Letters to the Editor
View(s):Ode to Geneva!
Spare me, O ye mighty glistening pots
Free of every taint,
Spare a poor little kettle
Black all over, smothered in soot.
And slacken that jackboot pressing against my throat,
Just a little
That I may breathe a little, and croak out a reply
Before I croak.
A reply to your accusations of grave crimes
Of manslaughter, of genocide, of ethnic cleansing
And the biggest crime of all
Winning the war against terrorism!
Perhaps we had no right to win a war,
Roundly declared as unwinnable
By the powers that be, in their wisdom.
When the end was near, with victory in sight,
You rushed in your men,
The peace makers, the negotiators
To negotiate a peace, and set the losers free
That they may regroup, and fight another day!
When told to their faces, “Go fly a kite!”
It really did hurt
And rankles to this day, doesn’t it?
Isn’t that really the beginning
Of all this persistent hostility
That grinds me between two grindstones
Of Excessive Power and Inordinate Pride?
Vasantha Lunuwila via email
Hybrid bread maybe answer to ever-increasing price
The price of bread is going up daily and this is a serious concern. One of the solutions is to mix wheat flour with rice flour to make a hybrid bread.
Such a hybrid bread has been prepared successfully by a group of scientists from the Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Jaffna and the Food Research Unit, Horticultural Crop Research and Development Institute, Gannoruwa. The relevant publication – ‘Study on preparation of rice-wheat bread using premix’ by P. Mahalingam, S. Velupillai and S. Ekanayake appeared in the Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 2014, Vol. 9, No. 1.
Quoting from the paper:
Bread making: Wheat flour – 800g; rice flour – 200g; yeast -7g; sugar-20g; salt -15g; margarine – 40g; bread improver – 2g and water – 600g.
The bread was prepared by the straight dough method and baked in an electric oven at 235 degrees centigrade for 15 minutes.
The authors concluded that “the bread premix (wheat flour, rice flour, yeast, and bread improver) was consistent in quality in bread making in terms of nutrition and sensory characters over a period of two months; that is the RWB (Rice Wheat Bread) can be prepared using premix stored upto 2 months with the qualities equal to that of RWB made from fresh flours.”
At a time when we are trying to save foreign exchange and improve the nutrition of the people in general, it would be useful to follow the guidance of Sri Lankan scientists working in the relevant sectors.
M.D.H. Seneviratne Nawala
Power vehicle batteries with solar panels
It is high time that someone thought of using solar panels for body covers (tops and sides) of motor vehicles to energise the battery. If it can be achieved – sooner than later – it would have a welcome impact on the cost of charging the battery and the time taken for it.
Further it will ensure a hassle-free journey. It will be environmentally friendly too. It could be used for other transport services as well.
Don D. Abeyaratne Kottawa
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