A couple of days ago, I was analyzing who the biggest political influencers on Twitter were. The numbers were small, because despite the number of selfies generated by the average TweetUpSL, Twitter in Sri Lanka is still a small circle. It’s Facebook that reigns supreme for now, so let’s get on the Zuckertrain. Warning: you’re in for a spreadsheet. Friendly graphics appear after the ...
It’s 6.24. I’m sitting in a chair, flicking between news sites, trying not to fall asleep.The news anchors, devoid of violent deaths to report, are trying valiantly to spin out the election results for as long as possible. Outside, the sun is sinking, throwing the last of its lights on a surprisingly empty Duplication Road. It’s over. The UNP:UPFA scoreboard – ...
This is the Twitter universe of the elections. Every star is a tweep; every line is a tweet, retweet or a mention. Beautiful, isn’t it? This is a visual representation of a week’s worth of Twitter conversations from #GenElecSL and #SLGE15, the two most popular hashtags related to the 2015 General Election. I’ve set about mapping influencers on social media – ...
Gopiharan Perinpam created an excellent set of voting guidelines targeting the upcoming election. Here they are, with minor modifications. If you’re voting, you might want to read this. PART ONE: ELIGIBILITY 1) Voters List for the Parliamentary General Elections 2015 will be based on the Electoral Registers of 2014. You are eligible to vote if your name appears in that register. ...
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking. – Marcus Aurelius Ceasar, the last great emperor of Rome | philosopher Anyone who’s had a serious chat with me recently would have noticed a tendency to go on and on about Thailand. Thailand happened at a crucial time for me. I was ...
When a white man comes to Sri Lanka, people tend to stand up and take notice. Especially if, as in this case, this white man is German and has four wheels and is in the papers a lot. I’m talking about Volkswagen, of course. Volkswagen is an interesting company: not just because of its pedigree, not just because it’s the ...
Is there anyone from Google out there? Anyone? Good. If there is, know that you – and the company you work for – are now part of Sri Lanka’s many political campaigns. Let me explain. I’m looking at a copy of the DailyFT. On the front page is a photo of Muhunthan Canagey shaking hands with Mike Cassidy, VP at ...
It’s been a busy week in Sri Lanka: we’ve pelted the Pakistani cricket team with stones, ranted about how shitty that act was, and watched Mahinda Rajapaksa do a Facebook Q&A. Perhaps the old bear has gotten smarter after his recent licking, and perhaps the Old Guard is finally catching on to what the Younger Generation can really do to ...
Picture a dark alley. Then picture something smaller, but with the same atmosphere, for it would be an exaggeration to call this this place an alley. On one side is a town’s largest junction. Three roads meet and dissolve into one another with snakelike ease. The sides are lined by the fruits of Sri Lankan small enterprise: bookshops, fish stalls, ...
Democracy: “A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.” – Oxford English Dictionary “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.” – Abraham Lincoln Around 500 years before the birth of Christ, Greece – the same Greece that’s making news right now – changed the world. In a ...
I’m no Sun Tzu, but some things need to be said.* Thou shalt not hate a human for their religion. There’s some interesting math on the atheism wikia: postulating from an estimate of 63,000 religious groups throughout human history, all the way from the ancient Hittites, they estimate that we – the human race- came up with some 28,000,000 religious deities. That’s ...
Does anyone remember the original TIME magazine? I don’t. The first TIMEs shipped in the late 1920s – almost thirty years before my parents first opened their eyes and screamed out their existence to the hospital ward. I’m from the 90’s: generation Z, the Millenials, call it what you wish. My memories of TIME are boxes of thin, red-bordered magazines ...
Yesterday was historic. The US Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, the Dutch sued their government and ordered it to cut down on carbon emissions, and President Maithripala Sirisena dissolved the 14th Sri Lankan Parliament. And I, with great personal strength, managed to say no to a piece of chocolate cake. Those are three amazing things. The first two have world-changing implications; the ...
Royalty. A bit of an odd thing, really. On the surface of it, no-one really seems to be sure why it’s still around (unless you’re in the Middle East, in which case the answer is ‘oil’). Most of the world’s countries don’t have a king or queen anymore. The very concept of power being transferred through a dynasty is carefully ...
“Far too many of my friends seem to be getting hitched,” says Your Unmarried Friend. “I know the feeling,” you say. “Everyone in my batch is already gone by now.” Together, the two of you contemplate how long you have before the stern and vaguely cow-like gaze of Society starts looking at you and asking “When are YOU getting married, eh?” ...
“I’M GETTING A TATOO,” I SAID OVER THE PHONE. The average response of the average Sri Lankan mother is to recoil in horror. Tattoos are bad. Tattoos are unclean. Tattoos belong on drug addicts, ministers, and those old men who function as the default odd-job men for any village. Honestly, I don’t mind being lumped in with the Mahathung s, as the ...
“The fighting’s started in Jaffna again,” said the woman at the shop. I knew the incident she was speaking of: a hartal, a protest of sorts; police tear-gassing the crowd; a hundred and thirty people arrested; a lot of top brass in Jaffna being transferred away. The woman went on to discuss the Jaffna problem at length with her customer. ...
Recently, a friend shared an old poem by M.H.M Ashraff called “The Buddha and the Poet”. In it, the Poet – presumably the author – meets the Buddha, and they discuss, in rather rambling verse, the problems in the country, and [in the poem] the Buddha concludes that he must return and teach the Dhamma in Tamil. At the time ...
Malu-O! The Maluman – thus I call him in my head – trudges up the lane. His panniers are balanced across a bent back. Green sarong, dirty white shirt, stalking through the neighborhood of balconies and rich mens’ conversation. Sometime curtains are closed as he passes with his panniers of fish. The laboring man is a subtle insult to many, ...
“No one man should have all that power.” – Kanye West If you were to liken the 19th Amendment to poop, you’d end up with an incredibly crude but hilariously accurate description. It was a long poop. Protracted. Painful. It even made me want to quote Kanye West. But it was necessary, oh, so necessary. Because Kanye, despite being ...
