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Two votes for Yasser

FeaturesTwo votes for Yasser

Dear Yasser, my sister, Francine, and I, don’t know what is going down with NICH at this time, but it is our opinion that you are the best person to run that show, so if you have the energy to go that route again, just damn whatever comments might be coming from the UDP that let us down so badly, and tell those PUP bohgaz you ready fu run things.

From me to you, nothing personal for them, but the people can take back Henry Charles (and my, did he realize his dream to see George Cadle get his own public and bank holiday – bully for perseverance) and the people can take back Kareem, no offense to him either.

Please, I am not about stoking sibling rivalries, if any exist; it’s just that the politician breed, just like the lawyer breed, are not the kind of people I think I’d have much fun sitting down under a thatch and having a drink with. That deh discussion bound to end up eena mada big kwaaril.

Bah, you and I can’t sit down at a table either, but I think that’s only because you, like Ms. Felene Cayetano, Jules Vasquez, and JC Arzu, are a smooth international intellectual. I have no regrets that I don’t fit on your page, or on the page of the others I mentioned. You and they are there, and I know my corner.

Anyway, Yasser, what I’m calling you up for today, besides letting this nation know that, to hell with claims of nepotism — you qualify, is to discuss this little story you wrote with a mention about what a couple artists named Bey and Codd did.

You wrote that Bey and Codd were selling a t-shirt that some saw “as disrespectful, even disgraceful toward the Father of the Nation”, and that you were called on to condemn them, but you thought it would be hypocritical of you to use your “privilege to censure or gate-keep the expressions of the next generation of artists.” Ah, that’s only one of the reasons why so many like and respect you, Braa.

I really wanted to wait, wait until the full story came out, but gathering that some saw offense, and accepting that offensive things must be stomped on immediately, I sought them out. First place I went was the Facebook, because, well, I suspected that would be one of the venues for the promotion of a t-shirt.

Now, as I said, I’m not a perfect fit in the arts bizniz, but my first dream as a child was to draw, and even though I still can’t draw a bicycle — one that looks like it could stand up (I could learn to do so; I have a book that can open the visual arts side of the brain, but I still waste too much of my spare time), art is in my soul, so I have thoughts on the subject.

I want to start with the suggestion that we slice this pie into three pieces. I say that some of these things that come under the wide umbrella called art, me, I think they belong in another category. I still hold to my little poem, “New World Art”: Art scrubs my soul, art frees my mind; Uplifts my heart, liberates mankind; Art inspires, art stimulates; Art creates, art titillates; Art soothes, art excites; It leads me from the dark, into the light; Art makes me see God.

When my paternal grampa, Jim B. Hyde, pulled me out of bed five o’clock one morning and belted me with his sash cord, it could be said, according to the view from the broad umbrella, that he was cramping my art, yes, but it was really, barf, my caricaturing the govna.

I think the term “art” is too broad. Hip Hop has its category. Some of Tupac’s songs, and several others in the genre, would make the art Hall of Fame, but no one should get away with lyrics that say blank the police, and those women are blank. The Dancehall, a lot of those don’t make the cut as art either. You want art from Jamaica, that’s Keith and Enid, Cynthia Schloss, and Toots, Tosh, Marley, and Jimmy Cliff. Dancehall straddles the fence, with too much of it on the wrong side.

The Father of the Nation said we are looking for builders. So were Bey and Codd building, or were they going low? The way I said it, it’s God, art, or Satan, but there is also an in-between, the third category.

Did Bey and Codd make us see God with that t-shirt? No. Is it, barf? Naa, I think that’s just tomfoolery…young or young-at-heart people messing around.

Hmm, talking tomfoolery that I think is trending to art, I plan to release something that my elders would definitely consider to be from the lower wing, a piece that has been, ehm, festering since some folk ran away with a few bullet points I made and misrepresented me. After I put my new boat into the water, if I have equilibrium I also want to stitch together some notes in the art/tomfoolery categories, and slip them off the ways.

Sometimes you have to be coarse

Like you, I saw the long lines in Dangriga: our beautiful people coming out to put their names down for a house lot or a farm parcel. I understand that when the GoB authorities saw the crowd, they made an immediate adjustment — limited the gathering to 150 persons and promised to return at a later date to process the applications of those who didn’t get theirs in.

I saw a picture of the lines, and while I couldn’t make out if everyone there was wearing masks, I have to believe so, and the physical distancing seemed appropriate. But the Dangriga Town Council did lodge a complaint, so maybe all wasn’t on the upside.

What I’m worried about when I see so many of our folk in one place is our obsession with the yapping. When we Belizeans meet, I guess all people in all nations too, da time fu converse.

Ah, we know how Lord Michael Ashcroft got filthy rich. He was in the cleaning business, and then he got into banking, but those businesses weren’t turning over enough profits to pay for his big yacht, his knighthood or whatever the Queen gave him, or the ambassadorship from Belize. His ship came in when those gullible PUP gave him control over BTL, and he happened upon the absolute goldmine here, when he cashed in on the value of voice —from the market to the clothesline to the telephone. Give the man his creds for recognizing that Belizeans will starve and still be happy, if dehn kud talk.

Brothers and sisters, the medical reports are that 50% of the spread of the virus is by people who have no symptoms, and now another strain of the virus, even more contagious, is spreading in the world. When we talk, or cough, or sneeze, and we are carrying the poisonous virus, we become big spreaders. Treat everyone like they are coughing or sneezing, and if you absolutely must exchange pleasantries, extend the physical distance to ten feet.

Don’t be shy to tell your loud neighbor, shut up yu…, ehm, mouth, until the pandemic done. Please don’t take off your mask when you’re talking, and be aware that the excess palabras greatly reduce the effectiveness of the mask.

Got to learn to block some pop-ups

Some of us use the computer and the new phones, but have no capacity for the safety duties. One of these computer troubles is a thing called pop-ups that is not easy to handle like the ones on the ball field. Hmm, I’m aware that I and all should try to learn more of the fundamentals.

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