Category Archives: education

Filed under art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, Colombo and Its Spaces, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, hatan kavi, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, language policies, Left politics, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, religiosity, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, teaching profession, theatre world, unusual people, world events & processes

September 5, 2025 · 4:32 pm

Presenting Curious Things with Humour & Discernment

Stephen Keim, reviewing Richard Glover’s BEST WISHES , ABC Books.

Richard Glover has been in the humour and entertainment business for a very long time. He has written a weekly humour column for the Sydney Morning Herald since 1985. Since January 1996, he has presented the 3.30-6.30 pm drive segment on 702 ABC Sydney. This role came to an end in November 2024, after just short of 29 years. He has published 15 books prior to Best Wishes.

The roles of humour columnist and radio presenter include making observations about various curious things about the way we live in society and presenting them in a way that informs and entertains and, in the best case, brings a smile to people’s faces.

Filed under art & allure bewitching, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, education, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, performance, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, unusual people

September 5, 2025 · 4:01 pm

Vale: Bishop Kenneth Fernando

From Wikipedia …………… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Fernando

Kenneth Michael James Fernando (25 July 1932–3 September 2025) was a Sri Lankan Anglican clergyman who was Bishop of Colombo.^[1][2][3]

Born in Moratuwa and educated at Prince of Wales’ College, Moratuwa and Royal College, Colombo and at the University of Oxford, he served as the Secretary of the Diocese before he was elected as the Bishop of Colombo. He served as the Vicar of Maharagama Anglican Church prior to his ordination. Fernando died on 3 September 2025, at the age of 93.^[4][5]

Filed under Colombo and Its Spaces, communal relations, cultural transmission, education, heritage, language policies, life stories, patriotism, performance, religiosity, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, tolerance, unusual people

September 5, 2025 · 1:04 pm

Mahbubani’s Insightful Reading of Today’s World Order

Watch https://youtu.be/0HsAtrd8bNE?si=nUjZVm05W-67JStS

This is the lecture Australians should listen too, not the psychotic rubbish that the army of elite propaganda journalists publish each day in Australian newspapers and on TV. The lecture was given in Hong Kong. The speaker is the well known former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani who examines the changes taking place in the world today, and the implications from it.

He says “geopolitics is the most cruel game in the world”. Being a nice country is not enough. You need to be shrewd and cunning if you are going to survive. He affirms that “we live in amazing times of amazing changes around the world, and that we have an obligation to keep up with the changes and learn how to adapt to it.”

Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, democratic measures, economic processes, education, ethnicity, historical interpretation, modernity & modernization, Pacific Ocean issues, Pacific Ocean politics, politIcal discourse, power politics, transport and communications, world affairs, world events & processes

September 5, 2025 · 12:42 pm

Vale … Lareef Idroos: A Gathering in Los Angeles

Dr Mohamed Lareef Idroos of La Canada, Ca. passed away on September 1st, 2025.

Beloved husband of Nabila and father of Shireen, Sabrina and Samira

Funeral will be on Thursday, September 4th …..at Rose Hills Memorial Park, 3900 Workman Mill Road, Whittier, Ca……………..at 10 am

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Dr Lareef Idroos, was a past pupil of St Thomas College……….. He headed the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Hollywood, Ca……………….A highly respected and loved doctor to all his patients.

Lareef Idroos was a successful leg-spin and googly bowler for S. Thomas’ College in the late 1950s; entered the Medical Faculty circa 1960 and was a member of the University of Ceylon cricket team under Carlyle Perera which secured the Sara Trophy during a spectacular season 1962/63. After he migrated to USA in the 1970s, he played for USA in the ODI tournaments conducted by the ICC in the late 1970s.

“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un”

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Filed under art & allure bewitching, charitable outreach, cricket for amity, cricket selections, cultural transmission, education, ethnicity, heritage, life stories, patriotism, performance, S. Thomas College, self-reflexivity, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, unusual people

September 3, 2025 · 4:40 pm

Vale: Lareef Idroos

Errol Fernando in Melbourne

I am deeply saddened to hear of my very old friend Lareef’s death. He was my neighbour in Kollupitiya, Colombo 3. From the time I was 6 or 7 years old I played cricket with him under the coconut trees. The railway line and the sea were just behind the batsman! Lareef loved to bowl, and I loved to bat and so we were both happy! I spent hours, days, weeks, months and years facing his bowling. He came up with new tricks all the time and used the sea breeze very effectively! I have no memory of him batting and me bowling !

Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, Colombo and Its Spaces, cricket for amity, cricket selections, cultural transmission, education, heritage, life stories, patriotism, performance, plural society, politIcal discourse, S. Thomas College, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

September 3, 2025 · 4:11 pm

AI Looms Over Our Future …. Look-Out!

ITEM in LUMEN, Adelaide University Magazine, September 2025 or so … no date specified clearly & bearing this title: “The Future and AI” …. Authorship unclear: maybe Carolyn Semmler, maybe Isaac Freeman

Whether we like it, or not, artificial intelligence is here to stay. The genie is out of the bottle. Its rapid evolution has been embraced by some, and met with raised eyebrows by others.

In our earlier issue of Lumen this year, we asked readers to describe their hopes and fears for the future. AI was an overwhelmingly present theme.

We shared some of these letters with academics from both the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia to help clarify and respond to concerns on four broad themes: impact on jobs; global security; wellbeing; and the potential for cognitive decline.

Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, Australian culture, australian media, centre-periphery relations, economic processes, education, education policy, governance, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes

September 1, 2025 · 8:10 pm

Learning Law with Aid From Colvin R de Silva

A Guy named Talagalla, … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

I am just penning this note after finishing my research for the day, before the thoughts dissipate into the quiet of the evening. The cases I read, the legislation I examined, and the scholarly writings I consulted all converged in my mind, and they brought me back to a lesson I once received from my senior, Mr. D.S. Wijesinghe, President’s Counsel, passed down from his own mentor, Dr. Colvin R. de Silva. The story of how Dr. de Silva engaged with the law has lingered in me for years, and it bears repeating, for stories carry the weight of wisdom in ways instructions never can.

Dr Colvin R de Silva

Filed under accountability, cultural transmission, education, historical interpretation, legal issues, life stories, meditations, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people

August 30, 2025 · 6:35 pm

A Candle for GAZA in Colombo……Supporting the SUMUD Flotilla

Message from Manel Fonseka

Join us to light a candle and say a prayer for the success of the Sumud Flotilla as they set sail to break the siege on Gaza.

Starting on August 31st, 150 ships will set sail with crew from more than 40 counties, in the biggest global effort to break Israel’s 18year siege of Gaza. As famine spreads in Gaza and Israel continues with complete impunity to murder, rape and starve the population of 2 million people living there, the people of the world are banding together to step up where international law has failed.

Join us this Sunday, 31st of August, at 4.30pm under the Nuga tree at the Chapel of Christ the Living Saviour on Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 07, to light a candle and say a prayer for the success of the fleet, the safety of its crew, and the salvation of the people of Gaza from Israel’s unrelenting genocide.

Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, charitable outreach, Colombo and Its Spaces, cultural transmission, democratic measures, disaster relief team, education, ethnicity, human rights, Jews in Asia, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, trauma, unusual people, war crimes, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes, zealotry

August 26, 2025 · 3:00 pm

Travels & Travails: Cycling Along Australia’s Ocean Roads

An Editor’s Apologetic Note, August 2025

I got to know Eardley because his anthropological fieldwork and dissertation in Uva in Sri Lanka came to m attention way back, maybe in the 1980s when I was teaching in Adelaide. I think we met once or twice in Sydney. That is how Eardley’s subsequent “adventure” … presented below … came into my files.

…. and THEN got swallowed up somewhere. But fortune has favoured the arduous and I can tell the world WHAT no other migrant Sri Lankan Aussie has done …... A BUGGER OF A JOURNEY

Eardley Lieversz