Eelam is an inherently divisive idea and Karunanidhi espouses it only in the most cynical manner. Sri Lankas races are mixed and dividing up the land isn’t a solution. So there’s a racial defined state in the North and East – what about the Tamils in Colombo, where minorities are a majority? What about Kandy or Hill Country? Like in India, equality has to transcend race and be national in scope. Unless you want to experience the fun of partition, a la Pakistan.

The Daily Beast/Newsweek is offering an award for South Asian writers/commentators. Seems cool. I can think of some obvious nominees (hint hint), but it’s a good oppo for anyone. India is actually not a proportionally vibrant blogging community, but their papers are booming. I think SL’s paper scene is whack but our blogs and social can be great. The Dives I know a bunch of bloggers that are great. It’s actually an interesting scene. Good to get some blood (money) into it.

Apparently Ashton Kutcher (of That 70s Show and marrying Demi Moore fame) is going to be playing Steve Jobs in an upcoming biopic. While Kutcher generally portrays duncey characters, he is a king on Twitter and a savvy tech investor himself. I still find it a bit odd to see the airhead from That 70s Show portraying a genius.

This US Resolution bulldust has stirred up a lot of a lot of anger and hatred. Here’s a list of people that are getting vilified that don’t deserve to be. Seriously guys, it’s unbecoming, on all sides. We can disagree about stuff, but at the end of the day we all live here, or at least I do. The point, the point of all this – be it war or negotiations or Eelam or whatever – is for everyone to live with dignity on this island. So let’s be dignified.

This is the full text of the Resolution the US introduced at the UNHRC. It just passed. I have kinda shrugged it off, but it really is kinda bullshit. Please have a read. I have included my comments in the margins. My source for the text is the blog UN Watch.

Jason Russell, the narrator of the Kony2012 video was found semi-naked and screaming at traffic after suffering a breakdown. That sucks. I think he was a decent man under a lot of pressure. Breakdowns suck and they happen to the best of us.

Channel 4′s new doc is still bullshit, wrapped around a seed of truth. People suffered and died, but Channel 4 – like Kony2012 to a degree – is too quick to use that suffering to further a simplistic agenda. They completely ignore the history and context of Sri Lanka’s civil war and instead offer up war porn, strategically staged by the LTTE, proposing the decapitation of Sri Lanka’s elected government and military as a solution. It’s bullshit.

Gah. I haven’t watched this yet, but here it is. This is Killing Fields Part Deux. As you can tell from the title (Crimes Unpunished), it has an agenda, what I consider an unhelpful one, but I do think a lot of this stuff did happen. This suffering was ‘strategically’ set up to happen as part of the LTTE and Prabhakaran’s agenda (to engender exactly this international response) but it is what it is. People suffered and died.

Oh mantz. In response to the US’s admittedly douchey human rights poking of Sri Lanka, Comic Relief Minister Wimal Weerawansa has called on people to boycott American products. Like GMail. Which is dumb.

Three years ago, Vellupillai Prabhakaran made a bet. He bet that if he surrounded himself with thousands of hostages, the Sri Lankan Army wouldn’t dare attack. In this bet, he counted on international pressure to force the government’s hand. But the Army did attack, they did finish the war and Prabhakaran lost that bet along with his life. Yet the dice still spin.