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…. OTHER SCENARIOS from the Sri Lankan Wild
Pics by Zac Roberts Ronald at Bundala, early January 2018 Continue reading
Category Archives: elephant tales
White ‘Jihadist’ terrorises White House!
So says CLEMENT in The Australian
Filed under american imperialism, arab regimes, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, charitable outreach, conspiracies, discrimination, disparagement, doctoring evidence, elephant tales, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, human rights, jihad, landscape wondrous, life stories, news fabrication, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, slanted reportage, taking the piss, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, wikileaks, wild life, world events & processes, zealotry
Aussies celebrate a Victorious Cavalry Charge: The Light Horse at Beersheba in 1917
Peter Craven, in The Australian, 31 October 2017, where the title is “The Light Horse at Beersheba was poetry in motion”
The Light Horse and the Battle of Beersheba. It’s a strange story, though an old one, of how we turn the slaughter of war into the stuff of legend. But there’s a truth, as well as a myth, in the idea that this country came of age with Gallipoli; and that World War I’s official historian, CEW Bean, was on to something, not just propaganda and making the best of a bad lot, when he said the courage of the Anzacs was a defining moment.
Filed under Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, cultural transmission, elephant tales, heritage, historical interpretation, human rights, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, military strategy, nationalism, patriotism, politIcal discourse, slanted reportage, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes
Madras Murder Most Foul
Benjamin Golby, courtesy of ESPNs The Cricket Monthly, May 2017, where it is entitled Madras machinations”” .
In Madras the umpire was murdered and it made us all uneasy. If this was the sort of place where umpires got murdered, then what chance had a handful of foreign cricketers? And without an umpire, who would enforce the rules? Who would give people out or let them stay in?
Foul murder is a constant delight of cricket’s fiction. Ted Dexter’s ghostwritten Testkill has a left-arm Australian bowler crumple dead mid-Ashes delivery. Carolyn Morwood’s female first-class cricketer sleuth, Marlo Shaw, relaxes with a net mid-murder investigation. Jock Serong’s The Rules of Backyard Cricket, from 2016, features a Warne-esque anti-hero bound and gagged in a car boot at the Australian captain’s behest.
Peddling Gross Falsehoods on Sri Lanka’s Public Debt and Economics
The LANKA GUARDIAN introduced an essay by the banker Ajit Kanagasundaram with the following note: “Over 90 percent of government revenue currently goes on debt servicing, mainly to China, and the concessionary capital repayment moratorium on multi-lateral agency loans will soon expire. What happens then?” The article is entitled “Sri Lanka: Plight at the end of the Tunnel” and can be read at https://www.slguardian.org/2017/07/sri-lanka-plight-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel/
Readers should visit the web-site for the full article. Since economic data on this topic is Greek to me, I sent an immediate inquiry to a few specialists I had met at a Marga gathering [relating to the Gamani Corea Foundation] on Saturday … and have followed it up by embracing a few others with the same inquiry. The short responses from Dushni Werakoon, Godfrey Gunatilleka and Nishan de Mel, indicate that Kanagasundaram and the Lanka Guardian are peddling nonsense. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, doctoring evidence, economic processes, elephant tales, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, world affairs, world events & processes
A Visitor from Deep Sea via Outer Space
A bull shark visits Queensland
Peregrinations and Hallucinations in the Kumana Wild
David Graham … a Comment which the Editor considers worthy of Individuated Airing
Interesting post — [that by Stefan d’Silva on “Legend and Mystery in Kumana National Park” ]. Didn’t hear about the nittaewo until one of the wildlife trackers told me about them on a trip in Kumana in 2014. My dad took my brother and me on big game hunts for wild boar in Okande in August 1963 and April 1964. Dad’s friend Dr. Guy Paranavitharne and his three sons were among the hunting party. Also along were my dad’s childhood friend Dr. Rajah Beddewela and Dr. Guy’s cousin Claude Abeywardena and his two sons.
editors’ addition from www.thedailybeast.com
The Call of the Remote Wild: Kumana in SE Lanka
ATW Guneratne, courtesy of Daily News, 12 January 2016, where the title is “Wilderness is calling”
This remote Sinhalese village is situated in Eastern Sri Lanka, in the Yala East wild life park commonly known as Kumana. It is probably the only village inside a national park. Kumana village originated with the arrival of Sinhalese people who fled the upcountry areas following the 1818 Uwa Wellasa rebellion. Groups of people fled along rivers downstream to the Northern coast. Several families came down Kumbukan Oya and settled down close to the sea, near the mouth of Kumbukan oya. This is how Kumana village, Panama village 35 km from Kumana, and most of the Sinhalese villages in the East originated.
Lavish Five-Star Picture of Sri Lanka as Travel Destination in traveller.com
Lee Tulloch, 8 January 2016 in http://www.traveller.com.au/sri-lanka-island-paradise-reborn-glx7uf
It may not be a case of ‘bye bye backpacker’ – they will still come for the beaches and inexpensive lifestyle – but this island nation now offers some of the finest small hotels and resorts in the world. The first time I visited Sri Lanka, four years ago, I was smitten by the sensuality of this tear-shaped island of terraced tea plantations, dense jungles, empty beaches, vine-covered ancient ruins, king coconut groves, cinnamon forests, and the fragile beauty of its dilapidated colonial-era architecture. I was not so smitten by the roads. Those days (and these) it could still take several hours to travel from Colombo to the highland tea plantations, a relatively short distance by Australian standards, on terrible thoroughfares, clogged with tuk-tuks, known as “three-wheelers” here, local buses blaring jangly music and trucks conveying elephants to new owners. There are new highways, built by Chinese chain gangs, but the hilly terrain still makes single-lane roads the norm. Continue reading
