by Colin Hyde

If the leader of a nation in Arabia had said they had gone to war with a neighbor because dangerous values were taking over across their border and they wanted to nip it before it crossed over and “polluted” their sacred turf, no one would have disbelieved them. We know how Arabian nations feel about LGBT and women’s rights. Well, recently, the leader of Russia went wild on LGBT, as an explanation for his horrific war with Ukraine. But the Western media played it off as a bit of nonsense, and basically ignored it.

The Western media must have learned from Belize. It’s amazing how well people in leadership positions here have perfected the art of ignore. It wouldn’t matter if the philosophy of ignore didn’t stymie growth. But the fact is that it does. No one has all the knowledge. We never know where the best pearl will come from. Those of us with the least status have pearls too, sometimes the shiniest ones. Of course, the game is deliberate and all selfish, all geared toward maintaining the status quo.

While the primary game of Putin is expansionism, a Hitler-type plot to regain what was “lost” when the Soviet Union broke up late in the last century, the aggression of the LGBT cannot be downplayed. Hmm, for the rest of this piece we’ll rest the B, okay, because you can’t have both. Brother, thou shalt have a wife, OR a man. Out with that daam B!

There is a powerful Catholic church in Russia that isn’t tolerant of LGT. This 2014 story “The Orthodox Church’s role in Russia’s anti-gay laws”, by Jamie Manson in the National Catholic Reporter, gives us the sense about the agenda of these Russian bohgaz. That year Putin passed a law banning gays from adopting children, threatened to arrest anyone “accused of promoting ‘propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations’”, put the cramp on pride rallies, passed a law to deal with suspect tourists, and blamed the LGT for population decline since 1991. The story says gay rights activists who were trying to rally “were attacked by hundreds of Orthodox Christian activists and members of pro-Kremlin youth groups”, that “the mostly burly young men with closely cropped hair pelted them with eggs while shouting obscenities and homophobic slurs.”

The LGT really has to slow down on its aggression. Putin could not have mustered enough support to go to war with his neighbor on his expansionist agenda alone!

Plus TV had me a little on my heels last week when a repeat show they had on was all about condemning Putin and this Russian war. In the part of the show I heard, it was all about the evil of the invasion. I’m interested to know how the folk at Plus handle the common ground between them and Putin.

Sex is the core story of civilization. It is when human beings tek shame about public sexual expression that the separation between man and beast began. If you think I’m just spouting off, you haven’t read your Bible. The garden is where man and woman decided to make a bedroom to wall out the view.

Ah, and some went out, clandestinely, and made a closet. When those who had made a bedroom found out about those “sneaks” and their closet, a whole lot of bashing came down from a man named Leviticus. But really it was a little unfair, because to each their own, a bedroom for you, a closet for me. Wait, I think I have that the wrong way around.

Bah, the batters for the closet push for equal status, and there’s where all the trouble is at these days. I absolutely don’t swallow the American claim that the deep divisions in their country have little to do with LGT advances. I think closet users are overzealous. But I think Christians are limited to using the Book to carry out the fight.

Father of the Nation hated litter

The story goes that Father of the Nation, George Price, couldn’t begin his day if there was a scrap of paper outside of the waste basket, couldn’t have his lunch if there was any mess in his vicinity, and his day didn’t end until all was tidy around him. Yep, da great man lived the adage, cleanliness is next to godliness. To build up the great man’s image, there are pictures of him cutting cane, paddling dory, riding horses, traveling about the country in his sturdy Rover, but no image of him gives us a warmer feeling than the ones of him picking up the scraps that filthy or careless people left about.

No matter how hard he tried, the filthy scraps refused to go away, and they’re still around. Our people are not entirely to blame. It’s a battle even at our best, because it can get very windy in Belize, and paper and plastic bags won’t stay in the dustbin if they aren’t stapled down. But yes, there are those of us who are just plain nasty.

I have to tell you I was scolded once by a foreign “superior”, for ehm relieving myself of a tin can that was becoming a burden. We were in the forest looking for specimens, and I’d carried the tin can, which had contained some drink, for as long as I could take. I dumped it, and the expat scolded me. Whoa there, I’m not ordinarily a filthy fellow. And if you’re not one of those types that are filled with hate, you’ll understand my excuse perfectly.

I have strong sea roots, and a can or bottle in the sea is a house for a crab or a joo-ala or a sprat or any young sea creature. I tell you it’s tip and go for young ones in the sea. Most everybody little has to have an eye out for a predator.

But comeuppance is for the big also. We all thought sharks were invincible; well, to seal the deal on the adage, evri bully gat ih kecha, old sharks have to be on the lookout too. Weeeee, look how the terrible white shark has fallen! The story is that the super intelligent orcas are in love with their livers, love shark livers as much as we love shark meat panades. I hear the beaches in South Africa are literally littered with sharks sin livers. But the orcas have to be careful about their, ehm, fetish. Shark liver oil is the best thing for asthma.

I’ve quarreled with family members who’ve cursed me for sinking a few empty rum bottles in the sea. I wonder what they have to say now, after TASA sunk a whole ship out at Turneffe! Ah, I thought one single can in the forest can’t be too bad, and it could be good for a lee lizard or beetle, as a hideout from bad birds and other animals out to prey on the little ones. Of course, I didn’t complain when I went and picked up my can. But I might have if we were on the sea.

Seriously folk, we have to step up our game against this garbage. It might help if we thought of the anguish Father of the Nation must feel when he sees all that litter about. The worst offenders are children. I say, words are good. Teachers have to scold students (children and youth} about their slek parents who didn’t bring them up right. And parents have to scold children and youth, so they stop embarrassing them.

If that doesn’t work, well, when you can’t make headway civilly you have to pull out the whip. We must learn from the lessons God gives us. Some life lessons are brutal. Soft pops advice is good; when that isn’t good enough the only option is the rod. Yap, some people haffu feel. But before that we could take the words up a notch. Stop di litta, yu dohti brute!