Jules Vasquez, the principal owner of Channel Seven Belize, eulogized his dad, Mr. Net Vasquez, who died recently, and I got to read an excerpt in the Amandala and the story in full in the Belize Guardian over the weekend. Mr. Net died last week after suffering an accident, and we had to wait until then to find out how fascinating his life story was. His is a story of resilience, pluck, determination, triumph, and a whole array of other superlatives.
Talking Belize Guardian, how come Sedi, who insists we should capitulate to the IMF, doesn’t get his articles published in the party’s newspaper? Is the Barrows’ victory over the Elringtons complete? We see Barrow got his boy into a safe seat, but the Elrington boy, Hubert’s son/Sedi’s nephew, got a bad dusting off in a PUP stronghold.
I don’t have knowledge of what’s behind the friction between these two UDP families, but from the outside I will give the Elringtons the points for achievement. Okay, Barrow became PM, and the Elrington brothers didn’t climb past ministerial posts, but Barrow had the inside track, because his uncle was once leader of the party. On top of that, Dean Barrow’s grampa was also a founder of the NP, the colonial National Party that merged with the HIP to become the NIP that merged with other parties to form the UDP.
The little I know suggests the Elringtons had a lot higher ladder to climb, and not just because they are black and the Barrow family is brown. What I understand of the Elringtons is that the highest in their clan was their dad, and he was a regular civil servant. (I’m not aware of him having any big title.)
He and his wife had many children, and they all excelled in their field of choice, and they all are exemplary Belizean citizens.
However, when you think on it, the Barrows and the Elringtons might be six of one and half a dozen of the other, because they both got battered in court by Eamon and the Europeans, though we shouldn’t ignore that in Barrow’s case he was fighting our cause, and it was our till that got emptied, while Sedi Elrington lost a private case, and it’s his personal fortune that dwindled.
Sedi Elrington is throwing about his views, unabashedly in the Reporter, calling for us to go to the IMF, and we have to wonder how come in these crisis times we aren’t hearing anything from the other Singaporean. As a full member of the UDP Cabinet Musketeers, of course Godwin has his share of mud. Hmm, he talked big, the UDP said ‘here’s an opportunity to show you’re not all mouth’, and he had to take the job.
Barrow gave Godwin our biggest hotbed of corruption, Immigration. Did we expect him to do a perfect job? The man talks money. Did we not expect him to fall in love with our Mennonites? Ahem, Godwin isn’t as perfect as he thought he was or made himself out to be, but he has too much value to just sail off. Braa, now you’re free of the rotten lot, come home and help save your people.
Ah, how you like it —the third member of the Three Wise Men is now a senator. First, it was Genesis Believer/Chief Met/Manuel Esquivel Cab Sec, Henry Gordon…. Hmm, I think that Godwin, the First Wise Man, came after Henry, the Second Wise Man, but they might have entered the Senate at the same time. Anyway, here comes the third, Mr. Herrera, and as the great GG just reminded us, uneasy lies a head that wears a crown, for what do you know: he had to vote on the slashing of salaries. He voted YES.
But, but our 13th senator abstained, and what a pickle he would have been in if it was a six-six deadlock, and the vote could have overturned the 26-4-1 abstention in the vastly more powerful House. Recall that there would have been no 13th senator if the BNTU hadn’t grabbed Barrow and Faber by dehn shirt front, and pushed them up against a wall. So, 13th senator is a lee beholden. Unfettered, me seh the representative of the NGOs would have voted YES.
Ah, Ms. Elena and the unions: you know all Belize loves the teachers and our public employees, but the only support they got was from Pere’s crowd, and they are just the worst enemies of unionism and good governance in this country.
Serious thing on this strike: I thought the unions were on a bluff. I don’t think the PM is exactly right when he says the unions have the right to strike, not in these not-normal times, but the unions are right that it will hurt our economy badly. Indeed, the salary cut might be a terrible decision, but the government says it’s that, or worse.
Yay, the unions, particularly the BNTU, have fought a great fight for good governance, and while the needed good governance legislation is in process, can we have full exposure on this land deal Eamon says is so terrible, and Pere says is so good for us?
Una de mis Compre colegas, Ms. Sandra Zelaya, sent me a photo of some massive land clearing near the Shipstern Nature Reserve, and while many are shouting ‘hooray, that’s development’, more are saying ‘slow down, slow down, that’s no prairie there you are turning from grass to maize; that’s precious forest’.
The unions have to respond to this cut of salaries and this increment freeze, and I suggest the best way to do that is to turn within, not to the streets. It is a golden opportunity for the unions to pool their economic might to not only make up for the loss in the month-ending, but to build and expand something special for Belize.
God is good. When one door closes, look for the many opportunities to capitalize on that will abound. The unions would transform Belize if they invested their dues in new businesses.
They can find managers for these businesses from among our talented retired public servants. I suggest, in fact I implore the unions, to talk to Bernard, and to Oscar, and to heed the advice they give. We all know a little of everything, but far and away the best deal is to go to the experts in the field, the sincere ones. Remember Shawshank Redemption and how many doors one good investment banker opened for the inmates and the bosses in that place?
Talking redemption, Dr. Jones says we have to get our shots to fight the pandemic, and I’m thinking that to ease our fear the government should vow to give the best medical care possible to anyone who might get the extremely rare clots after we take the vaccine. This month I should be taking my shot for Team Belize. I expect I still have the antibodies, but the WHO says full speed ahead with the jab.
And now, to end my piece, let me tell you about its title, for those who might have forgotten and those who neva’ know. Every weekday my mom had to fry ripe plantains, caramelize it, because our dad thought that a midday meal without fried ripe plantains was no dinner ataal.
Well, my mom thought Sunday da neva Sunday without dessert, so after every Sunday dinner we had our treat. Name it, pitayta pound, plastic cake, homemade ice cream, fudge, koakanat crust, bread pudding with a sauce with a lee bit a rum, my mom made it, and when she didn’t have enough of anything she put together a lee bit of everything, and she called it a bruku.
Well, today I had too much in the pantry, so I presented a kind of bruku.