Reflections

This post is reblogged from The People's World With a price tag of $250 million, the George W. Bush library is the biggest and most expensive of the 13 that have been opened to recognize the former presidents. It is a major part of a well-orchestrated campaign underway for months now to whitewash what was very likely the worst presidency in the history of the United States. We don't believe the campaign will succeed , however, because the memories of the American people are not short enough for that to happen. The theme of the new "library" is not George Bush, the failed president, but George Bush the "statesman" who had to make a lot of "decisions." Laura Bush showed the press yesterday how visitors will be able to enter an "interactive decision making room" where they can participate with the former president in making the many decisions he so bravely made. "Bush made lots of presidential decisions," right wing pundit...

The day dawns cloudy and windy. The temperature has mercifully dropped markedly and it is more conducive to outdoor activity. We go for a walk along inside the resort itself. The grounds are pretty, sandwiched as they are between the beach and the ocean and the hills. A golf course is laid out just below the mountain and some golfers are out taking full advantage of the cool weather. The clouds are, however, dark, pregnant with the promise of rain. We wait near the gate for our transport. Here there is a tiny stream which carries the rain water down from the hills to the sea. A battered wooden bridge spans it. And just below it is a colony of water monitors. We count one, two, three, and finally six of these magnificent creatures in the water; one of them crunches a fish it has caught. Life must be easy for them in these fecund waters. We go to the jetty at Tekek, where we board the speedboat which will be our companion for the day. It is small, but the outboard motor is powerf...

Tioman island lies, in the fanciful description of the locals, like a half submerged dragon in the waters of the South China Sea. It has had its good times and bad over the centuries. It has been the port of call for sailors navigating the routes from China to the Spice Islands, and has also played host to nests of pirates who made these waters the most dangerous in the world whenever the local imperial power was weakened. It is closely accompanied by several islands and the secretive coves of the jungle covered Pahang coast that made it possible for the Orang Laut , the people of the sea, to rule the byways of this patch of ocean. Ruled nominally in the more recent centuries by the Sultan of Pahang, it was signed away to the Johor sultanate by a Prince who needed help in a fratricidal war to gain his dead father’s throne. Later British umpires however saw it being restored to its rightful place so that today it is part of the Pahang state. This pearl drop in the ocean lies about on...