Category: sbarrkum

Pre Buddhist music and dance of Sri Lanka

Its just the rhythms, so complex and for the uninitiated so out of tune. That said whats with the court jester head gear.

As crainsy1337 says

The yakun natima, or devil dance ritual of Sri Lanka, is nothing if not full of drama. Not just a charade or interval designed to entertain, the yakun natima is a carefully crafted ritual with a history reaching far back into Sri Lanka’s pre-Buddhist past. It combines ancient Ayurvedic concepts of disease causation with deft psychological manipulation. Lasting up to twelve hours, it mixes raucous humour with deep-rooted fears to create a healing catharsis for both patient and community.

I just like the words in the first part. Is it about Seenigama Devol Kumaru.

Nondi Kumaru …….
Demala mau ….. (means Tamil mother)

 

From Amazon Intro:
https://www.amazon.com/Keenie-Meenie-British-Mercenaries-Crimes/dp/0745340784

Keenie Meenie Services – the most powerful mercenary company you’ve never heard of – was involved in war crimes around the world from Sri Lanka to Nicaragua for which its shadowy directors have never been held accountable.

Like its mysterious name, Keenie Meenie Services escaped definition and to this day has evaded sanctions. Now explosive new evidence – only recently declassified – exposes the extent of these war crimes, and the British government’s tacit support for the company’s operations. Including testimonies from SAS veterans, spy chiefs and diplomats, we hear from key figures battle-hardened by the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the Iranian Embassy siege. Investigative journalist Phil Miller asks, who were these mercenaries: heroes, terrorists, freedom fighters or war criminals?

This book presents the first ever comprehensive case against Keenie Meenie Services, providing long overdue evidence on the crimes of the people who make a killing from killing.

Excerpts from Aditi Khanna’s article in Outlook India
https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/india-used-british-pilots-in-fight-against-ltte-book/1727422

British mercenary pilots helped Indian troops in their battle against the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in Sri Lanka in the 1980s, a new book reveals for the first time.

The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) received air support from these for-hire British pilots despite Indian diplomats publicly condemning the presence of UK mercenaries in Sri Lanka, according to the book, ”Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes”, authored by UK-based investigative journalist Phil Miller.

However, India”s attitudes gradually began to shift and the envoy to Colombo, Jyotindra Nath Dixit, said New Delhi had to publicly deplore the use of UK mercenaries in Sri Lanka but privately he accepted there was “a large pool of ex-military personnel” in Europe and North America who wanted to “market these skills” and if it was not KMS then it would be another “cowboy” outfit involved.

Every commentor on this blog, knows there are family and relatives and who bonk the servants or help  in South Asia.

H. M. Brough  the Bro probably would say I  am talking gibberish, i.e bonk.

Bonk  and bonk and parte.
Words are bad not the reality

Many (of my vintage) listen to Santana eg Oye Como Va
How many know the meaning.

http://sbarrkum.blogspot.com/2011/02/celia-cruz-oye-como-va-and-cubanpuerto.html

From the 90’s: Milie Jackson:

Parte, if you cant get it up you need to parte.
Ladies go on strike, no Parte, no Pusse
If you cant get it up get down
if you cant get down because of rheumatism and arthritis
Then just sit her on the dresser
Better if you take take your false teeth out

 

This was an argument that I have been having with friends on FB.
Is bribery/corruption worse in third world countries compared to the west.

My contention has been that corruption has been legalized in the west, so cannot be prosecuted.   So when corrupt third worlders deposit money in Swiss banks or get “Investor” citizenship which country is more corrupt.

In contrast, in third world bribery/corruption is illegal.  There will be a show and dance and some low level officials will go to prison.

So a few days back made this comment of FB

Let me know when they claw back all the money from the Sackler’s and send them to prison for life. They are responsible for huge amounts of Opioid deaths.

The West has bribed willing corrupt officials in the third world to set over priced deals for over half a century.

They west met their nexus in China. Want to do business, technology transfer. In their greed for short term profits, multinational gave as bribes the family jewels , the  intellectual wealth. Much of that intellectual wealth had been developed by tax payer money, eg Investments by US govt in Paolo Alto. Now that intellectual wealth is being used by the Chinese. The multinationals CEO’s have taken their money off the table.

Trump is trying to claw back some of the intellectual wealth by tariffs etc. Too little, much much too late.

Then I see this article by Max Stroller  (via Naked Capitalism links )

Excerpts  (not in order)

The Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations didn’t notice these problems, because they lacked the wisdom to listen to engineers and people who actually work for a living. They didn’t understand that workers who blocked Chinese buyers looking at vital machine tools had savvy and integrity that they themselves lacked.

Still, this was too little too late. The episode was by any metric catastrophic; the Chinese government got missile making machine tools in return for a promise they didn’t honor, which should have been a massive scandal, borderline treason. But ultimately it wasn’t a scandal, because Republicans, leading globalization thinkers, and Clinton Democrats decided that transferring missile technology to China didn’t matter.

The Clinton framework gutted the ability of U.S. policymakers to protect industrial power, and empowered Wall Street and foreign officials to force the U.S. to export its industrial base abroad, in particular to China. The radicalism of the choice was in the intertwining of the U.S. industrial base with an autocratic strategic competitor. During the Cold War, we had never relied on the USSR for key inputs, and basically didn’t trade with them. Now, we would deeply integrate our technology and manufacturing with an enemy (and yes, the Chinese leaders saw and currently still see us as enemies).

I was surprised, I thought Dervish Dances were just Turkish.
Iranian Shia too ?

Zanzibar.
Echoes of all male Christian Choirs of England/Europe

 

 

 

Beautiful Music

I have been out of touch with tech for over 8 years, being in the boondocks, so please chip in.  If necessary will do updates to post from comments.
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Trumps plans are pushing and hastening countries to be less dependent, even independent of US products.  The Huawei ban seems to be game changer.

So  excerpts from an article linked below plus  links other info.

Huawei, needs a new operating system (Mobile OS/Operating System) for its phones. There are few out there, almost all are based on  Linux as is Android.

Android was Initially developed by Android Inc and Google bought in 2005.

Aurora

Aurora is a mobile operating system currently developed by Russian Open Mobile Platform, based in Moscow. It is based on the Sailfish operating system, designed by Finnish technology company Jolla (for its smart phone), which featured a batch of Russians in the development team. Quite a few top coders at Google and Apple also come from the former USSR – exponents of a brilliant scientific academy tradition.

HongMeng also called Ark OS:  Huawei’s own operating system, apparently Android App compatible (hmm, i will believe when I see it).

No Google? Who cares?Tencent, Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo are already testing the HongMeng operating system, as part of a batch of one million devices already distributed. are not (yet) banned in the US market, and combined they sell more than Samsung. They could decide to move to Huawei’s operating system in no time.

The HongMeng system may also harbor functions dedicated to security and protection of users’ data. That’s what’s scaring Google the most; Huawei developing a software impenetrable to hacking attempts. Google is actively lobbying the Trump administration to add another reprieve – or even abandon the Huawei ban altogether.

The next step for Huawei and other producers is to go for Made in China processing and memory chips, breaking the stranglehold by Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Micron Technology, Western Digital and the British ARM.

Final thought.  What happens to India and its role in Mobile phones and Mobile OS’s.  India was not a player in hardware such phone or computers  Indirectly India’s software developers gained thru large software companies such as Google. Now it is possible some significant fraction of hardware and OS is shifting to China.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-15/huaweis-plan-b-meet-russia-china-os

Also read
https://www.cnet.com/news/huawei-files-trademark-for-hongmeng-os-while-objecting-to-us-ban-reports-say/

 

Sri Lanka is a little country in the middle of everything. We have to be paranoid. Maybe some think distant political decisions/sanctions dont affect our country (as many others)

example: US sanctions against buying Iran oil.
a) So Sri Lanka is forced to buy Mid East, Saudi Oil.
b) Money goes to the Saudis (and other Mid east countries).
c) Saudis etc buy Weapons/Arms from the US.
d) Part of the Oil/Saudi and ME money is recycled to build Extremist Wahhabi mosques in Sri Lanka.

Who gives a shit about Climate Change and Species Extinction when your family is being bombed out of extinction in real time.

sorry guys,  I am pissed off.