NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

When relationships end, people may fight over pets, fight over furniture, collections, kids. One thing that has always struck me, for certain, but not all relationship apocalypses is songs. Music where affection and attachment were forged and welded together with tunes and lyrics from particular artists. It provides the rhythm to togetherness, to grooves of the “us.” When a relationship ends, the rhythm of togetherness sometimes sours, turns grimly bitter. What once caused joy, now feels like it creates bone cancer. Songs or artists that I shared with someone and used to make me smile, now make me retch, make the skies insidiously darken in the space between beats. The muscles remember, even what the mind or heart wishes it could forget. For one particularly tough relationship, the music of Tegan and Sara was part of the soundtrack of us. For years I enjoyed it alongside her. For my girlfriend at the time, she was a twin and adored the duo, and introduced me to their music

Commander: US military can’t conduct amphibious operations in the Pacific

I have long advocated that we on Guam stopped looking at the world through the eyes of the United States. It is tragic and pointless sometimes for us to the nations and the islands that are right beside us through the gaze of the United States which literally sits on the other side of the Pacific and the world. We see other islands through our privileged relationship to the United States. We see countries around us through the enemies, allies and interests of the United States. It is hilarious to the point of tragedy that we talk endlessly about how we are "America in Asia" and so close to Asia, but actually know so little about "Asia." What we do know comes imported from the United States and we learn little for ourselves. In the recent controversy over North Korea and its potential threat to Guam we could perceive this in crystal clear fashion. For all the discussion and concern and worry over North Korea, what did we actually know about it? How much were we act

So much of the discussion of the North Korea threat issue to Guam centers around the "kinaduku" or "craziness" of its leader. Instead of having reasoned discussions people enter into silly caricatures and try to pretend that this should be the focus. In order to understand things all you need to know is how crazy North Korea's leader is. This leads to alot of pointless metaphors that don't help you understand much except how ridiculous and dangerous North Korea is. For example, with North Korea's emphasis on launching missiles, people are making all sorts of analogies to someone trying to compensate for not being endowed in another supposedly manly area. North Korea is obviously feeling inferior in one way and trying to compensate for their lack by building all these nuclear missiles! These caricatures, these analogies aren't actually that bad, but only if you continue them in a logical manner. Yes, you could argue that as a weak and isolated natio

Hawaii: Head of the Tentacled Beast By Jon Letman, October 18, 2012 Foreign Policy in Focus Fresh from hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Honolulu last autumn, U.S. President Barack Obama recently told members of the Australian Parliament that America’s defense posture across the Asia-Pacific would be “more broadly distributed…more flexible—with new capabilities to ensure that our forces can operate freely.” The announcement of America’s “ Asia-Pacific pivot ” by its first Hawaiia-born president was highly fitting, since the Hawaiian Islands are at the piko (“navel” in Hawaiian) of this vast region. A less flattering metaphor for Hawaii’s role in the Pacific is what Maui educator and native Hawaiian activist Kaleikoa Kaeo has called a giant octopus whose tentacles reach across the ocean clutching Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, Jeju island, Guam—and, at times, the Philippines, American Samoa, Wake Island, Bikini Atoll, and Kwajalein At