[TamilNet, Monday, 07 July 2008, 01:00 GMT]TamilNet: News in BriefSri Lankan Tamil Actress faces Sinhala ThuggarySri Lankan Tamil Actress Anarkalli Aakarssha had been kidnapped and forced to marry Sinhala GoSL thug and Western Provincial Councilor Dumi…
Pioneer has developed an optical disc that can hold up to 400GB of data, easily surpassing previously announced prototypes (see “A battle brews between blue-laser optical disk and tape”).The new disc manages to pack 16 layers, each with a 25GB capacity…
Met some friends for dinner at the Golden Mile on Friday. Food was quite good, prices fairly reasonable and the atmosphere good, enlivened by a private party taking place at the restaurant.One of the people remarked that he had met an old school mate a…
I decided to write this post after I came across Eranda's post (http://www.antharjalaya.com/share-market-suckz-lets-buy-euros-and-sell-dollars/). I have had some investments in share market in SL (and 'had' being the key word) and for some time now I've been interested in the forex markets. This post is written to act as an introductory post for the people (especially from SL) who are interested in investing in foreign currency.
Watch me as I now proceed to become very unpopular with this righteous broom allegedly stuck up my nether region.This post goes out to all the boozers, smokers, weedheads and druggies out there. Why do you do what you do? That’s more of a question born…
Early this month I put up lkgeeks.org a Blog Aggregator for Sri Lankan FOSS/geek Blogs. This site is not intended to compete with other Sri Lankan Blog Aggregators but its goal is to let everyone read Blog posts only from the Blogs of FOSS/geek Bloggers. I'm a fan of Kottu, but it consists of Blogs from various categories and its too crowded. Its difficult to filter out Blogs that sounds more technical. So that kinda influenced me to start this site.
If you fall into the category of a SriLankan FOSS/geek Blogger send me the URL of your blog to nazly dot ahmed at gmail dot com. There is a review process and once its approved it will be added to lkgeeks.org.
ඔව්, ශ්රි ලාංකික ඔබට නුදුරු දිනකදි ඔබට ඉහත ආකාරයේ URL එකක් ලබා ගත හැකිවනු ඇත.දැනට භාවිතා වන .lk වෙනු…
Revisions Add to Islamic Moderation * Interview with Rafiq Habib …
By …
Yeah. I did. Really
Last Saaturday, La, Chabdrika and I watched Prince Caspian, and then went off to MC to watch The Incredible Hulk. Maybe I shouldn’t have had multiple beers on an empty stomach, but I felt sober enough.
The next thing I remember wa…
[TamilNet, Monday, 07 July 2008, 01:00 GMT]LTTE’s TNA MP Shivajilingam Victim of VERBAL GENOCIDE in Australia LTTE’s Loyal and Faithful Dog of Tamil National Alliance MP N. Shivajilingam found himself in serious difficulty when he faced a b…
අලුත උපන් දරුවන්ට නම් තැබීමේදී, ගණය ද සලකන බව පෙනේ. ඔබේ නමේ ගණය කුමක්දැයි දන්නවා ද?
කෙටි අකුරු ලු…
Partner Customization Pack for Office Accounting 2008 provides a guide on how you can create a customized version of Microsoft Office Accounting that includes your company brand and exposes your products and services to your customers. Without writing …
One of the persons who read my blog contacted me a few months ago and so when he came to Sri Lanka he wanted to visit me. It so happened that when he called on Thursday, the 3rd I was in Ratmale, and I invited him to visit on Friday the next day and su…
NicoleSherranYahrenAvineshA Jovial Man Whose Name I Know Not
203 Sri Lanka Army soldiers who completed training in the commando training center in Kuda Oya graduated today (7th). Revamped commando training now includes training in deep battle space operations in addition to the regular courses. The new additions…
She seems so poetic,
He doesn’t know why,
Her hair like the dark clouds,
Upon a rain soaked night sky.
The stars they twinkle within,
Glimmering upon her skin.
Her smooth, soft insides,
Turning me mad with desire.
Her words of a turn…
In the last three to four weeks, I’ve seen a lot of rejection happening by (or to) people around me. It genuinely feels like the season for rejection. As if the stars said to themselves ‘let’s all align ourselves such that at least one heart will be br…
Mondays suck. They should outlaw Mondays.Especially after rather nice weekends.Saturday was a ‘me day’, with the BF out of town and no work commitments to stress over. It’s been some time since I took a whole day to myself… ’twas bliss to say the lea…
Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.
[TamilNet, Monday, 07 July 2008, 01:00 GMT] Prabhakaran’s son credited with new devastating Chemical Bomb His Royal Highness, Charles Anthony, Pirapaharan’s slightly Gay Son, is proven to be a Really smart Scholar Eelamist like his fa…
A Mig27 jet bomber of SLAF’s 5th Jet Squadron skidded off the runway at Katunayake while landing after an air raid on a known LTTE position. The exact amount of damage caused to the aircraft in this incident is still being assessed. Meanwhile the Lib…
This year will see the 25th anniversary of Black July.
There were some people who didn’t realise this till I pointed it out to them. At which point I asked myself if I was the only one who remembered that it had occurred at all. Why do I remember it?
I remember it because I was born in July in 1983. I remember it because I know what happened and I think it is important to remember such things if only so that we ensure it never happens again.
And no matter what, that’s what most people agree on. They agree that they don’t want it to happen again but then there are some who are against any sort of violence, some who are completely jaded and then there are some who have clearly taken sides and make it clear that the only outcome they want at all is one where their side wins.
Are you scared yet? Because I am.
Let me tell you what happened. We were all for independence. We got it from the British. Then we proceeded to draw up a constitution that was frankly very unfair and left the Tamils out almost completely. This of course did not sit very well with them and the nex tthing you know, the youth were forming militant groups. Then in the late 70’s the constitution was reworked to include Tamils (not entirely but progress was made) but by then there was a group known as the LTTE. Prior to the constitution being amended someone in Parliament had brought forth the point that if the Tamils were not included in the constitution they would lose their culture and therefore it would make more sense for them to have a seperate nation. The man had a point. Someone took him very seriously. The LTTE claimed they wanted their own nation-state within the island. Did I leave anything important out? Let me know if I did.
The LTTE decided to ambush fifteen soldiers near Jaffna. The bodies were brought to the capital to be buried quietly but word got out about the ambush and some of the Sinhalese formed mobs and went on a mad rampage killing Tamil people. Tamils fled the country. This was Black July 1983.
Now I understand how this would not make Tamil people feel particularly safe. I can understand why the Sinhalese were enraged. I can also understand how this can make the Tamils want to hate Sinhalese people and any other group. And I can understand how and why they want to be patriotic and protect themselves and their culture and so on. And I can understand how this would apply to any other ethnicity. But supporting any more violence just because you hate an ethnicity or feel a certain way is not going to solve any problems whether you are Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim or any other ethnic group. If you feel this way go ahead support whichever side you want, encourage them to fight, let more people be killed - does that sound like it is solving anything to you? It just perpetuates this war.
Not all Sinhalese support the Sri Lankan government. Not all Tamils support the LTTE. People from different ethnicities can get along. And it is shameful that thousands have died during this civil war on both sides. It is shameful and stupid.
By being scared of the other side enough to want to have a nation-state exclusive to people just like you and people like you alone, you are just giving in to a history of paranoia about ethnicities and so on. About people who are somehow different from us. Because they speak different languages, do different things - are you really that scared of that sort of thing? Why?
And so now we continue in this state of affairs - where one side must be ready to retaliate in case the other attacks. Why do we do this? Haven’t enough people died already for no real reason other than an idea some people hold to be dear to them? So many people have managed to live together, get along together, civil war or no civil war. Why must we perpetuate this idiocy of “they did this, so we must do that”? Or the “we must do this so that they cannot do that”?
In the end, I want to live in a country where I can raise my kids and have them play with the neighbours’ kids regardless of any ethnic differences and so on. Because honestly ethnicity, race or religion has never been a big deal to me or most people my age that I have met. We manage to mix well with each other - we don’t even think about it and no one seems afraid or judges anyone by such things. Are we paying a price because people older than us believe in perpetuating this conflict? Or because they are too jaded to believe that they can somehow help to change things?
I am quite happy to coexist with people of different ethnicities. I am anti-war. I am against choosing a side. I am against people dying when the next generation in my limited experience does not seem to have any issue with people of different races, religions or ethnicities. I just want it to stop even though I have no idea or solution to offer in order for that to happen.
But there are people who cannot forget. And there are people who cannot forgive themselves or others. And there are people who cannot see that there is no collective reason to fight any more.
I remember Black July with regret that it had to occur at all. I have no answers for you. You have to find them out for yourself.
- Marisa Wikramanayake
I've been using google analytics for some time to track visitors to my site now, not that it really had a large number of visitors, I just liked to know who was looking at what. Few weeks back, the whole site screwed up due to an issue in the hosting server, and I had to reinstall the CMS. Everything seems to work fine except for the Analytics reports. The data was fine ofcourse, all the URLs were porperly recorded with the number of hits and all, but when I tried to categorise them by title, all the data got merged into one post with the title (not set)
[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 July 2008, 01:00 GMT] TamilNet: Tamil Disapora Protests in the United Kingdom 100% Non-Terror Coddling, Non-Brainwashed, REALLY SMART UK Tamil Diaspora Protest Racist Sinhala President Rajapaksa’s meeting w…
Make realistic lightning with Photoshop CS3.
Oppression comes in many forms.
Sometimes it is as simple as a spouse not allowing their partner to have their personal space and time to be themselves. Surely you love someone for who they are and so you must allow them to continue to be that person. Making them feel trapped is the quickest way to end the relationship. I know people who do this who are older than me and I quietly go insane when they discuss their problems ad nauseum (and do other realted stupid things).
Sometimes it is as simple as holding an opinion but then assuming you have the right to hurt others who don’t hold the same opinion that you do. Opinions are valid but hurting others in any way intentionally because they do not agree with you is not. Preventing them from expressing their opinions means you violate their right to freedom of speech and when you do that, you are effectively saying you don’t believe in that right. If you don’t believe in that right, then you don’t get to have it to apply to you as well. You don’t get to say your piece if you make everyone else unable to. That’s fair. Go one day while actively censoring yourself and you will hate it - I guarantee it.
Sometimes it happens when you lie. When you omit information. When you use and abuse an advantage you have that others don’t. One day you might be the one at a disadvantage and you would not want anyone to use you then.
Sometimes it happens when you remember that as a citizen you have rights but you forget that you also have responsibilities to the society and community around you and that both rights and responsibilities are bound up together. Sometimes it happens when you forget that if you aren’t a responsible citizen then you do not deserve your rights and that that is a premise that laws are based on.
Sometimes it happens when you try to cater to everyone but doing so means leaving certain others out. Such as a government that claims everyone is equal in its constitution but nevertheless discriminates because of age, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle and choice, economic class, race, nationality, location or religion. Sometimes this happens because catering to everyone is hard to organise efficiently in terms of legislation, politics and attitude. Sometimes this is intentional. Civil wars, genocide, Kosovo, Iraq, the Ku Klux Klan, Zimbabwe’s current situation, these days the list is endless and we really don’t need anymore conflicts added to it.
Sometimes it happens when you are too weak to make the right decision. Such as when you decide as an university to officially prevent a student from working on a thesis or project even after it has met with ethical approval because someone who is investing a lot of money into the institution is not happy with the topic chosen. That’s an intereference with the right to Freedom of Speech. The university to responsible for the welfare of it’s students and has the responsibility of standing by it’s initial decision to approve the project.
So why do we oppress each other? Humans seem to be geared to be afraid of what is different. Perhaps it is a natural survival instinct to divide the world into things that can hurt us and things that won’t. And of course quite often anything unfamiliar and supposedly different from us gets lumped into the “possible threat” category. So we are afraid of change and anything that is supposedly different.
It gets confusing when we attempt to decipher what is different from us. Quite often we have to gather information from various sources to do this so if these sources are biased and we don’t think to look any further or gather more information we get a biased perception. Then horror of horrors, we make decisions that affect other people based on that perception.
Such as Muslim Americans that were harrassed and attacked after September 11th occurred. People were so emotionally shocked and hurt that they wanted a simple answer as to who was responsible. When the media centred on an Islamic group (or nation in some cases of bad reporting) as the culprit, it was very easy for people to feel anger. Already within a lot of people there is this idea and fear that if you live a different way, look different to the supposed norm that you might be a possible threat and when you get a source of information that baised or otherwise manages to lend credibility to that fear it is very easy to go ahead and believe it as it if were the truth, regardless of how true it is.
So what are your biases? How true are they? Where do you get your information from? Are your relatives and friends as unbiased and unintentionally truthful as you think they are? Or rather is the information they give you correct? Are you voicing your informed opinions or are they those of others?
And if you agree that oppression is a bad thing all around, who are you inadvertently or otherwise oppressing today? Right now? In your actions, your thoughts, your words?
If you were someone who would wish to do something that might technically harm others, I would not condone it or approve of it but it would be your choice to do so. What I want most from you when you read this is to make sure that whatever you do choose to do, that you think carefully about your choice, your information and your biases before you do go ahead with it.
If you can’t do this for the sake of other people, do it for yourself so that whatever your actions, you are fully prepared to deal with the consequences of it and you are fully prepared to take the responsibility for what you do.
This is called “growing up” and if you look around you can see it has nothing whatsoever to do with age.
- Marisa Wikramanayake.
where do u turn to when ur world just crumbles down
brings me to my knees wishing i don have to see tomorrow
with everythin so deep and heavy draggin me down more
wanting that yesterday’s sweetness
the smell of your perfume on my shirt
the stains of ur lipstick on my collar
the way ur hands finds mine and fits perfectly in it
and that all lost look into my eyes
why does my heart still linger on
Make realistic lightning with Photoshop CS3.
Adobe CS3 Master Collection wallpaper.
Adobe CS3 Production Premium wallpaper.
[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 July 2008, 01:00 GMT] Indiana Jones Star - Harrison Ford & Bo Derek to Support the Tigers WASHINGTON - Hollywood celebrities Harrison Ford, Bo Derek and Robert Duvall Monday threw their support behind a new globa…
මේ පසිඳු ජන කවියක අග දෙ පදය යි:
බලේ බලේ රාසිං දෙවියන්ගෙ බලේ
ගලේ කොටුව බැන්දයි තිරි…
Instead of being my usual grumpy self, I’ve been unusually cheerful for the last two weeks. Of course, no one (aside from meself and a chosen few) knows why I’m happy. I’ve had at least six different people from office ask me the reason for my oh-so-jo…
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