The Brigadier was on the morning show today. It’s on YouTube, as per above, and below. I’m still a tard on TV, always looking at the wrong camera or losing my earpiece, please excuse and listen. What Brigadier L.C. Perera is proposing (in the second video below) is rather novel and rational sort of reconciliation. Mourn everyone who died since Independence, build a shared monument and – most importantly – build trust.

I’m hosting Good Morning Sri Lanka tomorrow, on MTV Sports, at like 7:15 am I think. The guest will be Brigadier L.C. Perera, who I hope you know from his series of videos here. Seriously, check them out. He’s a career soldier who’s been there from the 83 riots to the JVP insurrection to the war and Menik Farm. And now he’s focused on reconciliation. He’s got some great stories, but also some interesting new ideas.

Remember when everybody in Sri Lanka was rocking the oversized Titanic T-Shirt? I wish I had one right about now. Actually, I wish I had one all the time, but nevermind. James Cameron, the director of that film, Terminator and Avatar (among others) has successfully descended to the bottom of the sea in a custom-built submarine. The man is truly a genius. For reals.

In terms of politeness, apparently loud is the most rude. I dunno though. I think loud is usually funny (which the dug-up study) also shows. I’ve been on planes and buses where dudes are ripping silent deadlies and it’s really noxious and infuriating. One’s own farts are always somehow interesting, but others are plain noxious. I read this story via Andrew Sullivan. His comments were pretty hil:

I love Mad Men. I actually have a slight man crush on Don Draper. The first few seasons were a rollercoaster of depth and awesome as the characters slowly peeled, onion-like, to reveal different levels of both repugnancy and beauty. ie, humanity. The danger with the fifth season is that the characters are all largely revealed. I still like them, but it’s sorta like watching actors after a play. There’s a certain level of humanity which is just dull.

This is another story by Brigadier (Retd) LC Perera. Here, he is talking to wounded officers and soldiers and the resonance that reconciliation has with them. For more please check out the #heallanka tag.

This is the story of the writing in the wall on the Jaffna campus, during the raging war. It shows the natural hope and determination towards reconciliation among average Sri Lankans. That is ultimately where reconciliation has to come from, not from the government or UN. It has to be between people, by people, and then politics and reports will follow. I think it can happen, and that it is happening.

This is a story of the last phase of the Sri Lankan War. As Pradeep Jeganathan points out, the Sri Lankan military was obviously not genocidal because the fighting stopped as soon as the LTTE was eliminated. That was completely the point, not persecution of Tamil civilians.

If you ever want to drive through walls, drive over double-parked cars, and survive the inevitable landmines, this is the car for that. It’s called the Marauder, it costs about 300,000 pounds, and I can’t believe Top Gear was able to put it through the paces it did. They literally drove over cars and put kilos of C4 under it. Quite a test drive. It’s filmed in South Africa.

As part of a continuous series on Heal Lanka, this is Brigadier (Retd) L.C. Perera talking about how he came full circle from the 1983 riots in 1986, when he opened an IDP center for Sinhalese massacred by the LTTE.