On Friday at a press conference PM Barrow said, about NEAB’s cry against Ms. L. Shoman and Mr. W. James becoming judges, that the churches don’t understand. He suggested that the smart journalists should enlighten them about people in the law profession, how they approach their jobs.

The truth is that Ms. Shoman and Mr. James are troo-troo advocates. We have their words in print. After the UNIBAM Section 53 case, Mr. James told a Caribbean radio station “it is widely recognized that the buggery laws on the books in regional jurisdictions, save for the Bahamas, constitute a breach of an individual’s fundamental rights.” That is a man who believed in his client’s case. After the UNIBAM victory Ms. Shoman said, first thing off her tongue, that we should move for gay marriage.

That is what you call advocacy, standing up, putting yourself out for what you believe. What a judge believes in matters, because these people are human beings, not gods.

There are some advocates in my family who feel that I have it all wrong, that this gay thing is a case of live and let live. These advocates in my family are Belizean-American, and they are pretty vocal in their support for LGBT-whatever-else-in-the-alphabet-they-wish-to-tack-on. My younger brother, Ron, has told me he disagrees with some of the things I write on the subject, and my cousin, Jo Ann, in some FB postings to one of my nephews who is dyed-in-the-wool Leviticus, has said the church is out of line.

Hey, if I hurt anyone I get no joy from that, and I don’t carry any beef against gay brothers who have written hurtful things about me, because I know they carry a heavy cross.

The editor of the Amandala has shared some letters, complaints he received about me, and one was really surprising. A gay brother chektaiz me because I mentioned men who love animals in the same breath with men who love men. I don’t understand why any man, least of all a gay man, yes I said that, would sneer at, have no empathy, for a man who likes a pig.

There are some sayings that are 100% true. One of them is, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” I don’t think anyone could convince me that we are not all capable of doing anything — good, bad or in-between – any one of us has done.

The advocacy for gay rights is pretty aggressive about the legalization of gay marriage, and they “promised” us that it would come. The advocacy is using tactics that are out of the book of wicked political art, while all the, ahem, good people have on their side is their belief that there’s something unwholesome about something. So, the advocates are more likely to win. I just want them to rethink their objective, because sometimes people, like greedy puppy, want too much.

Well-organized sports programs produce honest and capable leaders

In last week’s Reporter, Monique P., one of the newspaper’s regular columnists, said she believed “that our locals at the helm are clearly not doing a good job”, that her observation is that “foreigners do a better job in running organizations in the country.”

Another of that newspaper’s regular columnists, Mr. Neri Briceño, said that in the early stages most democracies “make huge mistakes” and “our country is no different.” Mr. Briceño said, “… the greatest bastion of democracy – the Unites States – at one point in time was plagued by openly corrupt politicians, public officers and businessmen.”

One of the many gifts of properly organized sports programs is that the players keep getting better and better, and that’s because they are building on what happened before. There are a few individuals whose skill set would make them excel in any era, but on the average the athletes of today are better than the athletes of before.

You will oftentimes hear old Belizean athletes say that they played a better game than the players of this time, and to an extent that is true. You most likely won’t hear oldsters in other countries speak that way about their modern players, though, or you shouldn’t, because in their day they had to respect Belize. Now we da taffi. We are soft, because we are poorly organized and we don’t make sufficient investments in our athletes to help them improve.

Our most glaring example of failing to build on the past is in softball. We once defeated the best team in the USA. Today, even a junior college in the USA can beat us, and maybe by mercy rule too. Other people have progressed; we have not. Out there they take their games seriously.

In the classic baseball novel, Eight Men Out, by Eliot Asinof, we learned of a “fix” of the 1919 World Series (baseball in the US), and what they did to root out the players who fell prey to gamblers. US baseball has a Hall of Fame for their greatest players, and the players who were convicted of wrongdoing, even though they have some of the gaudiest credentials, have never been accepted in this August body.

A modern player, Pete Rose, has recorded more hits than any baseball player in the more than one- hundred-year history of the game, but because of a suspicious gambling habit, he too is not recognized for the game. In 2007, an NBA referee, Tim Donaghy, was banned from officiating basketball games because he was suspected of “fixing” basketball games. Out there they invest to protect the integrity of their games, and they invest to make their athletes better.

I don’t know for a fact that physical education programs in schools across the country are woefully neglected, but from the outside looking in, that’s my observation.

I’ll tell you who our schools oftentimes depend on to handle what little sports programs they have. Anyone with a little knowledge of sports who emerges with an interest, they are allowed to take over the students in the schools. There is little to no vetting of these individuals who get involved with the kids and youth. That is wrong.

One of the strong points of the old church/state system is that the church ensured that our kids and youth were led by persons who had discipline. If I ran a school I’d want to know that the person running my sports program believes in God, doesn’t drink rum or smoke weed anywhere near my students, doesn’t try to get too friendly with my students, and has a good work ethic. I think after that I’d start asking them what they know about running a sports program, and if they are the type of so-and-sos who play favorites.

I’ve been to a few school tournaments, and yes, the foreigners run better shows than we do. But we have a few good men and women doing great organizational work too, and they should be emulated. You know why they are not emulated. The local politicians always ensure that the people in charge have allegiance to them.

I think the lady’s focus was on leadership/management in other arenas, but I focused on sports because it’s at the core, the early training of young Belizeans. We are doing a poor job of training leaders in our country. These people we have in leadership know how to debate, charlar, but they have little discipline, and they don’t invest in developing the skills to move us forward.

I would say to the good gentleman, I know you weren’t making an excuse for these bohgaz, but I’ve heard our political leaders trot out that young country thing far too often, and I will give them no straws to clutch on to.

There is an old, very true saying that there is nothing new under the sun. We shouldn’t make the mistakes others made, because we have the opportunity to learn from their stories. The truth is, these bohgaz we have lack soul. They are swell-headed, and chaansi.