i have been neglecting the blog. bad! resolved to reform, again.
in the meantime, i am posting one of my favorite songs i have neglected by not listening; tanitatikaram'stwist in my sobriety.
as with greater part of my favorites it is from 80s; from her 1988 album, ancient heart. great music video too.
a side effect of the ability maintain a huge portable selection of music is that if we forget to include an old fav, we may not realize the fact for some time. bc, while we try to listen to new music outside the selection, reasonably enough, we do not feel the need to listen to old ones outside.
i tweeted on this earlier but in case anyone missed, here is wikileaks video of u.s. helicopters killing ppl and reporters in iraq in 2007. details are in the video. its authenticity has not been disputed. (warning : some may find this disturbing.)
as far as i can see no major western news media organization has posted wikileaks video in their main outlets in full (in blogs/cnn ireport/etc, yes, but not in frontend)
there are claims of fraud in recent iraqi elections too (anyway why does results take so long (weeks) to be released in both those countries? in sl they come out within hours and the process is open). my thoughts now i fully support american war against terrorismanduse of military violence in the process.
i am also aware of the almost certain possibility of accidents, as well as outbreaks of indiscipline, criminality, and insanity, in some members of military in spite of all the best efforts of political and military leadership, and institutional precautions.
what i cannot stand is hypocrisy.
why is sri lanka and sri lankan military accused of all sorts of war crimes in its fight against ltte tamil tiger terrorists (with almost no credible and authentic evidence to back up the charges) while western government aren't (even with much more solid evidence for their alleged crimes)? accusations are certainly not made on the same level.
even when they are made there is a telling difference in how accusations are framed; it is never the 'americans', 'british', etc., or their governments, who are committing 'war crimes' but some specific soldiers, 'bad apples', etc., but in accusations against sri lanka it is always 'sri lankans', 'sinhalese', 'tamils', and sl government, who are committing the alleged war crimes.
all that is due to double standards, hypocrisy, and yes, racism .
of course realistic sri lankans expect that sort of treatment from west. we know we have to fight our own battles and cannot expect west to act with justice and fairness to us. look at the pathetic predicament and treatment of karzai for what happens to ppl who depend on west.
that is why we should not allow those hypocrites to assume some sort of fake moral superiority in order presume to pass judgment on us. we have to aggressively confront them with facts and truth and reveal their hypocrisy and presumption. it may not have any effect on them, but we need to make our position clear; they have no right to judge us.
but there are born and paid slaves here who see no such double standard in behavior of the west in spite of evidence. that sort of filth believe the best about their masters in west and worst about us. its about time sri lankans at large treat these as they deserve. i for one has always done that.
when making our decision in presidential election, in addition to policies, we have to consider the personality of the candidates.
we know who mahinda rajapaksa is. i have called him a buffalo for a long time. i still think that is an apt description of his personality, encompassing both favorable and unfavorable character traits of the president.
we don't know much about sarath foneska, but following videos will help.
picture that emerges from them is not a good one.
according to some of his former subordinates and colleagues, sarath fonseka is a vicious, vindictive, control freak. you can watch the following videos and decide for yourself.
stories they tell are one sided, but they are real people with names and histories. they have also sought redress from courts. iow, they are not mere allegations. [they were uploaded by one yahaluwa. in some of the videos there is a slight audio delay]
lieutenant colonel siri perera
major lakshman palipana
lance corporal bandara
warrant officer s a s wijetunga
captain saman de silva
i am also including the press conference of upul ilangamge (this is first part of a youtube upload, for other 5 parts go to pathumvision's channel). however i recommend that you watch the full original (46min) video at adaderana website. it is mainly about hicorp corruption scandal involving fonseka and his family, but i am including it here bc some of character traits (vindictiveness, etc) as described by ilangamge confirm the picture of fonseka that emerge from above interviews.
(btw i am not concentrating on corruption (and never have in this blog), bc i don't think it can be eradicated by exposure and prosecutions alone, though those things too must happen. as i have said before, only way to lessen corruption is to shrink the government, thereby taking away power over regulations and funds, from politicians, political appointees, and other public officials.)
add to all this, fonseka's almost public over the top abuse of unp mp dayasiri jayasekera for being the only one in fonseka camp brave and willing enough to participate in a projected 'rathu ira' tv debate on hicorp scandal. remember just a few days before same mp had to spend a night in jail bc of his support for same foneska (when crowd at a rally roughed up a heckler). after that tongue lashing from fonseka, ranil wikremasighe's reprimand of jayasekera must have seemed like a message of love to jayasekera. lol
add too, fonseka's provocative statements, to 'punish' various ppl (rajapaksas, other political opponents, police officer, army generals, etc, etc. ) by a various methods (ranging from prison to stripping of uniforms) within 24 hours/one week (i.e, extra judicially) of him getting elected. of course this sort of thing is common in sri lankan political speeches, but not by the main candidates.
some personality traits which may have been not harmful (or may even have been beneficial) in running an organization like the army, where ppl are trained to obey commands, in order to effectively fight ruthless terrorists, may not be all that good in a president of a democratic country, where ppl are and should be allowed to act freely, and must be persuaded rather than be commanded.
i don't much care what a person's personality is in private life as long as that person stays within the laws. however i think voters should take care to look at the character of persons offering to hold the highest and most powerful job in the country.
rebel without a cause is a movie i love. i have watched it countless times. i am also a fan of both james dean and natalie wood.
so i was glad to see this youtube video (uploaded by blumoon531. thanks!) of a screen test of three man actors; dean, wood and salmineo. it is actually two tests, second one runs for few seconds and has no audio.
in the next video (uploaded by jimmysgirl. thanks!) you can see the actual (much improved) scene corresponding to the first screen test. the video contains most of the initial 'abandoned mansion' sequence of the movie and is 7 min long. screen tested scene starts at about 3.35 and continues almost to the end (in fact uploader has edited out few seconds of the sequence at the end and replaced it with few seconds a kiss from a little later).
note: second video has very low audio. if your speakers/earphones at maximum volume don't help, you might try downloading and playing it in a media player; after few minutes, audio becomes normal quality and remains so even on replay. no idea why.
for those who don't know already, all three actors in these videos died prematurely. james dean, famously due to a car accident, at age 24, even before this film (2nd of his only 3 feature films) came out. natalie wood, from drowning at age 43. salmineo was stabbed to death at age 37.
of course you can find lots of clips from movie, as well as fan made tribute music videos on youtube. there are even copies of the atrocious original trailer. i don't think full movie is there. i don't recommend watching the movie (or any other movie) on youtube if you have not seen it already. it deserves better.
i love this movie, watched it again last night. while the plot outline is a bit formulaic, the characters and the acting make it exceptional, resulting in memorable scenes like the one below.
marlee matlin deserved her best actress oscar (on her debut film and she is the youngest ever to win) . william hurt, piper laurie were also great.
