“People may plan all kinds of things, but the Lord’s will is going to be done. It is a disgrace to be greedy; poor people are better off than liars”.” (TEV - Proverbs 19:21-22)
On Monday, November 19, Felicita Arzu, Miss Belize World, along with 19 other Miss World delegates, were selected to record the official song for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay.
That’s how it looks outside, gray or grey, however you want to call it. The sky is gray, the sea is gray, the streets are gray and so are the people. Yes, there are people on the streets as the late November darkness closes in. The stores and the commercials are pumping Christmas, but there seems to be precious little “holiday joy” out here. It’s as though everyone is walking around with a large weight on their shoulders. Most people know, whether they are willing to admit it or not, that the 2008 elections won’t change very much at all.
Seven men went fishing on November 4 and did not return. After six days of intensive searching by the Coast Guard, BDF and private boat owners, the body of one of the seven was discovered near Glovers Reef on Saturday, November 10. The postmortem examiner’s report is that his death was the result of the infliction of violent blows, not from drowning. It is suspected that the blows may have been inflicted by a party or parties unknown. No other bodies have been found since, which suggests that the other men may have been taken out of our waters. This calls for the kind of thorough investigation that our security forces may not be equipped to perform. It would be no reflection on us if we asked for assistance outside Belize. It calls also, for an increase in our security consciousness when going to sea.
Yeah, I guess that it would be funny, I mean it still is funny, but the humor is tempered more than a little bit by what that whole sign incident meant in terms of the level of the political debate as we move closer to the 2008 general election. There is an issue about disrespect, but in my mind it has nothing to do with the PUP’s disrespect of the UDP. The issue is really about the lack of respect that both the PUP and the UDP are demonstrating towards the electorate, those Belizeans who will soon be asked to vote for a government that will control our destiny for five long years!
I am riding the red and white National bus one morning a week or so ago, the 6 o’clock to Belize City, and I am looking out the window, soaking up the scenery. The air’s a little crisp so I’ve got my window (I got a window seat this morning) opened just a sliver, just right to keep the exhausting CO2 flushing out, and the energizing O2 coming in all fresh. Pine ridge. Yap, we’re passing through a nice bit of Christmas pine on a crisp morning, and it’s all good and easy on the mind, so I’m all tranquilo when wa, out of the blue a big, dark green bus pulls up beside us.
I find it difficult to understand the reasoning behind concerns that the Supreme Court decision of October 18, 2007, a decision that affirmed the rights of Mayan communities to own their land according to the customs of their culture, is a negative for non-Mayan Belizeans. I can see the government trying to create that impression because that decision has thrown a big monkey wrench into their plans to sell off all the resources of the Toledo District, but I don’t see the decision being a threat to my rights or to the rights of any non-Mayan Belizean.
Seven men from Belize City went fishing in the vicinity of St. George’s Caye on Sunday, November 4. One of them was Abner Quiroz, who owns the Ocean Hopper, the 25-foot skiff they went out in. It is assumed that he was the captain.
In democracies, people elect representatives to form governments which exercise authority in their name. Governments rule with the permission of the people and are supposed to do so in their best interests.
Visiting former UBAD president, Evan X Hyde, at the Hyde family home on West Canal Street this morning was William Livingston, 35, the only son of a UBAD legend, the late Robert “Rasta” Livingston. William was accompanied by his aunt, Helen Westby (Robert Livingston’s sister), a former teacher at Holy Redeemer School. William Livingston, the godson of Galento X Neal, lives in New York City. He returned to New York Friday afternoon.
Little phrases mixed in with a whole lot of words can hang around in the recesses of the mind. I often don’t even know that a little phrase is playing over and over inside my head until it suddenly pops back up in another context. When Channel 7 was giving the news last week, Indira Craig almost casually said that, “The two corporations (she was referring to ZMT and BCH, the “Belizean owned” oil companies that were the lucky winners of incredibly favorable contracts from GOB) were registered outside the country.”
“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.” Octavia Butler
