gi i fanhuegoyan ha'. Guaha nai manggera sih yan bomba yan paki. Gaige gi entre este na dos na nasion, un gos na'piniti na estoria. Estaba kada na umafana' este na dos, bula piligro. Sina guaha hinatme pat biolensia. Ya mientras manmumu i taotao gi i fanhuegoyan komo huego, sina manmumu i mane'egga' komo magahet na mimu. Mas ki un biyon na taotao giya Asia ma nanagga para i umafana' esta na dos. Gi todu i mundo, i inacha'igin este na dos i mas malago, i mas ma egga'. Put ayu na gi este na World Cup pa'go, annai umasodda' este na dos gi i Semi-Finals, sina ma alok na este na huego sina ha na'ketu un "continent." Gof maolek i huego gi painge. Ma sangan na i &

Every night when I get home from work and turn on my laptop I do two things. First, I go to GOMTV to see what is happening in the GSL, which is the biggest Starcraft 2 tournament in the world today. I don't have any cable and so my evening of television is usually watching professional Starcraft 2 players smash armies of pixels into each other and then watching (if it's the right night) an episode of The Daily Show. Earlier tonight there was a particularly exciting set of matches between two Starcraft: Brood War pro players who are trying to make marks for themselves in the sequel. The first is (Startale) July, changed the way zerg was played in Starcraft, especially in terms of muta control, and is known for being hyper-aggressive, almost relentless in his style. The second was (oGs) Nada, who is one of the most successful Starcraft players of all time, known as "the Genius Terran" and who once whitewashed July (3-0) in an OSL finals. To see two such legends of Starc