No, there’s no white Bronco here; this is no story about a disgraceful foreign OJ who, if public opinion mattered, would have been strung up by his neck until he was dead. This here story is about a local OJ who, if he did what some philistines said he did with what they say Faber said, and the honor codes of old applied, he would have been put through the wringer, and hung out to dry. You see why some of us are driven to drink. Tideh day da noh like bifo times.

The Belize Times “Belly of the Beast” columnist says that they broke some story about a drunken outburst from Faber about Barrow and the Barrows that was spilled by OJ. I can’t swear that everything they say da soh, but if da soh …

Aha, Barrow turned the venom on Faber, and Saldivar was so ecstatic to see all the Barrows lined up behind him he began to feel like the third coming of George Price. The people are absolutely terrorized by this third term of the UDP, but we noh know bad. Saldivar promised a fourth, heaven help us, and a fifth, daag gaan wid wi supper, and a sixth, bring the four horsemen bikaaz the Apocalypse deh ya. Enough, no more, this thing lost its sweetness before the end of the second term.

A teary-eyed OJ said he didn’t do anything. The story I gather from the one who says they know what’s going down in the belly of the beast, is that OJ – say it ain’t so, OJ – yes, OJ is supposed to have put a tape on his best friend, Faber, when Faber supposedly started to regurgitate all that’s wrong in Barrow land, and what he would do to fix their butts if he ever got the chance. The men, OJ and Faber, were supposed to be birds of a feather. Man, the people looked from John to Patrick and from Patrick to John and said, Wa, you two want to lead Belize but unu don’t know how to choose friends.

OJ said he didn’t do it. I guess it’s because he’s a lawyer why he started running off again about suing people. Braa, if you are a politician who hasn’t had a chance yet at the national vault, yu word should be good for something so you noh haffu try hide behind the robes. Stop di taak bowt sue pipl.

OJ said he didn’t do it, but Kenworth apparently didn’t believe him. Kenworth really has to watch himself. He was a hero in the streets once, a hero for the people, but on Wednesday night he took orders from that has-been Finnegan and cut OJ from his show … and his co-host so desperately needed the extra air space to reinforce his disclaimer.

OJ could have been lying, of course. Really, I don’t think he or anyone is so low as to tape a friend. I think it is low to tape an enemy, and putting the tape on a friend is the dregs. No, I can’t say he didn’t do it, but if he did, here’s how it happened. OJ was after taping an enemy, bad, really bad, and he met Faber while on his way to his dastardly mission. The phone was on, Faber vented his guts – a moment feeling what all the rest of the nation is suffering, Braa — and OJ, unknowingly, taped him.

One of two things followed that. In the evening OJ was hanging out in a hammock at his family home, with a drink of whatever he drinks nearby, or a smoke of whatever he smokes, and he turns on his phone to see all the wikidnis he has picked up in his net during the day, to sort out what can be useful to his political career, when wow, sannan, he realizes he forgot to turn off the recorder on his phone and he has taped his buddy, Faber. Well, this is high entertainment, even though he has heard it before.

OJ realizes, of course, that this speech, sweet as it is, is dynamite, so it has to get the electronic version of the paper shredder. He is about to delete the bomb when a little voice says, Wait, you can’t cut it out yet. Papa Hubert haffu yer this. Indeed, this is the kind of diatribe that Papa Hubert — Hubert predicted that substance-less Barrow would sail our ship onto the rocks and wreck it.

Who in this world could deny their old dad a story so juicy? OJ takes the phone to Hubert, for him to savor, and whoa, Hubert can’t get enough. To cut a long story short, Hubert takes away OJ’s phone. OJ has total respect for his dad, but he doesn’t trust him, can’t let him keep it. OJ tries to get back his phone, and Hubert, the enforcer of the Elrington family, pops him, out cold, and what was for one set of ears only, from Faber for OJ, is now in the hands of a man who has it as a mission to save Belize from the follies of the UDP’s egotistic leader.

In the other scene, unbeknownst to OJ, his dad is an electronics whiz and whenever OJ is at his house and he, OJ, goes to the bathroom – no one takes their phone to the bathroom – Hubert, a highly ethical man in every other sphere of life, downloads all the political gossip that is in OJ’s phone and ends up with this Faber vinegar on Barrow. I will just say, to end this, that if all is as they say it is, then Barrow know weh weak fence deh. He shouldn’t go after OJ, or Faber. He should go after OJ pa.

Anyone who has read the story of the Battle of Balaklava, which was also put to poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson, must wonder about the life of the man who blundered, after he died. We will find out these things after we too have transitioned.

According to the poem, titled “Charge of the Light Brigade”, the soldiers knew that their leader(s) had blundered, but they followed the orders they received and ended up being slaughtered.

The story, according to Tony Bunting on the website britannica.com, is that Lord Raglan (British) saw what he thought was a weakness in the Russian positions and he gave an order for British troops in the Light Brigade to attack. Bunting said Raglan gave an order to, “… advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy from carrying away the guns”, but the order passed through a number of commanders and when it reached Lord Cardigan, all that was told to the field officer in charge of the Light Brigade, was to “advance rapidly.”

Bunting said Cardigan thought the order was absurd, but he had orders. Hn, it isn’t easy being a soldier in an army. Oh, I can take orders alright, but I will draw the line. Bah, after I draw the line the commander will line up a firing squad and shoot me down.

If all that Bunting wrote is true, Cardigan should have chosen the firing squad. When you are in a leadership position you have to put the lives or the affairs of those in your charge before your own. I’ll give it to Fletcher Christian on the Bounty every time. In that story the captain, Bligh, was past tyrannical, and Christian, for the love of those below his rank, led a mutiny and ousted him.

I think the trials at Nuremburg, after World War II, bear out rebellion. Don’t let any leader put you up to nonsense or criminal acts. The excuse the war criminals put forward to try and weasel out of the guillotine was that they were following orders. Of course they didn’t get away with that. It’s crazy. These men who presided over gas chambers, and blindly followed orders to mow down people, they forwarded an excuse that their bosses told them to do it.

These officers would have been demoted or shot if they defied Hitler, so yes, it wasn’t the easiest thing for them to disobey. As far as I can see, their out was to abscond or try and eliminate their leader. Bah, they chose to follow the orders of murderers.