Rex Clementine
Exactly 50 years ago to this day, Sri Lanka played their first ever international cricket match. It was the 1975 World Cup and it indeed was a baptism by fire; bowled out for 86 by West Indies.
Anura Tennekoon and Clive Lloyd at the toss.
Filed under life stories, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people
Alan Gardner in ESPNcricinfo, June 2025
England 188 for 6 (Buttler 96) beat West Indies 167 for 9 (Lewis 39, Dawson 4-20) by 21 runs
Filed under accountability, life stories
Prefatory Note by Michael Roberts in Adelaide, 7 June 2025
Brian Victoria was a colleague teaching Japanese in the Asian Studies Department when I moved to Adelaide Univerisity Anthropology in 1977; and we got to know each other at seminars and in faculty corridors. He moved abroad subsequently. While his expertise probably lies in political issues in the Pacific theatre, one of my brainwaves — rare nowadays — led me to seek his appraisal of the deadly, devastating and unholy conflicts occurring in recent years in Gaza, Palestine, Israel,and their surrounds (an issue piercing TPS because of a sharp division of opinion between two of my friends, David Schokman and Arlen van Der Wall).
A Note from Errol Fernando, early June 2025 **
Dear Michael, I listened to a very interesting interview on Late Night Live recently which dealt with the whole story of Merle Oberon and her genealogy. Please google Late Night Live and listen to this interview which tells you about her Sri Lankan mother, her efforts to hide her ethnicity, pretending that she was born in Tasmania, etc, etc.
The Wikipedia Disclosures …. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merle_Oberon
Merle Oberon with Laurence Olivier in in Wuthering Heights (1939)
Merle Oberon (born Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson; 19 February 1911 – 23 November 1979) was a British actress. She began her acting career in British cinema in the early 1930s, with a breakout role in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). She later moved to Hollywood, where she became an international star, earning acclaim for films such as The Dark Angel (1935), Wuthering Heights (1939), and That Uncertain Feeling (1941). Her career spanned from the 1920s to the 1970s, primarily in English-language films produced in the UK and the U.S. Her performance as Kitty Vane in The Dark Angel earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
An Item passed on by Jayantha Somasundaram of Canberra, June 2025 … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Merle Oberon (born Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson; 19 February 1911 – 23 November 1979) was raised as the daughter of Arthur Terrence O’Brien Thompson, a Welsh mechanical engineer from Darlington who worked in Indian Railways, and his wife, Charlotte Selby (whose full name was Constance Charlotte Thompson, according to her 1937 obituary), who was born in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and was a Burgher from British Ceylon.
Filed under historical interpretation, life stories, unusual people
Abbi Kanthasamy, … an item circulated by Charles Schokman of Australia, early June 2025, with this title “A Beacon Amidst the Bleeding: What Jaffna’s Doctors Taught Me About Life”
Dr Samuel Fiske GreenHarvard 2025 Graduation Speech: Chinese Student Yurong Jiang on Humanity and Shared Future …. https://youtu.be/6hoIEBv486E …
30 May 2025 …. At Harvard University’s 2025 graduation ceremony, Chinese graduate Yurong Jiang [delivered] a powerful message on global unity. Emphasizing that “humanity is a community with a shared future,” she reminds us that even those labeled as enemies are still human beings. Her words call for empathy, understanding, and a rethinking of division in our world.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES – APRIL 22: Views of Harvard University, an Ivy League University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. Harvard University sued the Trump administration on Monday after the federal government said it was freezing $2.2 billion in grants and sought what university officials described as ‘unprecedented and improper’ control over the Ivy League institution. ‘The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting,’ Harvard President Alan Garber said in a message Monday announcing the lawsuit. Last week, the Trump administration announced that it was freezing federal funding after the school refused to accept demands that the administration has said aim to address antisemitism on campus. Among the government’s demands were an audit of student body views and a ban on international students who are “hostile to the American values and institutions.” In Monday’s suit, the university argued that the funding freeze is not related to the administration’s antisemitism concerns. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A Film Documentary on the Kannagi – Pattini cult in Sri Lanka will be prsented at the Goethe Insitutute on the $th June eveningat 6.30 pm ….
This event is part of a series of initiatives marking the conclusion of the Strengthening Social Cohesion and Peace in Sri Lanka (SCOPE) programme, co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Foreign Office. The event will also be a part of the Film Forum at Goethe-Institut.
thuppahi
