Krygyzstan, Galicia, Tinian

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It’s been a good couple of weeks for show segments with historical angles. How We Got Here features three of them on Episode 47. First you get a Marco Werman Q & A on the background to the violence in Kyrgyzstan with Peter Zeihan of the global intelligence company Stratfor, then Gerry Hadden on the legacy of a 2002 oil spill of the coast of Spain, and finally Mary Kay Magistad with an evocative piece about the Pacific Island of Tinian and its outsized role in U.S. military history.

Pacific Island of Tinian awaits the Marines

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The Pacific Island of Tinian has played an outsized role in US military history. Now, as a US territory, it’s about to take on a new role – as the site of shooting ranges, when some 8,000 US Marines and their dependents move from Okinawa to Guam by 2014. Many Guamanians aren’t wild about the US military expansion, but Tinian welcomes it. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad visited the island. (Photo: Mary Kay Magistad) Download MP3

• Photo gallery
• Guam people ponder their identity
• Mary Kay’s journal from the Island of Yap

Guam people ponder their identity

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Thousands of people recently demanded that US forces be moved off the Japanese island of Okinawa, something Washington is loathe to do. But there are plans to move some Okinawa Marines to Guam. Guam is a US territory, but as Mary Kay Magistad reports, plans for the military build-up there have ignited soul-searching about just how American people there feel. Download MP3 (Photo: Mary Kay Magistad)

• View pictures and read Mary Kay’s story
• On The World: Guam loves Spam
• Mary Kay’s stories from the Island of Yap

Island recovering from missionary murder

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The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports on the murder of a young American missionary on the Pacific island of Yap. Many Yapese and those who worked with the missionary are still recovering.

The open sailing canoes of Yap

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For centuries, the islanders of Yap were renowned in the Pacific for their navigational skills. They could travel hundreds of miles in open sailing canoes, charting their course by the stars, the winds, and the pattern of the waves. That knowledge became endangered as Yap came under the control first of the Spanish, then of the Japanese, and especially the US after World War II. But in recent years, there’s been a resurgence of interest among young Yapese in learning this ancient skill, and keeping it alive. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad went sailing with some of them. Download MP3 (photo: Mary Kay Magistad)

• Read Mary Kay Magistad’s reporter’s journal
• Listen to Mary Kay Magistad’s story about Yap’s stone money

Stone money

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On the Pacific Island of Yap, you can’t exactly keep change in your pocket when dealing in the local currency. It’s stone – and up to twelve feet across. Its origins go back millennia. The money is still used these days, but not to buy groceries. It’s for the bigger things in life – bestowing honor, asking forgiveness, or begging your daughter’s new in-laws to treat her well. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports from Yap. Download MP3

• See photos
• Read Mary Kay Magistad’s reporter’s journal

Reporter’s journal from the Island of Yap

I’m sitting on my balcony, at the Pathways Cottages in Yap – not cottages, really, but bamboo houses on stilts, high in the trees, with thatch roofs. They overlook a lagoon, and coconut palms sway in the breeze. It would be idyllic – except that the busiest street in town runs right in front of this place. Now, on an island of 8,000 people, in an archipelago of 12,000, the busiest street in town isn’t exactly gridlocked – but there are enough cars swooshing past on a regular basis to break the island idyll. For that matter, so does the chainsaw my next-door neighbors choose to run at 7am.

Obama’s new words, Avatar in the Amazon and a Chinese satire

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As Obama enters the second year of his presidency, he’s dropped some expressions — “war on terror”, “Af-Pak”, even “Middle East”. His administration has invented a few too: “remotedly piloted aircraft” (drones) and “overseas contingency operations” (wars). Also, a special screening of Avatar in Ecuador for indigenous groups. What did these Shuar and Achuar speakers think of Avatar’s invented language, Na’vi? Finally, a new online satirical movie is all the rage in China. It features a Chinese double-entendre phrase aimed at avoiding government censorship. The movie also includes a fantastic “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” rant.
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