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 An AFP story about Sri Lankan eye donations has been making the rounds. Around Colombo 7 there’s a sign that says ‘eye donations this way’, which I always found a bit odd. There’s also old images like the above, of a Bodhisattva donating an eye (in Mulkirigala). Turns out its not so odd after all, Sri Lanka is among the top cornea providers in the world.
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 A lot of progressive values are the default if you’re poor. Eating less meat, not using cars, consuming less electricity, buying local food. While someone in Brooklyn will pay exorbitant amounts (and attention) to bicycle to work, eat organic food and minimize their carbon footprint, this is what a poor Sri Lankan does by default.
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 This morning, four people were killed (including two children) when a van caught fire. The problem internationally is worse, as Matt Yglesias says “There’s a social convention in the United States that we don’t talk about those ninety daily deaths as a serious problem, even though obviously if we had nine people getting killed by terrorists every month there’d be a perpetual state of freaking out.”
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indi.ca |
 Every now and then I have to use the postal service. It’s always an ordeal. It honestly feels like climbing inside a computer and moving bits around. It’s hot, bothersome and feels entirely unnecessary.
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 I read something interesting: “What people haven’t seemed to notice is that on earth, of all the billions of species that have evolved, only one has developed intelligence to the level of producing technology. Which means that kind of intelligence is really not very useful. It’s not actually, in the general case, of much evolutionary value” ( Tim Maudlin).
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 Many Sri Lankans have two names, as do most Sri Lankan roads. My name is Indrajit, but everybody calls me Indi, or Jit. The Galle Road is either the Galle Road or the Colombo road, depending on which way you’re going. The Colombo Plan Road – along the coast – is still called Marine Drive. It’s a beautiful stretch.
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 This is what I hear. Apparently the cops tried to do a spot search for drugs and the prisoners got pissed. The place is overcrowded and open, so the cops and guards are always outnumbered. Anyways, all hell breaks loose and there’s prisoners on the roof, also throwing rocks on the road. Some journalists get onto a balcony across the street and they hear gunfire.
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 Today there have been riots in the Welikada Prison. About a year ago I visited the prison with a group of young lawyers. This is what I remember about the place.
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I finally walked into the Colombo Public Library. It’s about as bad as I imagined it. The periodicals room is OK, it has all the newspapers and you can stand around reading them. Not too much else that’s new. It’s mainly the selection of books that’s depressing. I did a random walk around and the newest book I could find was from 2006. There was some non-fiction about the Chinese economy in the 80s. The fiction was even worse.
