Archive for Uncategorized
May 11, 2008 at 5:06 pm · Categories: Colombo, English, Uncategorized | by Lalith Gunaratne
Stupid Old Men
I don’t want to end up being a stupid old man
Just look at what they have done to our world in vain
What’s the big deal in going to the moon
As he yet settles score by inflicting pain
War on terror, crusade or witch hunts
Stupid old men run scared to ruin
Peace on earth has little chance to shine
I wonder whether it’s the testosterone drain
that give men the jitters when age is on the gain
I need to wise up and control this mind game
Or else I will end up a stupid old man
Dig not my heals in the old men’s club
When science of Descartes takes the quantum leap
Calling it mumbo jumbo quackery they oppress
The new magic of now you see and …
April 19, 2008 at 9:27 am · Categories: English, Uncategorized | by CHA
Rice, which is the staple food in Sri Lanka, has become the subject of a national issue today. Government appears to being in the dark as to how to tackle issues confronting rice in the context of a market economy. As it is well known, since independence, many successive governments through various public spending programmes, supported by foreign aid, developed the rice production sector with a vehement dedication with the aim of making Sri Lanka a rice self-sufficient country. However, neither producers nor consumers of rice appeared to have benefited to the best satisfaction due to various reasons.
There is a large number of small-sized rice producers scattered around the country. The smallness of their unit of …
April 14, 2008 at 11:15 am · Categories: Colombo, English, Media, Peace and Conflict, Uncategorized | by groundviews
Groundviews is fully back online after an upgrade of its back-end content management system to the latest version of Wordpress. While the site looks and feels the same, improvements under the hood make it more secure, responsive and easier to use.
There are also several significant new features to the site:
- You now no longer have to register to write a comment. A combination of Akismet and the WP Captcha Free plug-in ensures that bots are kept at bay and legitimate comments make it through. I can attest that the combination has dramatically reduced comment spam. Still not 100% fool proof though - so if there’s a comment that doesn’t appear after 24 hours that you think is in line …
April 9, 2008 at 6:38 pm · Categories: Peace and Conflict, Uncategorized | by groundviews
Groundviews will be down tomorrow, 10th April, for a scheduled upgrade. The site should be up and running as normal by 11th April the latest, but we don’t really expect it to be inaccessible for anything more than a few hours at most.
For the geeks out there, we are upgrading our back-end content management system to the latest version of Wordpress (2.5), which strengthens security and adds some neat features to help authors publish their content more easily.
We’ve also disabled site registration - we hope temporarily. An unusual amount of bot accounts terminating with mail.ru or ukr.net (with IP’s unsurprisingly terminating in Russia) flooded the site recently and with a resulting increase in comment spam that became tedious to …
April 1, 2008 at 7:57 am · Categories: Colombo, English, Media, Uncategorized | by Gamini Viyangoda
There may have been some two to three hundred mourners at his funeral. Most of them seemed to have been his close acquaintances or those known to him at least remotely. I don’t know how many scientists or science fiction writers were there to represent the field of Clarke’s scribe. From Sinhala art field there were two, namely Ajith Thilakasena and Sugath Watagadhara, and one politician, Prof. Thissa Vitharana. From the Buddhist clergy, 19 monks appeared remarkably lacking any public figures among them. They had come uninvited and on their own, not to hold any religious ceremony but to pay their last sincere respects to a great rationalist. No rituals and no eulogies. The funeral lasted barely 15 minutes with …
March 18, 2008 at 11:48 am · Categories: Colombo, English, Peace and Conflict, Uncategorized | by Sophist
Dr. Rohan Edirisinghe, in a recent paper he compiled quoted G.K. Chesterton in ‘The Point of a Pin’ – it isn’t that they don’t see the solution, it’s that they can’t see the problem. This line echoed in my head for all the nights that I sat on stage observing the audience during Ruwanthie De Chickera’s ‘Forum at the Punchi’ last week.
For the unitiated forum theatre is a dramatic genre which compels the audience to involve themselves in the action on stage, suggesting methods in which the plot and characters can develop. Ideally, the play begins with what is known as a ‘stem’ scene, which leads the characters upto a point of crisis, which the audience is then presented with. …
March 13, 2008 at 3:02 pm · Categories: Colombo, English, Uncategorized | by Sanjana
The Royal – Thomian is primarily about boys (including those disguised as older and wiser men). The general melee of a Royal – Thomian in our day would guarantee two things. More booze. More chaos. More riotous dancing. And then more booze. So I lied, that’s more than two - but in those days, we never kept count of anything during the Big Match. With fists flying at no one and everyone, the pitch was not the only place to crack balls. There were fights over girlfriends. There were fights over the last dregs of coconut nectar. There were fights over lyrics, deemed heretical by those who sang no better and on no less heretical topics. There were, however, never …
February 18, 2008 at 7:30 pm · Categories: English, Uncategorized | by groundviews
By Mark Gereis
True sub-continental cricket is a freak phenomenon that hits Australia’s shores once every two or three years. I deliberately use the word ‘freak’ because I can’t explain it – in truth, I don’t think anybody is able to explain it. A certain magic permeates the atmosphere as we crowd the family television set in the company of friends and family. We hang-off each delivery that Muttiah runs into bowl; each six that Sanna sends crashing into the fans; every word uttered by our adopted uncle – Tony Greig. Watching cricket is very much a mutual experience. Half of the atmosphere is created by those waiting in eager anticipation of another of Sanga’s centuries. “Aiyoooooo…” is …
August 7, 2007 at 11:29 am · Categories: English, Uncategorized | by groundviews
Groundviews is pleased to announce a new email subscription service (powered by RSSFwd) that enables you to conveniently receive all new content posted on the site in your Inbox. The new service significantly improves upon the one currently in operation and is less of a hassle to sign up with and manage.
All existing subscribers to Groundviews are strongly advised to switch to the new service and discontinue the old. You can sign up on the homepage or by entering your email here.
All articles on Groundviews can now be shared on Facebook, the social networking site that’s rapidly growing in popularity in Sri Lanka and around the world. Once …
December 21, 2006 at 12:28 am · Categories: Batticaloa, Peace and Conflict, Uncategorized, தமிழ் | by Jiffrey
ஏகாதிபத்தியற்கெதிரான பண்பாட்டு வெடிகுண்டு
அதிகாரம் பல்வேறு தளங்களில் பல்வேறு வடிவங்களில் தொழிற்படும் யுகம் இது. இதனால் அதிகாரம் பற்றிய பல்வேறு, மதிப்பீடுகள்,சிந்தனைகள் முன்வைக்கப்படும் காலமாகவும் இது மாறியுள்ளது. அதிகாரத்தை கேள்விக்குட்படுத்தும் சிந்தனைகளோடு கடந்த நூற்றாண்டில் அறிமுகமாயிருக்கும் பின்-நவீனத்துவம் சர்வதேச அளவில் புலமையாளர்களின் கவனத்தையீர்த்த கோட்பாடாகும் அதிகாரம் தொழிற்படும் நுண்களங்களைக் கூட நுட்பமாக தோலுரித்துக் காட்டியதில் பின்-நவீனத்துவத்தின் பங்கை யாரும் குறைத்து மதிப்பிட முடியாது எனும் கருத்து விமர்சனபூர்வமாக அணுகப்பட வேண்டும் என்பதே எமது கணிப்பு.
புpன்காலனிய இலக்கியமும் பின்-நவீனத்துவத்தின் அதிகாரம் பற்றிய பார்வையின் பின்னணியிலேயே வைத்து விளக்கப்படுகிறது. மேற்கு தமது காலனித்துவத்தின் ஊடாக மூன்றாம் உலக நாடுகள் மீது மிக மோசமான சுரண்டல் நடவடிக்கைகளில் ஈடுபட்டதோடு மட்டுமன்றி அவர்களின் தனித்துவ சமூக, பொருளாதார, அரசியல், கலாசாரப் பாரம்பரியங்களையும் பெறுமனங்களையும் சிதைத்து தனது கலாசாரக் கூறுகளை திணித்ததே காலனித்துவ யுகத்தின் வரலாறாகும். இந்த காலனித்துவ காலத்தில் தங்களின் இறந்த காலத்தை பறிகொடுத்த மூன்றாம் உலக மக்கள் அதனை மீண்டும் கைப்பற்றும் முயற்சியில் ஈடுபடத் தொடங்கினர். அவர்களின் இலக்கியங்களிலும் இம்முயற்சிகள் பிரதிபலிக்கத் தொடங்கின.
மேற்கினால் தங்கள் மீது திணிக்கப்பட்ட அந்நிய சமூகப் பொருளாதார, அரசியல் மாதிரிகளை அதற்குள் …
