Category Archives: transport and communications

May 26, 2023 · 4:30 pm

Love Across All Language Barriers

An Item from Wikipedia sent by David Sansoni of Sydney

“Historia de un Amor” (Spanish for “the story of a love”) is a song about a man’s old love written by Panamanian songwriter Carlos Eleta Almarán. It was written after the death of his brother’s wife. It is also part of the soundtrack of a 1956 Mexican film of the same name starring Libertad Lamarque. The song tells of a man’s suffering after his love has disappeared. It holds the world record as the most popular song to be translated and sung across the world in various languages by various singers from the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

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May 26, 2023 · 12:56 am

A Konkani Baila that Crosses the Indian Seas

This lively presentation was sent to me as a venture of “Batticaloa Burghers singing in three languages”. But digital commentary indicates that the words are (mostly?) Konkani … and raises questions as to where exactly this lively collective was located when they sang. SEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=munAPKRQ0nk So, that means we are definitely in Thuppahi territory! Ole! Ole! Hai Hoyi! ………. Thuppahi. 

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May 19, 2023 · 6:20 pm

Hashish, Heroin, Sea Cucumber & Migrants: Sri Lanka Navy’s Seizures Today

Items in The Island, 19 May 2023 ….

ONE: https://island.lk/navy-takes-hold-of-smuggled-dried-sea-cucumber-and-contraband-in-kalpitiya-seas/

A search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Navy off Sinnaarichchalai, Kalpitiya on Thursday night, led to the apprehension of 02 suspects with about 193kg of dried sea cucumber and several other contraband items which were being smuggled.

Among the recovered items were; about 193kg of dried sea cucumber, 33600 shampoo packets (6ml each), 198 balm vials (50g each), 1 A/C plant and 1 Voltage Stabilizer (230 V). The suspects, contraband items and the dinghy were taken into naval custody and were handed over to the Customs Preventive Office in Katunayake for onward legal action.

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May 16, 2023 · 3:48 pm

Gross & Oversimplfied Propaganda Lines in the Australian Press Today

X … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

In the Western world, we are taught to believe there are two worlds – a good world and a bad world. There is no in-between. The West is always on the side of good because, we are told, it has “values”, though we are never told what those values are. The word “values” could well relate to the values of colonialism, neocolonialism, liberalism, and exploitation of non-Western societies.  
Analyse this article by Matthew Knott in The Age

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May 12, 2023 · 8:38 pm

Bernard’s Odyssey in Sri Lanka: Further Marvels

Bernard Van Cuylenberg, whose chosen title is  “An Odyssey: The Search for Heritage, Part Two”

Nilaweli Beach in 2020 –Pix by one Mike Roberts

PROLOGUE: Saying “Goodbye” is never easy. The “Goodbyes” I bid to the Staff at Nilaveli Beach Hotel after a relaxed idyllic holiday following the first leg of my tour was hard. This was where I cut my teeth on life’s road and the ties that bind me to this Hotel were, and remain, very strong. But there was a long road ahead, a road I never travelled before. Travice Ondaatjie, whose late Dad Mr. George Ondaatjie was my Boss when I worked for Nilaveli Beach Hotels Limited drove up to Nilaveli on Friday the 24th and told me that on Sunday the 26th March we would leave for Passekudah, Arugam Bay and travel down the Eastern seaboard right down to the Lahuggala National Park in Amparai to visit the archaeological sites there, and then head for Wellawaya and finally to Colombo.

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May 4, 2023 · 11:06 pm

Australia is Now a Lapdog of USA & UK

Graham Hryce, in RTcom.news, 20 March 2023 where the title runs thus “The AUKUS deal confirms Australia’s complete dependence on the US and the UK” ….  Canberra is once again serving, and paying for, Washington and London’s regional ambitions.

Last week, amidst a great deal of pomp and ceremony at a San Diego, California naval base, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed off on the AUKUS submarine deal with the United States and the UK.

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April 18, 2023 · 5:46 pm

Artificial Intelligence: Humankind’s Master or Servant?

Chandre Dharmawardana, in The Island, 17 April 2023 , ….. whose preferred title is “The relevant and irrelevant fear of Artificial Intelligence”

The oracle-like power of the ‘large-language’ Chatbot named chatGPT  has frightened rational techies and mystic mullahs alike. Elon Musk, Steve Wozniac who co-founded  Apple Inc., historians like Yuval Harari,  and academics like the Turing-prize winner Yoshua Bengio of Montreal University called for a six-month pause for developing AI  beyond GPT-4, the latest technology released by OpenAI.

 

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April 2, 2023 · 5:35 pm

AUKUS becomes QuadAukus … and alarms “Raucous-Aucous”

NOTES from “Raucous-Aucous”

ONE: Aukus wins the Marx/Goebbels  Award for propaganda campaign of 2023…………..

Note.  A recent news item in The Australian revealed that plans are being made with Japan, India, UK, US and Australia to combine Quad and Aukus into one alliance – probably to be called QuadAukus.
There is also talk of NZ and the Philippines joining, or at least considering joining.

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April 2, 2023 · 1:09 am

Cricket & Galle in Rothman’s ‘Potted’ History of Sri Lanka

VIEW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNJyW-rdZPQ …. entitled “The Modern Origins of Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict”

4.87K subscribers

3,440 views Jan 4, 2023 GALLE

Sri Lanka’s civil war was one of the longest running in modern history. The conflict between the Sinhalese and the island’s Tamils was brutal and terrifying, yet its origins were surprisingly recent. This video examines the forces of populism and population that grew into the horrifying experience that still scars Sri Lanka today.

Sources: -A History of Sri Lanka, K. M. Silva de -Elephant Complex; Travels in Sri Lanka, John Gimlette -The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers, Gordon Weiss -The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History, Sanjeev Sanyal -This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War, Samanth Subramanian + Various news sources, especially The Economist 00:00 Intro 01:17 Buddhism under the British 01:40 Henry Steel Olcott and Spiritualism 03:10 Dharmapala 04:00 Hindu-Buddhist history 05:02 Other contributing factors 07:18 Cricket in Galle 13:24 Sunday evening in Galle 15:19 Sri Lanka since independence 17:49 1956 Official Language Act 19:22 Was it inevitable? 20:27 Going east 22:19

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March 30, 2023 · 1:14 pm

Guns Blazing! Obama on the American Warpath

X

Obama has been in Sydney and Melbourne this week wearing his dark cool shades, dazzling his many female followers, and giving speeches which earned him a couple of million dollars just enough to pay for breakfast at Tiffany’s. He was in Melbourne yesterday, picking up another million, while dazzling his audience with his analysis of the world. Yep, you got it. It was one of those “China is the bad boy – the US is the good boy” speeches.
 A NOTE from Thuppahi:
The highlightonh emphasis is my ntervntion …nad let me note that “X” resides in the ANZAC world of Australia-New Zealand and therefore has to secure (hopefully) his security.

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