by Colin Hyde

A village brother, Belhem Guzman, was killed last week, and the last time I saw him, a couple days before he was killed, I didn’t tell him hello. I didn’t have any quarrel with Belhem. But I didn’t tell him hello. I’ve told you that if you are drunk and I am sober, you should keep to your path; and when I am drunk and you are sober, I will return the favor. It was a wavelength thing.

At the age of 58, Belhem had arrived at a place where he was living dangerously. No one in the village would have been surprised to wake up and hear he had been killed in a road accident, because he didn’t see very well, he liked a high, and he walked on the highway at night. He could be quite provoking, and it would have surprised no one to hear he had been muscled, but no one expected him to be killed.

In my much younger days, there came a time when I had to take charge of my home village’s football club, and Belhem was one of the players. He was a physical horse, but cerebrally, well, he was a little wild. There is a story that an injury or an illness when he was a child had reduced his capacity to reason.

In his youth and for most of his adult life, Belhem worked with cattle, and was sought after to mix cement or swing a machete or axe. He liked “substances”, so he wore down early. I’m not aware that he ever harmed anyone physically, but I was aware that when he was high he threw a lot of wrong words, and that behavior continued even after he lost his vigor.

They say an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. Belhem wasn’t what we call deranged, but I believe that for people like him our country should build an unfenced institution, and put out a welcome mat and invite them in. This institution should be a very livable place, with ball fields, game rooms, counseling rooms, and for those who are willing and able to help earn their keep, it should have gardens, orchards, and farm animals to tend.

Also, give them things to smoke, and once a week bring in undercover police to monitor them, because you’re going to give them rum. Human beings, especially males, are not entirely tame, so the people who supervise would have to be on the lookout for weapons. The sexes should be separated. If you’re strong enough and interested enough to want sex, you walk out and go look for it.

If we look about our country, we see people who need special attention. The people who collect our taxes need to think seriously about them.

Old full-of-hate preacher

I don’t know how much money an old American preacher named Hagee paid BBN TV to air him telling the world that the US government should get out of the way so that Israel can obliterate its enemies. That old warmonger preacher kept hollering Jesus’s name. The Jews rejected Jesus because He was about peace, and they were looking for a warrior to wipe their enemies off the face of the earth. Jesus’s name just cannot be called on if you are promoting Netanyahu’s genocide.

The old preacher said everything leads to Jerusalem, that that’s the only way to prosper financially. Well, I have heard of many people in the world who are prospering fu real, and they are neither Christians nor Jews. Whoa there, Jesus said He was about the soul, not about dollars.

Because of preachers like Hagee, there are black people who look at people like me and call us fools. As noted about the world, people’s spiritual leaders look like they do. The Jesus of the BBN preacher is blonde, blue-eyed, white, and has a very narrow face. The only people in Belize who have some similarities there are our local whites and the Mennonites.

I don’t blame anyone who calls me a fool for being a Christian. If you’re dealing with the surface, you are 100% right. There are things beneath the surface which, if you would just take a deep breath and dive, you would see and maybe arrive at a different conclusion. But you can’t dive deep enough to explain away the ugly speech of that old preacher. That old warmonger belongs in a home, not on a pulpit.

The Pope kos out both a dem

Recent news is that Pope Francis said Americans will have to choose between the lesser of two evils when they go to the polls in November, because Trump’s immigration ideas are evil, and the Catholic Church can’t support Kamala’s abortion stand because it is murder. I don’t know the Pope’s mind, but I would say that after considering the platforms in their entirety, he has a soft spot for Kamala, because he must know that a country can’t open its borders to everyone, while, no matter the reason, abortion is extinguishing a life and the church could never endorse that.

Putting the church’s position aside, anti-abortionists must know that if we’re talking earth, their position isn’t on very firm ground. Nowhere under the sun can a renter dictate to a landlord. If a woman finds herself carrying a fetus she doesn’t want, it’s her right to say ‘there’s no room in this inn’. It’s her body, guy. The threat by states’ authorities to punish women who abort is overreach. The state wants babies, well, generally, and so women are encouraged, cajoled, yes, pleaded with to carry the fetus until it becomes a child. But if they bury their head and say ‘no room here’, that’s very sad, but it is their right.

In the recent debate, Trump said the Hungarian president thinks his plan to chase home millions is spot on. Hungary has been fined 200 million Euros by the European Union because that country doesn’t put out a welcome mat for immigrants. Hungary’s system makes it almost impossible for anyone to get asylum. We know who the Hungarians are trying to keep out. I won’t quarrel with Hungary if they don’t want black and non-white people. Their case is different from that of England, France, Portugal, Spain, Germany, and the Dutch, because they, Hungary, did not colonize countries peopled by blacks and non-whites.

Mr. Trump has to understand that the US isn’t Hungary. He needs to learn US history, how that country came into existence. Of course you have to be selective at your borders. But the US is standing on very weak ground with this plan for mass deportation. In fact, Germany in its horrible days under the Nazis could be seen as having more right to deport Jews than the US has to deport non-white people.

I was slow to give Sharon a like

Call me envious, a lee bit, why I didn’t give Sharon Marin an immediate like when she shared on her social media page that she has a second book on Amazon. There’s a small market outside of Belize for our literary products among roots Belizeans living abroad and people who developed a little interest in our country after visiting our shores. That second book suggests that she has a hook-up to collect whenever someone buys one of her books. Hmm, some people have all the luck! Of course I ride with the very talented Sharon.

Hmm, the reported documentary about Shyne probably should be about all his angles to get back into the US market after he was deported. I don’t know how big the hip hop market is in the US, but it absolutely dwarfs our market for music and books. Knowing the US powers adore Israel, it is very likely that Mr. Shyne became a Jew, hoping to make them go soft on him. Of course, where the Jews (Saudis too) are, is where the money is. When that effort failed, his dad, former PM Dean Barrow, made him music ambassador; and when that failed, the dad and Finnegan gave him a seat in the House of Representatives. We know the rest of that story, how he became too ambitious.