by Colin Hyde
Brother Said Musa has dropped a number of pearls during his time in the marketplace – no, Darrell Carter, noh wach me, wach yuself, isn’t one of them. That’s a trinket, theater, more glitter than substance. Oh, that one—I heard Darrell tell Troy on their Love FM Business Show that he was the architect of it; he was the one to tell Said to tell D Barrow fu watch himself. He wants points for it. He’s lucky I’m watching my space today.
When television broke through in Belize, Said warned that its impact would be like an army of ten thousand. True. One day in the House, Said, to explain his government’s big spending, said his government had to respond that way because the Belizean people liked good things. True.
Aha, one time I got chewed up by the Amandala hierarchy for attributing to Said something that Dean Barrow had said to Said. To the point, Barrow, who includes in his vast intellectual repertoire all the big words and clichés ever invented, said that Said fit the quote, “If at age 20 you are not a communist, you have no heart. If at age 30 you are not capitalist, you have no brain.” I think I got that bit down right. Well, that was also the truth. Said had done the 180 indeed, and to my mind he was proud, or practical about it.
Sometime during his second term, Said Musa was taken to task by the members of a Political Reform Commission he had launched in 1999, for not acting on a number of the recommendations the group had forwarded in their 175-page report in 2000. Said told them that overall he thought the recommendations were sound, but when his government moved to implement some of them, they realized that they infringed on parts of the Constitution they weren’t intended to touch.
One recommendation his government did buy into called for outlawing crossing the floor. Before going on, let me say this: nobody’s all gud. As designed, this feature allowed for representatives to cross the floor on a point of honor, and even to bring down a government that had gone astray. Prior to the anti-defection law, representatives had crossed the floor twice, both times from red to blue, both times from opposition to the party in power, with the reported justification that the reps felt they could serve their constituency better by being a member of the ruling party. The feature approached ultimate disgrace when the PUP, which lost 16-13 in 1993, reportedly tried to seduce two UDP reps, with cash, to cross over so that the PUP could form the government. The people lost a good thing, because our leaders let us down, or were strongly suspected of attempting to. The anti-defection law throttled our democracy.
Every physical thing that is on earth dropped out of the sky, but our systems have the made by humans stamp. They evolved over time, from the beginning when we were in the soup, advancing to when we moved to living in shelters, to the present madness around us. People tend to resist change, and the simple reason for that is that it calls for us to move from the known to the unknown. No sensible person wants to jump out of frying pan and land in a fire.
But change we have to accept, because things around us aren’t static. Once upon a time, we used to bathe in a whole bucket of water because we were hardy, physically fit, so it was easy for us to walk the mile to and from the creek with a bucket of water on our head or a bucket at each end of a piece of bamboo placed across our back. You know what, when you are old, you are excused if you don’t want to bathe.
There are things that are begging to be changed, things that were bad decisions from the beginning, or time has passed them by. But every change needs to be vetted thoroughly. That’s another of the great lessons from Said.
By the way, I’ve heard our former PM isn’t doing so well health-wise. I wish him the best.
Nuri talking up for sex in the prison
If I ran things in Belize, we wouldn’t even need this discussion, because only rapists and murderers would occupy the jail, and no one in their right mind would give that first group any, and the discussion about murderers is about ropes. In a world run by a person like me, everybody else who crosses the line would be up for lashing, or house arrest with community service. It’s natural for Brother Nuri to have a very soft spot for people who run afoul of the law, because he has spent much of his life working with them. Some felons are the best people, except for a single gap in their character. It wouldn’t surprise me none if in their reward package, some kleptomaniacs get to play cards and loll about at evening time sipping wine and shooting the breeze with the Almighty.
There are too many criminal minds in high places. A man steals a loaf of bread or forgets to pay a bill and the first thing that comes to their mind is to lock the offenders up and deny them sex. There really are too many uncivilized people outside of the security fence. We need to correct our shortcomings. We don’t have to be criminal. According to an AI Overview, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Israel, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and California and Mississippi in the US allow conjugal visits.My gudnis, even Russia allows sex in the prison!
A humane point for the authorities is that they don’t allow any teasing of the prisoners. Remember they chased the lawyer lady who showed up in the short skirts. Nuri really needs to get better results. It’s not new that he has been advocating for liberated sex at the prison, and he can’t even get a lawyer lady in skirts through the gate. I suggest he talks to Ms. YMC. I don’t like some of her advocacy, but I like her advocacy.
Aha, reports are that a fiend was around patting girls on their backside on Ring Road in BMP. Some of you know that “patting” thing started me off on my worst day in print. As I said then, for such crime I support lashing, not incarceration. Ah, I am yet to answer the serious charges that were made against me, charges based on snippets, bullet points. Trust me, they weren’t right. I know my crimes.
The triumphal entry
Now, Jesus knows that within a week He will give up His life. He will open the week disciplining us; yes, we, because we get caught up chasing the things of the world; and He’ll follow that up with some days of furious teaching; and then there is great sorrow as He prepares to leave this beautiful, exciting earth. The week is serious, and then it gets tough, brutal, but it begins with rejoicing.
If you are one who needs your bottle, don’t let anybody shame yu; get your Belizean Rum with lime or Coke, or Green Stripe with milk or water, or Belikin. Most everyone in Belize lives near a coconut tree. Go sit under a palm, of course away from the big coconuts. Now, close your eyes and see Jesus riding into town on a feeder road, and all along the sides of the road there are people singing and cheering, and marching in front of Him are young girls who strew flowers and young boys who wave palms to celebrate the arrival of our hero in Jerusalem.
With our Pope, and who’s sitting as our Bishop at this time, this is the day that the Lord hath made; we rejoice and are glad. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest! Happy Palm Sunday!