Simply as a point of reference, what’s happening now is completely upside down. The General who led the war against the LTTE is going to jail while the people he fought against are given Ministries and NGOs to run. As another point of reference, what matters now is not any particular loyalty to the nation, but a loyalty to the President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Like everything Mahinda has done, there are other ways to do things, but he’s still the only one doing anything. I think, however, there is a better way. General Sarath Fonseka committed no crime except running for office the right, democratic way. It was Mahinda who used state resources during the campaign and used the Army to secure the result. But by simply running, Fonseka violated the law of the land, which is man, which is Mahinda Rajapaksa. The trial was a farce and, as is fitting, the verdict went up to Mahinda for ultimate approval. That’s all it is. Whom he approves and whom he disapproves, so the head of the Army is out, the arms procurer for the LTTE is in.

There are now quite a few websites where people take photos of girls from Facebook and upload them to blogs. Some of these sites are pure privacy invasion, just personal photos of girls from their Facebook pages. Some mix photos of real girls and models, effectively crowd-sourcing softcore porn. With Facebook, people have started posting and identifying photos of themselves. This includes a lot of boys being boys and girls being girls. However, Facebook only gives the illusion of being a wall garden, there are plenty of cats and dogs that can get in and out. Thus you get people taking photos out of semi-private Facebook into the more public world of blogs.

I love Colombo bus art which consists of, basically, putting every cool thing you can think of together in Photoshop. For example, one bus I see daily on Havelock Road has an Indian Princess, ocean, lakes, suspension bridge, dragon, etc. A common theme is Sydney Opera House plus whatever else you think is awesome (unicorns, guys with swords, Big Ben, space). A local theme is the Temple Of The Tooth, the Lake, Sigiriya and other cultural items, all Photoshopped together. It is a wonderful style, one which I have done my own version of, and one which I thought unique. That, until I stumbled upon this site detailing 1990s southern rap covers, which look much the same. They basically think of all the awesome stuff they can and Photoshop it into one image. For example, gold watches, champagne, cars, jeeps and bikes, all on a table or dimensionally obscure platforming. Compelling.

There’s been a debate on The Sunday Leader site about female sexuality, among other things. I thought this comment by Mohottige was interesting (in response to someone else) – ” ‘An educated man will not marry a prostitute from Sri Lanka… Because he has other options’ What about all these educated Sri Lankan men who also have had sex before marriage? And they are many ! (since no woman can loose her sexual virginity without there being a male”prostitute” present). So where should a Sri Lankan girl go to find a male “virgin” to marry? Not in Sri Lanka anyway, beacuse most men here have practised sex before marriage and are thereby, by the standards mentioned by several “thaliban” writers here, simple male prostitutes.” Virginity is a weird thing because it is demanded from women and discouraged in men. Yet, logically, this does not compute. Either both sides need to be virginal, or there needs to be a compromise.

China is doing something, as Sri Lankans can see in front of our eyes. Slate says they’re behaving “more like a multinational company than a global superpower.” Thomas Friedman says “China is doing moon shots… big, multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing investments.” Both are empires, and empires rise and fall. How, exactly, has been theorized by people like Joseph Tainter, who basically says that empires prosper when they acquire new resources and crash when they become too complex. Essentially, like a business, if empires have an open market, then good. When things are good they tend to invest in expensive complexity – bureaucracy, schools, buildings, etc. Over time, however, everyone suffers from diminishing returns and all that complexity becomes a liability rather than an asset. When empires fall, they seem to fall under their own weight. Right now America seems to be faltering under its own weight, while China seems to be running free.

I was at a journalism workshop, among other things. I’ve never really called myself a journalist or a photographer at first because I disdained these things, but now because I respect them. Once I thought they were just pretentious bloggers, but now I realize that it’s something else entirely. The German fellow in the workshop, Michael Gleich, drew something on the board which I think shows the difference. It’s a guy in front of a hill and on the other side of the hill is the story. That hill is an obstacle and what sets journalists and photographers apart is that they find some way to get over the hill. Others stay on the other side and muse and take photos from the distance, but it’s not the real story. Personally, I think the obstacle is more often than not inhibition. You don’t want to be rude, to ask, or to push. At least I don’t. That is why I’m still a pretty good blogger and a mediocre journalist.

Today I opened an SMS news alert hopefully. The preview read ‘UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has…” and I was hoping it ended ‘resigned’. I am no longer angry or disappointed that he’s killing the party. I’m honestly just embarrassed. Alas, rather than good news it was more of the same. Ranil appointed a TNA MP to a body that the TNA is protesting. Which, incidentally, Ranil is also protesting. The TNA predictably declined and Ranil is left looking silly. All of this makes me think Ranil is part of the Wimal/Mervyn sideshow. He’s not part of the opposition, he’s just another court jester.

During the election the Elections Commissioner ordered the police to take down political hoardings (billboards). In the most public display of (illegal) defiance, Mahinda Rajapaksa erected a 60 foot high image of himself at the end of Horton Place. This image was later stripped, leaving a Mahinda shaped skeleton. That too was stripped, leaving only a vertical spine. It was this structure that a lone protestor climbed today. He was literally trying to get into Mahinda’s head. The man has sat there all day, in hot sun and now darkness. He is wearing a motorcycle helmet which permanently obscures his face. He has no visible source of food or drink. He has no shade. He must be tired, hot and hungry, but still he remains. His only demand is to meet the Mahinda. What on earth does this mean? What is going on?

I occasionally get mails from foreign people doing research or programs on Sri Lanka the basket case. Foreign journos tromp through The Sunday Leader office like its some sort of media Mecca. Often they ask the same thing, which is how do Tamils feel, or what’s the Tamil perspective on X or Y. I think this is the wrong question. The racial view is only one way to analyze this nation, and I no longer think it gives the most information. Sometimes I think it’s the wrong information. Black, blue, LTTE or SLFP, UNP or JVP, if you support Mahinda Rajapaksa the man you’re on the right side of the law. Yellow, red, Tamil or Burgher, Muslim or Sinhala, if you oppose him you are not. That’s about all it is. I’m not saying its post racial, but it’s really not about race anymore. I’m not saying Tamils don’t get disproportionately shafted. I met a Tamil journalist today and that seems about as fun as wearing a kick-me sign on back and front. But it’s like, race is not really the way the cake is cut anymore.

As Ramadan ends at the Manhattan mosque controversy simmers, I thought it might be opportune to talk about the brown muslims. Contrary to popular western belief, most Muslims are not Arabs (contrary to Sri Lankan Muslim beliefs, most of them aren’t very Arab either). Contrary to some belief, Muslims are not terrorists or even sympathetic. There is sympathy and support for terrorism in states like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but that is more to do with their political issues than Islam. As proof, if Islam were correlated with terrorism, one would expect the most populous Muslim countries (India and Indonesia) to be anti-American. They’re not. Muslims are, by now, billions of very diverse people and just cause Al Qaeda claims the mantle of Islam doesn’t make it so. They have their own Arab political issues. As much as the heart of Islam is in Arabia, its body is now spread all over the world.