by Colin Hyde

The government should pass a law giving it license to commandeer “ALL sturdy hotels and private buildings not used as homes” in coastal areas when there is a threat of a big hurricane. In the fully public domain, by itself the City Center in Belize City could handle 10,000 in a crisis. Mass evacuation is unnecessary when so many safe spaces are about. The private structures should be released from their obligation IMMEDIATELY after the ALL CLEAR is given.

I don’t know how far inland the storm surge would be a problem, but people who experienced Hattie could say. Backwater is another issue, a concern, but storm surge is where the terror is. There are hundreds of structures near the coast in Belize that are as much a “fortress” as the Mayan temples. My, my, there’s so much irony in life. If some uncaring so-and-so built one of these ugly cement structures in front of your home, you curse them for blocking out your glorious sea breeze, but bless them during hurricanes. Your house could be biscuit, nothing will happen to it if it is buffered by some of these beasts. Well, I might be exaggerating a little.

It’s the season for roofers. Noh put no fat guys up there; that job is for wiry people. GoB should make available a little subsidy for people living in coastal areas so everyone sleeping under zinc roofs can get someone up there to secure all zinc sheets that aren’t properly stapled down.

Getting to the title of my piece, the meteorologists seem to get better with their predictions every year. They are having some difficulty figuring out why some of these strong winds blow up and become fierce beasts so quickly, but they are on the button with the general course of storms. These individuals are brilliant, but humble, a tremendous combination. Bully, they never play God and tell us exactly where the hurricane will hit. They predicted, rightly, a WNW course for Beryl; but for days before she reached shore in Central America, the cone included, at times, from down south Belize to the north tip of Yucatan.

Please don’t ever play like any kind of god with these storms. Just a little wobble can set us up for catastrophe. At 9:00 p.m. on July 4, the Weather Underground hurricane track chart had Beryl at 19.5 N, 84.3 W. At 3:00 in the morning, six hours later, the coordinates were 19.6 N and 85.5 W. Over 6 hours it moved 0.1 degree north (about 7 miles), and 1.2 degrees west (about 83 miles). During that 6-hour period, Beryl was traveling due west, not west by northwest. If she had wobbled to the south during that 6-hour period, by 1 degree, she would have smack dab lined up with Corozal Town.

Reporter bullying chart deserves the prize

Last week’s Reporter featured on page 13 a chart on bullying which covers all the bases. Far too often “agendas” excise the sins people want to protect, exposing only the sins they aren’t guilty of. Those not in the pugilistic arts vehemently rain damnation on physical bullying, while there is nary a word about the savage psychological bullying that busts up hearts, not bones. Congratulations to whoever put their mind or minds to work on that chart; you hit every nail on the head.

In the physical category, “Taking someone’s things” is up there, and we all know about that and have experienced it at some time. Nobody baan big and muscular; even the baddest physical bullies have had to bow to a kecha. It has been said that people who have experienced the worst physical bullying grow up to vent their wrath on others, physically. Of course, that doesn’t apply to all bullied people. Ah, some never get strong enough to physically bully anyone. Agh, some in that subgroup are the dangerous ones who are likely to excel in the psychological bullying. Some bullied people grow muscles enough to bax down the one who bullied them; but instead of being mean, they are as meek as lambs, full a love.

In the chart we find FIVE full examples of psychological bullying: telling lies about someone, making fun of someone, threatening someone, calling someone names, leaving someone out. These are the cruel heartbreakers, vicious words that break down people’s spirits. Just thinking about that psychological bullying makes me feel very rrrrrr. Lastly, there is “hurting someone”, and we know that could go in either category.

On the same page with the bullying categories was an ad with contact lines to report domestic violence, child abuse, and elderly abuse. Those are all important issues in our country, areas where we have to improve.

Slipping in something today on domestic violence, it’s an area where the focus is for the most part confined to physical bruises, and the too often occurrences of horrific violence. The physical story has to be at the fore, but it’s a category where the psychological isn’t given the attention it should get. It might be that the non-physical side of domestic violence is “swept under the rug” to prevent anyone from forming it inside their head that their physical actions could be justified. I don’t think that’s sufficient. Hitting a woman, or worse, is off limits. That is physical abuse. For the good of our society, we should put some emphasis on the mental story. We have to, to prevent things escalating to the physical.

Being unfair to farmers and market vendors

In the farming world, there came a time when I asked my uncle how it was that

I, who labored so hard, wholesaled my product for so much, and when I went to market the vendors sold my product for more than double my price. With the wisdom of the world, the way things work in the capitalist world, my uncle told me if I had a beef I should set up my own stall. He said the math behind the market vendor was different from the math of the farmer. I didn’t have to expend much thought on that one. It’s right on the surface.

I congratulate the young lady who was so kind to share her mangoes with everyone, for free. I hope that all who got mangoes from her didn’t have money in their pockets to buy from the vendors with their little stalls on the street side. Now, before I go on, yes, I like free mangoes. There, I’ve established that I’m a sinner too. Whoa there, it is important to know when we are sinning, and when we’re not; and when we are, to not brag, feel proud about it. Oh, of course the young lady is a saint in all this. Hopefully, all of us who received tasty fruits are in the saint category too.

Understandably, very few people were happy about tomatoes and hot peppers being sold for some crazy high prices. It happens sometimes in the capitalist system. I guess the people who complained don’t know what caused the price of those products to be so high, have no idea how many farmers lost their shirts to make the prices shoot up that way. See, we came through some severe dry, and heat extremes rarely experienced in Belize. Many of those vegetables we love aren’t native to Belize. I guess only the farmers who are rich enough to create artificial environments got a crop. Most of our farmers lost big time.

Does anyone say to farmers when the wholesale price of tomatoes goes down to 5 and 10 dollars per bucket, as it does very often around the middle of the year, here Bro, hold this little extra so you can pay for gas to go home? Sometimes we need to check ourselves. Bah, there’s a lot of information out there that isn’t sinking in. Please, you can’t like capitalism when the vegetable is $5 a bucket, and hate it when it is $6 a pound. There’s a word or term for that.

It was Waari Head

In a recent piece I said it would have been a good idea for the brain trust to have siphoned off some of the money from the climate-resilient GCP Highway between Roaring Creek and Santa Elena, Cayo, and invested it in a parallel road on the south side between Iguana Creek Bridge and Roaring Creek, and for the new Roaring Creek Bridge to connect that road to the Hummingbird. Correction, it’s the bridge at Warree Head, not Iguana Creek.