{"id":118044,"date":"2021-09-11T15:31:01","date_gmt":"2021-09-11T22:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=118044"},"modified":"2021-09-11T15:31:01","modified_gmt":"2021-09-11T22:31:01","slug":"more-on-molehills-and-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/09\/11\/more-on-molehills-and-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"More on molehills and mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Laksiri Warnakula\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Before\ngoing any further, I should thank the editor for his editorial titled\n\u2018Shortages, half-truths and mistruths (07\/09)\u2019, which gave me the idea of\nlooking at \u2018moles and mountains\u2019 slightly differently,&nbsp; and then with a dash of slight humour too,\nhere and there. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now please allow me to share my own two cents\u2019 worth (pardon me for the\nclich\u00e9) involving mountains and molehills. It is a fairly complex game of\ndownplaying and exaggerating depending on who is talking and the subject and\nthe specific outcomes. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Generally,\nthe former is a favourite weapon of engagement of the opposition and the\nlatter, mostly and for obvious reasons, of the government. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How\nthe opposition\u2019s response to the commendable performance of the military\npersonnel (an idea coming from the president himself, it is said) working\nalongside our dedicated health workers in our ongoing and excellent vaccination\nprogramme, is a case in point in support of the former. And as for the\ngovernment, I do not wish to touch on anything specific as their achievements\nand claims have always been on the exaggeration-mode. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now\nthis molehill-mountain exchange, so to speak, must have come into being quite\npossibly long time ago, when our distant ancestors finally gained the ability\nto downplay and exaggerate too and now it has been well-established in all\nspheres of human society and politics is no exception, and in the land like no\nother, in particular&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\npassing, I must also say that we Sri Lankans are said to be generally good at\ngiving, but not when it comes to criticism and praise, where the former is\npreferred by many to the latter, even when it doesn\u2019t seem right to many a\nfair-minded person and our politicians and many other bigwigs have been\nexemplary in this regard.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lastly\nthe \u2018molehill-mountain\u2019 will have many more years ahead of it for sure, as long\nas we have people and of course, governments and oppositions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Laksiri Warnakula\u00a0 Before going any further, I should thank the editor for his editorial titled \u2018Shortages, half-truths and mistruths (07\/09)\u2019, which gave me the idea of looking at \u2018moles and mountains\u2019 slightly differently,&nbsp; and then with a dash of slight humour too, here and there. &nbsp;&nbsp; Now please allow me to share my own two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-laksiri-warnakula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}