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Morning Spice by Ginger
Smoker, tippler common whipping postsAnother budget has come and gone. What sheer genius? Was this the first government that thought of such novel revenue raking exercises as it did this time? On the contrary one felt the state laid it rather thick on two very common whipping posts. Most government that have run out of alternate methods resort to this sure-fire fund raiser-the smoker and the tippler have copped it as usual. That is O.K. by itself.
Nobody grudges a government sending a family up the spout. It gets at the family belly by hitting papa below the belt by sending up the price of liquor and cigarettes: there is another way of adding to family misery and that it by sending up the price of stamp or rather postage costs. People were communicating far too much and possibly passing on some derogatory messages about certain persons. This would have long benefits as it would bring down the cost of the education bill substantially due to fall in the demand for education. There would be little purpose in being literate if one cannot afford to communicate with one another.
For long and active life
Want to live a long and active social life? What would you think the prerequisites for such an achievement would be. Early to bed and early to rise and plenty of exercise and health foods? It may work but not as certainly as you would think according the Journal of the American Medical Association a study feels that you could do it while having a good time.The discovery was made during a study that those who had an active social life and mixed with friends and relations were less likely to get colds and produced less mucus. They were also not prone to be as depressed or anxious. This could be because their social commitments made life worthwhile and they took better care of themselves as well and they could keep themselves free of other illnesses besides colds because of this.
Pressurising along with C.O.L.
Are some of the smaller pharmacies ruining the good name of the main agents. Now Ginger takes an Aldomat daily to keep his pressure rising along with the C.O.L. when he went to a pharmacy sometime ago he was told that the price had gone up by /30 cts. but they would continue to give it to him at the old price as they had some of the old stock left.Ginger went to another place a few days later and he was charged the extra thirty cents and he came away with a lighter purse and a heavier heart. Life was going to be difficult. When he last went to repleuish his stock he was charged Rs. 4/20 which was the old price. Now this is what one calls counter confusion. What is the real price and why don’t the agents make it a habit of announcing any price increases through the media.
Declining phase of Sri Lankan cricket
Five defeats off the trot in Dhaka and Sharjah must have certainly shaken Arjuna and his men to the maximum. Two shameful losses in Sharjah to the minions of International Cricket, the Zimbabweans, surely and firmly rubbed salt into the wounds of the World Cup Champs who were already smarting in the wake of succumbing to the Indians. It is hard to imagine if this was almost the identical cricketing outfit which covered itself in glory, admittedly in unfamiliar conditions in Old Blighty by winning the one off Test and vanquishing the English and the South Africans who are now being bracketed with the Aussies as the strongest teams in the world.
What then really went wrong in Sharjah? Once again there will be many who will beonce again pointing he finger at the Umpires who stood in the matches. It is sensationally dramatic if not ironical that a well nigh 90% of the LBW decisions given in any tournament go against the Sri Lankan batsmen. What happened in Sharjah is no exception. Now then, is the panel of ICC umpires prejudiced against Sri Lanka or it just happens to be that our batsmen lack the technique especially when facing sheer pace as was evident when a highly fired up Srinath and Agarkar of India and chicken farmer Eddo Brandes of Zimbabwe merely bamboozled our front line batsmen with their thunderbolts.
On the other hand the post-mortem conducted by the public ‘coroner’ on the first encounter with India inculpates the Sri Lankan skipper for having bowled Dharmasena, who had been simply, ‘massacred’ in the previous overs, in the penultimate over instead of Vaas who had spread-eagled the stumps of the well set Indian captain just the over before. Tony Greig, in the commentary box yelled that the Sri Lankans had simply ‘miscalculated’ the number of overs Vaas had bowled. If that is a fact, it certainly boggles one’s mind how such a preposterous slip could take place at the level of cricket that was being played.
Under Dave Whatmore’s rigorous and systematic training schedules the Sri Lankan team became to be dubbed as one of the best fielding sides in the world. But this was not what we saw in Sharjah. The commentators in Sharjah were not divided when they said the Sri Lankans look absolutely jaded, if not lethargic, whereas the Zimbabweans in particular were brilliant in their fielding. Once gain Greig, a lover of Sri Lankan cricket cried they are grassing lollipops’ when several ordinary looking catches were dropped at crucial stages of the games. The TV cameras focused on wives and fiancees of our cricketers. It is a moot point if taking along wives was a privilege allowed to all cricketers on tours. Will it not be interesting to find out how many wives of the Englishmen on the Ashes tour of Australia are in fact with their husbands! It is altogether another question if carting wives on tours is a negative distraction or a performance booster ?
After each post-match chat the Sri Lankan Captain interviewed made it known to the viewers that his team was going to profit from the mistakes learnt and do better in the next match. But sadly the phenomenon of capitulation continued until the world champs were finally eliminated from the finals. Obviously the lessons had not been learnt. But then, did we miss Murali in the team ? One cannot agree with it wholly since it was our leading batsmen that came a cropper when the bowlers had dazzled with some exceptionally good bowling.
Finally, have we seen the declining phase of Sri Lankan cricket in Sharjah? Hope not, because every champion team in the past had not had a purple passage all along. A near decade of dominance in the cricket firmament by the Windies has evidently ended but that will be only ephemeral. Likewise it will undoubtedly be the cherished hope of all the Sri Lankan cricket fans that our own cricketing fortunes will rise phoenix like from the ashes reflecting in a repeat World Cup triumph next year.
Bandula M Abeyewardene
Battaramulla.
Sri Lanka cricket in the doldrums
Sri Lanka cricket is in the doldrums again. The cricket loving public are amazed at the about turn of our performers. Tongues have started wagging and our cricketers will do well to pull up their socks.
The talent is there for all to see, but dedication and application are sadly lacking. I will not agree one bit with the allegations now being made, mainly, that some of our cricketers have copied their counterparts in a neighbouring country. How could one explain world champion batsmen not knowing how to get in line with the ball?
Why is it that one of them at least, hangs out a crooked bat to drag the ball on to his stumps? He has done so, so many times. Some defensive shots are neither on the back nor on the front foot — half-cocked, in other words.
There is also the talk that far too many goodies have fallen on to, their laps and that they are now far too pre-occupied counting out their monies. Perhaps those who control our cricket should probe the conduct of our cricketers, to ensure that all’s well and above board.
Foreign commentators were lost for words to explain our debacle. Our batsmen looked like lost sheep in the middle and appeared far happier walking to the pavilion than out of it.
The one obvious exception was our captain who clearly was out of luck on several occasions. May our cricketers rise from the morass into which they have fallen and lift up the Lion Flag again. Some people say "To hell with soft drinks and sausages. Let’s play cricket again".
Jim Bandaranayake
Colombo 12
Is the Catholic Church racist?
It is very strange; that nearly 500 years after evangelizing the People’s inhabiting Africa, South Asia and South East Asia, that the church has not elevated to the status of sainthood any of its faithful, who had lived and died for the Church in these parts of the Globe. But the number of white men and women, including Kings, Queens, Popes, Bishops, Priests & Nuns, elevated to the status of saint is legion. Does this not imply that the Kingdom of Heaven is out of bounds for coloured races ? Even though they may have died after scrupulously following the teachings of Jesus Christ, who 2000 years ago said "I am the way" the truth and the life and that anyone dying after living according to my teachings shall have eternal life’’ i.e. shall enter Heaven and thereby attain sainthood.
In view of the assurance given by Jesus Christ, whose teachings are eternal, it is clear, as clear could be, that this discrimination takes place in the minds of the hierarchy of the Church; dominated by white ageing men who have still not got rid of the colonial mind-set of considering coloured races,as inferior, although these coloured races were civilized and believed in a Moksha or Heaven or Nirvana centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ. Infact it is now believed that the historical Jesus had spent a good part of his youth in India, imbibing the rich religious & cultural heritage of India, the teachings of whose sages and the Buddha are in consonance with the teachings of Jesus Christ love of neighbour as one self or universal love of all living beings. It was this lack of universal love; displayed by the early Christian conquerors who came with the Bible and sword to evangelize the coloured races, more with the sword than the Bible, which was immortalized by Mahatma Gandhi, when he said " "There was only one Christian in the world but he died on a cross about 1900 years ago".
Hence, the time has come for the church to end this discrimination and declare that there are only two sets of souls of its departed faithful viz., those in Heaven, who in life had distributed all their wealth to the poor and had taken up the cross and followed Christ, and those in Hell, who in life had not done what the former had done.
As we mortals, on earth, cannot help those in Heaven or Hell; the Church and those who call themselves Christians should focus on the wretched of the earth, as the living Christ abides in them, and follow Christ by distributing the wealth of the church and those knighted by the church, among the poor of the earth, living miserable lives in the slums and ghettos of the Global Village so that they (Christ) could live in dignity and never be hungry, thirsty or naked.
Of course’ this would require of the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests and Nuns to give up their luxurious life-styles and lead simple lives, as Jesus Christ did during his mission on earth or as Blessed Joseph Vaz in Ceylon, during the Dutch persecution of the Catholics or as some priests, who believe in the "Church of the Poor", are doing in third world countries including Sri Lanka.
But this is an utopian dream which would be fulfilled only at the time of the second coming of Jesus Christ, due to greed, for power and wealth, of the representative of Christ on earth and his minious bent on conducting ceremicware sales and pumpkin parties, on holy ground.
C. S. Anthon
Mt. Lavinia.
The captains of industry and politics
The recent (and much publicised)) demarche of the Big-Wigs of the industrial world in their heroic attempt to broker peace between warring political parties is, unsurprisingly, at the centre of attention of political commentators of all brands and persuasions. All very good and no attempt is made here to question the bona fides of the distinguished gentlemen involved. Yet, like everyone else, they are burdened with misconceptions and analytical falsehoods that it is the duty of good citizens to point out.
Their first (and disastrous) assumption is that the grave problems confronting our nation can be solved - the minimal condition of peace achieved - by an accommodation being reached by three cardinal players. To wit, the PA, the UNP and Prabhakaran’s LTTE.. How can such a silly oversimplification be the main plank upon which these influential men base their overtures and arguments? The PA and the UNP have, certainly, a pivotal role to play but it is this political parochiality that is the root cause of all our troubles. A great and daunting National Problem is treated as a tawdry political game with winners and losers. Let the Captains of Industry realise that there are other forces in this country that must be in the vanguard if the right solutions are to be found.
The Maha Sangha is pre-eminently important in the resolution of any crisis confronting the Buddhist majority of Sri Lanka - and, Prabhakaran’s terrorist war is as much against Sinhala Buddhism as anything else. No less important is the joint command of the Armed Forces of this country. Any political deal involving "concessions" to the rebellious North and East will have profound security implications and - hard though it be for politicians and businessmen to swallow - must have the imprimatur of our patriotic defence command.
The assumption here is that our generals will no longer act as stooges of the politicians in power. Before dealing with the third "leg" of the triad of forces that has caught the fancy of our business tycoons - that festering northern appendage of Tamil Terrorism - let me point out that there is a shocking indifference on their part to another "war" going on in the south. This is the war waged by Peaceniks, Marxists etc. against the patriotic nationalists of this country - a group pejoratively referred to as "Sinhala Extremists" by their enemies. We mention this "War fought on a parallel front by Prabhakaran’s friends" because there is the danger of confusion of an honest political initiative with the hidden and diabolical agenda of Southern Collaborators. The latter howl day and night for an unfettered dialogue with the Killer of the North - exactly the theme-song of the businessmen although in a vastly different context. It is not for a moment suggested that the businessmen have anything to do with these unpatriotic elements but the convergence of advocacy is disturbing.
Finally, about Prabhakaran. The name is used in all deliberation because there is no organization comparable to the PA and the UNP as the effective "leg" of the triad of operators that the businessmen have recognised as crucial in the resolution of our present difficulties. There is an absolute tyrant to deal with, a man without moral or political compunction who has won his infamous laurels by killing everyone in his path. That his resolution to establish the Holy Tamil Land of Eelam is unflinching and adamantine is obvious to the veriest fool in politics. Given this dire circumstance, will the businessmen explain to the public (and the parties involved) the "parameters" of the proposed dialogue? Is the goal the facilitation of the birth of Eelam - the businessmen acting as expert "midwives" in a tricky operation. The alternative road - the extermination of the pestilential source of all our troubles -is anathema to our peace-loving businessmen. Are they, then, hoping for the miracle - the metamorphosis of the killer into the gracious democrat? The general public waits anxiously for clarification on these matters.
A.T. R.Perera
Thalawathugoda
International standard for politicians?
The International Standards Organization (ISO) celebrated the World Standards Day on 14th October 1998 and wide publicity was given in our newspapers on the need to adopt ISO 9000 (a model for Quality Management & Assurance Systems) and ISO 14000 (Environment Management). It is rather strange that upto now neither the ISO nor United Nations have adopted a minimum international standard for politicians. The top management of a company guides only the future of that particular company but politicians guide the future of the entire country . It is because there is no recognized minimum International Standard for the conduct of politicians that some of them make false promises, slander each other place the interest of their party before the country, resort to thuggery and gun culture, interfere with the police etc,.
It is about time that a minimum International Standard was adopted for those who govern a country and in whose hands the future of the country lies. The only standard the Sri Lankan politicians seem to have readily adopted is the wearing of the ‘‘Kapati’’ suit.
Kumar Abeygoonewardena
Execution of murderers and rapists
In view of the alarming rate of rape, murder, and brutality that has been sweeping over this Country since the last Government, I strongly appeal to the President to give her approval for the execution of all murderers and rapists convicted by our Courts of Law. Under the guise of a Dharmishta society the most un-dharmishta and inhuman deeds were committed on the people including politicians.
This same situation still continues where the ordinary man in the street is concerned. No citizen in this country other than security guarded politicians can confidently walk the streets without running the risk of being raped, murdered or robbed by the new breed of criminals who are now trained and proficient in the use of arms as well.
It is the incumbent duty of any Government to protect its peace loving citizens and I earnestly urge the president to ensure that this protection is effected by having deterrent punishment which is in the Statute Book enforced and carried out.
The recent Rita John brutal rape and murder was a stunning example of what is happening in the country some of which is not even reported to the Police. Let us not be hypocrites but accept the fact that this so-called Buddhist Country is fast gaining a name as ‘the most notorious land in the world’ for murder and mayhem.
At this rate if this situation goes on there will be no alternative for law abiding citizens of this country but to leave it for their own safety whilst the country degenerates to that of a jungle.
If this wave of crime is not controlled fast by means of extreme and deterrent punishment the Politicians themselves will fall victims and that will be too late.
Let us not forget the small band of marauders who gunned-down Alfred Doraiappa - the Mayor of Jaffna in 1975. The lethargy and inaction of the then Government to bring those responsible to justice has today resulted in the greatest most inhuman terrorist movement in the world - the LTTE. If the murderous criminals are allowed to go free or pardoned after conviction by our Courts of Law we may very soon see an under-ground Mafia worse than in the USA not only committing heinous crimes but also influencing and running the Country by having politicians in their pockets. That will certainly be the ultimate disaster for Sri Lanka.
Therefore do not spare the murderers and the rapists let them be executed in the shortest possible time and eliminated from the social scene of our country. Such deterrent action might perhaps make it a safe place for the ordinary citizens of this country to live without fear.
Nissanka M. Ediriwira
Ombudsman
We have no wayI live in Rajagiriya and during school days I have to walk up and down to the Janadipathi Vidyalaya with my daughter. The payments which were used by pedestrians for years have now been invaded by the motorcyclists. They never use the state drive for their use and the biggest wonder is the Police Personnel who are always on duty never make any notice of this illegal menace. As pedestrians we have no way to go unless on the sewer lines. Several occasions it was reported that accidents have occurred by this misuse of payments and I beg the new IGP to take necessary steps to solve this problem.
Sunil Wimalaweera
Nawala, Koswatta.
