by Colin Hyde

I was as incredulous as Kareem Musa, listening to Collet Area Rep Faber explain why he hadn’t turned over a tape in his possession that might have evidence in a criminal matter. If this abdication of responsibility had come just a little sooner, the EBC would have had full justification to carve Collet, instead of Port Loyola. Explaining his unacceptable behavior, Faber said he had to live in the neighborhood where the incident, an alleged rape, took place, and he wasn’t about setting himself up to be accused of being a snitch.

It’s possible that the architect of this disgraceful copout is suffering from a form of post-trauma stress disorder. Remember some time back it was a tape or tapes that forced him out of the top leadership seat in the UDP. The brother apparently was provoked by lovers, and he got a little too physical. In testy man-woman relationships, the man’s hands are tied. He should never get physically rough with a woman, and if he has any sense he won’t get into any word war with them either. You have to grin and bear it, Braa. Faber might have developed a strong allergy to video tapes. If so, it’s contradictory for him to own a video camera. Hmm, maybe the man is a walking contradiction.

So, the burly government is going into his office to muscle the tape. My advice to the government is to not send a woman officer. Send Makin.

Allow me a moment here with Mr. Makin. I don’t take back anything I wrote in my piece last Tuesday, but on seeing the incident on television – I’d only seen it on my phone – I have added perspective. First in the clip we see the officer has his charge pinned, seemingly by the collar. He then kicks his charge, a rather rough swiping kick on his left calf that brings his charge to the ground. The officer then savagely kicks the street behind his charge, quite likely to further intimidate him. The officer then pushes his charge in the head. In the pushing part of the incident, the officer has a pistol in his hand, and the barrel of the pistol briefly comes in contact with the side of the charge’s head. Almost immediately, maybe realizing that he has gone too far, the officer turns his hand so that the gun barrel is parallel with the head of his charge.

If the clip is all we have to go on, we might suspect that the charge was non-compliant, physically resisted the officer, or had cheeked him off, hence the rather forceful kick, delivered to end whatever resistance quickly. The second kick is delivered to the ground, and that actually serves to soften any brutality charge that might be brought against the officer. Enforcing his authority by pushing the charge in the side of his head was natural, but the officer made a very serious mistake because he had a gun in his hand. How swiftly he turned the gun away shows he recognized his error.

Returning to Mr. Faber, Braa, a leader gets paid to lead, and leadership involves responsibility. You know how to win elections. That is proof that you are a winner. Maybe you are a leader, but in this instance you come up way short. It’s understandable that you would try to avoid being brought into the fray, but any evidence you have should have been passed on to the authorities without prompting. I suspect the snitch you worry about is in your office. Sorry, that is a risk you had to take.

Ai, in the world of I-told-you-so, Belize desperately needs leadership lessons. Two of the best places to learn leadership are in sound sports programs and the military, and a great complement for leadership training is business experience, the part where you have to make payroll in tough times. People learn a lot about themselves and the world when money is lean.

Responsible leaders understand that they must stay on board, see all passengers into lifeboats before they start thinking about abandoning the vessel. Mr. Faber must not have heard about the Japanese man on the Titanic who snuck into a lifeboat and saved his life, but lived the remainder of his years in disgrace for the shameful behavior of depriving women and children of their space.

So what if I’m like Joe Biden, I’m not running to be president or premier

When Joe Biden couldn’t pick up his threads in that debate, I said my gudnis, the way that man lost his thought stream there, we could be brothers. Biden is trained to speak, so he shouldn’t have any excuse to lose his threads. But he’s been fumbling his lines and missing his threads for decades. And now that agewise he’s on the other side of the hill, he’ll miss entire spools.

Aha, when Trump looked at Joe and asked him, something like if he knew what he had said, there’s a person in my family who says that to me all of the time. My, my, missing threads, that man reminds me so much of me. The absolute clincher that we are fraternity is when his campaign manager said Joe doesn’t function well after 4:00 p.m. I bow to him for being coherent so long. My window is much smaller.

France beaten by an Ozil

Footballers who are good at passing a football are surprised when they see players on the highest stage botching passes that have little degree of difficulty. Fortunately for the pass butchers, high-level passing is not the only important part of the game. Virtues such as speed, strength, endurance, tackling, heading, shooting, heart, creativity, all kinds of things help earn a player a space on the big stage.

Arsene Wenger, the celebrated former head coach of the very successful Arsenal in the British Premier League, was about beautiful football, so his players featured a lot more class than muscle. It’s my opinion that Wenger’s downfall began when he fell in love with a fellow named Mesut Ozil, who was quite elegant and could really drop a pass. Ozil, a midfielder, disappeared on defense. He belonged with a team that featured bulldogs and workhorses, not teammates that were of his mold. My, my, Arsene could have picked up the incredible N’Golo Kante instead, and Arsenal would have won a number of first place trophies, instead of at best being a bridesmaid with Ozil.

I learned that French midfielder, Rabiot, threw words at young Yamal, a player with the touch of Ozil, before France went to battle with Spain. In a team game, you are limited to saying things to energize your teammates and fans. If you want to hib words at your opponent, you should play lawn tennis and run in races, or become a boxer. Never throw words at your opponents in team sports, because you don’t know which one of your teammates might sell out. What a ting, Glen would say, that it was that Rabiot who threw the game!

The attacker can go right, left, and there’s the possibility of going through. If the attacker can physically overpower the defender, the portero knows he’s in a whole heap of trouble. Rabiot had the strength advantage, so his concern was narrowed down to his flanks. A defender knows that he can’t protect both flanks equally. Yamal had shown that he has as much touch in his left foot as a top pool or carom player has with a cue. A-B-C defense tells you that if Yamal beats you, it must be to his right.

I feel for French coach Didier Deschamps, who is being called out by the press for saying Yamal was “lucky.” That’s a bit of terrible cherry-picking nonsense. Of the shot that beat France, the media said Deschamps said: “His shot was magnificent. He was very lucky, but we shouldn’t take away his credit. We were obviously one too far behind him. The Spanish have many good strikers outside the box. We gave him a little too much freedom.” That’s an absolutely fair statement.

Yamal scored, yes, a “magnificent” shot from the top of the box. He went right, and Rabiot committed the terrible sin of 100% going with him. When he did, Yamal went left, where he got the space he needed to get off his shot. I have to feel for the French coach. Rabiot’s defending was atrocious.