A bully, a brothel, a tribute and a little bit more

Working on a blog about our beloved health minister, the pitt bull of the right, the moral enforcer of the nation, the feminist hater, the unimaginative intellectual, the serial policy cost under-estimator and I nearly forgot an apparent cuckold. For now, from the International Affairs Desk here is what I've been catching up on over week.

When it was announced, I hedged my bets on Wolfowitz getting to the WorldBank and Bolton not getting to the UN. Looks like I might have been right now that Colin Powell is on the offensive. Follow bully-boy Bolton's pitfalls here.

You are always welcome at the country that whores itself as the brothel of the world all thanks to the men who loved you two time. Sean Paul from the agonist writes about the Realist's Case For Genocide Intervention. I spent wednesday at a company meeting where we were told that Japan had 4.9 million VoIP consumers compared to somewhere between 100K to 300K per European country. Apparently this is why.

Finally, a tribute to Sivaram from an opposition idealogue.

Who da Man?

Christianity’s largest branch, the Roman Catholics, have a new leader. Former cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is the new pope elect and is to be known from now on as Pope Benedict the 16th. It’s a European again and if you don't like it there is always Indi’s choice beware though if you are in Sri Lanka. If he is not too busy he might also want to consider replying to Christopher Hitchens.

He will be welcome in Oz where according to the 2001 census, 68% identified themselves as Christian. However, I read somewhere that only about 20% practice religion. I guess the 26.6% RCs will be relieved. It looks like Jedi didn’t make enough of an impact, there is always the 2006 census. BTW check out the growth rate of Buddhism.

If you don’t like the wikipedia version of Christian History have a look at a Sri-Lankan flavoured history over at the bastion of online singhalese-nationalism ( I, II, III ). Who is HLD? (Please leave a comment if you know who he is). The new pope might have to pay some attention to SL sooner than he realises now that there is an anti-conversion bill. Paranoia comes in all forms I guess. I’ve also seen online articles implying connections between chirstianity and the tigers. Where is this emanating from ? Is there any truth to it? or Is this a means of putting pressure on western interference (read NGOs and Norway) ? Can someone please fill me in on any details about this? If this continues the new pope will certainly be hearing about it.

If I grew up with buddhism and catholicism, chose humanism leaning on buddhism and wished for the comfort of prayer on the dark days of the human-spirit would I be charged/convicted in the future Sri-Lanka?

To quote a prince song

...

So u can be the president

I'd rather be the pope

Yeah u can be the side effect

I'd rather be the dope

.....

comedy encore

My quest for laughs continued over the weekend as I caught the last days of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. A weekend of stand-up comics and dinners has taken its toll, next weekend is going to be a quite one.

The first act was Denise Scott a local comedian playing at a building called the Swiss Club. I guess it was a club for the Swiss migrants back in the day. Denise was funny but she tended to loose me at times in the middle of the show. Most of the crowd were mums and dads along with the 30+ but she chose to pick on James the only 14 year old in the audience. Given that her show was about local councils, I guess being a home owner helps. She's been nominated for the Barry and is apparently taking her show to the Edinburgh fest. I sure hope she gets more non-Oz material before that.

The next night I went to see Akmal Saleh a Sydney based stand-up comic. The show would have been funnier had it not been for two pissed girls who decided to steal the limelight by flashing their breasts. Now I don't have a problem with tits in my face but to a comic it seemed very distracting. They continued to be a nuisance and I was surprised they weren't thrown out. With a name like that he could easily get away with picking on islamic fundamentalists. The show had a mono-theistic multi-religious feel to it but overall he had the crowd laughing through the night. Would have liked to see a more structured show rather than a reliance on questions from the audience but I recommend him.

Next time somebody wants to show us your boobs please make sure you show it to the rest of the audience and not just the first row.

Happy 5th Anniversary

It's the 5th anniversary of the .com crash. Australia too was caught up in the .com boom trends starting 2 years behind the US as usual and when the markets crashed on the 13th of April 2000 it was followed the very next day. Funny that.

The SMH has a story on some of the player in OZ at the time. I work for a company that went from 550 employees to 140 over the next year and a half but it survived. Indeed it was an age of Irrational exuberance.

A sign of the times from the modernhumorist.com.


Does anyone else have a story about these times?

Interpreting a history

What’s happening to history [subscription?] in India? It’s been developing for a while and the latest article I’ve come across is from the NYRB. It appears that the aspiring super-power is struggling to come to terms with its history while developing a modern self-identity. Unlike the usual culture wars associated with the interpretation of history, usually fought in books and essays, the fights in this bun war get bloody and barbarous (communalism actually), if history is anything to go by. The latest noises should alert anyone who truly cares about India.

Pankaj Mishra has been the most visible (to the west) writer to focus on this. His recent writing also illuminates the many different religions that have developed in the region. Mishra's writing is really growing on me, more than many of the other South Asian writers of note.

Of course winning a culture war is never going to be complete without claims to scientific validity. So it appears there are half-assed efforts to bastardize science as well. Hey I'll even accept astrology if it is proven using the scientific method. You shouldn’t need much, only a sample of participants, their birth dates and follow them over a reasonable period. No tests or questions just observation. How hard is that?

India is such a diverse melting pot rich in histories, it has a unique opportunity to show the world that a modern nation can emerge with a multi-cultural heritage unlike the rest of the modern world where the path has been from mono-culture to multi-cultural. Does this make the problems of the modern Indian woman any easier?

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Update: Re-jigged the content to emphasise the fact that this is about the history war.

images from here

Where is my kottu?

I digress. Somewhere in my teenage years kottu roti came into my life. After a game of cricket in the grounds of the local school or a particularly bruising game of what I now prefer to call fuugby (f**d up rugby) on gravel streets, the hood-rats, including myself, would head down for some kottu in a cafe at "thun mulla", which roughly translated to "triangular junction" in our locality. For about two years this was a regular occurrence and it remains to this day, clouded by pre-pubescent teenage eyes, the best kottu I have eaten. If we didn't have enough money we would share, otherwise each had their own.

These days I really miss my kottu roti. It's hard to find a good kottu joint in Melbourne. There are a few SL flavoured restaurants/take-aways/cafes that have it on their menus. However, to compare their servings to that in SL would be equivalent to comparing some of these MTV (c)rappers to PE. There is one small cafe on Swan Street in the heart of Richmond that produces a very good kottu. Kottu Roti has the potential to impact the aussie culinary culture/palette as much as the stir-fry did to introduce Chinese food. IMHO, it is the trojan horse of Sri Lankan cuisine.

I say: Go forth and open your eateries, multiply thyself into franchises and call them Roti Houses. Give them free recipes (with pretty pictures of course), show the overworked masses how to cook it in under 15 minutes, let the banging of the chopping plates make believers out of them. Put it on a trolley and wheel it to their tables, provide free ear-plugs and most importantly always have some coffee available and they will come.

I regress. The reason I wrote this is to let you know about kottu.org. A virtual community for Sri Lanka related bloggers. There is a drive to sign up more bloggers at the moment and if you choose to join tell them that I sent you.

A new travel destination?

Whenever you listen to someone promoting the benefits of a laissez faire free market based approach, almost inevitably they seem to use Adam Smith to give some credibility to their point of view. It turns out that he didn’t even say some of the stuff that many people claim. That's not to say he wasn't a giant in the enlightenment, because he was, but he was primarily a moral philosopher than an economist. I'm not sure if this new work is an attempt by the left to appropriate him for itself or if it's the usual case of the more digging you do the more you find, thus leading to a clearer and realistic picture.

It also turns out that those Scots in Edinburgh played a large part in the enlightenment, at least larger than they have been so far credited for. A few recent books have come out shedding more light on their contributions, all the while having a drink or two at the pubs. I suspect this is going to make Edinburgh and Scotland a more fashionable travel destination. Would it offer enough to the imagination to dump Tuscany as a first choice?

Anyway, I've decided it's time I spent the next few months reading some of his work. May be I've chosen the wrong career as a software engineer, I seem spend way too much time on these sorts of topics rather than trying to fully understand everything that pops up at LtU. Or, may be it's just an engineer’s need for the rational and common sense.