QUADS. Like most Belizeans, I am holding my breath, praying that it isn’t so that the Ministry of Education (MoE) has endorsed a book that improperly demarcates The Jewel. Such an error would not be nice. Still, if it turns out so, I have to admit that I will not be surprised.
The head representative of QUADS (a department of MoE that ensures quality in education, I think) point blank told the Belize Book Industry Association (BBIA) that in respect to books used in the schools, quality comes before all other interests. If you doubt my recollection of the spoken word, there is an advertisement produced by the MoE, a rebuttal to accusations by Deacon Cal of BRC, which appeared in local newspapers a while back. If you read that ad between the lines, you will get the sense.
No, booksellers don’t have to eat in Belize. No, printers and publishers don’t have to eat in Belize. No, writers other than those acceptable to GoB don’t have to eat in Belize.
Quality! That’s all that matters! And who are the sole authorities on quality? A small group of elite educators in the Ministry of Education, called QUADS. QUADS sat down and decided that Deacon Cal’s Phonics book came in…SECOND. Naa, there are no prizes for…second. Second place is the kiss of death. Second place means workers go home. Then, who will buy the food for the children so they have the strength to read the first quality books? QUADS?
The famous Mr. Bill Lindo has warned us about Belizeans who go abroad to study and return programmed by the master nations to do us in. Please, don’t hide behind Caribbean UWI! How, for example, does a nation like Jamaica come apart at the seams with a murder rate probably higher than anywhere else in the world when they have had home university training for their best brains for decades? It’s A-B-C! The professors are products of master nations, doing the master nations’ work!
Hey, please, it’s not a total washout. There are good things coming out of our smart, trained brains all over, and in QUADS too. But somewhere in their thinking they are warped by master nation programming. As always, where there is no vision, you know it is the poor that perish.
On the matter of nationalism – read Belizeans first in Belize country, and respect for territorial integrity, national symbols and offices – you bet our neighbors to the north teach their children to love things Mexican. You bet the Guatemalans and the Hondurans and the Salvadorans teach their children to revere their home turf. But we, we are afraid of nationalism. Braa, nationalism doesn’t have to be belligerent. If a people don’t love their noble spot, then someone else will come by who loves it more, and take it away from them.
Go Catholics. I am proud of the American Catholics for taking a stand against a new sex show being feverishly promoted on cable television. The show is called Californication and it is set to debut this week or next. In one scene, the hero of the show goes to church, says something to Jesus on the cross, then visits with a nun (in habit) for counseling. The nun recommends a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys, but the hero doesn’t buy that. So the nun tells him to go get a _______ job! Braa, I am a man who tries to hold it down, but on this one I GOT MAD fu real! It is absolutely preposterous!
Anyway, I noticed the last time the promotion came on that they beeped the nun’s speech. If you can do the math, spell American Catholic intervention.
Yap, I am proud of the Catholics in America for making a stand. I’d like to see Catholics in Belize, joined by all these rival religious organizations, “flex” and get that show off the air here. Sure I love to see nude women. Where is the man who doesn’t? Will I glance that way? The way I feel right now, I will forego, but the pull of naked women is so strong maybe this weakling moth will steal a peek one of these nights.
I am not in such standing that I can get the ear of our local church leaders, but I sincerely believe that our Catholics must stomp this one down. These sob’s are bold as brass, and if they don’t get “step on,” they will go further. And there is another matter here besides insulting respected religious leaders, you know. Is it right that our children be fodder for every kinky American or European with a movie camera and a writing pad?
Who the heck are these cable television owners in Belize? Does everyone who acquires a little loot have the right to set up a television station in Belize? Why is it that local stations don’t program explicit sex shows and these cable stations have license fu du weh dehn want?
Finally, please, it is fraudulent for the HIV/AIDS organization to push abstinence from sex as a control for the disease. There is not a red-blooded young person in Belize who can resist temptation when the programs on television go straight to the loins! As for condoms, you have to be a sucker to believe that that is really “safe” sex. Of course, with the natural sex drive being teased to feverish heights, clasping at straws is natural.