Vivacious Vivimarie.

Nothing Prepares You
By Vivimarie Vanderpoorten
Zeues paperback
Reviewed by DRG

I got a glimpse of this book accidentally when I was doing my routine book search at upsatairs of Sarasavi Book shop, Maharagama. I knew nothing about her or her poetry at that time. But when I read couple of pages of her work I sort of like her stuff and thought of buying it. The main significant quality that strikes my mind about her poetry is the simplicity. The words not forced to appear on behalf of her feelings but just poured out from her pen. Her style is simple and not so flowery. But it’s flamboyant. As an university lectures of English language, I’m kind of surprise to see her choice of words. But thinking about it again understood that I am the person who is ignorant and learning the craft and she just mastered it. Wow! What brilliance…

Cavity (page20)
…I want you to reach across one continent
And two oceans, (from where you’re
Probably still asleep)

And hold my hand.

The Proposal (page 33)
…but today among my e-mails
there’s one from him
Sifting through junk e-mail: offers of endless credit
free porn sites and
drugs to “enlarge your penis”,…

Another main aspect of Viv’s poetry is that the use of her personnel experiences as the plots for her creativity process. The sad times, the happy times, the little romantic ventures in her life. She just uses them to enthrall us in her wordplay. The poems such as “For DS”, “Burial”, “Reward” and wittily written “Single Brown Female, 1998” are few from many examples I can quote to prove my point.

Viv goes in to explore another dimension by dedicating her creative expression and valuable to write about the dilapidating state of our society especially this 20 year long raging war. Her poems don’t discuss the problem straightly but with little bit of creativity and story telling she makes a deep remark in readers’ hearts; “ Death of a Cartoonist”…

Explosion (page 35)
…out of the broken window
of a damaged car-
dead driver-
the radio blared, unscathed
on a commercial break
a man’s pleasant voice
announced
that big or small, insurance
protects them all .

Goodbye and Good Riddance!

Oh yeah Reggie Ranatunga died today and I can't care less. I suppose he wasn't the nicest of dudes, he had a few shady dealings if you ask me, ahh well most Sri Lankan politicians are more or less the same anyway.

Also it brings the total number of parliamentrains killed this year to a whopping six.. hmm just another 219 to go I guess.. nah just kidding there are some good guys in there somewhere like Prof. Vitharana and the likes, unfortunately his party has entered in to a rather unholy alliance with a bunch of thieves (SLFP) and racists (JHU).

Anyways ole Reggie is dead and we don't really care except that we would like extend our condolences to the family after all a death is death.

Maybe someone can blow up the parliament like Guy Fawkes tried to in England, might not be such a bad idea after all, it would reduce our fuel consumption quite dramatically.

Learning economics Mihin Lanka style!!

Pic Courtesy : Daily Mirror (btw great headline!)

One would think that the idiots running the government cannot get any stupider, but voila! Enter Sajin Vass Gunawardene, according to him Mihin Lanka has brought in a revenue of 2700 million rupees to Sril Lanka, I say you dumb idiot you gotta look at both sides of the balance sheet and then decide.

Simple Economics: If your losses are greater than your revenue then you are not profitable.

According to government statistics, Mihin Lanka makes an annual loss of about 1.8 billion rupees (1800 million rupees). I wonder how this Monkey became a CEO of an airline without understanding how to read a balance sheet!

If loosing all its aircraft was not enough, Sajin " I am too stupid to read a balance sheet" Gunwardena has the guts to proclaim that the airline was delivering a great service to the country. According to him the even the CWE makes a loss, well I am damn sure the hard working Sri Lanakns didn't want to spend their hard earned EPF/ETF money so that idiots like you can pilfer millions.

Come to think of it there is something Sajin Vass could do, that would be of great service..... Jump down a cliff and die!

I mean we wouldn't be sad, or say Ayyo poor chap, he died so young etc. Rather all of us would breath a collective sigh of relief knowing that there would be one less A**hole in this country to steal our money.

I mean how can a lowly Wharf Clerk end up being a CEO of a airline, this dude Mahinda must have been inhaling some pretty heavy narcotics too get sooo high and appoint this good for nothing thief as a Presidential Adviser let alone as a CEO.

I mean its incomprehensible to a bloke like me, who has grown up in Colombo and seen so much talent in our corporate sector, with so many young hopefuls just waiting in the wings.

Honestly, it absoloutely unbelievable that these A**holes get appointed, then steal our money and then have the f**king guts to tell us that it was a f**king national service. And all this in a country that boasts of 93% literacy.

The only logical conclusion I can arrive at is this, the remaining illiterate 7% are probably cabinet ministers and Presidential Advisers. Hell! The cabinet has some 120 b*stards and god knows how many advisers the President has!

Who's your Daddy?

Imagine the horror our colleague Aruna had to go through, when he tried to access the Google search engine and instead found something else.

Well I suppose it could happen to the best of us...

Is Socialism destined to be a soloution for the masses stuck in the heads of intellectuals

Socialism has baffled me because of its peculiar characteristics, first and foremost it remains as a deeply intellectual political philosophy that has been argued over and over by numerous individuals many of whom would score pretty high on an IQ test.

But what differentiates Socialism from other political schools such as liberalism, conservatism or libertarianism is that it remains as a ideology meant to benefit the masses, yet it was hatched in the minds of a handful of intellectuals.

It is an interesting paradox, because unlike other movements those who instigated the ideals of Socialism had very little to benefit from if it were in fact enforced. To the contrary they had everything to lose, back in the days of Marx and Engels if one was an intellectual it also meant that one possessed a great deal of wealth and that one was also in a position to amass further wealth.

Yet, these worthy individuals decided to forgo their personal advantage and managed to formulate a thesis that would eventually benefit the whole of human kind.

But, what intrigues me the most is this, on paper Marxism seems the perfect solution, similar to Buddhism preaching us how to liberate ourselves spiritually Marxism preaches how one can liberate oneself economically and socially. Then why isn't it widely accepted, why is it seen almost as a pariah ideology in certain parts of the world.

The fact remains that it is essentially an intellectuals philosophy that was meant to uplift the lower social classes, a tad bit condescending don;t you think. The objective of this article is not to diss socialism or its ideologues but rather to emphasis the complexity and comprehensiveness of the movement.

For many the word socialism means bigger government, bad living conditions and working like machines. Unfortunately this cannot be further from the truth, Marxism in its most pristine form is about liberation at least in the material world.

The biggest barrier to the propagation of the movement today remains the level of intellect, it is unlikely that an entire populace would be able to decipher the meaning of the philosophy, thus I believe that Socialism is destined to be stuck in the heads of intellectuals at least for some time to come.

The Ultimate Question – Arabs or Jews??

(pic courtesy -www.foreignpolicy.com)

A recent documentary aired on Al Jazeera English network caught my attention. The program named, “The Promised Land” focused its attention on the Israel- Palestine conflict and it discussed the establishment of the Jewish sate and the reaction on the parties involved. Ironically the program was quite captivating and it discussed the pre world war elements and forces, which helped form the State of Israel.

We all know the harassments and cruel massacres that were carried out by the Nazi forces against the Jews in Europe, but that was not the sole reason but a major stimulus, which helped the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. The Zionist dream or the ideology to form a Jewish state in Palestine dates back years before the 2^nd World War. Though an idea for the reestablishment of a Jewish state in Palestine had been there for centuries, it only became a major ideology and a movement in late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

The Arab lands, which were under colonial rule, saw an influx of Jewish immigrants since the late 1880s and this continued and increased yearly. The British, then rulers of the Palestine and other Arab countries played along with different ball games offered by both the Arab and Jewish leaders in order to maintain their authority over the region. Even before the Jewish immigrants started to arrive, there was a minor population of Jews living in these Arab lands but it was around 7% of the total population. Also this Jewish population lived closely with their Arab counterparts and they did not even hold any Zionist dreams and in fact they were anti-Zionists.

However in late 1930s the Jewish immigrants in Palestine clearly outnumbered its Arab population. Of Palestinians point of view, the damage had been already been done, the harsh nomadic land witnessed the birth of modern Jewish settlements, stimulated much by the idea of Zionism. The Palestinians revolted but it was too late, the next years of the world history propelled the Zionist dream to new heights and by the end of the World War 2, amidst clear Arab opposition, the State of Israel was born. In the years to follow, Arabs waged war on Israel and by the time the wars had ended Israel had occupied more land and thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee and seek refuge.

Half a century down the line the tables have turned completely, and the Palestinians are now fighting for their land while the Israelis are trying to protect their country from militant Palestinians.

With its 60^th anniversary of Statehood marked only a few weeks ago many Israelis celebrated their achievement and through out Arab lands it was a day of mourning called al-Nakba' - the catastrophe.

This was a mere synopsis of what happened and to draw conclusions it would require a more detailed analysis over the issue. And making judgments over who was right or wrong clearly not the motivation behind this post. But we can clearly break this incident down to two main factors; the ignorance of Arabs and the tactfulness of Jews. As history points out the Zionist dream was more of an ambition for Jews living in Europe and other Western countries than Jews living in Palestine and other Arab lands.

As a nation are there any lessons Sri Lanka can learn from this incident? Well, I think there are. Of course the comparisons may not be the same, but whom can we relate to…Arabs or Jews??

Has China moved up to the next step in Marxism?

Marxism; it has almost become a bad word in Sri Lanka, unfortunately in this country the image that it conjures in the average joe (or siripala) on the street is one of rioting students and hardline political parties and not of a intellectually sound philosophy one that addresses the spirituality as well as the material desires of a population.

To put it very colloquially for those not so enlightened individuals that hasten to brand Marxism as a failed experiment, Marxism is not a philosophy that can only be categorized to mean a larger government and a total nationalization of the economy.

Marxist philosophy is based on three simple stages.

Stage Number One: This would be the prevailing situation in a country where large amounts of wealth is accumulated amongst a few individuals while the rest ( the lower classes) live in abject poverty. Their poverty is binding on the soul; thus it does not allow them to be free, or to experience happiness. ( This is rather difficult to explain think of it as the utopia of the philosophy similar to what Nirvana is in Buddhism.)

Stage Number Two : In order to reverse the prevailing situation, a rapid nationalization of the economy is enforced. Almost all systems of production , delivery and sale are under state controlled to create what big businessmen often call a "level playing field". The government enforces price controls to ensure so that the producer and the consumer can maintain a balance. Rigid controls are required to ensure that this system runs smoothly.

Stage Number Three: Due to a manged economy the distribution of wealth among the population is now more or less favorable, people's needs such as housing, education, clothing etc. can be adequately met, thus there is no further need for the controls enforced in Stage Two.

Before I come to the crux of my argument let me just emphasize on one point; according to Marx the method of converting Stage One to Stage Three was to nationalize, nationalize, nationalize! However, I beg to differ, in a sufficiently technologically advanced society that maybe possible but if one is to progress continuously while stage two is underway it is necessary to create competition in the market place.

Which is where the Social Democratic economic system comes in to play; that is however the subject of another post which I will proceed to publish very soon.

One aspect that was quite evident during the Sichuan earthquake was the amount of media coverage, the Chinese government was remarkably hospitable to foreign media crews and aid workers. Having earlier being described as xenophobic at best this is a startling revelation.

After the Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao, China went through a period of very very stringent government control that even rivaled the Soviet Union. Though allegations of Human Rights abuse are still rife in China the situation has improved, the government no longer dictates everything to businessmen. Mostly confining themselves to macro economic policy decisions.

This sudden openness in the Chinese economy and the relinquishing of absolute control by the government may mean that they have gone through the transition period and are slowly nearing the Marxist utopia, where citizens are free and not held down by economic constraints.

American propaganda gurus will tell you that Communism, Marxism and Socialism all mean an end to individual liberties, but is there a way of achieving the utopian state without infringing on civil rights?

Maybe, China has defineitly shown the difference a half a lifetime can make, maybe the fledgling leftist governments of South America can do it in less.