Ah, I knew one day I’d get to this interview that led to the fall of a UDP favorite. Of course I know that being current is best, but I also know that late is better than never. Sometimes it can be worth the wait. Fish kud kom frahn riva batam with a whole new perspective. It can happen.
Bah, nothing new came up on this one, but maybe I have a good reason for being late. People who know I write this column, sometimes I have to tell them that I’m an opinionist, not a journalist. I write opinion pieces, and with all the big journalists weighing in, my little thoughts could have been lost. I had to wait till the course was clear to get in my whack, wait until I was the only one on the track.
Truth is—above all tell the truth—every week since Mr. Doug Singh sank in di mud back een a April, like old PUP, I have been trying to get in my opinion, but things kept cropping up, more important things than my contribution, which is just for the record to say that I didn’t duck. Indeed, I have to squeeze this in because there are so, so many more important things than how Mr. Singh feels about people who aren’t making it in the system.
I don’t hang in the Singh bracket because I don’t have the cash, and I don’t tell people what they want to hear, but I daam well know about capitalists. It’s no secret. If you believe in the capitalist system, then you think poorly of those who aren’t making it. Remember how disdainful Okonkwo (Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe) was of his poor musician dad?
From a sports perspective I can relate to everything Mr. Singh said, because I was around a ball almost every day of my youth. I’ve been confused, timid, while trying to fit in on other people’s teams, but as captain, you might find people who are as vicious.
Capitalists are that —vicious. Their contribution to the dictionary are words such as lazy, incompetent, indolent, sluggard, and all the horrible things Doug said. Doug is an upper-echelon man in the UDP, and with thoughts like that he is a glove-fit with the numerous sleazebags that now infest the red party. You know the PUP must have been really, really bad for the people to have elected the UDP as the lesser of two evils. In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king, yes.
I don’t have to tell you more about these damned capitalists and how they feel about people weh noh rich like dehn. Oh, we know Singh’s kind alright, so now we can turn to Mr. Aaron Humes.
If you were looking for some motive to nail Aaron for sharing the rotten discourse with his friends, it might be personal. Doug Singh didn’t conceal his abhorrence of fat when the UDP rewarded him with control of the police. Every corpulent cop cheered when the legs on his stool were kicked out from under him.
Aaron tends to chubbiness, a condition associated with food adoration. By the way, there isn’t enough thanks in the world to give Said for calling out Delroy Cutkelvin for the way he was packing it on. What, you say it wasn’t Delroy? I just picked his name out of a hat. After 12 long years of raiding the people’s spoils, can you name one UDP who isn’t breaking out of his pants?
Ah words, I say it will be good riddance when goes Barrow who has embarrassed our dullness with his thesaurus. Irony, irony, Belize will always thank Said for his contribution, endomorph, but nary an adjective from the legion of big words and terms from Barrow’s mouth to throw us off the scent of his party’s corruption will stick when he sails out of office, except that he doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of having his name mentioned in the same breath with Jawj Price.
There are people who like revenge; some fat brothers really don’t take kindly to slim dudes who call them out. Aaron had more reason to hate the man. How dare Doug offer to write the story, and how dare Doug say that Belize’s journalists are guilty of presenting unbalanced stories?
When that very upstart Singh said, “if you want ah write it fu yu,” Aaron, if he was tochiz, would have been gravely insulted. We know that Aaron is proud of his profession, and rightly so, because he’s very good at what he does.
It is most certain that Aaron was shocked by Singh’s vitriol at the beginning of the interview. It’s possible that Aaron is a secret capitalist, because people who love food are usually that way. He concurred with every foul thing that Singh said. He was an eager ear, and a prompter. It’s possible that Aaron is the type of guy who will go to extreme lengths to get his story. If so, he certainly prostrated himself to egg on Singh so that the gentleman spewed the bile that was stirring in his gut.
Singh might have been high when he spoke to Humes, but you have to believe he was still himself, because when he appeared on the WuB with Brother Nuri a few days earlier, he very cavalierly said that if people stepped out of line the government would just have to use the biggest stick.
Oh, was Mr. Aaron right to share with his friends? I say, from the pen of an opinionist, no. He’s young, and it must have been very hard to resist, but no. It wouldn’t have been his choice to nail his subject in a story either, because he did not once call out the man when he was disparaging, running down persons who are at the bottom of the capitalists’ pyramid. Aaron would also have had to ask his subject if he was comfortable with all his ugly capitalist self being exposed.
There’s some saving grace for every man, and for Mr. Singh he had a job to do, and in that, cold as he was, he had his rights. His failure, a pretty big one, lay in the ugly feelings he expressed toward our brothers and sisters who are poor, his complete lack of knowledge about why they are suffering, his absolute lack of empathy.
Quarantine for visitors need not be a disaster
Our authorities are saying that a visitor who has COVID-19 will have to undergo quarantine for 14 days, and of course that is necessary, but it would be just too cruel, even criminal, to make quarantine kill anyone’s vacation. We should make quarantine an unbelievable experience, so ehm, exciting, that tourists will wish they were sick, preferably asymptomatic.
No fear, three days before getting on a plane to Belize they will have to prove they are innocent, no infection, so all their sick can’t make a dash for Belize, just to enjoy our awesome quarantine.
No sir, quarantine mustn’t kill the vacation if the visitor isn’t really sick. We must designate a private isle – rent, or commandeer Harvest Caye – for visitors who came for an island vacation, and rent a resort in the Pine Ridge for visitors who are here to hunt birds (for viewing) and climb a real-life Mayan temple.
The tour operators who handle COVID-19 visitors should be young, healthy, and they must not return to civilization until the tourism season is over, at which time they will have to enter mandatory quarantine for 14 days. Ah, the days will fly quickly and beautifully for tourists if they remain asymptomatic, or just get a mild touch. Their memories of Belize will be sweet.