A Fearless and Greedy Pelican at Brighton Pier …. snapped by amateur cameraman Michael the Roberts… August 2022
Category Archives: landscape wondrous
AHOY! …. Pelicans Ahoy: Brighton, The Beira and the Danube Delta
In Appreciation of Sam Popham & His “Popham Method in Forest Regeneration”
Risidra Mendis in Ceylon Today, 4 June 2022, where the title runs thus: “The Popham legacy lives on”
Rows of large and valuable trees, lush greenery in abundance, a cool atmosphere, and plenty of interesting things to see are what the iconic Francis Home Popham, (better known as Sam Popham) – the creator of the world-renowned Popham Method in Forest Regeneration, and founder of the Popham Arboretum in Dambulla – left behind when he passed away on 28 May 2022 at an Assisted-Living facility in England.
Dasun Shanaka’s Captaincy Central to Lanka’s Success
Rex Clementine, in The Island, 11 September 2022, with this title “Captain Dasun has helped Sri Lanka turn things around”
Cricket’s most successful captains had some remarkable factors that made them successful leaders. Mike Brearley was a good thinker. Clive Lloyd was inspirational. Imran Khan had a good eye for picking talent. Arjuna Ranatunga was a fighter and two of his prodigies Sanath Jayasuriya and Mahela Jayawardene had factors unique to them. While Sanath led by example, MJ was a brilliant tactician. All successful players don’t become good captains either. Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar and Inzamam-ul-Haq are cases in point.
Riaz Hassan: Straddling the World …. An Ecumenical Scholar for All Ages
Michael Roberts
I met Riaz Hassan for the first time as one of the keynote speakers at a conference organised by Neelan Tiruchelvam in Sri Lanka circa 1974 (details forgotten) when I was teaching in the History Department at Peradeniya University and Riaz was at an university in Singapore. It was the best of serendipity (a word deriving perhaps from Serendib aka Sri Lanka) that I found him attached to Flinders University when I moved to the Anthropology Department at University in 1977.
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In Appreciation of Professor Riaz Hassan: Two Accolades as Vale
ONE …. Joanne Barker: A Memory about RIAZ HASSAN
From 1992-2006 I worked at Flinders University in various positions, finally leaving in 2006 as the faculty general manager of one of the four faculties. In around 1993-4 when I was still in my early 30s and quite new at the university, I came to know Riaz Hassan as one of the professors. He probably didn’t know my name, but he was always kind and smiled and said hello if we passed on campus.
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Amputation Surgery from 24,000 Years Back !!!
ONE: Sara Hussein: “Missing foot kicks surgery back thousands of years,” in The Australian, 7 September 2022
A skeleton with a missing foot discovered in a remote corner of Borneo rewrites the history of ancient medicine and proves amputation surgery was successfully carried out about 31,000 years ago. Previously, the earliest known amputation involved a 7000-year-old skeleton found in France, and experts believed such operations only emerged in settled agricultural societies.
Scientists excavating remains dating back some 31,000 years in the Liang Tebo cave in East Kalimantan. Picture: AFP
Exposing Sachi Sri Kantha: A Tangential Tamil Sniper
Michael Roberts
In presenting an article on Duncan White’s achievement at the World Olympic Games held in London in August 1948, I limited my focus to the 1940s. Sachi Sri Kantha in Japan has often entered comments on Thuppahi items and on this occasion ventured a point-scoring set of remarks on this item. At times these comments have proceeded tangentially to topics straddling the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
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The LTTE’s Remarkable Capacities: Its Air Tigers
Compiled by Kumar Kirinde, Retd Officer of the SLAF, whose chosen title was as follows: “The Air Tigers: The Air Wing of A Terrorist Organisation” …… with information and images sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Tigers and Google Images)
Pirapaharan (ext. left) with Anton Balasingham on his left and KP Pathmanathan in front and Shankar on the extreme right in the Vanni jungles circa 2001(?) … Shankar was in effect the Air Tiger chief
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Power Balancing Moves in Asia: Displacing USA
Scott Ritter in Energy Intelligence, 9 September 2022, with this title “India And China Eye Asian Century”
As the world lurches through the growing pains of massive geopolitical change, the US’ relationship with India will increasingly take center stage. Washington likes to see itself as providing a geopolitical center of gravity that is inherently attractive to nations like India, especially against regional competitors such as China. As the US is about to discover, however, India and China have a shared ambition about who should dominate the Pacific in the coming century, and it doesn’t include the US.
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