merry go round

the commissioner of elections has just announced that presidential elections will be held on the 17th of november. check out this link from lanka business on line for a rant of mbb proportions!

babel

the continued carnage in iraq pales disasters elsewhere in the world ( with possible exception of africa – notably niger). i fail to see any merit, earthly or otherwise, which would benefit anyone by the deaths of innocents.

granted that america is wrong on their “shock and awe” war on the country. granted that they have helped bring misery and death, not freedom and democracy, to many in that ancient land. granted that they have, as a consequence, helped spread terrorism globally effecting other innocent peoples. but how does all this translate into what is now going on? by the same token, waging war on innocent people is wrong and one simply cannot cut it any other way.

america now owes it to the people of iraq to stop this madness. it is their moral imperative.

“war may sometimes be a necessary evil. but no matter how necessary, it will always be evil, never a good. we will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children."
jimmy carter ( 1924 - )

correction

it has been pointed out that deer musk but elephants musth.

but the real point is must they musth at me?

and anyway, this is all a wee bit much!

seeni sambol

it's been ( not so) gently pointed out to me that the elephants who charge are those in musk. sadly, i fail to quite get the point. for instance, the beast which charged the vehicle we were traveling in last friday at udawalawe, was quite clearly enraged and not in any manner enamored. this too, it has been ( not so) gently said, is only passing strange. however, it is acknowledged, the fact that the tracker held up the palm of his hand, muttered a mantram and stopped the beast in his tracks, is deemed worthy of note. but only it seems in the context of a metaphor for politics and the impending presidential elections in sri lanka.

the president after spending more than a decade of pounding the leader of the opposition ( now running for president) has suddenly found him to be an excellent son of the soil. the prime minister ( also panting for the presidency) has indicated that he ( if elected) will abrogate the agreement with the ltte for distribution of aid in the north and the east, which please note was signed by his president and party head. the jvp promptly indicated that they will support his presidential bid. for good measure so did the jhu ( the party run by the buddhist monks). talk about elephants running amok and good old sri lankan sambol.

but, that is not all.

the government and the ltte have been trying to find agreeable locales for talks on the peace process. they checked out kilinochchi, colombo, delhi, oslo and other cities none of which were good enough. finally, they have settled on the katunayake international airport as a neutral venue. i kid you not.

go figure.

do i need to say that it's been raining in colombo again?

katrina principals

it is ironic that the u s of a, which declined to sign the kyoto protocol, should now face the absolutely terrifying tragedy that continues to unfold in the wake of hurricane katrina. it is shocking because this is america and not some war torn blighted third world country in asia or africa. the images on our idiot boxes seem to mock bush’s decision to stay out of the treaty signed by 35 other industrialized countries. the evacuation of an entire city is nature’s reply.

the agreement deals with the reduction of emissions of six greenhouse gasses ( mainly carbon dioxide) by 2012 to 5% less than 1990 levels. the main reasons for u s non-signing were (a) damage to the american economy in that it would require costly changes to manufacturing methods, transportation and other aspects of business, and (b) that the agreement did not include some rapidly developing countries notably china and india.

carbon dioxide is one of the main reasons for the greenhouse effect and one of the primary reasons for increase in levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (an increase of approx. 35% over the past 100 years) are the emissions from the oil and coal industry. it doesn’t take rocket science to connect the dots. bush is a texan and his election bids were part financed by the oil industry. as for the weather, just flip through the news over the past couple of months. floods in mumbai, floods in eastern europe, drought in western europe, drought in africa. and so on.

i also find it pathetic that america goes in to the war in iraq on a stated platform of bringing about concepts of freedom and democracy, rights of the individual, equality and all the jazz (not a word about the oil, of course). and then they ignore the blacks in new orleans. watching a news special on the devastation on bbc last night, a black woman screams into the camera “they are raping babies. help us…” as at today no one even knows how many people have died in the devastation. even in sri lanka, we knew that. this is from the greatest economy the planet has ever known. bye bye miss american pie.

it is time america woke up. the alternatives for the rest of the world, leave aside herself, if she doesn’t, will be far stranger and more terrible, than fiction.

“the darkness drops again;

but now i know that twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
and what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
slouches towards bethlehem to be born?

w.b. yeats – the second coming