by Colin Hyde
They didn’t dare take the Queen’s face off the money while she was alive, they didn’t dare! Me, I think decency said they should have waited at least five years before they tried to sneak in their hero. Who all in your party were in on this, Johnny? I can name the first one: Dolores. I can name the second one too: Henry Charles. For the PUPs it’s a glorious day for Belize. Ha, all this makes them feel very, ehm, manly. I was watching the dangerous Vibes and I saw that wicked Hilly smirk.
About this change, I feel especially for Sedi Elrington. I bet he will change all his considerable money into US currency. And I won’t blame him. After October, all day, every day it will be like George Price everywhere, worse than when he was here winning all the elections. Hn, truth crushed to earth will rise. Hn, he saved the dalla, so he could get his face on it.
Really, you said nobody is all bad, you said they did wait until she was gone before they pounced? So much for finding excuses for people. I said they should have waited at least five years; they should have waited at least until her face on our currency had faded.
Sooooo, at last the PUPs get George’s face on our money. In America they say shoeshine boy could be president; well, in Belize one day you can handle the richest man’s money and next day your face could be on it. Well done, PUPs! And I’m happy for Dolores and Henry.
Whoa, don’t put away the box of Phensic or Aspro yet; I suspect there might be more of this George just up ahead. I bet they’ll be looking for new watermarks, under the guise of improving the security features. Please don’t put that house on Pickstock Street on our money! To heck with Don Hector Silva and his nostalgia; they should have pushed that building down a long time ago.
Oh no, I am not stuffy about house designs. I’m only about brotherly love. There’s the source of my pain. I feel for Julius and all the architecture students in the country. They must cringe at the sight of it. Somebody said the virtue in doing wrong is that it can be used as an example of what not to do. Well, nobody explained to the new Belizeans from China that Pickstock Street wasn’t the blueprint for architecture here. To the letter, they copied the box design on every store they built, in cement.
There’s a whispering that they’ll also give us PSWG. We’ll take it, even though that will bring its own kind of pain. Every time we see his face we’ll be reminded of the unkind cut, the horrible twist of the facts. PSWG formed the National INDEPENDENCE Party, and those heathens twisted things and accused us of holding on to apron strings. I think I’d better end here, before this story sinks to any exploration of locks, stocks and barrels and that kind of thing.
Those daam sneaky PUP! But I’m happy for you, Dolores, and you, Henry. You did it!
Glenn Tillett championing Senate inquiry
On his facebook page, Mr. Glenn Tillett said, re: the popular Senate inquiries, that it isn’t all about culprits going to jail and being forced to pay up. He said our democracy benefited from these hearings, the airing out of these matters. You know where you can read the full substance of his piece, in his eloquent style. I think Mr. Tillett has a fair point. But he didn’t convince me that a Senate investigation into Erwin’s doings is worth our while.
Sure, we did gain a little from the DFC/SSB hearings, the transcripts/findings of which are sealed from public view forever; the hearings at Immigration, which was never acted on; and the government vehicles hearings, for which we got sued. What did we learn from those exercises? I think we learned, yes, that there were things going on in government that we didn’t know much about, and that some of our leaders lacked vision or weren’t that honest.
One beef I had about this new exercise is that we are ignoring less costly ways to skin the cat. Another of my beefs was the distraction, at a time when there is so much on our plate.
I understand why the intellectuals like these things. It is the greatest moment for them to strut. It’s a stepping stone, to greater things. Ah, they get to play at lawyer. Bah, everyone in our country is a lawyer, or aspiring to be one. And we know what their favorite pastime is, and their new hobby—turning out the pockets of the government and people.
We are in a vice, in the grip of a lawyers’ game, and seemingly there’s no hope of winning. Welcome to Belize, the country where no one is guilty of murder. That’s a matter that could use a Senate inquiry, if we’re so insistent on that kind of exercise. Why is our record in solving these cases so dismal? There are so many things we have to deal with in this country.
I’ll cut this short. The ruthless Ashcroft and the ready-to-do-his-every-bidding Godfrey Smith coming with a lawsuit against Erwin will expose more than a Senate inquiry. Of course, I’m riding against Ashcroft winning this one. I’d hate to think that Erwin got more than a drink of rum and coke and a vacation on the French Riviera for that too sweet agreement.
Illegal weed opens door for adulterated weed
The Wikipedia says that when Richard Nixon declared drug abuse as “public enemy number one” in 1971, the target was a growing heroin epidemic among U.S. servicemen in Vietnam, with 10 to 15 percent of them believed to be addicted to the drug. To compound the felony, in 1984 Nancy Reagan would launch her campaign, “Just say no” to drugs. The US would launch a big attack on Mexico, to destroy marijuana fields. Mexicans in the marijuana trade turned to growing opium to supply US heroin needs, and when those fields were destroyed, enter the cocaine trade. When the story is written about the period, 1971 to the present day (hopefully it comes to an end soon), it will be labeled a terrible tragedy.
If the disastrous war on drugs is sincere, if it is not a tool to destabilize countries south of the Rio Grande, then the Americans didn’t learn anything from the period when they prohibited alcohol. The price of alcohol shot up, politicians and policemen became crooks, ordinary citizens became corrupted, and violence became commonplace in the streets. Similarly, making drugs illegal handed the production and sale of the product to the daring and the ruthless.
There are some people who don’t mind their teenagers trying rum, and a few who don’t mind them smoking a little marijuana. The fear with rum is that the youth might have a genetic weakness for it. But parents have little fear of their youth drinking adulterated rum or being poisoned. We don’t hear about people being killed by rum, and that’s because it is legal. Reputable companies make the stuff. What the companies say is in the bottle is what’s in the bottle.
One big fear with weed is that the youth might have a genetic fault, a weakness, and the other big fear is that a totally unscrupulous dealer might sell the youth adulterated weed, that could get them hooked on far more dangerous drugs, or kill them. As long as weed is illegal, the possibility of that happening is a serious concern. It is nonsensical to say, then youth should heed, stay away from weed. Anyone who says that either never experienced youth-hood, or was insulated throughout. Youth-hood is not a period when we make our best decisions.