Katia Hetter and the CNN Travel Team, CNN • Updated 7th January 2020
CNN Travel’s 20 best places to visit in 2020 = https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/places-to-visit-2020/index.html
Lush Travel Destinations: Some of CNN’s Top Twenty for 2020
When Vengeance drives Human Rights Recrimination on the World Stage: The Ban Ki-moon Story
Michael Roberts
As the annual witch-hunt directed at Sri Lanka from the UNHRC at Geneva looms, we can benefit from recalling the role of the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, in this pantomime. Ban Ki-moon is a South Korean who has been identified as “a lackey” of USA in the same category as Kofi Annan by the Canadian activist Chris Black in an email communication on 20th January 2020. Ban Ki-moon and the UN Rehabilitation Commissioner, Navy Pillai were behind the selection of Marzuki, Sooka and Ratner to man the UN Panel of Investigation whose report has served as the foundation for the campaign mounted by the UNHCR offices in Geneva to hound Sri Lanka for human rights abuses.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (r) is greeted by IDPs (Internaly Displaced Percons) as he visits Manik Farm in Sri Lanka on May 23, 2009.
AFP PHOTO/JOE KLAMAR (/AFP/Getty Images)
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, doctoring evidence, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, military strategy, power politics, prabhakaran, security, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil Tiger fighters, transport and communications, trauma, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry
Yamuna Sangarasivam: Teaching Dance and Her Dance with Michael Jackson
Julia Smith: “Michael Jackson and the Anthropology of Dance,” …… https://www2.naz.edu/dept/sociology-anthropology/faculty-and-staff/yamuna-sangarasivam/
Yamuna on right with a student
How did Yamuna Sangarasivam get a chance to dance with Michael Jackson in his iconic “Black or White” video — which premiered in 27 countries to an audience of 500 million?
Although she was a huge fan of the King of Pop, she never imagined that she would meet him, let alone dance a duet with him in one of his music videos! She heard of Jackson’s call for ethnic and modern dancers and auditioned — along with more than 3,000 others — because the amazing opportunity blended her passions for the anthropology of music and the anthropology of dance with her expertise in Odissi dance (classical dance tradition of Orissa, India).
Filed under art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, female empowerment, heritage, Indian traditions, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, performance, self-reflexivity, Tamil migration, teaching profession, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Stanley Jayaweera as Sturdy Administrator & Diplomat – A Vale from a Son
Rajeewa Jayaweera, in Sunday Island, 2 February 2020, where the title runs – “A bygone era diplomat of perspicacity. A third-year remembrance of my father”
‘If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch’ – Rudyard Kipling
My father, Stanley Robert Jayaweera (SJ), passed away on February 4, 2017, four months short of his 90th birthday. Over the last couple of years, I have penned several articles of his work, besides one in May 2017, of the different phases in our father-son relationship. This article would be the last. As memories begin to fade, they too need to be reposed.
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, education, foreign policy, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, life stories, modernity & modernization, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Jehan Perera evaluates New President’s Cautious Approach
Jehan Perera, in Island, 28 January 2020, where the title is “Adopt a problem solving approach for the north”
Contrary to expectations the government is treading a cautious path with regard to past commitments on controversial matters made by the previous government. This may be disappointing to its more nationalist supporters. They might have expected an immediate change of approach and rescinding of agreements they see as unfair or not in the national interest. In the run up to the presidential election campaign, the present government’s front line campaigners claimed that the MCC grant of USD 450 million by the US government that had just received cabinet approval would endanger the country’s national security. Members of the government and their nationalist supporters were emphatic in saying that the former government had betrayed the country. This effectively sank any prospect of election victory that the former government’s presidential candidate may have had.
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, communal relations, constitutional amendments, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, legal issues, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, reconciliation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, world events & processes
Today’s Bureaucratic Subservience in Sri Lanka: The Tale of Its Emergence and Entrenchment
H. L. Seneviratne reviewing Your Obedient Servant: The Fate of the Bureaucrat in Sri Lanka by Suren Sumithraarachchi, Sarasavi Publishers 2019 …. Courtesy of Colombo Telegraph = https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/book-review-politics-the-bureaucracy/
This book deals with the higher bureaucracy in Sri Lanka, and its focus is bureaucratic behavior. It is about local bureaucrats, not those of British origin — bureaucrats who historically inhabited the bureaucratic terrain with decreasing density as colonial rule waned. It considers loyalty to a set of rules, rather than to a person, the marker of ideal bureaucratic behavior, one that the vocabulary of sociology calls “rational-legal”.
Filed under accountability, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, education, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, language policies, life stories, modernity & modernization, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Gota’s Assets placed in the Present Political Context
H. L. D. Mahindapala, in Colombo Telegraph, January 2020, where the title is
Any critical assessment of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa must take into consideration the salient characteristics that make him stand out from the run-of-the-mill politicians who had occupied the peaks of power.
The first notable characteristic is that he is the first head of state to come from the Sri Lankan diaspora. Initially it was a disadvantage tangled in legalities of citizenship. Later it smoothened out and has been an invaluable asset to him. His existential experiences as an expat in America had widened his horizons and opened up new vistas in his thinking and strategizing. He has acted so far as a leader who had seen the future and is bent on taking the nation in that direction. It has all the signs of being influenced by the American efficiency in delivering goods and services. The new breed of intellectuals he had recruited to run his state indicates clearly that he is in a hurry to modernise the sluggish nation and usher it into the 21st century. His first-hand knowledge of an advanced nation would hasten him to mix tradition with modernity without deracinating the nation – a critical issue in modernising Afro-Asian countries.
Filed under american imperialism, communal relations, economic processes, electoral structures, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, Presidential elections, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, unusual people, world events & processes
Sri Lanka enters CNN List of Best Travel Destinations for 2020
VISIT https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/places-to-visit-2020/index.html
The South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka is as ancient as it is beautiful; as complex a civilization now as at any time in its 2,000-year history. Despite recent tumult (the horrific terror attacks last Easter), Sri Lanka remains an essential destination, an epicenter of history, with relics and ruins, temples and palaces, wildlife running free.
The ancient city of Polonnaruwa, which was Sri Lanka’s capital in the 12th century is a UNESCO Heritage site…. Jorge Fernández/LightRocket/Getty Images
Striking Shapes …. Curious ‘Arrangements’
God’s Willing Palm
Filed under heritage, landscape wondrous
A Roaring Fire ravages the Southern Ocean Lodge and a Good Part of Kangaroo Island
Roy Ecclestone, in SAWeekend, 17 January 2020, ….”Trapped in a bunker and hoping for a miracle: The destruction of Southern Ocean Lodge” ……..
It was after the firestorm swept over Southern Ocean Lodge for the fourth time that one of the staff decided it was time to leave the concrete bunker beneath the world-renowned Kanga roo Island hotel.“We can go out now,” the man said, sure the danger must finally have passed. But John Hird, the lodge’s general manager, was having none of it. “No, no – you’re staying for two hours,” he insisted, sticking to their fire plan. And just then, the inferno struck again.
Southern Ocean Lodge before the fire.
