| French military using winged warriors to hunt down rogue drones. This is amazing. |
Following incidents of drones flying over the presidential palace and restricted military sites – along with the deadly 2015 Paris terror attacks – the French Air Force has trained four golden eagles to intercept and destroy the rogue aircraft.
A golden eagle grabs a flying drone during a military training exercise at Mont-de-Marsan French Air Force base, Southwestern France.
Alex Van Arkadie
Long before the legendary seafarer ‘Sinbad’ chanced to harbor in waters lapping the little isle of ‘Serendip’, or European colonizers discovered Ptolemy’s ‘Ceylan’, pilgrims from the distant Orient have been visiting here. During the reign of the Indian Emperor Asoka (2nd Century BC), the island’s North Central Province was home to Sinhala Kings under whose patronage Buddhism spread. Following India’s gift of a sapling from the Bodhi Tree under which Sidharta Gautama Buddha attained ‘nirvana’, the ancient city of Anuradhapura draws pilgrims and curious visitors from everywhere. The tree is regarded as the oldest in the world (2,200 years). Similarly, a painting in the office of Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Rome, depicts “Emissaries of the Sinhala Royal Court presenting Credentials to Emperor Claudius” (according to Roman Historian Gaius Plinius Secundas, AD 23-79, pix. below).
Michael Roberts, being a reprint of an article entitled “Wunderkidz in a Blunderland: tensions and tales from Sri Lankan cricket,” that appeared in Sport in Society Vol. 12, No. 4/5, May–June 2009, 566–5 … with emphasis added by highlighting in blue and/or red.
The story of Sri Lankan cricket is a tale of great cricketing success within the context of a polity struggling with civil war and great levels of internal violence. Cricket is the one arena in Sri Lankan public culture where Tamils and Sinhalese, locked in a bloody civil war for decades, come together on a national public platform. From being reviled as a Western import in the early years of independence to its gradual embrace and penetration of new catchment areas in less affluent and more rural areas, the story of Sri Lankan cricket in many ways mirrors the development of the post-colonial Sri Lankan nation. This essay fleshes out prominent themes in the history of Sri Lankan cricket within the context of the major socio-political developments in twentieth century Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan cricketers celebrate their defeat of Australia on 17th March 1996 with the treasured World Cup in their hands
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, cricket for amity, discrimination, economic processes, education, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, sri lankan society, unusual people
Michael Roberts, providing a reprint of “Landmarks and Threads in the Cricketing Universe of Sri Lanka,” Sport in Society, January 2007, vol. 10 (1): 120-42…. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17430430600989209
Cricket developed in British Ceylon [1] as a pastime indulged in by the British ruling elements, whether military men, officials, merchants or planters. It was but one sport in a wide repertoire of pastimes pursued by the British rulers, practices that were assisted by the resources they commanded, not least a host of minions servicing their leisured enjoyments. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, Australian culture, australian media, centre-periphery relations, cricket for amity, disparagement, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, racist thinking, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes
For years, Dominic Sansoni dreamed of photographing Sri Lanka from the air. Having extensively documented the island’s multicultural populace, its urban and rural beauties, its architecture, its culture and festivals and even its wars, he had come to be acknowledged as the most successful and artistically committed Sri Lankan photographer of his generation; yet he found himself still unable to attain the longed-for aerial perspective.
Dominic 
Sebastien
Filed under art & allure bewitching, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, economic processes, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, photography, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, wild life, world events & processes
Anand Sethi, whose original title is “The Dial of Serendipity,” ….
Anand Sethi takes a stroll down memory lane while tracking down the building which once housed Sri Lanka’s iconic Radio Ceylon
Image courtesy: Anand Sethi
Bauddhaloka Mawatha is a wide, tree-lined avenue in Colombo in Sri Lanka. It runs from Galle Road in the west towards Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, the administrative capital of Sri Lanka, in the east. The avenue runs past a few university playgrounds and several colonial-era buildings, now occupied by embassies and ministries in a leafy part of Colombo 7, as the locals call it.
Filed under British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, education, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, world events & processes
Jerzy Lewinski (Jorge Lewinski), photographer: born Lwów, Poland 25 March 1921; Senior Lecturer in Photography, London College of Printing 1968-82; twice married (two sons, one stepdaughter); died London 31 January 2008.
Mike von Joel: “Jorge Lewinski: Portrait photographer who captured a generation of British artists on film,” 8 February 2008, The Independent Obituary
Jorge Lewinski’s career was filled with opportune moments – quirks of fate which diverted his life in new directions and opened up fresh possibilities. Indeed, his portfolio of 20th-century artists’ portraits came about fortuitously – he had intended to record writers but had doubts about how visually interesting they might be – when his fellow Pole Feliks Topolski suggested the idea of painters. It was the start of a decades-long obsession that resulted in a photographic documentation of a whole generation of British artists.
Umar Farouque in Lahore, 20 May 2015, … ‘I have moved on and I am not afraid’ – Ahsan Raza
03 Mar 2009, LAHORE, Pakistan — epa01653437 Bodies of the Pakistani policemen lie on the ground, after unknown gunmen attacked Sri Lankan cricket team, in Lahore Pakistan on 03 March 2009. Unidentified gunmen on 03 March attacked Sri Lanka’s cricket team when it was being escorted to a local stadium in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, leaving six policemen and two civilians dead and four Sri Lankan players injured, media reports and officials said. EPA/STRINGER — Image by © STRINGER/epa/Corbis
Justin Burke, courtesy of The Weekend Australian Review, 28/29 October 2017 where the title is “Homecoming Queen”
When opera superstar Danielle de Niese returns to Australia next month to perform in The Merry Widow, among the audience will be one particular fan from her past: Johnny Young. For it was in the final year of Young’s long-running TV talent show in 1988 that de Niese, then a precocious nine-year-old singing Whitney Houston ballads and musical theatre standards, got her first big break.
“Young Talent Time never ‘made’ anybody’s talent, Danielle’s wonderful voice was a gift from God,” says Young, of the series that aired on Channel 10 for an astonishing 18 years. “Danielle was a sweetheart, and she became more and more relaxed as that season went on, and by the time she won it you could see this girl was going to be something special.”
thuppahi
