And the manipulation begins..

Rant

The power went out last night. You may have heard about it. You may have even experienced it. I did. I stayed awake until 0730 sweating and swatting at the mozzies. Damned mozzies. I barely got any sleep.

Of course, my first reaction was somebody must pay.

We pay the power bills, is it too much to ask that we get what we pay for. Of course the LKGOV doesn't have much of an excuse now do they? The big excuse has now been wiped out. The Government has won. It's all going to be wine and roses from now on.

But I want to know why. Some kind of reason as to why the entire country went dark. Why I didn't get to sleep. I want something that is rare in Sri Lanka. I want accountability. I want someone to say, Sorry, I screwed up.

So do a lot of other people. All that we get is We're not sure what went wrong. So we're going to start a commission to find out why.

Great. Fine. Awesome. After all, this is Sri Lanka, where Commissions have done excellent jobs in uncovering the truth.

Can you tell I'm being sarcastic? Good!

Then I turned on the TV today, and there was a lovely Thought of The Day type thing going just after the news.

They tell us that we should stop blaming the poor innocent heroes of the Ceylon Electricity Board. That we should stop asking why these things are happening. That we should not do anything that would cause a lowering of the morale of the CEB.

Wait, WHAT?

They seriously expect us to stop asking questions because it would cause a drop in morale? What the fuck gave them that idea?

Oh yeah. The War.

The so-called humanitarian effort that still has over 200,000 people in concentration camps.

During the war we were told that we shouldn't ask questions. That we should not demand accountability or transparency. That if we did that we would be undermining the modale of the brave soldiers. That we would be engaging in treason. That the white vans would come for us. So we shut up.

We allowed massacres, shelling of civillian areas, stealing of money. We allowed innocent people to be herded into camps that we know are terrible places to live in. We are all guilty by complicity in what is happening in Menik Farm today.

And the LKGOV watched. And they learned. And now they are using it on us all over again.

Only this time, it is the CEB. The brave soldiers who are fighting to bring us light.

We should not question their shortcomings, it would lower their morale.

Whose morale are we supposed to protect next?

Booster Blitz Powder test

Rave

Yes, I know. I haven't posted lately. A lot of half-written articles are in my blog cache, but none are ready for being seen. So here I go.

Yesterday - in the process of getting ready for a long-weekend trip to Batticaloa and Pasikuddah - I went shpoping. Bought many things. Food, and eats a few meds and lions and tigers and bears. Oh my! I also picked up a few cans of Booster Blitz.

For those of you who don't know what Booster Blitz is, it is an energy drink from Malaysia. I prefer it to the candy taste of Red Bull, and at LKR 120 cheaper for a can - LKR160 for Booster vs LKR280 for Red Bull - it has other benefits too. Like being able to buy more for whatever you have in your wallet.

Now I'm a caffeine freak. I used to drink 3-liter bottles of Mountain Dew while in the US, and multiple 1.5-liter bottles while it was being sold here in Sri Lanka. I used to drink 8 cups (big mugs) of coffee a day. I still go through a 1.5-liter of Coca Cola every day, but I will joyously - nay ecstatically - throw it over for Mountain Dew if it becomes available in Sri lanka again. I drink double espressos at high speed. I get withdrawal headaches if I don't get my daily dose. And I now have gastric pain because of 3 double espressos in 2 hours on an empty stomach. My body's way of telling me it's not what it used to be.

As I check out with the supplies, I notice little sachets for sale at the counter. They also say Booster Blitz. What is this? I pick a few up to find that it is Booster, but in powdered just-add-water form. Curiouser and curiouser. At LKR80 per packet it is half the price of the Booster-Blitz-in-a-can. Always willing to try something new, I pick up a few packets.

Then - on the way home - it hits me. We used to eat concentrated drink mix when I was a kid. I remember having a packet of Coleman's Orange mix and using a spoon to dig out the raw powder mix and eat it. It gives you a massive sugar boost. And since it is powdered as you it it, you can't help inhaling some of it, which gives you a sore throat and yellow snot for three days. This is probably like that. And if I eat it raw instead of mixing it with water, it would be like mainlining caffeine.

This is one of my better ideas. And possibly an indication of what it is like in my head.

It is now 0830. I have a full day's class to do. I am running on 5 hours sleep. I am not a morning person. I have already whacked about 25% of a 1.5-liter of Coke. I am now going to have one of those packets. And in the interests of posterity, I am going to document all of this here. This is an excellent idea!

Right?

0830: I open the packet and the smell of Booster fills my nose. The powder is ivory white. Kind of like heroin. Not that I would know what heroin would look like since I am a good boy and would never do anything illegal. Or immoral. Or fattening. The packet has no sugar, just the boosty part of the drink. Here, as they say, goes nothing.

Ok. That wasn't too bad. It had some kind of sweetness to it. It also had fizzmakers built in that made me foam at the mouth. The flavour concentrate is still giving me a Booster taste in my mouth. I am not expecting any immediate reaction, but I should feel something within the next 10-15 minutes. One thing that is happening is that I am burping. A lot. This is probably the fizz-makers still fizzing away in my stomach.

0840: I've just had a shower, so I am not sure if it is a result of the shower or the Booster or some psychosomatic reaction. But I do feel more alert. And the effect is faster than from the Booster drink. Effects to the abused stomach are minimal to none. Lots of burping is still happening, but there is that hyper activagted feeling.

My brain is sparking, the neurons firing off in odd and random directions. I am even able to finish off a blog post and prep it and post it in under an hour. Sure its a short(ish) post, but it is a post.

Conclusion: Caffeine good. Booster good (because of aforesaid caffeine). Booster Blitz powder, an efficient delivery system of aforesaid Booster Blitz and caffeine.

Blogs on the beach

Muse

Here I am, faithful reader. Still writing, still trying to figure out this strange-ass world of ours. Here I am, at 0700h (7a.m. to you clueless plebes) with a large glass of vodka/sprite (raspberry vodka if you must know) bubbling away in my gut, tapping away at the laptop, on a balcony looking over the beach. There is something .. extremely nice about all this. The Hikka Beach Fest is happening well to the North of me, I am down in Mirissa enjoying secluded beaches, crashing waves, vodka, and some rather nifty herb. Life, is good.

It is incredible isn't it, how we all seem to land at the beach at some time in our lives. Being born on an island in the sun this is not difficult. But, it's not that easy either. But that is probably a by-product of age. When I was younger I used to hop on the old velocipede and head down to Mount beach. Now, I actually have to make time to go there. How much suck is that? And even when I do go, i very rarely set foot in the sea itself. But spending this much time in close proximity to the sea gives me a good feeling. Reminds me that we have the same level of salt that is in the sea in our veins. Really, we do.. or they say we do.. but I don't advocate spilling any blood in the sea, or it's gonna be dun-dun.. dun-dun.. dun-dundun-dundun-dun JAWS!! Yes, thank you Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg for completely fucking ruining my enjoyment of the sea. But I digress.

We all seem to love the sea. Maybe not those who got caught in the tsunami, but I certainly do. I could spend days by the sea, given enough connectivity and a water-proof laptop. Just sitting here watching the waves break, and the coconut trees move, and the salt wind in my face, makes it so awesome. There is something in the salt that calls to me. Urges me to get in there and start swimming to see if I can find the edge.

We are born of a womb of salt water, life crawled out of the salt, without salt in our diet we will die. But there is something that tells me that many of us, if we don't get our regular dosage of beach time would die. If not in our bodies, then in our souls.

I think one reason is that there is a certain chaotic power in the sea. Fire is chaos, but fire has no.. substance. It can't be touched, felt, be immersed in. As beautiful as it is, fire is just a treat fot the eyes. In the sea, you can get in there. Feel the strength with all your body, Know that she is wild, crazy, unpredictable. That she will cradle you. Carry you. Hold you. Then throw you at a rock at high speed. The sea is chaos incarnate. And we love her because we feel that in her. Something calls us back to the original chaos.

So here I am by the sea. Having an awesome morning looking at the sea, at a time when most of the people around me are asleep. There are five-foot curlers out there, and they make me wish I could surf. There are reefs to explore and shells to pick up. There are miles of beach to walk on, to leave footprints in the sand, to watch those footprints getting washed away. There is the attempt to forget that this is the end of my weekend out, and that I have to be back in the real world tomorrow.

And the sea calls to us. It calls to me. And if you'll excuse me, I have to put down the laptop and go for a date with a beautiful and extremely unpredictable woman.

One step forward, two steps back

Muse

The things that worry me about the war, and the eventual end, started back in New Year's day (April 14th in Sri Lanka).

That was the day they showed the celebrations in Kilinochchi. The leader of the forces there was symbolically invited into the city by an Arachchi wearing what seemed to be an extremely Sinhalese costume, talking classically "old village" Sinhala.

Now, it's not the action or the symbolic welcome that I am against. It was the implementation of it. If they had done it with a Tamil-looking arachchi, wearing a verti instead of a sarong, if they had made some concession to the fact that Kilinochchi was a historically Tamil area, then I would not have minded it so much. The event was a symbol. A symbol that the area of Kilinochchi was under LKGOV control. But even symbols must be handled with care.

And then there was the speech by The Beast.

Giving a speech that says we have won is acceptable, but using heavily popularised icons of polarization is just stupid. If you read the victory speeches of the greats like Lincoln and Churchill, you will see that all they have said was something like it's over. we won. I thank the troops and God.

Whatever they may have felt in private, they refrained from attacking the country in their speech.

In his victory speech to Parliament The Beast mentioned Dutugemunu as a great hero, and, almost in the same breath, Elara as a usurper and conqueror.

The problem here is not that Elara was a usurper/conqueror who came down from India and took over. He was, but even the Mahavamsa calls Elara a wise and just king. It wasn't that Dutugemunu was doing the same thing that Elara did - namely, attacking a land that was not his so that he could get more power. The problem is that we are taught that the Elara-Dutugemunu fight was one between the Sinhalese and Tamils that the Sinhalese won.

This could not be further from the truth. It is the nature of birds to fly, of fish to swim, and of kings to conquer. That was all that it was. But the problem is what we are taught. In school I was taught many stories of Dutugemunu as part of history. One of the stories involved how Dutugemunu's mother came to find him asleep in a big bed all curled up. Why are you sleeping all curled up? she asked.

he answered , How can I stretch my arms and legs? In the North is the evil Tamil, to the South is the deep blue sea (හැඩි දෙමළු).

A historical story. A children's fairy tale. A vehicle for racial hatred. I was lucky my parents never taught me that. But I heard it in school. How many Tamil people heard the same story with a different twist for their race? It was much, much later that we heard about Dutugemunu considering Elara a honoured enemy and building a monument to him. In fact I don't think I learned that at school.

This is why referencing the Elara-Dutugemunu war was a mistake.

I would like to think that both of what happened was an honest mistake. A simple error in judgment from a speechwriter who didn't understand the connotations of what he said. But the problem is that he did say it. A golden opportunity to help the situation was squandered in words that created more harm. Now the LKGOV has to go further, and faster to regain trust.

So it's one step forward and two steps back.

Where the LTTE went wrong

Muse

It's Monday. It's Morning. It's Monday Morning Quarterback time.

The news is all over that the LTTE has been defeated. Prabhakaran is probably dead. (Though the LKGOV's statements are best taken with a grain or ten of salt - remember the 60,000 civillians who suddenlt became 200,000?) But the LTTE are pretty much done.

It was almost funny to see them make a statement that We have decided to silence our guns.

Almost.

Now I guess its time to look back and see where the went wrong. After all, hindsight is 20/20.

• Killing Rajiv Gandhi

  Yes, there isn't any proof. But it seems obvious that the LTTE did kill Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 (it feels a lot longer). Biting the hand that feeds you is not a recommended tactic. And that alone cost the LTTE a lot.

• Not quitting while they were ahead

  1999 to 2004 was the best time for the LTTE. They had a de facto country, and they were in a very strong bargaining position. If Prabhakaran had played it right he could have got a place in parliament. Sure they can bring down weapons. Sure they can ready for war. As someone once said, There is no peace. There is only 'Open fire!' and 'I need to reload!'

  Both sides were reloading as fast as possible. LKGOV not so fast because they were running out of cash, but the LTTE were going great guns (pun only partially intended).

  But by refusing to talk and try to fix the problem instead of keeping on fighting, the LTTE lost what was a golden opportunity.

• Killing Lakshman Kadirgamar

  Lakshman Kadirgamar would probably have been the greatest ally the LTTE had. A senior player in the political field, a Tamil from Jaffna, a Christian (like Prabhakaran), and an internationally recognised figure. It is possible to see a pragmatist like him helping to bring the LTTE into the mainstream and political process if they had ever shown some willingness to do so. Despite all that, they killed him. This was guaranteed to ensure that they were not taken seriously in the political level, as well as that they would lose support of the moderate Tamils.

• Helping The Beast win

  This is possibly the biggest mistake that the LTTE made. They took money from The Beast to make sure that the Jaffna populace didn't vote and that The Beastwon.

  Maybe they felt that they could win. Maybe they figured that this would be another war like the other wars. No matter what they felt, they sold themselves for a few million rupees. One hopes that it was worth it.

Looking back you can always go what the fuck was I thinking!!!??

And most of the time we don't know. As the old saying goes it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I want YOU.. to spy for the Government

Rant

Isn't it fucking fun? The LKGOV wants us to report all foreigners who are criticising the LKGOV and the Glorious Forces (sounds like a band from the 70s). The Ministry of Immigration & Emmigration even has a phone number for people to use as a hotline. And the media (radio stations especially) are shouting it out at the top of their lungs. In fact, they are asking you to report anyone, no matter what the skin colour.

This pisses me off mightily. The LKGOV is so scared of criticism and people showing what fuckups are happening that they want to have people spying on each other. Kind of like The Spies Among Us. Very KGB and Hitlerian.

Of course, some of you may approve of it. I won't tell you not to. After all, it's a free country (as long as you don't criticise The Beast, or the LKGOV, or The Glorious Victorious Humanitarian Forces, or Mad Merv, or pretty much anyone in power). The LKGOV loves people like you.

But anyway, if this pissses you off as much as it does me, read on.

I'm not going to go on about how fucked up and screwed up all this is. You all know it is. Lets talk about how this is unimplementable.

Point the first, hearsay is not applicable in a court of law. There are exceptions of course, but that is the gist of it. Point the second, how are you going to report someone? Call them up and say Yes, I was in a bus and heard these people criticising the Glorious Peacekeeping Government. No, I don't know who they are, but they must be somewhere in Colombo. Point the third, how are they going to make sure if it happened? Or do they just deport people on your say-so? Nice way to get rid of any honkies you don't like. A white guy takes your seat at the bar? Call the hotline. Cool huh?

So there it is, a wonderful PR stunt, that is unimplementable.

Now... Wanna have some fun?

This is so open to having fun and abusing it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Let's take the procedure a step at a time shall we?

Step 1:

Do not use your phone! They may have caller ID, and that doesn't make it fun. Use a phone booth. Don't use a Communication Center, why get some innocent fucker in trouble?

Step 2:

Call the number they gave - 0115329380

Step 3:

Tell them you heard someone criticisng the Glorious Wonderful Loving Kind Government Of Free Sri Lanka, who promise to give us candy, and cheap food, and even a pony once the people are saved from the Evil Child-Raping Mother-Molesting Henious LTTE Terrorists.

Step 4:

When they ask you who, where, and what they said, try the following.

• Ranil Wickramasinghe, in Parliament, criticised the LKGOV for not carrying out the war properly and to the utmost
• Hillary Clinton, David Miliband, and Bernard Kouchner, in multiple statements, accused the LKGOV of "failure to protect civilians."
• Gordon Weiss, in a report to AFP, accused the LKGOV of shelling the CFZ and killing 100 children (which we all know can't happen because the LKGOV doesn't use any heavy weapons there).
• M. Karunanidhi, in many interviews, criticised the Glorious LKGOV

If you're feeling particularly nasty, tell them your mom, last night, just after I fucked her.

Step 5: (Optional)

Laugh horribly

Good luck, I've got some phone calls to make.

EDIT 2350LKT - Added link to news report quoting hotline number.

Life, Love, and Hookers

Muse

The time is 0645.

I just spent the last ten hours with some friends of mine who had flown down from the US.

First we went to Cheers for alcohol, and then we spent a large amount of time looking for a place to drink, because Cheers closes down at 0200.

We ended up in a hook joint. Want something more specific? It was a whorehouse. A place of ladies of negotiable virtue. It was also a club, with a large dancefloor and techno music. But primarily it was a hook joint. You'd go there for a drink and a dance and a bed in the back. That's where we were.

And as according to the policy there, (or at least according to what I could see) all guests are to be escorted and accompanied by a hostess, our table was joined by one. Our table. Our table which had four guys and two women.

I have to say, the place had a lot of lovely young ladies. In various shapes and sizes to cater to every taste. From the tall and thin, to the stocky to the petite. All in various kinds of clothing. ranging from the short, to the tight jeans, to the semi-business suit that the woman with us was wearing.

The thing is, the woman with us reminded me way too much of the 'Softie.

It's been over a year since we broke up, and I have not seen her in a very long time. But this hooker reminds me of her She looks like her. She sounds like her. And she's sitting next to me. And she's sitting next to me in the same way that the 'Softie used to. Next to me and a little away from me, but with some form of physical contact. Watching me and my friends go crazy and do crazy shit. I am quite drunk.

My friends note her interest in me. Or, lets face it, interest in the little that's in my wallet. Nice guys - and girls - they are, they egg her on. This is going to be hilarity for everyone. And so she does hit on me. Makes it quite obvious that she is available if I have the cash.

But I have to refuse because she looks like the 'Softie. There was this massive temptation to talk to her. To just chat. To flirt. There was a temptation to take her up on the offer. There was a temptation to take her and fuck her like it was going out of style.

But I didn't. The power imbalance was way too wrong. Because there was also the temptation to take her in my arms and comfort her (as if she needed comforting) and say let me take you away from all this

She would have all the power and I would probably be just the dupe.

It doesn't have to be that way. After all, as far as I'm concerned prostitution is just a profession. She sells her body, I sell my mind, and as a friend of mine once said we both whore out or dignity for cash.

There are cases where men have married pornstars. There are fairytales where men have married hookers. I have no problems with hitting on a woman and finding out she's a hooker. I don't have issues with marrying one or anything like that. But starting off at this point and getting into a relationship with her is a non-happening thing. If i ask her and she takes it professionally instead of personally, I'll end up blowing all my cash on someone who doesn't care about me. Not that I haven't done it before many times, but no one who didn't care about me went out of her way to make sure she gets every centavo I have (this maybe because I am seriously lacking in centavos). If she takes it personally, I'll always be worrying if she's with me, or with my full-of-cobwebs wallet. On the other hand, I would always be wondering if i was with her, or the 'Softie in my head. And she would be too.

So as we left, in memory of the 'Softie I left her a thumping tip. And I walked away.