Global Voices Online

Arubagirl posts some photos of the bad weather the island has been experiencing.

Despite her love of waves, Arubagirl says: “I think I join everybody living in the Caribbean when I hope that the hurricane season will PLEASE be over soon.”

Scared Monkeys thinks that Aruba's latest initiative to help combat crime shows “style over substance once again.”

After a photo of a Minister of Parliament sunbathing nude is dubbed “Picture of the Year” by an Aruban daily, Arubagirl asks, “What good did it do? How does embarrassing this guy help the public at large? If his only crime is that he had no clothes on, I think there were worse crimes committed on Aruba that deserved to be featured with a full page picture.”

Arubagirl, Trinidadian blogger Elspeth at Now is Wow and Lynn Sweeting from the Bahamas all recognize Earth Day.

Aruba is the first Caribbean territory to officially acknowledge gay marriage, reports gay news blog. The move follows a three-year legal battle with Dutch authorities that began when a lesbian couple tried to register their marriage on the island. And Vivir Latino says that Puerto Rico may be considering the same move: “Wouldn't it be a hugely powerful statement if Puerto Rico, who is subject to US laws, were to pass the measure and prove once and again how it truely is its own nation with a clear concept of the diversity that is the Puerto Rican people?”

Arubagirl gets nostalgic about La Linda , which, to her, represented the glorious disorganization of the Aruban shopping experience: “If one would want an old-fashioned kitchen appliance, La Linda would have it. If you need ponytail holders in obscure colors, La Linda would have it.”

Drug addicts, known in Aruba as “chollers”, are wreaking havoc in Oranjestad. Arubagirl recounts the most recent incident and wonders “who the real threat to society here is: the choller who slashed tires because he was denied something or the businessman waving a gun because he thought that the man in front of him was going to pull a knife.”