By Colin Hyde
Congratulations to Queen Elizabeth II on the attainment of the Platinum Jubilee, a record. What a remarkable woman! Joe Erales, George Price and the rest of the wikid PUP tried to tear her down, but they got turned back just like the Devil got rebuffed in the desert. Ah, it is good to give respect where it is due. God Save Our Gracious Queen; she is like Tarrus Riley sang: royal.
Whoa there, I meant to drop a sour note about the GOB’s diss of Commonwealth Day, and I forgot. I heard Kareem say that although he had struck it out as a public and bank holiday it would still be commemorated. Well, as far as I know, all we got from GOB was a notice that all employees had to report to work, 8 to 5.
Khaila Gentle said in the Amandala that our GG was in London to celebrate with the Queen. Dame Froyla flew over the Atlantic (if da mi me I woulda mi haftu goh by Queen Mary) to join in the celebration, which Ms. Khaila said the British government declared would be “a ‘once-in-a-generation show,’ mixing ‘the best of British ceremonial splendor and pageantry with cutting-edge artistic and technological displays.’”
Channel Five’s Duane Moody said Rotary International hosted the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Beacon Lighting ceremony at the GG Field, and also featured at the gala were speeches, cultural performances, arts and crafts, good food and liquid refreshments. From Mr. Moody’s report, leadoff speaker for the event was Belmopan mayor, Sharon Palacio, who said “Let it be known in proclaiming this tribute to Her Majesty the Queen on her platinum jubilee that we are one nation and one Commonwealth – God Save the Queen.” Other speakers were Stuart Leslie, who subbed for the GG, and the British High Commissioner, Claire Evans.
Many choose to remember what is bad about our time under British rule, going all the way back to slavery. In this gloomy world, I think it is good when we also remember the good things. There is much to celebrate about the Queen, and her people. Of course, we can’t run away from the dark side of life altogether, and when we discuss the palace, we know what the big issue is—the color of the baby.
Let’s not waste any ink on any cousin; let’s go to the top: so what if she wondered if Harry an Megan baby would a mi baan black? Ha, there must have been some tense moments at Buckingham Palace, wondering if they were getting Boris, or Jack Johnson. Really though, if you had been born at a time when Europeans had ruled the world for 400 years, when their version of history was the only one that existed, and Britannia ruled the waves, and the sun never set on your country, boy for sure it would have been hard for you to not feel like you da somebody.
Humans have discrimination issues over everything. A man like me, I’d never want to engage Hart Tillett in a conversation, in English. Hmm, I bet he and JC Arzu would hit off real well. You’ve heard the saying, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Well of course that isn’t all true, but it does emphasize the importance of being up to mark with our speech. Proper articulation, sensitivity, and proper tone of voice will get you far. You think everything Sandra Coye says is gospel? But boy, where in the world is there another who speaks like her?
There are negatives to those daam British, but when people deserve props, you give it to them. The Queen’s outstanding gift to the world is class, and you gotta respect that. She set a great example to the world for 70 years! You bet human frailty entered and tried to derail her. Only the special few can resist the world’s many temptations. Of course, she was protected by the system. If she didn’t eat with knife and fork, I bet she would have forgotten table etiquette and licked her fingers after feasting on that tasty gibnat. I must put in that I prefer pikayri.
My, all these years, and if there are any gaffes, you won’t need more than one hand with five fingers to count them.
Accept that apology, Tracy
Well, no one takes advice from me. I should cry, because at least SOME of my published thoughts are worth the paper and ink expended on them. Like my call sometime back that the word “bukut” should be banned from the House. The English, whose language we use at the meetings, have a number of euphemisms in that arena, but none are soft enough to be civil. We really shouldn’t be leaning so heavily on euphemisms of the world’s most taboo word. Dammit, go to Hart Tillett’s school and get your vocab pumped up.
Bukut is daam low. You know how the emperor ended up walking about town without clothes? It’s all because people feared to speak truth to power. Please, a word like bukut shouldn’t get to smell where children and adults who aspire to respectability congregate. If we learned only one thing from the Queen, it is class. We shouldn’t aspire to be animals. We ARE animals! There’s no achievement in being there, please!
I can’t read José Mai’s mind, and I admit to being underexposed, so I might be off when I say that carrots’ only claims to fame are their bountiful stores of Vitamin A, and their being so irresistible food for rabbits that Elmer Fudd had to take out his shotgun to keep away Bugs Bunny.
I am thinking that maybe Miss Tracy has been hanging around that low section of the UDP crowd too long. The PUP has its low section too, and you don’t have to come from NIP stock to know all about their bad behavior. Keeping it on the tamer side, stories abound about the PUP ordering special candles and burning them on election nights. The way I understand it, wherever a race was tight, they sent in the candles. Okay, I might not have that story right, but I know for sure that the entire party went on a boat trip before the 2008 election, with a foreign guru whose special art was the séance.
I think if Tracy will save herself, she’ll have to break away from the Barrows’ party. That’s a hard one; she probably can’t, and that’s because there’s no other game in town. The people she should link arms with — Paul, Hubert, Patrick, and Bobby — have gone and grown old on us, Nancy has settled down to ostrich farming, and Wil, his passion is as a naturalist and nationalist.
It’s possible that Tracy’s whole gambit here is to reduce the PUP in this area, drag them down to the UDP level which they sank to after the Esquivel era. There are spoils to be had there. If she can do that, she’ll win some points with her party’s low branch.
No, I can’t believe José is that rude, but the statement wasn’t respectful. You have to be careful with humor. Humor is risky. We all saw how that man slapped that other man at the movie show. The women in the House keep it straight, on the boring path, and maybe it is best.
Respect to Mr. Mai for apologizing. So, we never knew that when he was a boy Julius got himself called a—name. You know that the discussion on that name-calling thing isn’t complete. I think we Kriols got called names too, but, because brown Kriols were a tribe not far from the top in the soup below the British, and racism is top down, not bottom up, the finger is on us. Haha, in primary school a girl of Julius’s tribe called my darker sister, a black bear. I think my sister kohn home di baal.