This week at the House the devil PUP is up to presenting two amendments, and I give the approval stamp to the first one, the 10th, for six months, and the 11th, it’s about time we had this discussion. Ambassador David Gibson, by consensus one of our most brilliant minds, has said that the 10th amendment could do with some improvements, which he has forwarded. If David says so, it is. I’m fully on board with the ambassador, but…

The amendment makes it mandatory that politically appointed people vacate office when there is a change of government. In its Plan Belize manifesto, the PUP made many good governance promises, including the independence of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC). This 10th amendment is incomplete improvement, but…

The UDP stacked a number of bodies, including the EBC, with cronies. Please, I didn’t say that cronies aren’t nice people, but I’ll not complain with the PUPeez if they want the satisfaction of cleaning out UDP bohgaz who refuse to move, with the 10th amendment.

There is a lee risk. The PUP has gone ahead with improving the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), but they have to worry that the UDP will decide to withdraw from the PAC in protest of so many of their favorites getting the boot in their behinds, which has become necessary because of their intransigence. But I say, take the risk, for the satisfaction.

I heard Darrell Bradley (is he really accepting that appointment from the new UDP House leader?) saying that he was not the only municipal leader who engaged in the practice of passing UDP-chosen administrators in current councils to succeeding councils. Bradley said all the municipalities agreed on this management decision, but disregard that — this is his brainchild. As the mayor of the biggest municipality in the country, and with his law degree which makes him one of the glib ones, he was showing himself.

When the municipal governments backed his baby, if it was during his first term as mayor, the UDP held a 5 to 3 advantage, and if it was in his second term, the UDP held a 7-1 advantage. Bah, this type of nonsense is just what happens when clueless or totally partisan people, the kind who put party over country, get control of the country.

I am so sorry that Miss Candice got caught up in this, because she seems a nice young lady, who was put in a tough spot. We all know, having seen how most of our political leaders behave, how difficult it is to walk away from a plum job. If I come over a little harsh here with these UDP, I’m that way when poor people have to pay.

Ah, if the PUP is still deluded, still thinks that all their doings are the best that can be done for Belize, and they perpetuate such thinking as the 10th amendment up to the end of the year, we’ll have to say, wait, not again, you are supposed to be about doing penance for your last run. Maybe some of them don’t understand how serious their damage was.

The PUPeez failure forced white-collar people in the 8-to-5 unions to take to the streets, where they faced tear gas and riot police. It is PUP wrong that allowed the UDP to get away with 13 years of trampling on our governance systems. See, in this 2-party system, the people didn’t have anyone to turn to when the UDP, which they sacrificed so much to help bring to power, trod on them.

If the PUP comes with this disappointing governance again, we’ll have to check them, but I wouldn’t deny them the satisfaction of kicking out UDP cronies who are up to the old Barrow games. The UDP had full 13 years, and those bohgaz took us backwards. None of them can claim creds, because if they had credibility, which is a factor of integrity, common sense and capacity, they would have told their party, no, I’m not the one for this nonpartisan job.

Now, the 11th — I think my area rep, Julius, will like that, and if you have the patience and the time, you’ll see why I think he and leaders like him have a strong point. Fortunately, we have three months to chew over this matter, and we should have done so a long time ago, because it is no trivial story.

I begin with this comment on a column written by Major Jones in the Reporter prior to the November 2020 general elections, about S Barrow’s candidacy. Jones, a second chance advocate, described the crime S Barrow was convicted for, as youthful indiscretion. Jones liked the sound of that so much he wrote it twice, then he went on to describe marijuana use as another youthful indiscretion.

Hmm, if a young man is guilty of forcing himself on a woman, would that be called youthful indiscretion? An 18-year-old male is a youth, so everything he does could be described as youthful, and it certainly is wrong thinking, an indiscretion, a ghastly indiscretion, for a man to impose himself on a woman.

Okay, that young man goes to jail — a punishment which I think should be applied only for violent acts, so the penalty is very justified in my mind. The man does his years, painful years in jail for what he did, and he is let back into the society. Should his mind be free of guilt now because he’s done the prescribed years? Is his victim ever free?

In sober places you are tagged for life if you are a sex offender. That sex offender has done the time prescribed by the law, but will that sex offender ever get a job to protect anyone’s daughter? The sex offender might now be the safest man on earth, but can he really put that crime behind him?

On the Shyne matter, my personal view is that he is sincerely remorseful, just as I believe Patrick really regrets his lack of self-control in some situations around women. We all fail at times, so we all appreciate second chances. As individuals, we all want the good things we do to follow us, but the bad, we want that to be forgotten. Say what you want about life on earth, hard as it is sometimes, it is what it is.

Some people say it is discrimination against black male youth who have done wrong if we don’t give them a complete pass when they decide to become loving, productive citizens. They say this because a lot of black youth have been using the gun in their deprived neighborhoods. I’ll leave that for now to say this.

Properly, we should be telling marginalized Garinagu and Kriol youth to join the local chapter of the Black Muslims, as conceived by the prophet Elijah Muhammad, who followed in the footsteps of the great Marcus. Young men, stop following those who will lead you into wrongdoing, because the things we do in this life (and of course things that are done to us too) affect our ceiling, how high we can climb in this world, the arenas in which we can operate.

Second chances are great, but the fight can’t be to get back the same ceiling we had before we slipped. The fight should be, must be, to prevent us from slipping too far.

Oh how we all love second chances, but a kid who gets sent to the battlefield doesn’t get a second limb if he loses one, and he doesn’t get back his life if he is killed. Let me done this, fu now. I thought young Mr. Barrow was on the right path when he took his talent to the church (synagogue), the only place where sins can be washed until they are as white as snow.