Jeremy Liyanage
Mannar is a sand island perched on a limestone base. The hydraulic pressure of the groundwater in the kulams keeps the sea water from intruding. As significant areas of Mannar Island are targeted for mineral sand mining, working to a depth of 12 metres, the result will be widespread sea water intrusion which will then contaminate the groundwater supplies –promoting the destruction of agricultural livelihoods.
Filed under accountability, australian media, democratic measures, economic processes, education, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, land policies, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, unusual people, world events & processes
Christopher Knaus and Josh Taylor, in an essay in 2019 which gains relevance in the light of the recent events in Capital Hill in Washington …. This essay was entitled “Revealed: the QAnon conspiracy theorist who is friends with Australian PM Scott Morrison”
A significant Australian proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory is a family friend of Scott Morrison, and his wife is on the prime minister’s staff. The sprawling, disjointed and incoherent QAnon conspiracy variously claims that Donald Trump is leading a behind-the-scenes fight against a shadowy deep state, that powerful forces are hiding and protecting satanic paedophile rings, and that a secretive individual named Q leaves clues for his followers to decipher on internet forums.
Filed under american imperialism, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, conspiracies, disparagement, economic processes, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, life stories, modernity & modernization, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, taking the piss, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world affairs, world events & processes
Tony Kevin, in ConsortiumNews, 8 December 2020, where the title reads “Australia Sabotaged Its Own Interests in China Relations”
The destruction over the past five years of Australia’s mutually beneficial diplomatic and trade relationship with China was probably a successful “Five Eyes” information warfare operation, writes Tony Kevin.
Hong Kong protester throws egg at President Xi Jinping’s portrait on China’s National Day, Oct. 1, 2019. (Studio Incendo, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The address to Federal Parliament by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Nov. 17, 2014, marked a highwater mark in bilateral relations. Xi was in Australia for the G-20 summit in Brisbane hosted by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. His theme was that China was committed to peace but ready to protect its interests.
Filed under accountability, australian media, authoritarian regimes, China and Chinese influences, disparagement, economic processes, governance, growth pole, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, meditations, politIcal discourse, press freedom & censorship, security, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes
SEE ... https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/byron-bay-iconic-aussie-beach-left-unrecognisable-by-erosion/news-story/e15bc2d8e8b80280b2e ..……………………. AND …………………….https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-27/byron-bay-beach-disappears-as-erosion-takes-its-toll/12495864 …………………… https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/14/byron-bay-beach-damage-worst-in-a-generation-as-storms-batter-1000km-of-coast
Jason Bittel,, in National Geographic, whose prefered title is “Tasmanian devils return to mainland Australia for first time in 3,000 years”
It’s been 3,000 years since the Tasmanian devil’s raspy shriek rang through the forests of mainland Australia. But now, thanks to a dogged reintroduction effort, 26 of these endangered tiny terrors have returned.
No bigger than a lapdog, these marsupials are famous for their ferocity and powerful jaws, which can reduce large carcasses to smithereens in minutes. But in the 1990s, the species was hit with a contagious and deadly mouth cancer, causing its only remaining wild population, on the Australian island state of Tasmania, to drop to just 25,000 animals.
Tasmanian devils, known for their ferocious temperaments, have been plagued by a contagious facial cancer in recent decades.
Michael Roberts, reprinting an essay drafted in 2007 and since presented in Fire & Storm in 2010 (chapter 19: 131-38)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVpbl0azdFM …. Kamikaze strike
Filed under accountability, arab regimes, atrocities, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, chauvinism, communal relations, conspiracies, cultural transmission, economic processes, Eelam, ethnicity, European history, female empowerment, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, immolation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian traditions, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, meditations, Middle Eastern Politics, military strategy, nationalism, patriotism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power sharing, propaganda, psychological urges, religiosity, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, Sri Lankan scoiety, suicide bombing, Taliban, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, violence of language, war reportage, world events & processes, Zen at war
ALSThis short essay appeared in the year K????K within the Website run the Library of Social Science headed by Richard Koenigsberg and he has sent it to me this month (November 2020) — presumably inspired by the recent jihadist attacks in Europe and by Thuppahi’s determined pursuit of the comparative literature on martyrdom pursued in a variety of contexts by diverse forces (not merely Islamic).
Michael Roberts
Addressing the practices of remembrance in Australia, Richard Koenigsberg has noted the irony that a battlefield defeat at Gallipoli in World War One, 1915, served a people as an emblem of nationhood: the “Australian nation, came into being on the foundations provided by the slaughter of its young men.”
Burying the dead at Gallipoli in 1915 ,,,and The Last Post 
Filed under accountability, ancient civilisations, architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, Australian culture, australian media, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, education, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Hitler, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, martyrdom, military strategy, modernity & modernization, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, psychological urges, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, war reportage, world events & processes
Greg Bearup, in The Weekend Australian Magazine, October 9, 2020, where the title is “Different Strokes. Life after Cricket”
The office of the Steve Waugh Foundation is up the stairs and down the back of a block of shops on the outskirts of Cronulla’s CBD in Sydney’s south. The office, like the bloke, is devoid of frou-frou. It exists to get the job done and each year it distributes more than a million dollars to help kids with rare diseases. And then in walks Steve Waugh with his famous pout and his thousand-yard stare – the man who led one of the most dominant teams in the long history of Test cricket. Remember those gratifying years when humiliation of the Poms was an annual ritual, like raking up and burning leaves each autumn? “We’re not here to win friends, mate,” he once said, summing up the attitude of the team under his reign.
Filed under accountability, Australian culture, australian media, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, historical interpretation, human rights, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, photography, pilgrimages, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Vale J. Neville Turner, one of life’s great characters” — Almanac Admin April 23, 2018
Neville Turner (often referred to as J. Neville Turner) was an extraordinary person who had an extraordinary impact on the Australian Cricket Society during his term as President (1998~99 until 2000~01. Neville was a regular in the outer at first-class games at the MCG (and most other grounds in Australia and around the world). He sat with a regular group of cricket lovers who were all among the most knowledgeable around.
Filed under Australian culture, australian media, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, life stories, literary achievements, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
thuppahi
