by Colin Hyde
It is said, known, yes, that a guilty conscience needs no accuser; so, when it was announced that the local Lord – Ashcroft is the foreign Lord – was producing a new album featuring praise songs for Jesus, it was natural for enquiring minds to ask what’s with him, to wonder if, ehm, something was burning up his mind. It might be all benign, Lord Rhaburn entering the world of praise songs. It could be some kind of human need that our local great hadn’t satisfied.
I’ve noted that many of these foreign greats, by the time they hit adulthood they’ve been there and done that. The greatest male songster of them all, Sam Cooke, and arguably the greatest female voice ever, take your pick, Whitney Houston or Aretha Franklin, they all got their beginning in the choir. If Mr. Rhaburn had no church upbringing, he’s not alone in a pagan start, because it goes with our territory. Aha, when we were still ruled by the Public Meeting, a governor type sent here from England described us as the most romperajo people he had ever met! Whoa there, all children need their Sunday schooling!
Moving on to cats, they have a lot of fame, because they are clean, a godly attribute that will take anyone, beast or human, far in this world. That virtue puts cats on the good foot/paw, but it is all wiped away by the little beast’s arrogance and ingratitude. On the social media thing, there are hundreds of videos with interesting or humorous activities of cats, but not one with a cat giving love to its master or mistress.
Ouch, there are very entertaining clips with masters and mistresses doing all kinds of contortions to please them, but none vice versa, no reciprocation. They are so different from man’s best friend. A dog will kill you with love, appreciation; but cats, they’re all uppitinis. In Belize we don’t too like that; that’s why when we had an influx of new Asians from China and rumors were about that the new culture liked cats, few in Belize gave a daam, except for the worry that they might turn up as chikin, or in the tamales.
I might completely misunderstand our Father, but from where I stand I can’t see Him putting out for a cold-fish animal like that. Sure, there might be other things that will hambog this Rhaburn’s standing in the other place, hence why he must praise in song, but it won’t be his glee about pussy kyats on faiya that will do him in. A daam aloof animal, if you ask me.
Whoa there, I have to remember to do a little tribute to the great Lucio. I’ve had many a wonderful drink of sweet juice of cane while absolutely immersed in his sounds.
Sinking John S with faulty arithmetic
I think the words used by the SBUDP (the Shyne Barrow led UDP faction) leader to sear John S and his friends were that they had been resoundingly rejected at the polls in 2020 because they are corrupt. I think I heard that SBUDP leader say that no mediation will make him run on a ticket that features John S and his gang of crooks. One man’s poison is another man’s food. Those of us who don’t forget things quickly will remember that it wasn’t that long ago that UDP Belmopan said once again that John S is their man, despite the SBUDP leader who, in his sweat to sink John S, sang about a US designation that declared him a very bad boy, persona non grata north of the Rio Grande.
In January 2025, I don’t know where BMP in its entirety stands with John S in respect to his penance, the sackcloth he was forced to wear for hanging around with unsavory sorts. I haven’t thought about John S the politician for a while, so the plug to follow has naught to do with the here and now. All I’m about is correcting some grossly faulty math of the SBUDP leader—that because falsehood, wherever it is, must get the sense.
It is true that John S and friends got a walloping in 2020, but he and they can’t be singled out from the whole. That thrashing they got at the polls wasn’t different from what happened to others in the party. If that smacking they got says that they were corrupt, well, I’m waiting for the explanation why the beating the rest got wasn’t for the same thing.
Before we glance at the numbers reported by Elections and Boundaries, there’s this tit for tat, from John S for the SBUDP leader. In a recent fb post, John S said his funder from America is a boy scout compared to the one who was backing Shyne. Those aren’t John S’s exact words, but six a one, half a dozen a di other, you decide. This is some strange UDP, plenty ketl an pot bizniz. You know there’s a report that the SBUDP leader was accused of the same infraction that caused Faber to get dumped from el lado del caballo!
To make sense of the story from 2020, it will help us if we compare it to 2015, when the UDP formed the government. The UDP 2015 got 50% of the popular vote, the UDP 2020 got 38.3%, a drop of 12%. In 2015 the UDP candidate in Queen Square (QS), Dean B, got 78.4%, in 2020 Denise B got 55.6%, a 23% drop; in Mesop (M) 2015, Finnegan got 76.8%, in 2020 Shyne got 53%, a 24% drop. In 2015 BMP John S got 53.8%, in 2020 he got 29%, a drop of 25%. However, there were TWO red candidates in the 2020 race in BMP, Ms. Anna B Guy getting 10%. Ignoring that, the falloff in QS, M, and BMP are the same. If John S got what he got because of corruption, hmm, tell me what the voters in QS and M were thinking.
Looking at a couple more a dehn corrupt John S cronies, as determined by the SBUDP leader, Magical striker Erwin in Benque, he got 61% in 2015 and 46.4% in 2020, a decline of 15%; salt beef maker Castro got 53% in Bze Rural North in 2015, and 40% in 2020, a decline of 13%. And looking at some “non-corrupt” players, Tracy went from 56% in Albert in 2015 to 50% in 2020, a reduction of 6 percentage points; Faber dropped 4 percentage points in Collet, from 64.7% in 2015 to 60.4% in 2020; and Patt, who won an award after escaping the Tribunal that had him in the corruption crosshairs, actually gained 2.5 percentage points in CZL North, going from 53.9% in 2015 to 56.5% in 2020.
Out of hurricane-season frying pan, into fire season
I’ve looked at a few “before” pictures of areas in California that were burned to the ground to try and figure out how men who go to Mars could watch a fire destroy 12,000 structures and cause an estimated US$150 billion in damages. I’m not sure if that dollar figure is inclusive of the 35,000 acres they say the wildfire swept through. Just in 2023 there was a massive blaze in Maui, a Hawaiian island. That one reportedly destroyed over 2,200 buildings, cost US$5.5 billion, and killed more than a hundred people. In both cases, extremely powerful winds drove the inferno.
From the outside lookin in, the first thing that comes to mind about this California fire is that they could have gone under an SOE and sent in bulldozers to clear out some buildings to create breaks, fire pass to cut off the fuel for the flames.
The prediction is that we are in for another roasting year, so we had better get our game up. At home, I expect Belize City and the towns have a good game plan. I think if we will save our forests, our forest planners have to do what they don’t want to do. The first thing we have to do is identify the areas that are most vulnerable. To reduce losses, we need to make strategic fire passes, wide swathes in reserve areas. We know why we have hesitated to do that, and we know what that failure cost us last year. Leadership has to do what it has to do. We have to invest in patrols to maintain the reserve status.