{"id":61573,"date":"2016-12-17T22:27:33","date_gmt":"2016-12-18T04:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=61573"},"modified":"2016-12-16T23:35:52","modified_gmt":"2016-12-17T06:35:52","slug":"the-tallest-christmas-tree-saga-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/12\/17\/the-tallest-christmas-tree-saga-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tallest Christmas Tree Saga continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asoka Weerasinghe \u00a0Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1 . Canada.<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

16 December 2016<\/p>\n

Hon. Maithripala Sirisena
\nPresident of Sri Lanka
\nPresidential Secretariat
\nGalle Face
\nColombo 1<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka<\/p>\n

cc.<\/p>\n

His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo
\nPrime Minister Hon. Ranil Wickremesinghe.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Re: The Tallest Christmas Tree Saga continues<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n

Dear President Maithripala Sirisena:<\/p>\n

Well…well…well….did you read the news item in the December 11, 2016, the SUNDAY TIMES, \u2018Christmas tree builders erect Rs.12m private cash defence\u2019.\u00a0 This comment from me is the second on this subject.\u00a0 The other I sent to you by e-mail on December 14th.\u00a0 I hope someone briefed you on it in case you didn\u2019t have time to read it.<\/p>\n

You know what Mr. President, whichever way the Yahoopalanaya lot wants to cut the Christmas Tree Saga Pie, it comes out as a waste of money when you all could have done better using that money distributing Christmas hampers to the poor and bring Joy to their hand-out VAT scrimping world.<\/p>\n

Each hamper could have had a coconut, a loaf of bread, a small bottle of cooking coconut oil, a packet of salt, a small packet of rice, a small packet of dhal and a small packet of curry powder.\u00a0 Just seven items of a token gesture of \u2018Christmas time Christian happiness, a Christian spirit of giving\u2019, and that would have made thousands and thousands of people of all denominations living in thakaran roofed adobe huts smile \u00a0\u00a0That colossal Christmas Tree was about Religious harmony you all said. I don\u2019t get it.\u00a0 That Christmas Tree Religious harmony needs some logical explanation.\u00a0 That vacuous statement to me is a heap of dried patties of cow-dung.<\/p>\n

You know what Mr. President, your Yahoopalanayos still think that the Sri Lankans are a bunch of idiots, don\u2019t you.?,\u00a0 You all keep lying to the people and pulling wool over their eyes.<\/p>\n

I wonder whether Mangala Gunasekera, the Chairman of the Christmas Tree Construction Committee really understood the symbolism of the Christmas Tree.\u00a0 It has nothing to do with any other religion.\u00a0 At least the other three major religions in Sri Lanka \u2013 Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.\u00a0 And he talks of Religious harmony\u201d\u00a0 What stupidity!<\/p>\n

That news item says Construction Committee Chairman says, the tree was to promote religious harmony and promote tourism.\u201d<\/p>\n

You know what Mr. President, that foolishness made my stomach do summersaults with Ha!….Ha!… Ha!…laughter … saying What a load of crap!\u201d<\/p>\n

The symbolic meaning of the Christmas Tree originates in pagan culture, where the evergreen represents life, rebirth and stamina needed to endure the cold, freezing winter months.\u00a0 The Scandinavians and Norse traditionally honoured the winter solstice (December 25) by decorating evergreens.\u00a0 This tradition also marked the end of the old year and the beginning of a new year.\u00a0 Where does the religious harmony\u201d come into play, Mr. President?<\/p>\n

Please….please…..ask your Yahoopalanayos not to challenge the intelligence of the 21 million of your people.<\/p>\n

Pagan lore indicates the time between December 25 until about early-mid January are some of the coldest days of the year. The lore believed that evil spirits were at their strongest during these months.\u00a0 So to thwart the \u00a0\u2018 red-eyed-Booo-nasties\u2019, everygreens were brought into their homes as a symbol of protection.\u00a0 And they were lit with candles to light up the darkest and the coldest days and shooing out these nasty spirits.\u00a0 So where does the religious harmony\u201d come in.\u00a0 Stop lying and cheating your people, Mr.. President.<\/p>\n

The nineteenth century Christianity absorbed the bright, cheery symbolism of a Christmas Tree. The Christians know their symbolism well, as they added candles and apples to their indoor Christmas trees.\u00a0 These candles, generally white, represented the light of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 The apples symbolized knowledge which spawned man\u2019s original sin according to Christian belief.\u00a0 Here we see the light of Christ absolving the fall of man\u201d within the immortal; symbol of the Christmas Tree.\u00a0 So where the hell, does \u2018religious harmony\u2019 come into play, may I ask Mangala Gunasekera, the Chairman of the Construction Committee of the humongous Christmas Tree?<\/p>\n

Mr. President, enough…is….enough.\u00a0 Stop cheating your people, and painting them as bunch of idiots.<\/p>\n

And what your Yahoopalanaya crowd ought to know is that there was never a Christmas Tree in Bethlehem.\u00a0\u00a0 Ask Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, and he will say so.<\/p>\n

So you all decide to build the tallest Christmas Tree and think that you can bring religious harmony between the major religions in Sri Lanka \u2013 the Christians, the Buddhists, the Hindus and the Muslims.\u00a0 For Jesus sake, don\u2019t throw buckets of Hog\u2019s-wash on the 21 million of your people to bathe them with your unconscionable \u00a0stupidity.<\/p>\n

The present\u00a0 day Christmas Trees are decorated with all sorts of ornaments and coloured lights\u00a0 You name it, its all in Christmas Trees \u2013 chains of coloured beads, glass baubles,\u00a0 silver stars, flying silver birds, sleighs, little toy animals, an angel at the apex of the tree, et cetera.\u00a0 Not sure what all these symbolize, but this is how they decorate the Christmas tree.<\/p>\n

But, if your people want to salvage the embarrassment of the Yahoopalanaya decadence, whether the Christmas Tree was built with Government Tax Payers money or money from the sponsors, it is not too late to cover your \u00a0orangutang\u00a0 red behinds, by threading the Christmas Tree\u00a0 to represent \u2018religious harmony\u2019 by hanging religious symbols on your tallest Christmas Tree in the world\u00a0 in Galle Face Green like the – Dharma Chakra (Buddhism); Sacred cow or the Omkar\u2019 (Hinduism); Cross (Christianity); \u00a0Star and Crescent \u00a0or a Minaret (Islam); Sikh Khanda (Sikhism); Zoroastrian Faravahar (Parsee); Star of David (Judaism); Pointed Star (Baha\u2019is), Yin and Yang (Taoism) et cetera.\u00a0 That certainly will have a sensible thread of \u2018Religious harmony\u2019.\u00a0 But you will have to get permission from the religious hierarchy, whether they wish to participate in this decadent foolishness.<\/p>\n

These mock religious symbols will have to be large all weather proof Christmas tree decorations.<\/p>\n

Mr. President, here is where your Yahoopalanayo deliberately confused your people.\u00a0 The cost, of constructing the colossal Christmas Tree would be a 12 million rupee show case with 300,000 bulbs, decorated with two million pine cones,\u00a0 a Santa and a sleigh are also part of the installation, they announced.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0 Christmas Tree will be exposed to the Test Cricket abandoning inclement weather, where there will be a horrendous hidden cost for maintenance.\u00a0 Do you know how much it is?\u00a0 Of course, you wouldn\u2019t as they would certainly like to hide the cost from the eyes of the people.<\/p>\n

They say it is a tourist attraction.\u00a0 Come again Mr. President.\u00a0 Whom are you kidding.\u00a0\u00a0 Dream on,\u00a0 Mr.President….dream on!\u00a0 You certainly won\u2019t have tourists in plane loads flying into Colombo to see this Yahoopalanaya foolishness.\u00a0\u00a0 Dream on…. Mr. President!<\/p>\n

The Christmas hampers of a coconut, a loaf of bread, a small bottle of cooking coconut oil, a small packet of rice, a small packet of dhal and a small packet of curry powder, would have lit the skies with smiles of coconut-kernel white teeth of poor mothers, fathers and kids, who would have sung to you in union \u2013<\/p>\n

I see skies of blue\/ and clouds of white
\nThe bright blessed day\/ the dark Christmas night
\nWith Christmas hampers in our hands
\nand I think of myself\/what a wonderful world.\u201d<\/p>\n

My plea to you Mr. President is, it is time your Yahoopalanaya crowd stop cheating and lying to the 21 million people.\u00a0 For Jesus sake, stop underestimating their intelligence,\u00a0 Little wonder when I asked 24 Gamme-minissu, Kohomadaha aluth arnduwa?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 They all said, Oya okkoma hora yakku. Mahaththaya!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 That was the pulse of the poor folk last February across your beautiful<\/p>\n

Island, and I am not lying, and my heart sank with disappointment.
\nAnd now this tallest Christmas Tree in place and no Christmas hampers!
\nIt is tough to understand the Yahoopalanaya charity on the days of Christian goodwill.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

(former Head, Thematic Research of the National Museums Corporation, Ottawa, Canada;
\nformer Head of Exhibits of the National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa, Canada;
\nformer Head of Exhibits, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Ottawa, Canada;
\nThe designer, and producer of the 30 thousand square foot exhibition, \u2018Hidden Face of the Oceans\u2019, Pacific National Exhibition, Expo 86, Vancouver, Canada and
\nThe designer and producer of the 30 thousand square foot exhibition, \u2018The Oceans\u2019, at the Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, 1997)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asoka Weerasinghe \u00a0Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1 . Canada. 16 December 2016 Hon. Maithripala Sirisena President of Sri Lanka Presidential Secretariat Galle Face Colombo 1 Sri Lanka cc. His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo Prime Minister Hon. Ranil Wickremesinghe. \u00a0Re: The Tallest Christmas Tree Saga continues Dear President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asoka-weerasinghe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61573","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=61573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}