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Novels, Non-fiction, and products of the Pacific

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For New Zealand, Oceania, and Australia customers, use our affiliate below). Pacific Islander Americans constitute one of the United States' least understood ethnic groups. As expected, stereotypes abound: Samoans are good at football; Hawaiians make the best surfers; all Tahitians dance. Albert Wendt, one of New Zealand’s and the Pacific’s foremost storytellers, has won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for the Asia Pacific Region. Follow him down through the centuries on his travels, encountering the sin...

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RukDing!: 1. Contemplation of Gravity

http://www.rukding.com/p/ppwdc-1.html

Yes, and no. 1 Contemplation of Gravity. I was supposed to leave the country, but it wasn’t looking good being a hundred and twenty feet in the air surrounded by dozens of police and firemen straining their necks to see me. This is how it went down. I climbed, straddled the barbed wire, and jumped down to the grass. Normally, you’d need a ladder to get to the tower’s built-in steel ladder, which started thirty feet above the ground. Instead, I grabbed one of the diagonal crossbars tha...Above, the bulbou...

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RukDing!: 7. Injuries to Avoid

http://www.rukding.com/p/7-before-you-hide-away.html

Yes, and no. 7 Injuries to Avoid. The training staff handed out one copy each of a large paperback book called “Where There Is No Doctor -a Village Health Care Handbook.” The cover photograph is of villagers crossing a waist-deep river in the wilderness, carrying a person on a stretcher covered with a raised, thin sheet. Inside the book, I saw depictions and descriptions of everything wretched that can happen to one’s insides and outsides. The book was supposed to be empowering, not encouraging. The trai...

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RukDing!: CHUM, CHAMP, AND CHUMP

http://www.rukding.com/2011/05/chum-champ-and-chump.html

Yes, and no. Thursday, May 5, 2011. CHUM, CHAMP, AND CHUMP. Some will say Osama bin Laden at the bottom of the ocean is now appropriately closer to hell; others will say he will simply ascend farther to heaven. Some will wonder what his gunshot wounds look like; others will wonder if the sailors chummed the water before sliding his body into it. United we survivors stand over his body, but we need not gloat. We should be dignified —not. For his death, but for our life. Bin Laden sealed his own fate, in t...

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RukDing!: 5. San to San

http://www.rukding.com/p/5.html

Yes, and no. 5 San to San. Turkey dinner with all the fixings to symbolize the next three Thanksgivings and Christmases here that I’d miss. I had to employ my first use of foreign language skills abroad–“No”—same as in English. We go fuk, ya? She asked. Her smile had seen 40 years since her birth, I guessed later, though her golden hair had only recently been dyed. She looked ten years younger than that, at that moment, although the dim light and dimming tequila may have been relevant. Is it legal here?

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RukDing!: 8. Hideaway, While You Still Can

http://www.rukding.com/2015/08/8-hideaway-while-you-still-can.html

Yes, and no. Thursday, August 6, 2015. 8 Hideaway, While You Still Can. The structure with posts supporting a thatched roof, we had evening lotu. Singing Christian prayers that were part and parcel with these people. It was now part of our daily routine, too. In this melodic Polynesian language, the singing. Was fitting for this activity, without walls between nature and us, as if lacking a barrier between Man and Maker. After dinner, John S. and I went to our little fale. Is a meeting of two sides at op...

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RukDing!: When Cupid Misses the Mark

http://www.rukding.com/2011/02/pvdwhen-cupid-misses-mark.html

Yes, and no. Tuesday, February 15, 2011. When Cupid Misses the Mark. Post Valentine’s Depression can arise from unmet expectations, so I recommend being kind to those you love, and to those you don’t- and laughing at someone else’s folly, like mine. If I can have disastrous experiences like this and still find love, anyone can. In the semi-darkness, I paused at the ranch-style fence bordering the drive-in theater lot. Although far enough away, I was still within view of the car. Eager to make a b...Did t...

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RukDing!: THE DEEPER TRUTH OF RADIATION – Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and Fukushima

http://www.rukding.com/2011/03/deeper-truth-of-radiation-nagasaki.html

Yes, and no. Tuesday, March 29, 2011. THE DEEPER TRUTH OF RADIATION – Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and Fukushima. Radiation: sending out rays; to shine; to glow. I could, at least insofar as a certain point I had. And it was this: the extreme human horror and radical devastation from those two detonated bombs made all subsequent nuclear-capable countries fear military escalation to an unprecedented degree. Consequently, it pre-empted a greater evil for the future of all humanity. During WWII, would agree. This c...

rukding.com

RukDing!: 7. Injuries to Avoid

http://www.rukding.com/2015/05/before-you-hide-away.html

Yes, and no. Wednesday, May 6, 2015. 7 Injuries to Avoid. The training staff handed out one copy each of a large paperback book called “Where There Is No Doctor -a Village Health Care Handbook.” The cover photograph is of villagers crossing a waist-deep river in the wilderness, carrying a person on a stretcher covered with a raised, thin sheet. Inside the book, I saw depictions and descriptions of everything wretched that can happen to one’s insides and outsides. The training staff handed out one copy ea...