KarthikRamas: Nothing but Blogs

But at a time when Sri Lanka is celebrating Vesak, the question that begs answer is: how sincere are Sri Lankans in practising the teachings of the Buddha? I strongly feel that there is a solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict in the teachings of the Buddha, who forgave Angulimala, the mass murderer who wore a chain of fingers of his victims and tried to kill him.

The results of the November 17 presidential election show that many Sinhala Buddhists are opposed to a federal solution to the ethnic question.

There appears to be little realisation that the greed to dominate others and the refusal to share power with others go against the teachings of the Buddha who stressed the need to detach ourselves from all forms of attachments to gain freedom from suffering. We are finding it difficult to detach ourselves from ideologies and archaic concepts of nation and sovereignty identified with a centralised power.

It is disheartening to note when people sing hosannas to religious leaders but do not practise their teachings fully. Most of us only adopt parts of their teachings to suit our lifestyles, our thoughts and in a manner that brings benefits to us at the suffering of other people. I am not pontificating, but I know I am also guilty of the very charge I am hurling at others.

"THE GROWING THREAT ON ENGLISH"

http://www.MelvinDurai.com/english.htm

"Tonight, on a very special edition of Larry King Live, we
have an exclusive interview with Jed Greeley, president of
the English Protection Association (EPA). The association
was formed this year to protect the English language from
what it calls -- and I'm quoting here -- 'a murderous
assault from the Mexicans, Chinese and Indians.' Why are you
focusing on them, Jed?"

"We ain't focusing on nobody, Larry. Thems are the main
ones, but there's other ones: the Colombians, the Iranians,
the Pakistanians. They all be coming to America and they
ain't speakin' English. It ain't right, Larry. If they ain't
willing to speak English, dang it, they ain't deservin' to
live in this free country."

"But why the big concern, Jed? People speak lots of
languages in other countries."

"Larry, it don't trouble us if they speaks Russian in
Russia, Chinese in China or Canadian in Canada. But these
are the United States of America. Over here, we speaks
English. I ain't no lingualist, but I do believe English is
the supremest language in the world. Jesus spoked English,
ya know?"

"So you believe that everyone in America should speak
English? No exceptions!"

"We ain't saying people gotta speak English in their houses
and all. We saying they gotta speak English when they's on
family outings, going to Wal-Mart and such. Also when they's
at work. I mean, the other day, I'm takin' a taxi and the
driver, he ain't understandin' a word I'm sayin'. I dang
gives him a piece of my mind. And ya know what he says to
me? He says I gotta brush up on my Urdu."

"But this is a land of immigrants. Our forefathers spoke
many different languages, including German, French and
Italian."

"But they be learnin' English soon. And ya know why, Larry?
Because back then, there wasn't no non-English channels on
TV. No Univision, no Al Jazeera, no dang Zee TV."

"Your association has started a petition to stop Mexicans
and other groups from making Spanish the official language
of America. Do you really think that's going to happen?"

"Dang right, it's gonna happen, if they gets what they
wants. Some officials already is speaking Spanish. And so is
most baseball players. They once plays in Major League
Baseball, now they calling it Las Grandes Ligas De Beisbol.
The Mexicans, they also been singin' the National Anthem in
Spanish and makin' jokes about Jorge W. Bush. They gettin'
my childrens to watch Dora the Explorer and say 'Hola Papi!'
to me. We gotta stop 'em now, Larry, before things gets too
far, before we ends up living in Estados Unidos de América
and eatin' enchiladas at Thanksgiving."

"So you see this as a pretty serious situation?"

"Dang right, we do. Look, Larry, if you wanna works on a
farm, you gotta speak Spanish; if you wanna works in a
motel, you gotta speak Gujurati; if you wanna works in the
stock market, you gotta speak Greek."

"The stock market? Isn't that all about numbers?"

"It's Greek to me, Larry."

"Oh, I see. Some people take pride in being bilingual and
trilingual. Have you ever considered learning another
language?"

"Another language? Come on, Larry, ain't it enough that I'm
fluenced in English?"

"Other than the petition, what is your group doing to
protect English in America?"

"Well, Larry, for one thing, we's making big signs to put at
the airports and borders: 'Welcome to America. We speaks
English here!'"

A bit farther away at 3.7 kilometers, a chief weather man for the Hiroshima District Weather Bureau named Isao Kita describes his experience:

"Well, at that time, I happened to be receiving the transmission over the wireless. I was in the receiving room and I was facing northward. I noticed the flashing light. It was not really a big flash. But still it drew my attention. In a few seconds, the heat wave arrived. After I noticed the flash, white clouds spread over the blue sky. It was amazing. It was as if blue morning-glories had suddenly bloomed up in the sky. It was funny, I thought. Then came the heat wave. It was very very hot. Even though there was a window glass in front of me, I felt really hot. It was as if I was looking directly into a kitchen oven. I couldn't bear the heat for a long time. Then I heard the cracking sound. I don't know what made that sound, but probably it came from the air which suddenly expanded in the room. By that time, I realized that the bomb had been dropped. As I had been instructed, I pushed aside the chair and lay with my face on the floor. Also as I had been instructed during the frequent emergency exercises, I covered my eyes and ears with hands like this. And I started to count. You may feel that I was rather heartless just to start counting. But for us, who observed the weather, it is a duty to record the process of time, of various phenomena. So I started counting with the light flash. When I counted to 5 seconds, I heard the groaning sound. At the same time, the window glass was blown off and the building shook from the bomb blast. So the blast reached that place about 5 seconds after the explosion. We later measured the distance between the hypocenter and our place. And with these two figures, we calculated that the speed of the blast was about 700 meters per second. The speed of sound is about 330 meters per second, which means that the speed of the blast was about twice as fast as the speed of sound."

Link:http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=522

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Link: http://mediamatters.org/items/200605020011