No Groundwork, No Critical Thinking. A Dilettante Thinker’s Foray into Sri Lanka

Padraig Colman, courtesy of his web site where the title is “The Numbers Game and Critical Thinking.” …… This presentation is embellished by hyperlinks and emphases in red or purple added by the Thuppahi Editor –who has also added a Select Bibliography , one which incorporates several of Padraig Colman’s essays as well as the References deployed by the Editor (Roberts) in his blog comments on Kenan Malik’s essay in the latter’s web site …. https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/in-the-haunting-light-of-jaffna/#comment-16635

  Kenan-Malik-speaker-web-1 Kenan Malik –Pic from oslofreedomforum.com padraig colman

Critical Thinking and Ethics: I have long gained deep intellectual satisfaction from the application of critical thinking. Critical thinking has been defined as “the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skilfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.”[1] Continue reading

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Mind-Blowing Revelations about US-UN Machinations: von Sponeck in Q and A with Silvia Cattori in 2007

 

Courtesy of Reseau Voltaire, 24 March 2007 … http://www.globalresearch.ca/united-nations-complicity-in-war-crimes/5170

Silvia CattoriSilvia Cattori Hans Christof von Sponeck Hans Christof von Sponeck

For Hans Christof von Sponeck, the former assistant secretary-general of the UN, the United Nations, far from guarding the respect for international law and the consolidation of peace, have themselves become a factor of injustice. Thus, the sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq caused a human disaster, whereas treaties such as the nuclear non-proliferation treaty are used to ensure the domination of certain powers and to threaten others. It is time to change the system completely.  23 March 2007

Hans-Christof von Sponeck Count Hans-Christof von Sponeck, born in Bremen in 1939, has been working for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for 32 years. Appointed by Kofi Annan in 1998 as United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, with the status of UN Assistant to the Secretary General, Mr. von Sponeck resigned in March 2000 in protest against the sanctions, which had led the Iraqi people to misery and starvation. It is with sorrow and bitterness that he speaks about the sufferings endured by the Iraqis, a people he knew well and learned to love, and he appeals to the political leaders responsible for the catastrophe in a moving interview he gave to Silvia Cattori. Continue reading

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Once in a Blue Moon over Byron Bay in Australia

On the 31st of July, this beautiful time-lapse rise of the Full Blue Moon was captured 2 ½ miles away from Cape Byron Lighthouse, on Belongil Beach, Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia. The head land and lighthouse at Byron Bay is the most easterly point of the Australian Mainland and therefor is the first place in Australia to watch the full moon rise. This video is made up of 1038 frames and slowed down to as close to real time as possible. The photographer has been working on perfecting this type of time lapse for over a year now after seeing the work of his favorite photographer Mark Gee. 

Don’t forget to breathe watching this majestic time-lapse; everything about it is just perfect, and it’s a photography clinic for anyone interested in taking time-lapse. See this stunning moonrise and appreciate just how beautiful God’s work can be. 

 Probably The Most Beautiful Moonrise Time-Lapse You’ll Ever See

 * Photography by Luke Taylor of the Australian Surf Life Association

* Music was created by the talented, Award Winning Pianist – JESSICA ROEMISCHER. You can listen to more of her wonderful music at:pianobeautiful.com and download the soundtrack here: 

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Geoffrey Bawa: An Inspirational Icon in the Architectural Field

Carly Minsky, 27 January 2016, where the title is: The Father of Sri Lankan Architecture”

BAWA Geoffrey BawaCourtesy of Geoffrey Bawa Trust

In a country that has been colonized by the Dutch and the British, ravaged by civil war and devastated by natural disaster, one man has had the single greatest impact on independent Sri Lanka’s landscape: Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka’s most prolific and important architect. Carly Minsky explores his life and work. Continue reading

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Sri Lanka as Eye-Supplier: Its Story

Ross Velton, BBC news, 1 February 2016, atwhere the title is “The country that supplies eyes”

To restore sight to damaged eyes, doctors often need to transplant the cornea – the transparent covering of the iris and the pupil – from a donor’s dead body. There is a worldwide shortage, but one country, Sri Lanka, is doing its best to satisfy demand, without seeking any reward – at least in this life. Bandages cover Paramon Malingam’s right eye. A tear appears in the left one. It is the relief of a very lucky man. “I thought I was going to live the rest of my life with one eye,” he says. Thirteen years ago, Malingam, a shop owner from central Sri Lanka, cut his eye with steel wire. Last year, he injured the same eye with a piece of wood. After both accidents, a new cornea from a donor saved his sight. EYES Continue reading

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A Denunciation of American Aggression against China

Christopher_BlackChristopher Black , courtesy of New Eastern Outlook, 7 February 2016, .where the title is “American Aggression against China,”  ….  http://journal-neo.org/2016/02/07/american-aggression-against-china/… **

On January 30th the United States committed a deliberate act of aggression against China when it sent the guided missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur within the 12 nautical mile territorial limit of one of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. The islands are claimed historically by China, though Vietnam also has filed claims to the islands under the Law of the Sea Convention. The Americans state that Taiwan also claims the islands but since Taiwan is just a province of China I will ignore that claim here.

1=US NAVY Continue reading

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Crunched In-Between the Sinha-Le Activists and the Self-Righteous International Cabal

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, 9 February 2016, where the title is  “Near and Explosive Danger. The Sinha-Lē Campaign and Those Crusading Righteous” … and where the Footnotes could not be inserted for technical reasons … and where you will find the usual array of caustic comments**

I recently received (unsolicited) a series of images presenting striking scenes of the Sinha-Lē protests against the denigration of Sri Lanka and the threats (imagined and real) looming over the island from the pressures of the (so-called) “international community.” These demonstrations intertwine with the emergence of a front dedicated to “the defence of the motherland,” namely the mawbima suräkīmu organization, which has its very own web site where an evocative line from a poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller is deployed to back this clarion call: “it does not matter as to what race, creed, color or religion you belong to — it is your bounden duty to protect our Motherland with all the sinews in your body.”

aa=Sinha-Le sticker Continue reading

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Ramifications of War Crimes Pursuits in Sri Lanka

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Two days ago the national anthem was sung in Tamil for the first time at the official celebration of independence day since independence in 1948. Six years ago the government’s own regional director for education in the Tamil north, Markandu Sivalingam, was assassinated by “unidentified”gunmen for disagreeing with President Rajapaksa’s directive to ban the singing of the national anthem in Tamil at official functions.United Nation’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid, who is in Sri Lankatoday, must welcome the transformation this signals in Sri Lanka’s politics in just over a year with President Sirisena’s election. Continue reading

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OHCHR: An UN Bureaucratic Arm that is USA’s Sword

TAMARATamara Kunanayakam, in The Island, 8 February 2016, where the title is Sri Lanka, not Sri Lankans, the OHCHR agenda

It should by now be obvious to any keen observer of events in Geneva and vacillations of Sri Lanka’s ruling class that the ‘human rights’ game being played out has little to do with the Sri Lankan people and everything to do with the island’s strategic location on the Indian Ocean as vital maritime link between a declining West and a rising East, with China at its centre, and strategic observation post, and with Washington’s fundamental commitment to maintaining a unipolar world in which it has no peer competitor. Sri Lankans matter only insofar as they constitute obstacles to that goal, or would-be collaborators, or opportune victims to be used and abused as and when strategy requires. Continue reading

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Elmo Jayawardena’s Searing Criticism of Mega-Projects and Political Currents

elmojawardena 11Capt Elmo Jayawardena

Recently I read in the Sunday Times that four Domestic Airports currently under the Airforce management will be handed over to the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL.)  This prompted me to write something about airports. The intention is to share what little I know about these matters with my fellow Sri Lankans whose money is what pays for all the decisions that are made, airports and otherwise. Like the time when all roads led to Rome, nowadays all decisions come down from Diyawanna Oya. Continue reading

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