‘And everyone in Balenciaga gowns with red corsages, and big dance palaces...'

Early, late.

2009-10-07T09:50:05Z

It was dawn in the Wilson, House and ghost household. Wilson was making notes in one of his many well-organised files (filled with forms and his scribbly handwriting) and House was enjoying the way the light filtered into the room. He’d woken up for this - perhaps he was growing old. He rubbed his eyes, then his forehead, and made the final-feeling decision to have this out.

"You tried to kick me out."

"No, House -" Wilson cocked his head up instantly; he'd been waiting for the tension to break.

"And you said that you'd tell Nolan that you were kicking me out. Tell a therapist that you, for a garden, are going to make their patient live alone -"

"I like this apartment. It's Amber's apartment."

"Bullshit. It's lonely here. And you don't like living with ghosts."

"I -" Wilson sighed.

"You knew - which means you wanted one or both of two things. You wanted to prove to me I could still fix things, still get things right. On my own terms. Or was it just that you wanted me to prove how much I wanted to stay?"

"Maybe I just really want the garden." Wilson was a bitch when his defenses came up. "Maybe I want the privacy."

"If you wanted someone else to move in, you'd move." And you'd find a way that seemed less selfish to do it. "Unless you're planning on moving wife number four into Amber's old place?"

"It's mine now."

"It's both of yours."

"So where does that leave you?"

"I'm the missing link." Think about it, House thought. I haven't.

The pause after his words grew, as did the tension in their shoulders, and House tried to figure out what came next.

Wilson obliged. "That doesn't make sense."

"So answer the question!"

"I will. Just give me time."

And House thought about a million ways to push, primarily by pointing to the general location of his liver and informing the bastard that time has a nasty habit of running out, but if he wanted a scared Wilson slobbering over him until all remaining boundaries simply collapsed and they were wrestling in the mud - he'd have gotten it already. They'd grown so very old, and far too tired to pick up the pieces. They either morphed or did nothing at all.

House had learned early that avoidance rarely worked, so he fought. Over the years, he'd been shown that sometimes submission was the only way. But this wasn't something to submit to alone.

Death was soon a'coming, an almost, almost, almost - gone.

He'd allow this to slide though. To count it towards some distant hope. Someday, maybe, he'd be allowed to submit.

He hobbled out of the living room and back to his side of the bed, resigned to fight another day.

concrit is love. Also, points for catching the Colbert quote.

‘Ils ont changé ma chanson…’ de Dalida :)

2009-09-26T11:01:17Z

They have changed by song. I’ve fallen in love with this phrase. It captures growing up so beautifully. Thoughts of what one would have been, could have been, wanted to be. They have changed my song. The world happens, the interrelatedness of things. Changing, over the course of time and circumstance.

Attention or validation? Is the latter really as shameful as it seems?

Martin used to sing that song. 'Ils ont changé ma chanson.' And the world did affect him so much. But he was a pillar in so many ways. A principled man. More than reality, he had a beautiful perception. Reality is perceived. He saw people as they were. Compassion, a deeper humanity.

Logic is to give a comprehension to the story, to our perception of reality. If logic doesn’t lead to this perception, is the logic wrong or is the perception wrong?

Ezra Pound, as I learned in a guest lecture yesterday, and the imagist movement, wanted to capture the feeling of epiphany in a poem.

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd.
Petals on a wet, black bough.

It certainly feels like that. Gentle feeling of realization, a love for the provider.

Have spent the day drinking milky, sugary coffee, and learning. Am trying to learn of the beauty in the world, trying not to simply block things out because I know they lead to terrible consequences, to ravaged bodies and emotions, to the overwhelming fear. But there’s no point sitting around wallowing in the fear. There IS beauty out there. We’re not on this planet very long in these forms. I want to understand as much as I can, to feel as much as possible, to express these connections. 'Ils n'ont rien compris à la chanson.' (My French is crap, but I think that means 'They have never understood the song.') To assume they wouldn't understand, without trying to be understood? I don't want that regret.

Only by understanding prior realizations do we move forward.

… yes, this post is cheese.

They have changed my song. The tempo, perhaps the words. But not the meaning.

kirili @ 2009-09-19T18:53:00

2009-09-19T10:59:03Z

Hai tharr!

It's been an odd couple of months. Trying to understand law, I suppose. Trying to be a bit better.

Going out to find live jazz, that's the hope. Reading about psychopathy. Even inhumanity is human.

Found this old song. The version by Dr. John and Odetta is just stunning.

"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931)

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

kirili @ 2009-07-08T00:17:00

2009-07-07T16:19:34Z

It's a little strange, this big world and it's limitations.

In all the bizarre winds of change, the guillotine whose shadow we've never wanted to notice - fuck, the mischance and mishappenings, the fucking fear when every human achievement is not a foundation but a thread to hang on to, a piece of ice that may float or shatter without a firm base that may leave the individual to suffer.

Wrote a drabble of random awhile ago. For apathy and her warm, ambivalent embrace.

"They've got a little dream on, but I've got bedbugs in the brain…"

Gehen patted his friend on the head and waddled down to bed. Two little men kissed on the TV screen, enraptured in the hormones of a million dreams of mattering. No, they weren't going to Hollywood; but they'd spread around the world these days, making a little boys and girls dream of bigger things.

"See you in the morning, lovely." She's got a load to do, see, words to shoot out from the tips of her fingers, art to drip from her brain through her eyes on solid, waiting canvas. Oh there's so much to wait for, so much to do! She settles down to stare at a blank page for a minute or two – and her laptop for the next seven hours, flicking through video to video of other people's vapid dreams. Somehow it's always a little surprise waking up to another lost time. Vaguely remembering a time when she'd cry about the swift passing of moments, she trips over to bed.

"G'morning sweets," she murmurs in his waking ear, crawling in to enjoy the warmth he created.

"Mmm."

And he's tripping off to another day, with bedbugs nestled in his brain. Bed to go; go to bed, waiting for the noon-time, dusk and finally the sweet feeling he was just feeling now; a warm bed after a night time of sleeping.

kirili @ 2009-03-25T18:45:00

2009-03-25T10:50:59Z

http://housebigbang.panfandom.ca/artwork/kirili.htm#one

Art'd.

Title: Bucket.

For Go Baby Go.

SPOILER ALERT HELLO:

Wilson in drag. CONVINCINGLY. Gorgeous.

Lala.

Any and all criticism (constructive preferred) very much adored. Do tell me what I'm doing wrong, and for a bonus, how to fix it. Thank you.

kirili @ 2008-12-06T00:32:00

2008-12-05T16:35:27Z

"What Just Happened?" I dismissed before I saw the film, which was a good mindset to see it in. That's where the poignancy lies – your mindset. Who the watcher is, what they expected and how they interpret all of it. The acting is superb, the plot points are dull to write out and yet the writing is ambivalent. Towards you, the watcher, the writing is… ambivalent. I don't know what they writers' intention was, but the subtle beauty of the "show not tell" approach shines out. Each character in their interplay loses the irritating shine of the cliché they represent. The acting is superb… from the guy who plays Taub in House to the director of the Sean Penn movie to Sean Penn to the big white dog. There are so many tells from so many small moments to highlight the contribution of the individual to the general vacuousness of what was supposed to be Art but it is really just another Business. The way that someone who tries to do everything the best way they know how can fail so terribly. And how, at the core of it all, days pass by us.

Also, I've been going joggingwalking. And uh. Studying.

Rest in peace Martin. We'll always love you.

And. "The Last King of Scotland" is a facinating portrayal of corruption.

Take care.

kirili @ 2008-12-04T00:57:00

2008-12-03T17:04:35Z

motorcyclehunk House/tatto gorgeous hooker lady LOVE. Andand Kutner/Taub cuddly love. Also AWESOME funny ep. POW kind of couldn't act, but since most of the POWs act pretty awesome that's okay.

Also Wilson would join in the sexyfuntimes. Yes, House is sexy Cuddy, but dammit you want a man with suicidal tendencies and a drug habit that is trashing his organs to have babies with you?

DRABBLE.

"So no more gorgeous caring woman to take care of you?"

He squinted at her. "My liver's going to fail… yesterday. Yeah, if I care about someone I should get into a co-dependent relationship with them right now."

With a limp and a hoist he mounted the bike and she jumped on behind him, hugging him through the leather. He revved and settled back, feeling the thrill of the bike rolling forward into a roar.

Human beings may be made to adjust, but House prided himself in his resistance to change. Yet after five or six years he'd learned his moods weren't so different… a beautiful tatoo'd underling behind him, the roaring bike between his legs and the ever blowing wind still got his endorphins going. To adjust to charming a hooker into camaraderie from the constant of a dedicated girlfriend wasn't difficult. He's solving his cases, he's enjoying what he can of his life and he's got Wilson to hug him through the inevitable failing of his organs into what he still likes to think of as eternal rest. He's going to live this shitbucket until the bottom gives out and they'll fucking remember him for it.

ANYWAY, AHAH YAY HOUSE. Ah Hugh Laurie, you and your animal sex appeal.

kirili @ 2008-11-05T21:07:00

2008-11-05T13:08:17Z

Despite my misgivings, I got sucked into this celebrating of Obama winning the election. He's a second generation Kenyan-American whose family was in Hawaii and spent four years in Indonesia learning about Islam and he won.

But is this just a symbolic win?

I was on the phone to a Pakistani woman and, forgetting the world, I asked if they were happy that Obama won. But Obama… will not hesitate to keep bombing Pakistan because saying the truth, that bombing only creates people who are willing to die in the fighting against their opressers, that bombing a country with political patheticness and natural disasters and human beings is WRONG, that bombing a people because there MIGHT be some people there who are against the US, that the horrors being perpetrated on the Pakistani people is WRONG.

Barrack Obama will not say that because he will lose popularity for saying it.

Obama wants to send more troops to kill Afghanis.

I wish I could just be happy for this history day, for the symbolic shift from slavery to equality, but the world is still suffering in three of its nations because of the USA, as well as the legacies from the wars started in the Koreas, in Vietnam, in Cambodia, the overthrowing of democracy in Chile… the war perpetrated on innocent Iraqis.

Put the war criminals on trial. Give so semblance of justice, give reparatioin for the damages, as much as America can. Because their victory can still stand to be the world's further loss.

American politics and their symbols are shining. But the blood still flows from the people they are torturing, the lands they are stealing from and the masses they massacre. There's always hope, right? Stop killing people USA, it's not okay. It's not even a little bit alright. In fact, they are war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Seeking for the American Conscience

2008-09-28T06:43:33Z

As a foreign national and a human being I've had to cover my ears and cry my eyes out more than once at the crimes the United States of America has perpetrated on the world at large.

Now, close to choosing your next set of violent murderers you all seem very preoccupied with their skin colours, past killing records (one has in fact killed in Vietnam!) and the fact that both vice presidential candidates are idiots - one is a better idiot though, and in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king blah blah.

Why aren't you asking why you're bombing Pakistan? Yes, you. Ask for solid reasons why destroying parts of a country where the rule of law has already broken down will help. You’re responsible, it’s your money funding their deaths.

Ask why the government was so demented that it wanted to take the writ of habeas corpus away from torture victims in Guantano Bay. Ask why America has gotten away scot free from the killings of countless Afghanis and Iraqis.

Ask what these candidates will do to ask the world forgiveness for the war crimes of the United States of America and what they will do to rectify these wrongs.

Henry Kissinger is a respected man in your country. He's a war criminal out here in the world.

Mr. Bush and co. will have a nice rest after their 8 years of terror, with nary a word of apology for the hundreds of thousands of lives ended and ruined by their politics.

The American people haven't cared enough to properly protest. Make fun of these officials all you want - it's the rest of the world that has to die for your choices.

Melodramatic? Tell that to the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chile, the Koreas, Vietnam, Palestine, Cambodia and on and on and on.

Whoever you elect, stop them from killing people out here in the rest of the world. 19 people bombed the trade towers. The thousands that were killed that day, in their name you've killed hundreds of thousands. 9/11 was about 1/4 of a day in places like Iraq and Afghanistan that the USA happily bombs for years.

Please start to give a shit. I know we're brown and insignificant in your big American lives, and when we die you get richer... but here's seeking out the conscience of the American people, if the shreds of the thing that was present during the Vietnam war still exists.

(ONTD_political rejected this post: the mod "agrees" but doesn't think ONTD_political is the place. I'd be offended but I'm more "..." tbh.)

kirili @ 2008-09-27T22:31:00

2008-09-27T14:40:32Z

I was just thinking about an arguement I had with someone on the internets about using the word "miscenogation" as a prompt for fanfiction.

It's like using the word "caste". The horror that both words conjure is immense.

But the idea - why it happened, the philosophy of it, the sociology of it, how it's applied in so many different ways - that's a facinating idea.

And by banning its use for ficcers of any time I think is a restriction of free thought.

As well as the supression of a historical but also flawed thought that could arise in situations nowadays.

It's not like racism is dead. It's not like people are still not thought of as animals in some parts of the world. I don't think it's logical to supress the idea of exploring the term metaphorically, see how many many people use understand the term, how they can show the thinking and the flaws in it.

What's the point of supressing that?

No point, that's what.

kirili @ 2008-09-26T21:39:00

2008-09-26T14:19:14Z

[Title]: Husk
[Summary]: Just two old vagabonds trying to make sense.

A/N: Any and all of your thoughts appreciated. Looking to improve :D.

More importantly, thank you very much to lurker_of_note for her looking through this... aaand putting up with me. Apologies for my rushing lovely, and thank you.

so please
lets take these broken hearts, and use
lets use only what we really need
you know we only have so little, so please
take these broken hearts and leave

- Cocoon by Jack Johnson.

The trophies with the big names of grant-givers were packed away first and the knickknacks last. They had names too. The Zen garden was called Peter, the strange little play dough blob with eyes and hair and a big red mouth was called Raju, and the small slip of paper with a tiny poem about life called Shakeila.

And the resignation letter was signed by James Wilson, which was the only knickknack in the memory shack which hadn't reached its final owner.

Lisa Cuddy frowned and flinched and refused to accept it, glared when she authorised it and hadn't stopped frowning when Wilson came to say his final - and partially obligatory - goodbyes.

"You were a good... well, you used me well."

"He's not the only one who wants you to stay."

"Thank you. So... if there's nothing else I can do for you?"

She hummed and considered.

"Dinner would be great, thank you."

And maybe she was predictable in her incapability to give up a fight, but he needed someone to snipe at and to hold his hand while he left his job, his twenty years of semi-abusive ridiculousness and the state of New Jersey. And maybe he needed to confirm that she still loved House as much as she used to.

----

"A table for two, best seats in the house."

Cuddy slipped the doorman a fiver and got them settled in front of the massive glass windows of the bistro. Wilson was in scruffy jeans, a thoroughly beaten up McGill jumper (with pit stains and lipstick on the collar) and flip flops. He felt very accomplished. He'd gone all the way home, only sat on the couch staring at nothing for one hour, smoked only one joint and managed to change his clothes without crying or stabbing. He'd also managed to get inside his car with only his fast-thudding heart as a physical sign of his fear (or anticipation), driven over without more than one passing thought about finding a garbage truck or a tree or a wall of his own to die against, and he hadn't cringed when he saw Cuddy.

His life had suddenly turned into a list of things he mustn't do. Mustn't stay near House, head may implode. Mustn't fall into tiny pieces, mustn't pass out on the bed. It's horrible, he'd found, to wake up with a hangover on a bed he used to share with a person who was now dead. Hangovers and lost love didn't mix. Usually he found the couch, or a hotel room or a floor or a bathtub. Resourceful man, that James Wilson.

So anyway, there they were. Dressed, with an overpriced table, two plates of salad and two glasses of water between them. The view was spectacular - city at dusk. Cuddy wish she was on top of a mountain with endorphins running through her, dancing and singing and back in 1985. Wilson thought about death. They weren't sure what they were doing there, but there was nowhere else for them to be.

"Wilson, you're not supposed to leave. You're old."

"Hey. You left your stupid Angus after fifteen years, and that was three years ago. And you're older than me. AND you haven't gone back."

"Angus sang songs about the Irish revolution and made me fruit breakfasts in bed." She paused and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "And then he got more interested in the corporate than the poetic and I got bored, I moved on. You won't."

"Yeah, well." He flinched and rubbed the bridge of his own nose.

Again with the silence. Those who negotiate for a living don't do silence that great, Cuddy had found. Or maybe that was just her and her screwed up head.

"He's going to burn out."

"And you can stay and watch!"

"Everybody's watching. And hey, I enable him more than you do."

"You let him do what he does because you think he's principally right."

And Wilson did it because he liked House's smile, he liked his wit, he liked it when House made him feel like he was a little better, but that he had a long, long way to work before being great.

Cuddy sighed. A musing Wilson was a sad Wilson - but he was already a very sad Wilson, so she knew she had to do something to keep him crashing for a little while longer. Getting emotionally invested in erstwhile puppies was exhausting.

The piano thrummed and riddled her this and that as she drank her white wine and watched him mope into his cognac. And Wilson worried about his waistline, wondered when he was going to die too and wondered if the number of people he'd tried to help counted as enough of an accomplishment to give up and die.

"So. So I found The Life of Brian on the internet," she starts.

"There's a bench with that title carved on it, up by the belfry at McGill."

"I thought it was the best thing I had ever seen. God, my family tried so hard not to be offended by it they almost forgot to laugh."

"Mm... we tried to stage it. I had just the right nose."

"And?"

"And... well, we got the uniforms. wrote up the battle plans for the... lighting crew, for some reason. And then we got stoned and quizzed each other on anatomy."

There was the sound of the squeak of a chair being pushed back that squealed above the piano and the humdrum of voices.

"I HAVE... a REQUEST, sir..." sang out a tweedy lady in a long black dress.

"Do you m'am?" queried the piano player.

"Yes. I do." And that seemed to be that, until her equally sober friend jabbed her in the side and whisper-yelled in her year.

"I WANT TO SING FERNANDO!" she declared, with renewed vigour.

"… I do not have drums m'am," the piano player tried to smile and hush her simultaneously. The management, represented in the form of a harried man sitting at the bar, just glared.

"That is okay. That is okay. We have cutlery and tables and and we have players and musicians and…" off she launched. "CAN YOU HEAR THE DRUMS, FERNANDOOO?"

And then everything turned a bit pantomime.

Sometimes, historically, there are moments. The Christmas shared by the Germans and the English in the First World War, the conversations held between Castro and McNamara years after the Cuban missile crisis, wondering if they would have done it. And there was that moment, in that café, when the right song, the right moment of the night, the right people and the right manager had all convened in one place.

So nobody yelled or hustled, the people watching didn't cuss and interrupt, and the manager just signaled for another drink. The piano player got the hint and managed to start an unneeded accompaniment by the third line.

"… In the firelight Fernando …" Wilson hummed, staring at the elderly lady praising the ceiling.

"You were humming to yourself and softly strumming your guitar…" Cuddy reached across and stroked his hand, because that's what she'd always wanted someone to do to her when that song played.

Catching her eye he smiled and called out a little louder: "They were closer now Fernando, every hour every minute seemed to last eternally."

Cuddy refused to let go and his smile only wavered slightly at, "I was so afraid Fernando, we were young and full of life and none of us prepared to die…"

"And I'm not ashamed to say, the roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry…" The lady tried to sit down, but there was no stopping the ridiculous nostalgia train now.

"UP, UP," her friend cried and the piano player stumbled forward bravely.

"… THERE was something in the AIR that night
The STARS were BRIGHT, Fernando
They were shining there for you are me,
For LIBerty, Fernandoooo…"

Cuddy signaled for a check. "Nana always told me to leave on a good note, " slurred across to Wilson.

"Yes, boss."

"Good boy."

They had paid by the last note and stumbled out in the midst of lady-who-wouldn't-remember-tomorrow's ovation.

"… I have some good weed."

"I have The Gods Must be Crazy."

"… good plan."

So the taxi driver man, who Wilson thought was very kind and responsible and didn't kill them or cheat from them, took them to his house for the papes and weed and roaches and a quick kiss by the door, and then took them to hers.

----

At two in the morning, watching the credits rolled, they leaned into each other and tried to make sense.

"What does he have that I don't have?" They asked each other.

"He makes me think."

"He makes me cry."

"You make me cry, Wilson."

"I make you smile, too."

"Puppies make me smile, and I cry when they get hurt. He makes us question why."

"Why the puppy matters?"

"… Puppies makes me feel huge. He makes me feel small."

"He makes me feel like I'm missing something."

"Me too. Because… he makes me feel small. He makes me want to be better."

"He broke everything. Maybe I'm happy coasting for a while."

But his Fernando was House, and hers' was some washed up old accountant who occasionally brought out his bodhran to sing folk songs about rapes and infanticide on the Emerald Isle.

And he was going back someday, perhaps to hold his hand and recount the memories of their past self-discoveries. But Wilson wasn't in the mood to watch House die right then, so he decided to run away and have some adventures of his own before he came home, to sit next to his Fernando and recount their adventures as life told them goodbye.

kirili @ 2008-09-23T23:04:00

2008-09-23T15:05:34Z

Driving through the curving roads on a rainforest path, the man behind the wheel who comes as often as he can to spend a night or two in the forest tells us that in the forest he feels small.

"You usually feel very big then?" I crudely make a crack.

"No, it's not like that…"

"It's a joke, just a joke…" I try to play it down. That good feeling of smallness was there, but I didn't know how to explain it.

But listening to Jon Stewart talk about a man he admires, using these words:

"You make me feel small. You make me want to be better. And to have that effect on people, I think that's best gift you can give to those around you."
- Jon Stewart

I think I've found some small way of what it feels like in the sheer utterness of the rainforest, as an ambling observer.

The rainforest makes you feel small. It makes you want to be better.

kirili @ 2008-09-22T19:45:00

2008-09-22T11:55:04Z

Law is ridiculously interesting. Tort law, at least. That was the one I was told would be boring. Contract law isn't interesting, nope nope.

Anyway. I've been getting more and more into research these few days, research on Sri Lanka. Everybody knows something is terribly wrong and people are just too overwhelmed with knowing it to record it, because. Well, because it's a ridiculous thing to expect hope en mass when you never knew where to get it. They never really knew democracy, so they know it's wrong but there's no collective idea of what's right.

Sri Lanka was colonized since about the 8th Century AD, by India (Hindus), then Portuguese (Catholic) then Dutch (Protestant, methinks), then British (confused, but also took the trouble to go and kill the king and properly subjugate the country).

So there was no place for art to really develop, art that can be called Sri Lankan. There was Michael Ontaaje's Anil's Ghost to record a part of the horror of the 1980s, some writing by Martin Wickramasinghe, but generally the horror has gone... on and on and on, and nobody really analysed it overmuch. www.disappearences.org has an attempt...

How South Asia is churning comes to Hong Kong in bits and pieces. Stories of tragedies and near collisions, almost-victims and victims of bomb blasts, police brutality, extra-judicial killings.

On the day before yesterday morning, 10 a.m. Nishantha Fernando was shot while he was in his van with his 11 year old son. The son was physically unhurt. Nishantha Fernando was pronounced dead in Negambo hospital, Sri Lanka. RIP Nishantha Fernando.

On Janaka Perera, the general responsible on the deaths of many, many people in the 1980's... an idea of his depraved mind.

And more on this sad case.

The country churns with fear and fear and malcontent, which outing will be the end, what kind of world are these children growing up to see.

Good journalism is showing, not telling, I've been told. And it's not difficult to show what has happened to Sri Lanka, from colonization from around the 8th century to supposed independence in 1948 and the systematic destruction of all hopes of having a democracy removed as saplings from the minds of the people. After the 1978 constitution of JR Jayawardene and the establishment of the executive president, as well as the political turned ethnic violence between the LTTE and other such groups against the Sri Lankan government against the oppression of the Tamil minority, the Sri Lankan government murdering 30,000 JVP in the 1980's... the countless disappearence...

The killings in Sri Lanka are an immense part of his history hencetoforth not adequately explored. I am in no position to explore it, but if the hallmark of journalism is showing and not telling them perhaps I can share some stories I have heard with you.

General Janaka Perera and the Human Broiler project.
A general in the 1980's who is still wondering free, responsible for the death of many, many human beings. One story of a camp under his guidance was a woman who was being interrogated. Her boyfriend's head was cut off and put on her lap.

She jumped out the window.

The Human Broiler Project was that it wasn't enough just to kill political dissdents and those who may be political dissdents, but to cut them to pieces and dump them back in their villages.

Fear. Bodies in the rivers. Burning on the roadsides.

Janaka Perera told a friend a story about how, after they had captured two insurgents and put them in prison, he was tossing and turning, unable to sleep. So he got up, took a gun and shot the two people. Then he was able to sleep.

Nishantha Fernando was killed, pronounced dead at Negambo hospital. Gerard Perera, who made torture allegations against the police, was shot dead on a bus.

How does the rule of law deteriorate to this point?

Nishantha Fernando repeatedly made complaints to the Inspector General of Police, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka and the Attorney General about assassination threats made to him and his family. The Inspector General was under obligation to protect him and failed. Human rights organizations had also written to ask for his safety.

Nishantha Fernando initially made allegations against some higher-ups in the Negambo police station for asking their asking of bribes. 5,000 rupees (46 USD). Policemen came to his home, beat up his wife and two children as well as himself, and then took him to the Negambo police station where he was further tortured.

So Nishantha Fernando filed a fundamental rights application, and the Supreme Court granted leave to proceed. Four thugs came to his house and demanded he withdraw his case on the 23rd of June 2008. After this he and his family went into hiding. Recently he emerged and yesterday, the 20th of September 2008, he was shot in broad daylight.

How does the rule of law deteriorate to the point when police officers can wreak revenge on people who dare complain against them? How does the belief in rule of law become a naïve hope, when the inspector general despite having the requirement to, makes no move to protect you?

How does filing a bribery case lead to torture and assassination?

According to his wife, the only enemies Nishantha Fernando had were the police.

The world looked at him when he went into hiding
Who could possibly hurt you now?
"A case in front of a the Supreme Court,
a guarantee from the Inspector General to protect you!"
And they shook their heads because they don't know
He shook his head because he did

For a man with a case
in front of the supreme court
with protection from the Inspector General
is the least safe man of all.

He had complained about a bribe one day
Police man asked him 5,000 rupees, 46 US dollars
And this he naively thought illegal
and the high court made the same mistake
and asked him to proceed with the case

The Police, they know the real law
So they came to tell it to him
In the real language
Blows on his children
His wife
And, in the purest of legal language, in a torture chamber
the Police Station

So he went up to the fools
That sometimes come to the supreme court
and they granted him leave to proceed
in a case against those who knew the real law far better than
the men in wigs
who sometimes think
"I remember law, I feel an itch to enforce it today."

And then came thugs,
Who had been brought up knowing the real law,
the real judges,
how much a life is
really worth
And they told the naive man, who had twice foolishly believed the men in wigs
To stop harassing the real lawyers, judges, deities
the Police

And he asked for help and he told and he tried to explain,
"They threaten to kill me, my family,"
And the Attorney General
The human rights commission
The Inspector General of Police
Said "no."
They don't like to give much hearing to
The Real Law of the land
(They'd lose too much,
in a land where corruption is the status quo)

A few months in hiding
But money doesn't get made easily
by those in hiding
So he came back to his house
in the realm of the real law

Driving on the road
Wife and daughter at home,
kid beside him
In his van
in the broadest daylight, shot.

Believers beware, the grave of Justice weeps
Another man fallen to the ignorance of many
And the cruelty of few who control them

kirili @ 2008-09-13T13:02:00

2008-09-13T05:24:00Z

Fuck, really. I thought it was dangerous that Obama was talking about being willing to bomb Pakistan, but I was being a naive fool - because for two weeks now they've decided to OFFICIALLY (after all this time! Acknowledgment, oh.) murder Pakistanis, irrespective of age, gender, eye colour or job.

Thank you, USA. Murder SHOULD come to random places where there MIGHT be random people who don't like you! And everyone around them must die too!

It's shocking that nobody went "okay, anything that stinks of what we did in Vietnam will. not. happen. again."

Fucking bastards.

" * September 3, 2008 - Helicopter-borne American Special Operations Forces land and open fire on the Pakistani village of Jalal Khel killing 20 people including women and children. No high value targets killed.

* September 4, 2008 - American missile strike on the village of Mohammad Khel. Officials say all five people killed were low-level militants of Arab origin. No high value targets killed.

* September 5, 2008 - American unmanned aircraft fire three missiles at houses in Kurvek in North Waziristan. Local TV channels report women and children among the dead. No high value targets killed.

* September 8, 2008 - Five missiles fired from American pilotless aircraft hit Sirajuddin Haqqani compound in North Waziristan killing 23 people, including 8 children. High-value targets Sirajuddin and his father Jalaluddin Haqqani are not present at the compound at the time of the strikes although two other mid-level operatives were killed. No high-value targets killed .

There is now a clear pattern of unilateral U.S. military action in Pakistan resulting in disproportionate and unacceptably high levels of civilian casualties without any commensurate success in terminating high-value targets. It is in the interest of U.S. national security and for the security and stability in the region that these actions be halted immediately."

This all rings of that poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant. (See above)
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me.

To be replaced by the Vietnamese, the Afganis, the Iraqis, the Pakistanis... and they're coming closer and closer. People spoke up for the Vietnamese and it stopped further bloodshed, but they didn't force the US to help repair the wounds it caused to the nation. The Afganis got a little sympathy, the Iraqis got some too, and now maybe the Pakistanis will get some bleeding heart platitudes too... but fuckdammit, why is the US allowed to continue like this?

kirili @ 2008-08-09T17:00:00

2008-08-09T09:03:53Z

May be visiting the british colonial land! I hope nobody says "English Tea" in a non-sarcastic way.

... thought of a man I met in India, a toilet-cleaner in a washroom. But I didn't have any money to give him. I was told that he... hung about, cleaning the loo, but he wasn't employed there.

Anyway. Started painting a painting and wrote a poem.

we were made of the same
And somehow born in the same place, but if with the same luck
And the same schooling and the same people
and the same anger
At the nothing – would you still be you?

Who are you? When they ignore you and marry you off,
When they make you meet suitors and then scare them off
When they use you and beat you and you're only their goods
Then who are you? Where are you? Who lives where you exist?

I'm tired, in that fragile, stupid way of mine
And I'm terrified of you jumping
Or swallowing
Or choking

I'm terrified of you not.

I'm watching the women of the generations before us, with us, and maybe-probably after us
The semen of hate into the cavity of oppression
I'm watching women be born
Through telephone lines
And documentaries
In Hong Kong
Kan kung. As Sri Lanka self-destructs.

Buildings and boredom and opportunity
I'm watching women form women

And the pity for the women, growing into hate as they age
Turning into the women that were their makers

But Sri Lanka's charging a set cost for a kilometre in the three wheelers and people are fighting against torture, against the police
People slowly crawling forwards from vulgarities yelled in the parliament,
Lynching
And maybe one day they'll tear down the love laws too.

Title comes from the book by Arundhati Roy, "The God of Small Things", which is the quite possibly the best thing ever. A contender.

Anyway.

How're you doing?

Take care.

kirili @ 2008-07-28T11:56:00

2008-07-28T04:01:13Z

So. So yeah, they're making my cousin get married. They said she consented but excuse me if I don't believe them.

She told me she wanted to get her education. I don't know if she was just... saying that, because it was obvious I wanted to hear it, but she said it, and if was in that quiet scary voice she uses now, the one that sounds all floaty and she refuses to speak any louder like she think it doesn't matter what she says.

She had an affair with a 42 year old man so they pulled her out of school and now she doesn't even have her O-Levels (failed the first time) and was basically put under house arrest at an uncle's house, her mother sent away, and now they're getting her married.

This is the kid whose father died when she was young so they were moved out of the main house into the annexe and raised by a confused mother.

I feel like I could die from how unfair that is.

kirili @ 2008-07-26T14:45:00

2008-07-26T06:47:49Z

Visited Kerela, India again.

Came back, got a fever, lost the interest in stuffing my face all the time. It's quite interesting.

The power goes out, but nobody stopped making meter-long tea or slicing pieces of banana into the oil vat. Nobody really minds, it's just a daily Thing, and after a while you stop noticing it. The first time the power goes out and you're on the toilet and you're not so sure everything will be lit in 30 seconds may be a little harrowing, but there's something so utterly inconsequential about it.

And then you realise why, panicking because in the little place you stop to have breakfast there's one of the most magnificent drawings in the Disney Tarzan film come to life out one side and monkeys and cars and a public bathroom that, quite frankly, scares the shit out of you on the other… the view is spectacular. A waterfall surrounded by forest. A forest that randomly rustles, that goes over mountains, flowing over everything. And they tell you that you're following the river back, the waterfall's river, back down to its source… following the monkeys and the almost-empty roads, the bamboo groves and all the while you're panicking because they said you have to walk inside the rainforest.

Have you ever seen a leech? They're… not much. But they're terrifying after about the… first story of them sliding up vaginas and penises. And so the whole trip is spent panicking, panicking about bloodsucking leeches and life taking snakes and all sorts of other things you're defenceless against.

And then you're inside the rainforest, on an inconsequential road, hoping the elephants don't burst out of wherever they're hiding and charge… but you kind of want to see them, because they're… mysterious and massive and they don't care in the least about you.

Winding and winding down the road towards sea level, the trunk is left open for a moment too long and a monkey has the bananas. And you watch in wonder as at least twenty of them come in single file, 'round the corner or down the mountain or… and you're racing away but you want to stay because wow.

And then you're driving through a city again and into a different kind of forest, the yellow grass kind, with fleet-footed Bambi deer and you've seen three types of monkeys on this trip… one types near people, another type in the rainforest and yet another in the yellow, more knee-high forests. And you don't know yet, but there are peacocks waiting to show themselves on the trip back.

kirili @ 2008-06-09T20:58:00

2008-06-09T13:02:12Z

AH my... journal of not-many-personages. That is okay.

Arse over nose and all that, trying to convince myself that waking up, eating, sleeping, waking up, eating, going to the library, sleeping, waking up, eating and now going off to bed while constantly watching shows was not a useless waste of time in a long weekend.

... I. Haven't done ANYTHING the least bit useful. No, that's not true. I printed out a vaguely useful form for someone else. Tootlefruit.

kirili @ 2008-01-02T22:43:00

2008-01-02T14:46:34Z

I don't know what to say.

Five people died in a bomb blast set by the LTTE. Five people, I thought. Five, the LTTE have done worse. The Sri Lankan army has assassinated one man (or. someone in the govt. has. A Tamil MP killed in a Hindu Temple) and killed 25 or so Tamils during their fighting, we could have had worse than five.

Except. Except two of those five people were kids. One kid's birthday was yesterday. They had a huge celebration. And then. The next day. He was blown up. The mother was crying and asking "is this what I had your birthday for, son?"

I don't know what to say.

kirili @ 2007-07-31T12:54:00

2007-07-31T05:15:17Z

I'm not sure what I expected from myself when I lugged arse and a laptop to this place, but if efficiency and productivity was it, then I must be sorely disappointed. Which I am. So good, we understand myself.

Well, perhaps I tell a lie. What I wanted was for me to be able to Whizz Through things and write eloquent, grade-grabbing essays that would drive my professors and examiners to tears and me into UCL.

Sadly, I am still a fat slob with, quite possibly, much less potential than she is told she has, and also the attention span of... something with a short attention span. I would challenge a goldfish, I would, but I would never truly be able to reconcile myself to the fact that the goldfish might just... have a different way of expressing its twitchiness and... moving on. Can't seem to sustain the thread of thoughtliness.

And also, also, also. I have this terrible fear that I am being uselessly used by a German. Some part of me is quite alright with that... after all, it means I'm useful to SOMEBODY, even an arsewipe. But I am irked. IRKED. And a little glad to be irked.

School starts in three weeks. I have a year of Physics, a year of French and a year of History to hack through before that time. And three pieces of coursework.

Now, any blithering fool amongst the... none that are reading this... could point out that that is plenty of time, you whiny bitch. But I appear to have two, contradicting, and perhaps even instinctual reactions to the time frame: HOMG PROCRASTINATION TIME and I'M GOING TO FAIL AND DIE A HERMIT.

Currently I'm on the former. But my shoulders are on the latter and I have a tension headache, so... I guess my head is on the latter too. My... nose. It is comfortable, if a little cold.

Oh, also! I have lost weight. Not a significant amount of weight. I don't look any more enticing, no. Which is telling quite a depressing tale in and of itself, no?

It would be fabulous if I could concentrate on writing my Extended Essay, but I cannot even seem to figure out if I, myself, am an emotional individual who reacts with that emotion to social injustices and, by that merit, and somewhat Deep. A part of me CLINGS to that hope like a batter to his testicles if he has forgotten his cup, but it is quite possibly untrue. Untrue that I am that moved. But not untrue that BEING that moved displays a deep sense of Humanitiness.

I... don't want to go back to school. Social circles fill me with Dread.

But I will go and bother the counselor.

kirili @ 2007-07-30T12:31:00

2007-07-30T04:40:37Z

HELLO. Remember when I used to type Vaguely Comprehensive Garble about Motivations and Plans? Well. I am afraid that I have come to another peak of boring, self-obsessed feelings about... SCHOOLWORK.

But. Do you know, have you heard, do you CARE that it is, in fact, 22 days until school begins?

Or. I thought I wanted to talk about schoolwork. But really, I'd rather tell you, since you are a non-existent but pleasant entourage, that I'm quite achey in the head. I woke up at five, had an intriguing call with nature, and then slept again. When I woke up a second time I stood up, and then BAM HEADACHE AND VERTIGO AND BLACKINGOUTNESS. Perhaps I listen to too much music?

ANYWAY. I'm going to go... do things. Soon. Probably.

Take care of yourselves, my blithering harem of Hughs.

kirili @ 2007-07-29T22:46:00

2007-07-29T14:50:12Z

Ah, whiny posts about lack of friends! I MISSED YOU.

Every. Single. Schoolfriend. Treats me like an expendable piece of crap, or an acquaintance.

I'm... so fucking tired of this. So damn tired.

There's no way I'm going to throw myself at these so called friends of mine again. I'd rather stab myself.

Being paranoid isn't the worst thing, I suppose. It's just that you have to STICKWITHIT instead of "emotionally invest".

I'm BAFFLED that I'm still doing this. Don't get me wrong, I don't consider myself a prize catch, but I. I never thought I'd be this horribly lonely. I had big plans for 17.

Oh, fuck it. I'll make this public, as some sort of humiliation that COULD be read by somebody I know. So I don't let it happen again.

kirili @ 2007-07-28T21:30:00

2007-07-28T13:35:00Z

Oh! I want to go to UCL. I want to act in Things. But they would (plz) like 38 points in the IB... no matter which way I twist it, I'm going to HAVE to pass Physics to even have a CHANCE at that.

But I have this ubercool fantasy that Fry and Laurie will come and watch me one day, wearing false moustaches so we can Laugh but not Bother them andand. I'm not quite blithering enough to assume they would LIKE me, but being in a place where they were would be fabulous.

ANYWAY. Did some EE. "The Bell Jar" is an amazing book. The use of imagery is... perfect.

So I'm going go to go Attempt to Study.

*huggum*

kirili @ 2007-07-17T19:04:00

2007-07-17T11:06:57Z

I just read http://community.livejournal.com/house_wilson/1627720.html#cutid1

(which is Code for Awesome Fic about Eating Disorders)

In that one Wilson has anorexia. It's really, really, really good, so go read it.

Now, onto a more selfish note: could any of you guys please recommend me some eating disorder fic?

kirili @ 2007-07-09T12:01:00

2007-07-09T04:05:22Z

Salman Rusdie, darling, WAI. I don't understand. Why would the writer of 'Midnight's Children' and 'The Moor's Last Sigh' accept knighthood from the British crown?

Iranians are going batshit vis-a-vis the Britsh blatant condoning of blasphemy, but WHY IS RUSHDIE ACCEPTING THE KNIGHTHOOD. To be contrary? To... say thanks for protecting him? THANK THE STATE. Hump the state. Do not pledge alliegiance to the crown of England.