Stuff We Like

David Stanley's Moon Guidebooks and his related Web sites have been invaluable resources for Pacific travelers since 1979. And in recent months he has launched a travel blog which he intends to "share new facts as they cross my desk and discuss issues of interest to visitors." It does that and more.

While Stanley discusses logistical issues, new hotels and tourism facilities, changes of ownership and useful travel resources, the real interest for experienced Pacific Islands travelers is in his contributions on topics such as cliché and travel writing in the Pacific, and responses from his knowledgeable visitors about tourism developments in our region.

Stanley says it has been quite a task getting the blog "right" from a technical and content standpoint. It certainly hits the mark, and is recommended for experienced and novice visitors to the Pacific alike. http://www.southpacific.org/blog/

Pacific Stories {web}

This one is only for those of you with broadband connections. "Pacific Stories" is a portal that introduces films-old and new- made by Australians about the Pacific Islands.

These films include "Fit for a King," which is an intimate profile of the King of Tonga, "Sugar Slaves" about the role of South Pacific Islanders in Australia's sugar trade, "My Father My Country," which traces the journey of prominent Papua New Guinean Meg Taylor's in the footsteps of her Australian father decades after he explored the highlands of PNG, "My Valley Is Changing," which was designed as a 1971 propaganda piece, but has turned out to be a prophetic about the coming of mining to Bougainville, "A Place Of Power In French Polynesia," about the re-emergence of traditional Polynesian cultural practices and anti-colonialism, and "Living With The Bomb" about Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Some of these films are old, but many of the issues they explore continue to resonate today. The most recent is "Land of the Morning Star" about the independence struggle in Papua.

The films and this Web site make good use of archival footage. The Web site also includes links, transcripts, and additional information about the films and their context, plus appetite-whetting clips from the films themselves. But the real strength of these "Pacific Stories" is in their ability to hear the voices and stories of Pacific Islanders at pivotal moments of our region's history. www.abc.net.au/pacificstories/pacificstories.htm

Pacific War Stories {book}

Seventy Pacific war veterans tell their stories in "Pacific War Stories" with often moving, occasionally humorous and always sobering results. Gerald A. Meehl-who wrote the book with Rex Alan Smith-says it tries "to provide the reader with a sense of what it is like to sit down with a Pacific war veteran and hear…their vivid and engaging stories."

As a reader you do feel transported by the interviews from former soldiers, translators and islanders from the Philippines, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Guadalcanal, Guam, Saipan and Tinian, among other Pacific theatres of war.

As Harry Fukuhara, a Japanese-American who was interned after the bombing of Pearl Harbor but then joined the U.S. Army says, "I believe that talking about it now, with a purpose, is the medicine I need." That feels as true for the reader as it does for the speaker. http://www.abbeville.com/Products/Product0789208172.htm