Mary Rodgers: Broadway Baby

Daniel Okrent, in The New York Times, 5 August 2022, where the title  is  “Broadway Baby: The Astonishing Autobiography of Mary Rodgers” by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green

Mary Rodgers with her father, Richard, in 1959, the year “Once Upon a Mattress” opened on Broadway. Credit: Photofest

Let’s start with a full disclosure: I’m a sucker for Broadway — one of those theater fans who will see five different productions of the same show, who genuflect before cast albums from the ’50s, who inhale theater gossip as if it really mattered.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, gender norms, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, self-reflexivity, unusual people, world events & processes

Defections from Lanka: Commonwealth Games Athletes and SL Navymen in USA

Item in Sunday Times, 7 August 2022 …/ taken from AFP and sent to me by Jayantha Somasundaram of Canbera

It is no secret that these days Sri Lankans are trying all sorts of ways to leave the country whether legally or illegally as the economic crisis drags on. The latest is a group of nine Navy sailors who reportedly jumped ship in the US.

The 50-member crew was to join the world’s largest international naval exercise — RIMPAC 2022. Following the exercise, they were scheduled to organise return passage home in a new Sri Lankan Navy vessel, the former USCGC Douglas Munro, which was recently decommissioned and transferred to Sri Lanka under a foreign military aid agreement.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, immigration, island economy, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

Leopard in House! Life in Lindula, Sri Lanka!

ITEM in Newswire.lk,  …….. & Daily Mirror (?) https://www.newswire.lk/2022/08/05/leopard-falls-into-house-rescued-after-16-hrs-video/

A leopard has accidentally fallen into a house breaking through the roof in the Logi Estate Division in Lindula.  According to the owner of the house, the incident had occurred at around 10.30 last night.

…….. regretfully the video does not reproduce here ….BUT note https://www.leopardsafari.com/leopards-in-sri-lanka/human-and-leopard-conflict-in-sri-lanka.html#:~:text=Human%20%26%20Leopard%20Conflict%20in%20Sri%20Lanka&text=The%20leopard%20-%20human%20conflict%20is,intrusions%20in%20attacking%20domesticat

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under landscape wondrous, life stories, security, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, trauma, wild life

Australian Women best Indians to win Commonwealth Cup

Valkerie Banes in ESPNCricinfo, 9 August 2022, where the title reads  “The new ‘Invincibles’ add more glory to their extraordinary era”

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/aus-vs-ind-cwg-2022-australias-new-invincibles-add-more-glory-to-their-extraordinary-era-1328262

It might just be official, Australia are invincible.
Even when they seemed cursed, the all-conquering Australian Women’s cricket team added the first Commonwealth Games gold medal for their sport to the T20I and ODI World Cups already in their collection with a pulsating nine-run win against India at Edgbaston on Sunday.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Australian culture, australian media, cricket for amity, female empowerment, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, photography, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, world events & processes

Facing Vengeance & Hate: Some Internet Expositions

Pirapaharan with automatic weapon & Kittu & Prabha in relaxed mood in camp

*  Michael Roberts: “Addressing Two Angry Tamils,” 9 March 2012, https://thuppahis.com/2012/03/09/addressing-two-angry-tamils-heat-distortion-truth-fact-mendacity-and-eternal-enmity/

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, atrocities, communal relations, disparagement, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, law of armed conflict, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, social justice, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry

Asylum Seeker Boats: Australia Aids SL Navy’s ‘Arrests’

Ben Packham in The Australian, Monday  8 August 2022, where the title reads “Secret Sri Lankan Fuel Deal keeps Patrol Boats on Water” .. . with highlighting emphasia being the work of The Editor, Thuppahi

Sri Lankan patrol boats are back on the water deterring would-be people smuggling voyages following a secret deal with Australia to supply the country’s navy with tens of millions of dollars worth of fuel.

 

The Republic of Sri Lanka Navy Ship “Oshadi”

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, australian media, centre-periphery relations, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, legal issues, life stories, people smugglers, politIcal discourse, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, trauma, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

Holocaust Tales in Thuppahi

 April 14, 1945 – Pile of ashes and bones found by U.S. soldiers at Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

 

April 12, 1945 – Dwight D. Eisenhower views the charred bodies of prisoners at Ohrdruf concentration camp.

 Cameron Stewart: The Maisel Twins: Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust reach Their 100th Birthday,” 7 August 2022, https://thuppahis.com/2022/08/07/the-maisel-twins-polish-jews-who-survived-the-holocaust-reach-their-100th-birthday/ Continue reading

2 Comments

Filed under accountability, anti-racism, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, ethnicity, European history, governance, historical interpretation, Hitler, human rights, life stories, martyrdom, meditations, politIcal discourse, power sharing, racism, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, trauma, world events & processes, World War II, zealotry

The Maisel Twins: Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust reach Their 100th Birthday

Cameron Stewart in  Weekend Australian,  6-7 August 2022, where the title runs thus  Holocaust twins turning 100 are living proof miracles happen” …

Phillip Maisel says he has enjoyed two miracles in his life. The first was during the war when both he and his twin sister Bella survived the Nazi extermination camps of the Holocaust. The second was in Melbourne this week, when they both turned 100.

The twins as children in Poland before the war…. and now …The secret is staying positive’ … twins and Nazi extermination camp survivors Bella Hirshorn and Phillip Maisel get to celebrate their 100th birthday twice in Melbourne. Picture: Aaron Francis

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, anti-racism, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, heritage, historical interpretation, Hitler, landscape wondrous, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, racism, refugees, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, trauma, travelogue, unusual people, war reportage, world events & processes

Merril Fernando and Dilmah Tea: What A Stirring Story!

Tea mogul Merrill J. Fernando: ‘I owe everything to Australian consumers’.”  …. SEE “Straight Lefs from the Dilmah Tea Missionary” by Benjamin Law, in The Age, 13 June 2020, https://thuppahis.com/2020/06/17/straight-lefts-from-the-dilmah-tea-missionary-merrill-fernando/

ALSO

ALSO   Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, cultural transmission, economic processes, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

Challenging the Tamil Genocide Education Week Act aka TGEWA

“TGEWA” refers to the Tamil Genocide Education Week Act and Professor Chandra Dharmawardena in Montreal has sent this Memo re the progress of a legal challenge mounted against it via funds collected publicly … with Scott Fairley and Nicolas Rouleau as  lead counsels. This is both a report and an appeal for monetary contributions toeards this process.

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, ethnicity, historical interpretation, life stories, LTTE, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes