NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I know in national politics, Fridays are supposed to be quiet days where the media is preparing for the weekend, and so a story that you want to receive far less attention than normal, you release on a Friday afternoon or evening. Hopefully by Monday the country has moved on from your potentially negative story. Under the Trump administration it seems like the President doesn't understand this dynamic and somehow imagines that if news is released on a Friday it will get more coverage, because it is an exciting night of partying. Last week Trump once again redefined political wisdom or convention by, in the middle of hurricane preparations, released a huge number of news, that left the media gasping to figure out how to cover it all. Here are some snippets of that epic Friday news dump. **************** Trump Under Fire Over Epic Friday News Dump by Josh Dawsey 8/26/16 Politico It was a Friday night news dump like rarely seen before: President Donald Trump's admini

I have heard in the media, and seen on-line that some on Guam (and elsewhere) are referring to Dave Davis as a hero. Eiii na kinalakas. Davis recently won a case in US Federal court striking down the Guam decolonization law as being "unconstitutional" or potentially opening up this sacred, albeit symbolic vote to any resident of Guam. When I saw/heard this, it scared me in so many ways, perhaps even more so than the actual losing of this round of his case. I wrote my column in the Pacific Daily News this week about the friends that Dave Davis currently keeps, who have bought into his racist rhetoric and weaponized it, targeting the Chamorro people of Guam and their aspirations for decolonization. Davis was just an angry racist in Guam for a long time, but it wasn't until he signed up with the group called The Center for Individual Rights that he actually began to affect the world more directly with his vile ideas. I plan to write more about this group, which has mad

A 2014 study by The Guardian/UK shows that in 50 different colonies/territories since 1860, 88% of the time they chose independence as their option. Very very few chose to become integrated into their colonizer, it was almost natural to seek their own fortune and destiny, even if it might lead to a time of difficulty. The study looked at places such as Samoa, East Timor, Mongolia, Iceland and Iraq. Given the way in which independence is often imagined in places such as Guam that remain colonies today, it is intrigued to see how normal seeking independence was in the past, but how today it feels so fearful. Most people would argue that the resistance that people in Guam feel today is tied to the island being too political immature or the island being too small or too far away from the centers of power. All of these points make some sense, but not enough to really build up the type of fear that people experience when discussing the notion of Guam becoming independent. As the United N

When I first started researching Guam History and writing about contemporary Guam issues, the natural things you'd expect always popped up. If you asked people about the problems on Guam today, they would say the same sorts of things most societies say. Improve the economy. Fix the infrastructure. Fix the educational system. One thing that makes Guam different is that political status issues can be a significant problem that is brought up. One thing that makes the entire discussion over Guam and its problems and possible solutions frustrating is the way in which people don't understand that political status affects everything and is generally tied to everything else. One thing that was always irritating was to hear people go on and on about the problem with our school system as being tied to a lack of textbooks or having "old" textbooks. The lack of money and the decrepit nature of the system is manifested in the fact that students don't have enough textboo

For the very first showing of The Lone Ranger on island, I took my kids. I have been excited about the film for a long time, for a variety of reasons and was eager to watch it as soon as possible. The previews looked exciting and ridiculous like so many Pirates of the Caribbean movies. There were several key differences however that made me more excited and more intrigued to see The Lone Ranger.   The Lone Ranger wasn't going to be another one of those ridiculous ensemble films where the last 40 mins are just endless resolutions to the mess that the writers and directors have created by having so many famous faces. I'm also a fan of Johnny Depp, even some of his less than popular or weird roles I still find interesting. I have for the past few years had a weird fascination with Westerns. I hated the genre for most of my life because the films weren't very well made and the politics involved were sometimes terrible. I had a few films such as Dances With Wolve

September 4, 2012 Transcript of San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro's keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, as prepared for delivery: My fellow Democrats, my fellow Texans, my fellow Americans: I stand before you tonight as a young American, a proud American, of a generation born as the Cold War receded, shaped by the tragedy of 9/11, connected by the digital revolution and determined to re-elect the man who will make the 21st century another American century — President Barack Obama. The unlikely journey that brought me here tonight began many miles from this podium. My brother Joaquin and I grew up with my mother Rosie and my grandmother Victoria. My grandmother was an orphan. As a young girl, she had to leave her home in Mexico and move to San Antonio, where some relatives had agreed to take her in. She never made it past the fourth grade. She had to drop out a