Thursday, January 31, 2008

Response to a post on Thinkfree's blog

A blogger by the name of Thinkfree published a letter by a Mr Asoka Weerasinghe, a resident of Canada to an MP in the British Parliament.

Mr Weerasinghe's argument, as far as Point can decipher from the meandering jumble that is Mr Weerasinghe's letter, is that the war should continue and that Britain has no business in interfering in these matters.

Whether the government should persue a military solution or a engage in talks is a matter that can be debated, Point's issue with Mr Weerasinghe is that he is not in the best of positions to preach war, the suspension of human rights, and all its concommitant horrors, when enjoying the very benefits of good governance overseas.

The original letter is to be found here:


Point's response (also posted at the above site) is reproduced below:

Mr Asoka Weerasinghe must leave Canada immediately and return to do battle at home.

He lives in comfort, enjoying all the fruits of stable democracy and good governance. Low interest rates, low levels of inflation reasonable growth rates and thus a future for himself and his family.

Thus luxuriating in comfort he chooses to prescribe treatment for the problems of others in far of lands. He pays little or no taxes in SL, he faces not the withering of his savings and the stunting of prospects he endures not danger to life and limb nor the petty discomforts that we face every day, ignores the thousands of others who leave every month to the middle East, to Africa, to the West, all in search of something better. He ignores history the 30 years wasted and the prospect of a further 30 that offers little else, and yet he presumes to prescribe. Come Mr Weerasinghe, come home.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Hornby Railways

Point was ecstatic today. The dead, or more correctly, something though to be dead, was found to be alive and well.

Hornby Railways, maker of the finest model trains on the planet is still in existence, and judging by their website, producing trains as every bit as good as those in Point's rose tinted memory. No bitter disappointment, as in the case of Matchbox, where, sadly, the craftsmanship has sunk without trace. Just pure unadulterated joy.

Children brought up on Nintendo, video games and other such fripperies cannot possibly know, or even imagine, the power that Hornby exerted over young boys minds for over half a century. There were others who made train sets, toys or models, but Hornby was the Gold Standard, and anyone who owned one was the envy of the neighbourhood. The only thing that could possibly have commanded similar respect was a Raleigh bicycle.

Reading the "About" section on the website Point was amazed to discover that Meccano, another popular toy of that era was what Hornby actually started with, model trains came later. Further frantic web searches revealed that Hornby had recently acquired Airfix, maker of model aircraft kits and another hallowed name from Point's boyhood.

Careful study of the product catalogue lead to the discovery of their latest, and surely most marvelous product: a genuine steam powered model locomotiove. Not an electric powered one, but one that ACTUALLY RUNS on STEAM. Wonders will never cease. Hornby calls this range "Live Steam" and Point is now scheming on how one may be obtained and smuggled into the house......

The website is here:

http://www.hornby.com

Monday, January 28, 2008

Creeping militarisation of Sri Lankan society?

A report that the Defence Secretary wants censorship imposed got me thinking.

see link:





to quote from the link above, the Secretary apparently said:

"I think that there is no need to report any thing on the military. People do not want to know how many and what kind of arms we acquired. That is not media freedom. I tell without fear that if I have power I will not allow any of these things to write. I told the President that we need to bring press censorship at the beginning. I have been telling that we need bring in laws that can punish harshly for these reports… We need criminal defamation law…"

He seems to brook no criticism.

This comes hard on the heels of another report that the Sri Lankan military plans to start a television station. Apparently broadcast will start with two hours a day of programming and eventually end up as a 24 hour channel, with news and entertainment programmes.

Keen readers of the local press may have noticed a series of advertisements - usually half a page in all the major newspapers showing members of the army, air force and navy interacting with members of the public. Similar advertisements were aired on television. The theme was, if I am not mistaken, Api Wenuwen Api which roughly translates as We for Ourselves. The campaign has been running for around a year if memory serves me correctly and seems aimed at intertwining the armed forces with the population in general. Henceforth the armed forces are not to been seen as a branch of government but as a part of society, and an important part at that.

The military, it seems is stepping out of its traditional role of guardians against external threat into ordinary civilian life.

Does this point even further involvement in civilian administration, perhaps to the extent of martial law?

I have raised the possibility of a coup on Indi's blog and David Blacker argued that the regimental structure of the army would not permit such a thing to happen. However, a creeping dictatorship seemed likely and I wonder if these are further steps down that slippery slope.

Post script:

Groundviews carries an article on this subject here:

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Who is Point?

Some may have wondered about my strange nom de plume, well wonder no more, the truth can now be told.

Jack Point is a character in The Yeomen of the Guard, or The Merryman and his Maid, a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The character Point is a jester, hence the title of this blog.

I was taken by the song sung by Point ("I've jibe and joke"), the setting by Sullivan is delicious and the text amusing.

I thought it would be a good name to write under, partly because I did'nt want to be taken too seriously, sentiments that were expressed perfectly in these lines:

I've wisdom from the East and from the West,
That's subject to no academic rule;
You may find it in the jeering of a jest,
Or distil it from the folly of a fool.
I can teach you with a quip, if I've a mind;
I can trick you into learning with a laugh;
Oh, winnow all my folly, folly, folly, and you'll find
A grain or two of truth among the chaff!
Oh, winnow all my folly, folly, folly, and you'll find
A grain or two of truth among the chaff!

The song is a little gem, listen to it here.



For an excellent recording of the work, try this.

By the way, now that you know my name, you may as well as look up my number. ;)

Who is Point?

Some may have wondered about my strange nom de plume, well wonder no more, the truth can now be told.

Jack Point is a character in The Yeomen of the Guard, or The Merryman and his Maid, a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The character Point is a jester, hence the title of this blog.

I was taken by the song sung by Point ("I've jibe and joke"), the setting by Sullivan is delicious and the text amusing.

I thought it would be a good name to write under, partly because I did'nt want to be taken too seriously, sentiments that were expressed perfectly in these lines:

I've wisdom from the East and from the West,
That's subject to no academic rule;
You may find it in the jeering of a jest,
Or distil it from the folly of a fool.
I can teach you with a quip, if I've a mind;
I can trick you into learning with a laugh;
Oh, winnow all my folly, folly, folly, and you'll find
A grain or two of truth among the chaff!
Oh, winnow all my folly, folly, folly, and you'll find
A grain or two of truth among the chaff!

The song is a little gem, listen to it here.



For an excellent recording of the work, try this.

By the way, now that you know my name, you may as well as look up my number. ;)

Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963):Daddy

Post Galle Literary Festival, Jack Point, no man of letters by any definition of the term, is now dabbling in literature. Point hastens to add that he is no more than a dilettante in these matters.

Attending a talk on American poetry shortly after returning from Galle this particular poem made a powerful impact. The rhythms of the metre are compelling and the dark and desperate sentiments expressed within are haunting.

The poem starts off uneasily, and the pace becomes gradually more frenetic, until by the time it reaches "Ich, ich, ich, ich, I could hardly speak" all manner of dark fears start reaching out. By the time the line reaches "At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do." the nightmare is in full flow, fear has turned to terror, a and few lines later, terror has turned to madness.

Point hopes that no copyright is violated by reproducing it here (the poem being available on public websites)




Daddy

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time---
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You----

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath reads here poem "Daddy" on Youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hHjctqSBwM

Monday, January 21, 2008

Where are we heading?

This was posted as a comment on Indi's blog on the 31st of May 2007


I am a pessimist. I think we turned the corner at the last election, there is no way but down from here on.

Hope of a negotiated settlement grows more distant because:

1. The exit of moderates on both sides (Balasingham & Kadiragamar)
2. The basis of the existing CFA (recognition of territories controlled by each party) has changed - because the territories have changed, need to go back to the drawing board again if a realistic CFA is to come about.
3. The war seems to have taken a very personal turn. MR’s filial affections are well known, and so is his unquestioned support for his friends. All the incompetents who surround him (Sajin Vaas, Asantha De Mel, etc) are either friends who jhave helped him when he was a nobody or his family.

The two turning points in the war were the attack on Sarath Fonseka, (close buddy of Gota) and the attack on Gota. The initial campaign intensified only after the attempt on SF’s life in April last year, the attackon Gota brought about a further intnsification. As Arnie said in the Terminator movie “this time its personal”.

Any hope of a settlement must only come after exhaustion by both sides (govt runs out of money, tigers run out of cadres) After that stalemate emerges, then a settlement can be realistically explored (this is what the Norwegians have also said) BUT this takes political will plus a certain amount of competence. This regime lacks both.

I think the leaders have more interest in looting the treasury than in anything else, and they will happily do it as long as they can.

We can go the way of Kenya (lots of violent crime due to income disparities & poverty + rampant corruption) , Colombia (where various militias roamed the country kidnapping, extorting and fighting for turf) and any number of African countries.

We have to endure 12 years of MR (who will hang on by hook or more likely by crook). Then a power struggle, probably betwen Basil and Namal but which may include Gota as well. After that another 12 years of whoever, provided the other party decides to give way, if not a coup is possible (conditions are now right for this - an increasingly politicised military plus rampant corruption)

The JVP wants us to be like North Korea, The JHU wants us to be like Iran, the SLFP wants to take us back to the glorious days of 1956. What models the political leadership has.

WE are in for some interesting times old boy, make no mistake.


Indi's original post is here;

http://www.indi.ca/2007/05/the-expat-diaries/

The economics of Fighting the war

This is another comment on the same post by VIC (see my post below for context).

VIC replied to one of my comments by saying:

"But I'm ready fund this campaign with my tax money, if it's going to end in next 2 years. Otherwise, I will have to keep on funding this same war for another 20 years."

What I've been trying to argue is that we simply cannot afford to fight on for any length of time - there is no money. Very little room left to tax and still less to borrow.

In a nutshell, This is what Sri Lanka's government's income and expenditure looks like (estimates for 2007 taken from the budget):

Tax & non tax revenue Rs.580bn
Expenditure:
Pensions & Salaries of govt servants: Rs.240bn
Defence : Rs.140bn budgeted
Interest payments : 169bn
subsidies & transfers (to loss making govt businesses) 127bn

theres' other stuff as well but these are the main things

You can see there is a huge deficit. All the revenue is basically spent on salaries/pensions (no growth will come from this), interest (same as above) and defence (same story)

What about development - roads, schools, transport, health etc? Goevt says they will spend and this ges to make huge Budget deficit of Rs.235bn.

Where do they get the money from?

Money printing & borrowing.

The effects of money printing of last year can be seen in the inflation of today. For a lesson in what happens if this is taken too far read:

http://www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?newsID=317801223&no_view=1&SEARCH_TERM=1

The rest is financed by borrowing locally and from foreign sources plus a smalll component of aid (abt 24bn) Debt is now close to 100% of GDP (anything over 50% is considered high)


And what happens when we borrow? The interest bill keeps shooting up. Remember that as per the original budget, we spend more on interest than on defence.

The collapse of 2000-2001 was triggered under the CBK administartion when things got to this stage (Rupee went from 70 to the $ to 100, interest rates went to 20% and we had negative growth)

The UNP set things right in 2002-3 by cutting govt expenses, reducing borrowings, and thus reducing interest rates. This set a platform for private investment & job creation. (government has no money to invets in projects - becasue all of it is being eaten up by running expenses and borrowing and spending only digs the hole deeper.

Now we are going back into the same hole and very few people understand the implications.

Basically, in a year or two the government is going to run out of money to fight a war. If they continue, we go bankrupt. Zimbabwe's collapse where 80% of the population is unemployed is the result of about 10-15 years of rampant money printing, which is what governments do when they can no longer borrow.

There is some double counting of figures above. (the way the info is classified makes it hard to reconcile ) The gross deficit 235bn is taken straight from the budget though so that is OK

Read the last page of the budget speech here for the summary, if you go through in detail you can get the breakups.

http://www.treasury.gov.lk/FPPFM/fpd/budget.htm

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Comments on :Where there's no war, there's no market for peace!

A Voice In Colombo posted this on the 12th of July 2007

http://landlikenoother.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html

This was his closing para, which sums up his argument:

"Where there's no war, there's no market for peace merchants to sell their bullshit. With the Easter province falling away from tigers hands, the market for peaceniking in East has now collapsed. That's the truth! So the peace merchants will do their best, to retain this war for another decade."

My comment was:

This government is indeed persuing a more agressive military campaign, (indeed agression regardless of collateral damage in many instances) as promised in the election manifesto.

However this in itself is not vindication that they are "doing the war more honestly".

Just as much as there is a 'peace industry' there is also a 'war industry'.

The beneficiaries of the war industry include many within government, probably up to the highest levels, sections of the armed forces and the businessmen involved in procurement and supplies.

I have known persons who supply milk powder (commission used to be Rs.1 per kg - army used to be 100mt per month) to chicken (commission about Rs.25 per kg, supply was about 80 tons a month, if i remember correctly). The money was split between supplier, purchasing people in the army and a couple of others who where wholesale contractors. - Rs.1 was offered to the sales guy in the milk powder place - army used to buy direct, the "agents" wanted it routed through them)

This is the lower end. The big deals are on weapons and big equipment, which is why half the airforce fleet is grounded for lack of spares.

The government in office benefits in numerous other ways as well. The war is a convenient distraction from other pressing problems, and anti-terror laws can be used to suppress political opponents - such as Tiran Alles/ Sripathi etc.

Coming back to the original point that war is being fought honestly, my father who retired from the army about 30 years ago, is of teh view that to eliminate the LTTE one must go after the "strong base" or the head. In his day, this was in India and out of reach but today it is in Killinochichi and the Wanni.

Fightingf in the East will not eliminate the lTTE they will lose ground but the problem will remain. HOWEVER fighting in the East does make good political propaganda - fo rthe government - bringing the aforementioned benefits to the parties involved. True- it does bring more land under government control but holding it is difficult and costly.

This is going to be a long drawn out campaign, which needs to be funded - and the tax base is not wide enough to support this level of conflict for any length of time (in my opinion).

Comments on other people's blogs

When I created this blog, it was purely as a result of pressure - was commenting extensively on other people's blogs (off the Kottu blogroll) and people had started referring to me as a Troll. The perceived slight prompted me to start this, but after a week or so I realised that I was no diarist and was probably too closed a person to share my thoughts with the world at large, which is why it was abandoned for so long. Laziness (I'm long on that) also played a part,

I've said quite a lot on other people' blogs, so I'm going to collect a few of those comments and post them here, just for my own reference.

Glories of the Anglican Hymnal

Coming from a Catholic tradition (although no longer a believer), I have always found the Protestant churches to be rather dull. Limited stained glass work (usually confined to one or two windows) and bare of statues and decoration, they seem to lack colour and character. The buildings themselves, generally in Gothic style, some with stone facing, are beautiful but the lack of decoration inside was what bothered me.

True, some of the Catholic churches can be rather over-the-top or vulgar in the decoration, but one can never accuse them of being bare or dull.

Then I discovered the Anglican Hymnal. All the energies that might conceivably have been devoted to the decoration of church interiors seem to have been directed at the hymn book, with some stunning results (traditional catholic hymns are, by contrast terribly dull, even banal-luckily it is possible to sing quite a number of the Anglican hymns in the Catholic church, provided of course that an enlightened choir master is in charge).


The hymns that have caught my attention at the moment are:

1. Great is Thy Faithfulness by W.M. Runyan (an American)
2. Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty by J.B. Dykes
3. May God's Blessing by Cliff Barrows

All of which are excellent in every way and certainly good enough to keep this particular atheist in the choir. Had a wonderful morning practicing these, we have to sing these for a mass next Friday.

Issues, post victory for the government of Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan Government is engaged in mortal combat with the LTTE. There is little independent news as to success or failure, but judging from the little that is available, it seems as if the government does have the upper hand, at least now.

Given the fact that the LTTE's supply routes appear to have been cut and given the resources the government is pouring into the war, there is a possibility that the Tigers will be ejected from the Wanni. The Government will then proclaim victory and all will be well?

I doubt it.

Thsi article, in todays Sunday Times got me thinking.

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/080120/News/news0001.html

Col. Karuna, former LTTE commander of the East has pleaded guilty to breaching British immigration laws and faces a jail term of two years. The article goes on to state that "the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is expected to spend the coming months in sifting evidence and trying to construct a case against him probably under the Convention against Torture".

This is going to put the government and Karuna's cadres in a pickle.

To begin with, is there peace in the East? If not peace, at least stability? The Governemnt proclaimed victory over the Tigers in the East last year, but judging from the sketchy news reports emanating from the area, things are anything but normal.

The Government appears to have some administrative control and the army does have some presence there but by all accounts Karuna's cadres appear to be running the East as their own fief, extorting and terrorising much of the population, particularly the Muslims and the Tamils. The much vaunted liberation appears to have been little more than a handover to the Karuna gang, with the government retaining a minimal of control.

It is this that is going to cause the biggest headaches, post victory in the Wanni, if that comes to pass.

What does one do with the Karuna cadres? The Government apparently had a neat solution - pack them off with false passports to fairer climes, probably with a large wad of cash to help them on their way. The arrest and prosecution of Col. Karuna will be noted with more than a little interest by his followers. I doubt if the remaining kingpins in that particular gang are going to accept any further offers of a happy retirement abroad.

Which brings us to the question of what form their pound of flesh is going to take.

The current arrangement seems to be that they can run the East unmolested as long as they do not attack the government or its representatives. This may work in the interim but will it satisfy in the long term? Power does strange things to people and once acquired, it is not easily given up. Given that Government "control" of the East is dependent on Karuna, there is little that the government can do, other than dance to his tune. If the Government does decide to assert control, after a possible victory in the Wanni, then they will have a real fight on their hands. Minus the intelligence gathering by the Karuna cadres plus scattered roaming bands of Tigers staging random attacks (doing what they are doing in the Monaragala district) we will probably face a scenario of guerilla warfare across large tracts of the East, South and North.

In teh meanwhile, there are disturbing reports that the Karuna gang's terrorising of the muslim population is prompting them to take up arms against Karuna, so the East might turn into a three way battle.

Not the happiest thoughts to start the New Year with.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Crazy, crazy, crazy

A website I turn to, whenever things start looking too gloomy in the Paradise Isle is www.crazylanka.com.

The biting satire never fails to amuse and is a useful distraction from the pressures of life.

The latest update, which includes the SriLankan-Peter Hill affair and the Mervin Silva-Rupavahini affair, includes an editorial comment:

Sadly, When A Country Gets To This Crazy Stage, Satire Is Totally Ineffective!

Nuff said.