Less 105

They weren’t 105 pigs. Neither were they 105 dogs.

One hundred and five living breathing human beings have been killed, thus far this year in Belize. That’s more than most high schools graduating classes. That’s 105 families affected, 105 empty beds at night, 105 smiles that we’ll never see again.

The tears in my eyes are no match to the weeping of my heart. My very soul bleeds. I can drop to my knees and scream my frustrations to God; I can blame every politician under the moon; I can call every radio show and talk until my voice is lost… but none of these actions will constitute change in our tiny damaged beloved Belize.

How badly I wish we could truly restore Belize. How badly I wish there was a fast solution.

But, it took a generation to get us to this point, and it’s going to take at least one generation for us to fix it.

We, the ordinary citizens need to recognize that we instigate change – back to the Belize of our memories. We need to live truly lawful lives. In small things, like traffic laws and littering. If we take personal responsibility for our own actions, if we obey each and every law, then we’ve made a beginning. Every level of our society does what they want, when they want to do it. Is it any wonder that we’ve degraded to this extent? There is no respect until tragedy occurs.

I don’t mean to sound class-ist, but this kind of personal responsibility must trickle from the more educated echelons of society down. We need to learn and live by example. Also, we need societal checks in place that ensure that every child is in school, every belly is fed, and every individual in Belize lives with HUMAN DIGNITY. Once each Belizeans has his or her basic needs met, we’ve made a beginning.

Because sometimes I think we’ve lost our respect for human life. To kill Raylene Dyer where they slaughter pigs, chop off her head, and throw her remains in the river. Her murderers don’t fear God. And if they don’t fear God, surely they have no fear for the Belizean Judicial System!

It’s the murder of the children that hurt me most of all, one as she slept in her own bed at night. Who did these children hurt or threaten? We can’t afford to lose another child. We can’t afford another murder.

I challenge each of you to be personal responsible. I know there is hope for Belize. Societal support of Tarrel Sutherland and baby Daniel Estell shows me that there are still traces of the old Belize left, under the dried blood and guns.

[ insert name here ]'s Belize

How do you feel about Belize?

Please, tell me. I want to know.

I used to feel that Belize was a land of untapped potential. A viable diamond-in-the-rough, just needing a caring hand to shine it to lustrous brilliance! I felt as though we were just a few baby steps away from success. Sustainable success. We just needed a stringent visionary (mayhaps an economist) to lead us and tap into the deep well of our natural and human resources.

... Now I don't feel the same.

I don't know how; I don't know when, but we took ten steps backward... haven't we? Do you feel the same? Perhaps it's just me... the last bright vestiges of youthful optimism are fading from me. Also, living away has certainly broadened my thinking. I'm just another common jaded ol' cynic.

Yet... if I had my optimism again, I'd say... "To progress, we need a home-grown solution. We need a solution that comes from those aged 20 to 35."

NOTE: *{I can't comment on crime, because that problem is just too overwhelming.}

I would begin with immigration, if I were part of this imaginary committee. No more accepting immigrants who have nothing to contribute to our economy and growth. I feel many immigrants drain Belizean resources without returning not one tangible benefit. At the same time, as new immigration laws were being implemented, I'd set a plan in motion that aims to retain the young educated masses. {Basically, decrease migration} Too many university-educated Belizeans aren't sure if they want to return to Belize after obtaining their degree, because they don't see a place for themselves in Belize. They are so wrong... we need them more than ever!

Then, I'd establish some sort of manufacturing enterprise. We need to offer the globalized market something they can't find anywhere else for cheaper. Some agro-product, I'm sure, holds the key to our future prosperity.

Next, I would implement and enforce very strict environmental laws and policies. Our ecosystems are among one of the most unique features of Belize. And I, for one, am DAMN tired of seeing politicians sign away cayes, swamps, lagoons, and rights without a sweet clue of the ramifications of their actions. No more, sir!

After that, I would focus on converting all our sources of energy into renewable sources. This would be the hardest, and most expensive step. But in the long run, it would be the most beneficial. I'd have us create so much energy, we would have a surplus to sell.

I applaud the 20-year plan that GOB is creating now, headed by Dr. Carla Barnett. But, I ask you, are the right people spearheading this process? Let's be real. In twenty to thirty years, all the present major players in the current political platform will be retired or dead. Sir Barry Bowen's demises shows us how fragile life is -- even a life full of familial and economic success.

The future is in the youth. It's past time for us to man up and take the reigns.

So, I'll leave you as I began. How do you feel about Belize? Tell me; I want to know.

Infallibility

Life occurs in cycles. Happiness, Sickness, Joy, Hurt, Sacrifice, Pain, and eventually Death will be known to each of us. Yet, despite how vulnerable we all are, we still manage to hold a "It won't happen to me and my family" mindset. You know what I'm talking about... until some incident of great import occurs in our own life, until the last second, we think, "It won't happen to me."

But things do happen. Cancer comes. Tsunamis come. Floods come.

I think this mindset of infallibility has been following the floods, from Cayo, to Orange Walk, and now into Belize District. And our fellow Belizeans deserve our compassion and help, not our judgement and denial. Logically speaking, if I lived by the river, and the weather forecaster was preaching imminent flooding, I'd move. But emotionally, how could I leave my home, my belongings, my memories? How could I abandon ship when I'd lived in that same house by that same river for 40 years with incident?

Part of me wants to shout, "Fools, unnu move!", while the other half understands their stubbornness. Home, after all, is where the heart is.

Just my three cents for the day... for those affected, my prayers. For those in unaffected areas, don't forget to help the less fortunate.

Rubber Boots

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words..”

I believe a lot of the problems we face in our nation can be fixed with an attitude change. Maybe I'm an optimist. Our parents constantly lament about the way things used to be; it's within our generation that radical change have been occurring. But are these parents not the ones who raised and socialized us? Did they not plant a seed, and are now alarmed at the growth of the weed? We need realistic dramatic action.

A human being with no fear is out of control. When we have no fear, we act on our most basic selfish animalistic instinct, with no regard for the other members of our society. By nature, we're a communal species; we have to have the well-being of our fellow man at heart for success and peace. As Belizeans, this used to be true. Now it is not.

There is no fear. A commuter has no fear, so she throws garbage out the window of a bus. A child has no fear, so he curses and back-chats the teacher. An adolescent has no fear, so he robs the Chiney around the corner. A gangsta has no fear, so he shoots his enemies out of beef. A politician has no fear, so he pours the national coffers into his pocket. There is no fear in our country.

Now me, I'm afraid. My mother put the fear of God into me... I fear, therefore I respect, the written laws of Belize, and the unwritten laws of common decency.

So put the fear into the little ones growing up now; talk to a child, and if necessary, discipline him or her. Remember the lessons you learned and home and in school and act accordingly. Clean your yard. Cut your grass. Don't litter. These little actions, my friends, they'll seep up like capillary action! It all starts in the little things.

Don't forget charity. Help people, when you can, if you can. Have a heart for the human condition. Don't forget your fellow man, and most of all, the generations to come. How then, my friends, can we as a people fail and be miserable? Without this attitude change, our Jewel will lose its sparkle. And I know none of us want that.

WHAT! Flour gwain up?

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, fresh off the press! The price of flour is almost doubling... from 58c to damn near a $1. Didn't the Chicken Association announce last week that the cost of chicken {our Belizean staple} is increasing as well?

Now, if we add that to the price of gasoline, diesel, and kerosene... As a matter of fact all petroleum based products, with one barrel of the Black Gold floating somewhere around $110US... then we have the US economy in seriously recession and falling currency problems, so there goes the majority of our tourism industry. Does anyone remember the BTIA commercials? "Almost 40% of jobs in Belize are directly related to the tourism industry."

Does anyone have a calculator? Where the hell does that leave the common man?

We're in dire straits. Someone... come hold me! I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and desperate!

Here we are, developing nation, 2008. We have oil. We have some of the most beautiful biolife the world has to offer. We have a great number of naturally intelligent people. We have fertile farmlands.

Here we are, developing nation, 2008. We have an oil company paying us somewhere around 7% of their earnings. We have our reefs being destroyed by the cruise tourism industry where we barely get one freaking dollar for every "tourist" that touches our blessed soil. We have a people unable to afford education, and those who can, flock to America, Canada, England, anywhere but here. We have foreign developers coming and buying our most prime pieces of land and Central Americans squatting on our sovereign territory.

We're living in a world of ever widening social disparity. The rich ARE getting richer. The poor ARE getting poorer. And it is getting harder and harder every single DAY for a man to jump this social gorge.

1 murder every 3 days. If I hear ONE more mother bawling on the TV saying, "My son wasn't bad," I'll scream! Our streets erupting in violence was NOT an overnight occurrence. No honey, from the time Johnny was a boy, he was running amok. What happened to discipline? What happened to respect? What happened to the BELIZEAN WAY. You shoulda mi BAX all rebel outta that boy long time and teach him to be a gentleman. You shoulda mi erase all this "thug this" "gansta that" nonsense outta his head LONG time and guide that boy toward some real dreams.

I am so disgusted with the direction my country is headed. I have to ask, how much lower do we need to go before we RISE as a community? What depths must we reach before we CLEAN our streets. From the Legislature, from the Judiciary, from the Police, from the churches, from the schools, and most of all from the average Belizean home, baby, we gotta make some BIG changes. The question is, are we ready?

Flour price going up. I need to get me some land and start to farm. How can I starve in a country such as this? With the grass so green. With the breezes so gentle? With the sun so warm? And with a people, who I believe -- I have to believe -- so wonderful?

Think, my brothers and sisters, think! How are we gonna solve the problems -- so many problems riddling such a small nation.

The Energy Question

I'm listening to people debate about the proposed 15% increase of electricity by BEL. I can't help but thinking, "HEY! Guys! Look at the big picture, please!" In this light, let me teach you a little something about energy and hopefully prompt some discussion and thought about energy on a national and global level. You may disagree with me. You may say I'm advocating for BEL, but this is my perspective of the truth.

Let's start off with some basic explanations. There are two kinds of energy -- renewable energy and nonrenewable energy. The difference between these is that renewable sources of energy are replenished at the same rate they are depleted. Look at the sun, wind, or waves, for example... as one gust of wind dies, another is born to replace it. Conversely, nonrenewable sources of energy take millions of years to form. Think about oil, gas, and coal. These products are remnants of life that have formed under intense heat and pressure as well of eons of time. Another thing I should add here is that nonrenewable sources of energy produce harmful by-products -- the greenhouse gases.

It's important to realize that up until modern time, humans have relied solely upon nonrenewable forms of energy -- also known as fossil fuels. They are easy to extract and give very efficient energy amounts. But in the past 100 years, our population has increased to the point of becoming unsustainable. To complicate matters a bit more, as modern men, we're each individually using more energy than ever before in our evolutionary history. At the rate most people live, we'd need about six Earth's to sustain our current standard of living!

Now I know you're thinking, why don't we jump into this renewable sources of energy boat! Well, it's easier said than done! First of all, let me discuss wind, solar, wave, and tide energy in one. The processes of harboring these energy forms have very low efficiency rates. The initial costs of these technologies are comparatively expensive to the amount of energy derived from them; moreover, they're extraction is very conditional on weather and geographic location. These options use considerable portions of land to produce a relatively small amount of energy. Bottom line, more efficient technologies {solar panels, wind turbines, wave-energy harnessers} are needed.

Secondly, let's look at hydroelectric generation. This is a sticky topic. Personally, I love it! I think it's a good option, has high efficiency, initial investment pays back for itself, relatively low environmental impact, and so on. Environmentalist hate this option though... and I just don't understand why. The biological footprint that a dam creates comparative to its energy generation is negligible. On a very positive note, hydroelectric generation emits no greenhouse gases.

Next we have biogas, biomass, and biofuel. These sources actually harvest decaying material and waste products from activities such as agriculture {Yes, bagash, remnants of our sugar production} and use them to create energy! The energy creation process is by combustion, carbon dioxide is a by-product, but much less carbon is produced. Additionally, much less energy is created and you need obscene amounts of material to create energy. Bottom line, even if we collected every piece of crap from every baby's diaper in Belize, we would still not meet our own energy demands.

Like nonrenewable energy sources, renewable sources are not without their drawbacks. They have relatively low efficiency, high initial investment cost, some negative environmental effects, and require large tracts of land. These reasons in a nutshell are why fossil fuels are still being used, even though their consumption is slowly killing the planet. Burning fossil fuels is very cheap, and only the rising oil prices are prompting the slow exploration of renewable sources of energy now. 10 years ago oil was barely $10US a barrel, now it's $107US a barrel... and the cost is only going higher. At our current rate of consumption, there isn't oil enough to sustain life for the next 100 years. The price will not lower.

Now, let's get off the global scale and look at tiny Belize. We need a program that incorporates several processes for energy generation, not just one. The electric company is doing that. Because we're developing nation, we need the cheapest option. Buying power from Mexico during off peak hours is that. We need to start becoming self sufficient. BEL is trying, but please realize that our power needs are growing at a faster rate as our generation capacity! Cost of living goes up... naturally. Theoretically, the money we should be making should increase too, but that's a different topic for a different day.

Hope this spawns some discussion... I can't include all I want to say in one blog, but I'm looking forward to your comments.

...and the truth shall come to light!

On the night before the general elections on February 7th, I had a dream; perhaps it was not as profound or poetic as Martin Luther King's, but all the same, I felt that it bore some salient symbolism. I dreamt that I while I was petting my cat, I noticed that she was struggling to scratch her ears. No matter how many times she scratched with her hind legs, she just couldn't seem to put an end to the itching in her ears. I got a tweezer and when I checked her ear, I discovered an enormous "wahry tick". It was fat and grey and had situated itself deep within the confines of a fold in her ear. I attempted to remove it, but it refused to budge. My cat began to fidgit and I found it difficult to get a hold of the creature. After a few tugs however, I dislodged it and I knew that my cat had found relief.

When I heard the results of the elections, I felt that indeed, the people of Belize had gotten rid of its parasites - those that had tried to hide within the financial and social folds of their party and those who had sought to use the law to their advantage. The breaking news over the past few days relating the sordid scheme of using public funds to act as security for private debts has only made me accutely aware of the blood-sucking that had been taking place in this country. (Who knows, maybe if I'd checked the other ear of my cat, I would have found even more of the little suckers hiding there too!)

It has been a long time coming, but the truth has finally surfaced and the criminals have been exposed for what they are and what they have been. It gives great comfort to know that my perceptions of the former government were indeed right - I wasn't crazy when I agreed that they were a criminal organization - Belize's own mafia.

In the Prime Minister's two press conferences, I had scoffed at the restrained tone with which P.M. Barrow outlined the past government's numerous scams and infractions. He should be visibly livid, I thought; he should be banging his hand on the podium - I would have given him all rights to pontificate if he so desired. But, he kept his cool. Fine. Let him keep his cool when he talks to the press, but when he deals out justice, just make sure he "buhns fiah" and put those scurvists in Hattivelle.

I have a demand...
SEND THEM TO HATTIVELLE!!