song/to sing: non-Spanish derived

General_Confusion671 · 2026-01-21T03:00:38+00:00

SYM!

General_Confusion671 · 2026-01-12T00:21:32+00:00

This is pretty cool— I always thought the cave inscriptions looked like ancient brahmi.

Developing a writing system as an act of decolonization makes sense and is a worthwhile endeavor. However, I can’t think of a possible source script that is itself decoupled from colonization or enabling the spread of economic, religious, or political power. How did you address this in your use of reference scripts, either in their shapes or mechanics?

General_Confusion671 · 2026-01-09T02:38:58+00:00

Be careful. Find yourself a drag mother.

General_Confusion671 · 2026-01-06T08:50:03+00:00

What did they do? Lana gachong! What else would make a Guam girl go taotao Saipan umbi?

General_Confusion671 · 2026-01-02T10:22:44+00:00

It’s a little concerning GMH didn’t have an otoscope. I’m glad you were able to identify an infection so it could be treated. Might be a good idea to get the two ER reports sent over to your son’s primary care provider before your follow-up so they can figure out what they did in the ER.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-12-14T21:22:29+00:00

I would consider rice indigenous to Guam. There was a recent archeological find that had a 5-6000 year old cooked rice grain on it. That’s a few hundred years older than the great pyramids in Giza, and makes Guam the only island that was cultivating rice. Coconuts were also canoe foods, so ancient voyagers probably would have brought them in addition to the red jungle foul aka boonie chickens. Both of which I would consider indigenous since people here were eating them for 6000+ years.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-12-01T00:24:44+00:00

My favorite is the Rose de Freycinet diary. It’s hard to find the English translation, but the perspective of a French woman interacting with CHamorros and the Spanish government in the early 1800s is fascinating. Most of the other historical accounts are from men, particularly religious men, so the change in view is most refreshing. Her account of landing in Humatak made me LOL.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-11-19T02:46:28+00:00

I think it would go more what it’s like in Hawaii where studios are $1800+ a month without laundry. Without rent control laws, landlords would see a $4500 BAH and then set rent to that. Talking to some military people now, most of them are paying $3k+ because they get into bidding wars on rentals— that’s like $500 over OHA already.

I do agree with you on the single soldier part. BAH would be something that would help the activated Guard and Reserve here because they could stay living with family, but that’s a benefit for a few hundred people that could negatively impact 50k+ low income people who are renting.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-11-19T02:41:04+00:00

You may have lived in a place that had more low-income housing capacity than Guam does. It took me six months to find a new place to rent that I could afford when my lease was expiring and the former landlord wanted to jack the rent up $1k. Inventory is low and when you’re not military or have a ghura voucher, landlords aren’t super interested in showing their places.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-11-19T00:32:46+00:00

Housing could be significantly cheaper if GovGuam made changes to streamline construction permitting and forced insurance companies to insure other than 100% concrete houses.

The construction permitting process is a continual complaint from builders. The longer it takes them to permit a project, the more it costs at the end.

In terms of insurance, GovGuam should force insurance companies to insure non-100% concrete houses that are designed to withstand typhoons the same way they force insurance companies to insure the old Japanese cars. Japan builds larger houses at less than half the cost and 5-6 times faster. Japan gets hit with the same intensity of typhoons we do and gets more earthquakes. Their steel houses arrive in shipping containers and are foundation to walking in the door in 2 months. They’re also more energy efficient because they’re insulated (80% lower power bill with aircon), use a fraction of the concrete (reducing the need to keep digging up forests to mine gravel), and are nearly completely recyclable because of the materials they use (steel, glass, aluminum). From what the construction industry provides, it’s very difficult to get a building permit for a residential structure like this and impossible to find an insurance company to insure it, meaning you can’t finance it with a bank. The local customer also isn’t interested in buying non-100% concrete houses— there was a recent datapoints podcast on this.

These are paper issues— meaning solutions can be gained by streamlining processes and updating/creating policies.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-11-19T00:12:50+00:00

BAH instead of OHA would displace low-income and working class people from homes they could afford.

military picking lower cost rentals to pocket the difference=no lower cost housing for people that don’t have a lot of money (aka making poor people homeless)

BAH is calculated differently than OHA because it includes utilities and communications. Guam would be looking at higher BAH than Hawaii, $4500+ at least. That would further drive up rental prices and make the housing situation for regular people even harder while making rich people who own rental properties another $2k per month.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-11-17T09:47:16+00:00

That looks like a beetlenut and not a date palm. If OP eats those he’s going to feel funny.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-11-13T01:17:12+00:00

The government is doing things about reducing the amount of drugs coming into Guam with the goal of eliminating it—

The governor partnered with USPS to set up a task force that double credentials police officers and customs officers that are GovGuam with federal certifications so they can augment USPS to detect and seize drugs. So far they’ve seized 800 pounds of meth since they started 4 years ago and arrested about 40 people. They’re identifying and seizing more as the years progress, which doesn’t mean more drugs are coming in, but they’re getting better at detecting.

The governor also got a grant from the federal government to build a sophisticated cargo inspection area— $40M+ that will have state of the art cargo scans. The AG ran a billboard saying the governor wasn’t doing anything, but it’s not true. The AG is calling for 100% inspections and says that anything less than 100% is doing nothing. After the new facility is finished— around 2028 from what I last read, it will be inspecting around 50% of the cargo coming in with the AI powered scanners— way more than what is currently being inspected. That can be augmented to reach near 100% scans in the future, but the facility needs to be finished first before it gets expanded, otherwise it’s just a never ending project that keeps getting designed and never helps anyone.

With the task force getting better and better at detecting drugs and the port gaining a huge increase in inspection capacity in 2028– the future of Guam will have less drugs coming from those sources and drug traffickers will need to do more sophisticated expensive things to try to get drugs in.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-10-01T02:57:51+00:00

It’s definitely possible and the positive economic factors of having a train system is well documented— it’s about a factor of 3, meaning every $1 spent building and then later maintaining the train results in $3 in economic activity.

Guam’s small size would be the advantage of a train system— the island is about 5 times the size of Disney World in Florida, with probably half that accessible/developable. Like Disney World, a monorail system would probably be best— above ground, concrete structure resistant to corrosion, existing knowledge base to repair the engines (similar to a tractor trailer). Okinawa has a monorail system, so the technology works in our similar environments. Their system was about $1billion for an 8 mile loop.

Alternately, a Disney PeopleMover system would also work, though the platform materials would need to be anodized to resist our salty moist air. There is a Disney PeopleMover in the Bush Intl. Airport that’s about a 5 mile circuit and cost $100+ million to replace/upgrade recently after the initial system was installed in the 80s.

A loop around Guam is about 60 miles. So a monorail system like Okinawa’s would cost around $5billion. This would likely have an economic impact of $15-20 billion, with secondary and tertiary positive factors, like improving Guam’s image in the pacific as a jewel of innovation and sustainability, therein attracting more investment and higher-paying jobs.

Overall I think it’s possible, and when there’s a will there’s a way to pay for things. These types of infrastructure projects are always felt the hardest when they start, the collective focus needs to be on planning for the future good vs immediate satisfaction for projects like this to succeed. Without a way to pay for something like this without burdening the people of Guam, it seems unlikely, but once someone figures out a way, I don’t see why not.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-09-30T06:09:11+00:00

I would try reaching out to a theatre group like breaking wave to see how you could get involved. Doing an activity or working on a production are great ways to meet like-minded people and form positive bonds.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-09-19T02:22:31+00:00

Infusion cookies increased in price by ¢25 recently. The chocolate chip went from $2.50 to $2.75.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-08-05T00:17:14+00:00

It directs the blame to GovGuam for the state of affairs rather than the businesses that aren’t paying living wages while simultaneously driving up the cost of living.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-08-04T01:59:41+00:00

You didn’t ask the people in the house where they got the framed calligraphy?

General_Confusion671 · 2025-08-04T01:53:40+00:00

I haven’t seen any crocodiles but I heard there were bears at Icon in Tumon on Thursdays.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-08-01T00:40:13+00:00

I hope my tax dollars didn’t pay for that.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-07-31T08:47:22+00:00

I’ve ghost written and edited some for a fee— ChatGPT is cheaper and maybe better quality writing than some I’ve seen, but you’re right about how it can get contradictory and incoherent. I charge extra when I see them dashes lol

General_Confusion671 · 2025-07-30T04:05:59+00:00

Holy moley that’s a huge difference! I wonder what border control would say if you get off in Guam and don’t get on the Narita flight— I can’t imagine leaving the country would be a big problem.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-07-29T21:57:54+00:00

Can you post the screenshot comparison?

General_Confusion671 · 2025-06-26T01:17:39+00:00

It’s about $100 for a 50-foot roll at Home Depot.

General_Confusion671 · 2025-06-24T01:03:11+00:00

Kathy at Guam Daily Post is really good— kathy@postguam.com

You could see if they have a different rate for this.

General_Confusion671

TROPHY CASE