Life-threats as Possible Prospect for Sri Lankan Cricketers at IPL

Michael Roberts

PART ONE: A gnawing fear resides today in my guts. I fear that one or more of the Sri Lanka cricketers at the IPL matches in India will end up maimed or dead. This is an imminent and distinct possibility – a slim one I admit, but not wholly fanciful.  I earnestly wish I am wrong; but I think that either a lone ranger or a clique of Tamil zealots is quite capable of carrying out such an attack in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi or Calcutta. Security precautions can go only so far. Individual cricketers are highly vulnerable. Continue reading

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A Bawdy Tale … Fifty Shades of Grey

Anonymous of course … and directed at gents of a certain age … and all readers who are  mentally constipated

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY – (a husbands point of view)

The missus bought a Paperback,
down Shepton Mallet way,

I had a look inside her bag;

   …  T’was “fifty shades of grey”

  Well I just left her to it,

    And at ten I went to bed.

     An hour later she appeared;

    The sight filled me with dread…

          In her left she held a rope;

          And in her right a whip!

          She threw them down upon the floor,

          And then began to strip..

          Well fifty years or so ago;

          I might have had a peek;

          But Mabel hasn’t weathered well;

          She’s eighty four next week!!

          Watching Mabel bump and grind;

          Could not have been much grimmer.

          And things then went from bad to worse;

          She toppled off her Zimmer!

          She struggled back upon her feet;

          A couple minutes later;

          She put her teeth back in and said

          I am a dominater !!

          Now if you knew our Mabel,

          You’d see just why I spluttered,

          I’d spent two months in traction

          For the last complaint I’d uttered.

          She stood there nude and naked

          Bent forward just a bit

          I went to hold her, sensual like

          and stood on her left t*t!

          Mabel screamed, her teeth shot out;

          My god what had I done!?

          She moaned and groaned then shouted out:

          “Step on the other one”!!

          Well readers, I can’t tell no more;

          About what occurred that day.

          Suffice to say my jet black hair,

          Turned fifty shades of grey.

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The Politics of the Sri Lankan Tamil Cause in Tamil Nadu: A critical view from across the waters

Anonymous in http://kafila.org/2013/04/01/of-imagined-solidarities-and-real-fears-the-politics-of-the-sri-lankan-tamil-cause-in-tamil-nadu-a-critical-view-from-across-the-waters-by-anonymous/

When elephants fight it is the grass that suffers, so goes an old Kenyan proverb. In the maelstrom of political hysteria unleashed by Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi ostensibly in aid of Sri Lankan Tamils, democracy, truth and solidarity have been the biggest casualties. Over the past few months, Tamil Nadu has witnessed attacks on Sri Lankan Buddhist monks and Christian pilgrims, and the government sanctioned blockade of Sri Lankan schoolchildren and sportspersons.

The latest salvo from Chennai regarding Sri Lanka is the Tamil Nadu assembly resolution calling upon India to press for a United Nations Security Council mandated referendum amongst Tamils living in Sri Lanka as well as Tamils of Sri Lankan origin in other countries on the question of carving out an independent Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. This is in addition to demands to declare Sri Lanka a ‘hostile state’, impose some form of sanctions etc.

However, is this the ‘solidarity’ and ‘support’ Tamils in Sri Lanka, in whose name all this is being done, really want and will gain from? On doing so, in Sri Lanka at least, one would find many different and perhaps even some conflicting answers. For example, the fishing community in Sri Lanka’s north and west, around Jaffna and Mannar will tell you just the kind of solidarity they would really appreciate—stop those large Indian trawlers from regularly raiding the Palk Bay deep in Sri Lanka damaging the area’s marine ecology and the livelihoods of Sri Lankan Tamil fishing communities. Yes, the Sri Lankan Navy has attacked Indian fisherfolk on many occasions but along the Jaffna and Mannar coasts there is actually a perception that the Sri Lankan Navy is not policing the maritime boundary strongly enough. Continue reading

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Twenty Väddas and Thuppahies deported to Sri Lanka from Australia?

Michael Roberts

AUSSIES CHECK A-S Hon Brendan O'ConnorAt a press conference today in Perth the Immigration Minister, Brendan O’Connor, announced that 20 (twenty) “Sri Lankans” had been placed on a plane and deported back to Sri Lanka. This despatch meant that a total of 963 “Sri Lankans” had been sent back to Sri Lanka since August 2012, for the most part “involuntarily.” This  would, said O’Connor, send a clear message to would-be asylum seekers and people smugglers. It would save people from “dangerous journeys.”

None of the media personnel asked O’Connor for an ethnic breakdown of the 20 or 963 deportees or questioned the premise of inevitably dangerous voyages. So much for acumen and background nous. For my part speaking as a Thuppahi [mongrel], I wondered if all TWENTY were either Väddas orThuppahi. That would please me no end. Sri Lanka needs more thuppahi in order to reduce the scourge of Sinhala extremism and Tamil extremism. The pukka Burghers left long ago so that problem no longer exists as a major force. Continue reading

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Virulent Shameless People! Cry OUR Beloved Country!

David Blacker … courtesy of http://blacklightarrow.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/our-moment-of-destiny/ where the title is “Our Moment of Destiny”

gnanasara--621x414- DAVID B's Gnanasara Thera of BBS in full flow

I think every generation faces its own particular challenges; but the greatest and most defining ones are those of morality and courage. That moment, if missed, condemns that generation — and often many that follow — to a world far more unpleasant and evil than we would wish it to be. For many in the free world of the late 1930s, that moment came with the invasion of Poland and the bombing of Pearl Harbour. It was a moment when my grandfather’s generation had to decide if they would simply stand on the sidelines or go out and fight someone else’s cause. Fortunately for them, the choice was easy; their respective governments took the right fork, and millions of young men — my grandfather included — went out into the deserts, the jungles, and across the seas to ensure that tyranny and racism would not shape our world. For 1960s America, the moment of destiny was in fact a place — Vietnam — and a moral choice. America made its decision, albeit a little late for millions of Vietnamese. Continue reading

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Poles Apart! Yet so Alike!

DSC_0088  Pongu Thamil oath of loyalty to Thamililam [EELAM] at Trincomalee in ceasefire period circa 2006   BBS OATH Budu Bala Sena c0mmitment of faith today

Are these people peas of the same pod yet at opposite poles and part of the processes that have been thus tearing Sri Lanka apart by aiding in the reproduction of each other! Continue reading

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A Missing Person in Sri Lanka: Heartfelt Issues & Ground Realities

Michael Roberts, Courtesy of Groundviews, where it appeared on Wednesday last

WOMEN MISSING KINWhen I was in Sri Lanka from mid-April to early June 2009 I was on holiday with my wife and not able to pursue investigations in any depth. In contrast my sojourn in May-June 2010 focused on a range of studies and travels. One gem of a life-story surfaced near my second home in Wellawatte when I was able to chat with a domestic servant at a Tamil house nearby, a lady who had been through the crucible of Eelam War in the Vanni Pocket. I shall call her Sambandhi. She was a wizened wiry soul who had survived the war together with husband, but (1) had one daughter killed by shrapnel; (2) one son (who was then aged c. 21) hospitalized in mid-2009 with the loss of one eye and injuries to face and other eye;[1] and (3) was wracked with pain because one of her sons had been conscripted by the LTTE and was missing. Khimera is the pseudonym I shall place on this son, a young man born in 1983 and aged circa 26 in 2009. Continue reading

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The Investiture of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Evangeline Kanagasooriam

ACNS staff

EVNAGELINE KANAGA SOORIYAThe Most Revd Justin Welby was today enthroned as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury in a service that celebrated the diversity of the Anglican Communion. More than 2,000 people from around the world gathered in Canterbury Cathedral for a celebration marked by traditional elements of Anglican worship blended with contemporary music, vibrant Ghanaian dancing and African drums, a Punjabi hymn and a blessing spoken in French.

Guests included clergy from across the Church of England; and lay people including the UK’s Prince of Wales and Prime Minister David Cameron. A host of ecumenical guests were present including well-known US megachurch pastor and author Rick Warren, a friend of Archbishop Welby. All but one of the Anglican Communion Primates had travelled to Canterbury for the inauguration and the members of the Standing Committee were also present. The event saw the Archbishop installed as both Bishop of Canterbury—by, for the first time in history, a female Archdeacon—and Primate of All England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is also the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Continue reading

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Unusual Pictorials on Water, Coast and Land

Wonderman  Wonderman- walking on water at Punyelroo – on the Murray Pic by Alan Marriage

Pelican Pelican flotilla- Pic by Alan Marriage Continue reading

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Prisoners of the Past — says Dayan Jayatilleka

Elmo Jayawardane, reviewing Dayan Jayatilleka: Long War, Cold Peace

DAYAN J in mountainsDr. Dayan Jayatilleka has not stopped at merely hitting the nail on the head; he’s gone a lot deeper! The man has taken a Black and Decker and drilled the skull of the reader and carefully pushed in 498 pages of faction and action (shameful and laudable) that relate to our “Long War” of almost three decades.

It is a timely publication too. The International Tambourine Men gathered in Geneva flaunting their lily white innocence in attempts to barbecue us. At least, we the ordinary habitants of this land should know how the cookie crumbled while we suffered the consequences of divisibility for thirty grisly years. Of course the ‘mea culpa’ rests with none other than the leadership. They festered the wound of ethnic divide and titillated political maggots that nearly annihilated us as a nation. We need to know some truths that have been gagged and swept under the carpets by both sides, ably assisted by the good Samaritans who sat on the third seat preaching negotiated peace. ‘Long War, Cold Peace’ is the answer. Dr. Dayan is punching hard, in a ring where he knows the rules, and he is not holding anything back. There is a good possibility that the book may take him to the mouth of a long menacing serpent in the political game of ‘Snakes and Ladders.” But then, with his historically valuable contribution in ‘Long war, Cold peace’, he will walk tall among people who really matter.  Continue reading

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