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Puppy Love

Love inspires poets to write great poems and writers to write great sagas and novelists to put to paper stories of great passion and tenderness.

The power of love can turn a lion into a lamb and a great intellect into a babbling fool, and it can create wars between tribes and nations. When someone is in love but their love is unrequited, it is almost impossible for that person to understand that with all the love they feel, how can the other person ignore their burning desire to be loved by that one and only person?

An old adage suggests that to forget one love, one must find another. This sounds very reasonable but in matters of the heart, logic and old adages don't necessarily come into play. The love that burns inside a human heart is only for that very special person. In spite of its life altering effects, love has its downsides. Love cannot be bought, it cannot be forced on someone, it cannot be demanded of someone and you cannot hold on to it when it wishes to leave. So remember love is ecstasy and love is pain. And sometimes, love is letting go.

In these days of high technology the art of charming a potential partner has come down to a text message on a cell phone. In the distant past it was all about guitar serenades, bunches of flowers and boxes of chocolate candy. I often tell this to the kids and someone invariably says, "Those were romantic times." I remind them that times can never be romantic, only people can be romantic, because only people can love from the heart.

In the life of a young person crushes and infatuations are common occurrences, but it is not until they reach teenage years that they fall in love for real. When I say for real I mean that it is at this age that young men can summons the courage to tell their enamored how they feel about them. From this age on, every time one falls in love it is a love to die for, no matter how many times a month one falls in love.

I was asked recently by a young person if I could give them a clue as to when one knows that they are really in love, and I must admit that as an adviser on matters if the heart I failed terribly but I tried to explain the subject as best I could.

I said to them: "To be in love is the greatest feeling in the world, but it is only great when it's going well. When it's not going well it is the most painful of all hurts humanity has been made to bear."

When a person is in love their spirit soars high above the clouds but only when they believe that the object of their adoration is returning their affection.

A Society in Trouble

Don't get me wrong, they are not displaying true courage because one of the things that does not require very much courage is the ability to murder an unarmed man. It is my contention that even the most pious of men will commit crimes if there are no guaranteed punishments for the act.

In this country the delinquents don't have to think twice about committing a horrible crime because they reason that they will not be caught, and on the very slim chance they are caught there will not be enough evidence to convict them, and if they are convicted they will not be sentenced and if they are sentenced they will not get the maximum sentence and if they are giving the maximum they will serve only a small part of it. Even when they are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt they can rest assured that their family will avenge their sentencing by killing the defense lawyer that lost the case and the judge that handed down the sentence. Believe it or not, this very unhealthy attitude towards others and this posture towards life are learned in the home and only when we teach our kids to respect others will they learn to respect themselves. Then, and only then, will we cleanse our society of delinquents and cold blooded killers.

I remember seeing these words written somewhere by someone not so famous and I think that this is what parents should try to teach their kids: Watch your thoughts, they may turn into words. Watch your words, they may turn into deeds. Watch your deeds, they can become habits. Watch your habits, they can form your character. Watch your character, because it will determine your future.

A quick glance at the nightly news on the local TV network will tell you that we are living in dangerous times. The sad thing about the news is that it always mentions the number of people violently killed but hardly ever says anything about the perpetrators of these crimes being caught. It seems to me that in our society the value of human life has gone way down and our police's ability to bring the murderers to justice has also eroded. I believe that the reason so many murders are being committed is the simple fact that in this country there are no sure deterrents to dissuade the delinquents from their dastardly deeds. Does that sound a lot like Dodge City of old when the man with the fastest gun made his own law? In this country it is called "La ley del mas fuerte" and there are signs of this attitude throughout all levels of our society. It is reflected in the entire quotidian goings-on of the ordinary citizens, for a good example of this just take a look at their driving.

At first I thought that their complete disregard for the almost universal traffic laws was due to their ignorance of said laws but I was wrong, they are acting out their own inbred strain of machismo and this applies not only to the men it also includes the women. A Honduran driver will not think twice to block an intersection impeding the passage of dozens of cars just as long as he gets ahead of the rest. Even the pedestrian show their true colors when crossing the street, they will step off the sidewalk at any point along the block and will walk into fast moving traffic without looking in either direction and when caught up in the middle of traffic they will not even hasten their pace to get out of harm's way, they are psychologically prepared to show courage in the face of danger.

Arizona SB 1070

Arizona has gone one step further in Arizona Revised Statues title 13 chapter 15 amendment 39 adding section 13-1509 which now reads: Trespassing by illegal aliens; assessment; exceptions; classification. According to this statute the police can make an arrest if, in addition to any violation of federal law, that person is guilty of trespassing defined as the person being both: Present on any public or private land in the state of Arizona or in violation of 8 United States Code Section 1304(e) or 1306(a). Immigrants that are unable to produce documents showing they are allowed to be in the USA could be jailed for up to six months and fined $2500.00. Before Arizona passed this law the police could only inquire as to a person's legal status if that person was suspected of committing another crime. The Hispanic community and some non Hispanic liberals that are raising a ruckus about Arizona SB 1070 must have forgotten that every country in the world has laws that make it a crime to enter their country without permission. It seems to me that the argument here is about jurisdiction, as I see it, it is okay for the border patrol to arrest illegal immigrants but it is not okay for the Arizona police to do the same. In all Latin American countries all authorities have the right to arrest anyone that perpetuates a crime and in Mexico this can be done by the Federales de Investigation or the Federales Preventiva, which are agencies of the federal government. There are also immigration officers and custom officers, state-operated law enforcement officers and municipal police and they all can arrest anyone that cannot prove that they are allowed by law to be in Mexico.
When arrested, you go straight to jail.

In other countries this crime is even more severely penalized, in Afghanistan intruders are shot, in North Korea the minimum sentence is 12 years imprisonment for violating the national sovereignty of that nation.

The penalty varies from country to country but there is always a price to pay and in some countries it is also a crime to leave the country without permission and if you are caught either going or coming, you go to jail. Illegal immigrants in the USA are hollering for their rights, this confuses me because I know that if you enter my house without my permission you can be assured that you left your rights at the gate and if I don't kick you out it is a privilege I'm granting you but you have no rights when you enter into my domain illegally. I'm thinking of a sign I saw somewhere in the panhandle of Texas many years ago, it read: Private Property Keep Out. Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again.

In 1883 Emma Lazarus wrote a sonnet that reflected the attitude of the American people towards immigrants at the time. Here is an excerpt from that poem " Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me". The complete poem engraved on a bronze plaque was mounted on the inside of the statue of liberty in 1903. The attitude of the American people towards immigrants has changed and this is especially true of the ever-increasing number of Illegal immigrants that enter the country every year.

The state of Arizona has made this attitude official in its senate bill SB 1070.

This bill will authorize the police to arrest immigrants that are unable to show proof that they are authorized to be in the country. It also penalizes persons that knowingly transport illegal immigrants.

This part of the bill is not causing the uproar in the Hispanic community. The real problem is the unwritten part of the bill that is being called "racial profiling". This means that the police will decide to investigate a person's immigration status based on that person's racial or ethnic characteristics. The Hispanics are crying foul because in their view they seem to be the ones that are being singled out, although this should not come as any surprise to anyone because at last estimate there are over 14 million Hispanics that are in the USA illegally. It would not make any sense to single out any other group of people.

The Arizona law empowers the police to arrest illegals pursuant to 8 United States Code section 1373(c), which states that an enforcement officer cannot independently determine the status of an immigrant. The police must contact the Immigration service before such an arrest can be made.

A RIGHTEOUS MAN

On the third time the same group came around he stood between them and his goods and refused to budge, when one of the new guys lifted his rifle as if to shoot him, the headman said to him: Just let's take what he gives us because this man is fearless, he is made of iron and shooting him will do no good, we've already done that. Cousin Peter thanked him and gave him some fowls and said to him: Jesus Christ is my shield and with Him on my side I fear nothing. The Sandinista never bothered him gain. Cousin Peter returned to Bonacco a few years back and took up residence on the old homestead and ministered in the Mangrove Bight SDA church. He had come back to where he had been introduced to Christ and now he was ready to take that journey that we all must take but Peter was prepared to meet his maker. On a sunny day like so many others in this part of the world he decided to make a trip to Back Country which was the sight of the first SDA industrial school in Latin America. parts of the construction are still there. This school was built back in late eighteen hundreds by men like his father. He saddled the mule and being unable to find a proper pair of stirrups he fashioned a pair from a piece of rope and slung it across the mule's back in front of the saddle and was off. He did not stay too long in the little valley and his companion said that he looked distracted and tired so they returned to Poke Alice, the old family farm. He sent the boy on to Lil Flat telling him that he would pick some rose apples and be along shortly. His brother became concerned when he did not arrive at the appointed time and a few hours later decided to go in search of Peter. His brother began to worry when the searchers found the mule grazing by the little river that ran its course at the foot hills of Lil' Flat. The searchers were on foot so the uphill trek took some time. They were about half way up when they spotted something that could be the body of a person in the grass off to the side of the road. It was Peter and he was dead. The body was stiff from rigor mortis and this meant that Peter had been dead for at least four hours. Around his right foot was the piece of rope he had used for a stirrup. It will never be clear what really happed to Peter but it is assumed that he fainted or had a heart attack and fell from the saddle. He was then dragged for a fair distance by the mule before the rope was pulled completely around the saddle. What caused him to fall from the mule will always be a mystery but there is one thing that we can be certain of and that is, if there's a place set aside for righteous men, Peter Wood has earned himself a seat in the front row.

His father was one of the first persons to heed the call of the fledgling Seventh Day Adventist religion in this area. From way back in 1892 his father, Richard Wood, labored in the service of the almighty or at least in the service of Elder Frank Hutchins the original SDA missionary to Latin America. When he was born it was decided that he should be called Peter and his father would proudly boast that this boy would grow up in the ways of the Lord. His father was firm in his efforts to further his purposeful intent to enter into the congregation of heaven. In his formative years Peter did not demonstrate an aptitude or desire to become a religious person of any import. The seriousness and straight forwardness of his father could not be seen in his comportment. To a greater extent his behavior mimicked his mother's side of the family, they were a more carefree and witty people. He played tricks on his siblings and even on the adults of the family.
Eventually Cousin Peter came around to the purpose desired by his father for him. He became an ordained minister in the SDA Religion. He was not a regular preacher he knew that education was the key to the future and he worked for the furthering of educational opportunities of not only the Bonacco children but also for children on the mainland. He was instrumental in the purchasing of the properties and was part of the founding of the SDA School in Peña Blanca. It seems that where ever he went he founded a school. His last efforts were in Nicaragua where he built and presided over one of the best schools in that country. The school was later appropriated by the Nicaraguan government. While living in Nicaragua he became a victim of the infamous regime of Daniel Ortega. As was their style they fed themselves by robbing the working people of anything they had and in some cases of everything they had. During his first encounter with the Sandinistas, Peter refused to help them help themselves to his livestock and his refusal earned him a battering with the butts of the rifles carried by those ruffians. When he was found he was still unconscious and still bleeding but he was still breathing and he survived. It was not too long after that that the same groups of blackguards made their way back to his little farm and began pillaging his food stuff and this time they were trying put a snare around the neck of his favorite heifer but Peter placed himself between them and the little heifer and refused to give her up. He was again beaten and this time he was shot and dumped into a ditch. Those ruffians expected him to die in that ditch but Peter survived that one also.

MINIMUM WAGE

This organization in the past few years has been slowly creeping into areas outside of its mandate such as taking over the job of the National Meteorological Service. COPECO are now reporting the weather and issues weather alerts and all this without having one trained meteorologist on their payroll. The television news teams are now consulting COPECO for their weather reports.
In all other countries of the world when there is a marine phenomenon that could adversely affect local shipping, the weather service of that country will issue a warning that will notify the mariners of the severity of the storm, such warnings may be listed as "small craft warning" or "general shipping warning". COPECO is the only organization in the world that has the power to close down a seaport when in their uneducated opinion the vessels could be in danger. The seaport closings do not apply to foreign ships that may be in Honduran seaports at the time, it is only the local coastal freighters and local fishing vessels that must stay home. We islanders have been sailing these waters for two hundred years, we know our vessels and we know the sea and we should be given the weather data and be left to decide whether to sail on not.
When we island people were boarding up our houses and storing water and food supplies getting ready for Mitch the people of the Tegucigalpa (the headquarters city of COPECO) were attending a football game unaware of the approaching monster.
The fact is that the island of Guanaja took the brunt of the storm yet we lost five souls and on the mainland there were over 8 thousand deaths.
COPECO has also invalidated the seismic department of the National Autonomous University by reporting on seismic activity and pretending to warn the populace of future seismic events. Since the giant 8.8 earthquake in Chile, COPECO has gone to the airways with advice on how to build earthquake proof buildings and are right now petitioning the national congress to pass a law that would require all new buildings to be earthquake proof, with COPECO issuing permit and inspecting such constructions.
Somebody has got to stop this organization and remind its commissioner of its fundamental objective or soon it will be running the schools, the churches and the maybe whole country.

On the 12 of December in 1990 the National Congress of Honduras approved the decree of law number 9-90E. This same decree derogated the decree of law number 33 that in 1973 had created the Consejo Permanente de Emergencia Nacional. It also derogated decree number 202 of 1975 that reformed the 1973 law. On the date mentioned above the Comission Permanente de Contingencias (COPECO) was born.
This organization like all others designed to be called to action in the case of a national emergency had but one basic mission, disaster response. During the chaos left behind by the Hurricane Mitch it was clear the COPECO was ill prepared for such catastrophic damage caused by the category five cyclone. USAID came to the assistance of COPECO and helped the government agency improve their abilities in the areas of damage assessment and emergency communication. It has now been over eleven years since the visit of Hurricane Mitch and COPECO has grown. In my opinion this growth has not been very beneficial for the country and I believe it has seriously distracted COPECO from its primary role as an emergency response organization.
COPECO has somehow forgotten or ignores its own bylaws such as Article 5 that states: "The COPECO will have as its fundamental objective the adoption of policies and measures to address the population, rehabilitation and reconstruction of areas damaged by the impact of natural phenomena that affect economic activity and welfare of the population and plan and develop activities to prevent negative consequences of such phenomena."

MINIMUM WAGE

The private sector is taking advantage of the very lax government enforcement of the long established labor laws. A good example is a small business that employed 4 persons but now has only three because of the change in the minimum wage. Previously those 4 employees worked a total of 176 hours a week (the legal limit without extra pay) but now the remaining three workers are on the job a total of 180 and sometimes 198 hours a week. That's a net gain of 4 to 22 man-hours a week for the company.
The law requires that if an employee's job can be done efficiently sitting down then the company must provide a seat for that purpose but since the wage increase almost all employers have removed all furniture from their places of business and in one particular business the owners even removed the water cooler.
With the exception of the banks many cashiers must stand all the time that they are on the job. The banks however have set precedence for another grave injustice that has now permeated the small businesses of this country. As is done in the banks, the cashiers are debited any amount of money missing from the registers when the books are balanced at the end of the day.
However, if on any day there is a surplus of money the bank or business keeps that money and it is not credited towards the amount owed by the cashier or teller from any previous day's shortage. When pay day comes around the shortages will be deducted from the pay check of the employee. In some banks if the amount exceeds one thousand lempiras it is posted as a loan and interest is added to the amount of the shortage.
This is robbery and in any other part of the world it would not be tolerated by the employees but with the scarcity of jobs and the great need of the people, the workers grumble to themselves and show up the next day for work, because they know that at least 20 persons will apply for that job should they decide to quit. The bosses know this and this gives them license to become modern day slave drivers with complete disregard for the welfare, dignity and self-esteem of their fellow man.

It was only about a year ago that ex-president Manuel Zelaya raised the minimum wage in Honduras. At the time, a great hullabaloo was raised by the private sector and with particular notice in the medium and small businesses. It was said that the increase would cripple smaller concerns and would cause huge layoffs in the bigger companies. And some of this did happen but not to the extent that is claimed by the non-government labor watchers.
Just the idea of the government arbitrarily imposing such a heavy load on the business community made my heart hurt for them. But I am no longer sympathetic towards those people.
After some investigation I have come to the conclusion that those poor suffering businesses are getting the job done with fewer workers but at a terrible cost to their employees. This is true for all businesses but it especially applies to service companies like fast food, pharmacies and photo shops and others that are people to people services.
In mostly all the businesses I checked, the employees worked as many as ten hours a day for at least six days a week. Add it up, that's 60 hours a week and in some cases the employees work as many as 66 hours a week with no compensation. Some employers do not allow their employees time for their midday meal. As one supervisor put it "Nobody needs to sit down to eat."

TIME

As it relates to the common man, time is merely a measurement that he uses to schedule future events in the trans-course of his life. Man has no concept of time and without references he quickly loses track of all notions of time. Nature has provided man with the references that he has used for millennia to mark the events in life. He used the sun to mark the days, the moon to mark the months, and the winters or summers to mark the years.
All living things depend on time for their birth, growth and, eventually, their demise. Even though time is not a tangible entity it is the biggest killer of all. A person that has evaded the many geriatric diseases that are intent on ending his life will eventually succumb to time. It is a proven fact that no matter the age of a person there are no cells in their body that are older than 10 years, yet they will die and the only thing working against them is the passage of time.
There exist many sayings that refer to time; one of the most popular is that TIME FLIES. This is only true if you're having a good time. If you want to prove this saying wrong just have someone hold your head under water and time will cease to fly, it will begin to crawl. There are truisms that apply to time like: There is more time than life. In this statement we try to quantify time as if it is an element or a fluid yet we measure only the passing of time not the amount of it. The devices used to measure the passage of time are many and the study of these devices is called horology. Though there are many horologists there are none that pretend to study time itself for it is an elusive nonentity that defies description. The following quote sums it up pretty well, "Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once." This quote is attributed variously to Albert Einstein, John Archibald Wheeler and Woody Allen. By its very simplicity and its profound implications I sincerely believe that it was coined by Woody Allen.

The word time as described in the Merriam/Webster dictionary has two main definitions. The first one is: The measured or measurable period during which an action, process or condition exists or continues. The second definition is: The non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present and into the future. These are beautiful definitions but they do not come close to describing time as it relates to our every day life.
Time is the single most important thing in our lives and it ranks second only to life itself. It may not be in the top ten most-used words in the English language but it leads by a tremendous margin in synonyms, which means that it has more meanings that almost any other word. Modifiers used in front of or behind it can create words with whole different meanings. Time is not a concrete word therefore it must be an abstract word and coming up with a non-controversial definition that can be applied to the fields of religion, philosophy, and science has long eluded the best of minds. Time has been a major subject for the aforementioned fields of thought but yet none have been able to establish a single semantic or grammatical interpretation of time.

My New Year's Resolution

My biggest challenge is trying to keep my cool on Saturdays when just about lunch time the Jehovah witnesses show up with their pamphlets and their sermons. I normally pay the fine for being caught on the porch by buying their magazines and with a store-bought smile I endure their preaching. This in itself is a great deed and I resolve to do my best to continue this practice. Another trying situation is when people come to our house uninvited and with no previous warning I must pretend that they are very welcome and make them feel like I have been waiting on them all along.
I will still send sympathy cards, birthday cards, Christmas cards and other such things just because it is the thing to do but not necessarily because I have any sympathy, or any desire to wish anyone have a Happy Birthday or a Merry Christmas, much less a prosperous New Year.
Other things that I resolve to work on is not feeling too much like a fool when I give money to some "poor" person only to find out that they used the money on something other than the reason they gave me to soften my heart. I will try hard not to remind a person of a good deed I have done for them in the past whenever they refuse me the tiniest favor. I resolve not to try anymore to collect outstanding debts that are over 10 years old. I also resolve not to pay any outstanding debts that are 10 years old.
When it comes to being polite, we all know it is learned human value, but we also know that we are all hypocrites. Yet in our hypocrisy we are displaying our humanity and our learned kindness. Other animals cannot hide their true feelings as well as we can.
So in the word of Sir John Moore, "I will continue to kiss those that I may want to kill."

As is the custom I have been trying to come up with a worthwhile New Year resolution but I'm unable to think of anything of importance. I can't resolve to quit smoking or quit drinking beer or biting my nails because I've already given up those habits.
I have resolved to continue to be hypocritical in order to not hurt the feelings of others or in order to just to make them feel important and to maintain their self esteem. I guess all of us are guilty of these same hypocritical doings. They are very common and most of us do them every day to the point that these things have become more like automatic reaction.
Whenever we meet a person on the street in the AM, we are all accustomed to wishing that person a good morning and a nice day. In some cases we don't even know the person, but there we go wishing them all the best. We all know that we could not care less what kind of day they have. I will continue to tell mothers of newborn babies that their child is cute even if the baby is ugly as sin. I will keep on listening to the sad stories of other people and feigning interest, even sympathy, when deep in my heart I really don't care about their problems.

Christmas Surprise

The confining space of the long but very narrow boat was distressing, and the din of the little ten horse power motor seemed to slow the hands of my Timex watch. We had been going for about nine hours and during this time we had not stopped for anything, so I was very relieved when I heard the sound of the motor boat slowing and then the sound of gravel and sand crunching under the elongated bow of the pitpan. I believed this was the end of the line, but this was only as far as we could go by boat. The rest of the way we were to go on foot. The coronel had given us a few packages of US Army K rations so we had some chicken stew, or something very similar to chicken stew for lunch. After finishing our lunch we started the trek up the mountain. The walking was hard, but time went by pretty fast as I stopped looking at my watch and stared looking into the jungle for jaguars, poisonous snakes, and wild boar which I had been told abounded in these hills, but I never saw any. We saw the smoke rising up ahead and heard sounds that seemed like people singing. As we walked into the clearing of the village we were all surprised to find the natives in full holiday costumes and wearing their finest go-to-town clothing. Here it was the middle of the afternoon and all the villagers were dancing and drinking Misla.
. We were invited to join the festivities and without as much as asking what they were celebrating we joined right in and soon we were dancing and singing as loud as the rest of the villagers. There was plenty of food and that was good because those
K-rations weren't all that great. The drink of the day was misla and I had not tried it before, but I found it pleasant to drink and I had some even with my food. Misla is an alcoholic concoction made from cane juice and corn or rice, and you should not be fooled by its sweet taste, it is much more potent than regular beer. Soon after that I noticed that I was singing in English. Later that night I told old Joe to ask the man in charge what it was were celebrating and all four members of our little expedition were very surprised when the chief said they were celebrating Kritmes.
Christmas? Today was the 15 day of January. The chief must be drunk or grossly mistaken, so I prompted old Joe to ask him why he thought today was Christmas and the chief elaborated: The people of this village never had a fixed day for Christmas so they celebrated the whole week. He was then told that Christmas had been celebrated in the rest of world 20 days ago. The chief said that we must be in error because the Flor de Pascuas (poinsettias) had not blossomed until about three days ago, so it had to be Christmas time. We agreed with him and I gave him my tin can of pine-apple cookies and my flashlight as Christmas gifts and we danced into the night. The next day as we set about leaving the village we were bid farewell by the chief, he had a new name for me; it was Pasa Kaikaya (sky gazer) and I assumed that old Joe had told him about my work in the Meteorological Station. The chief told me that I had given him the most delicious and useful gifts he had ever gotten and that this would be a Christmas that he would never forget. We were leaving with no gold, but we had made a lot of new friends and that slight headache told us that maybe we had celebrated our best Christmas ever, in the month of January.

The sun had passed the zenith as our driver brought the pitpan to shore on one of the few patches of white beach that we had seen along the course of this fast flowing river. This was a semi-official military mission, but there were no military personnel on board our outboard-powered dugout. The coronel back at home base had heard rumors of the discovery of gold in some of the villages in the foot-hills along the upper reaches of the river and had decided to send old Joe to investigate. Old Joe was an employee of the army and served as scout, tracker, and adviser in affairs of the natives. Old Joe was a foreigner, but had been living among the native Miskito Indians for decades. He served the army well because he was the only person who had the complete trust of all the natives of all the tribes in the whole area. No one bought, sold, or traded anything without the consent of old Joe. So, if there was gold in them there hills old Joe was the man that could find out where it was. Old Joe and I had became friends and many afternoons we would sit under the big wild almond tree at the landing close to his house and we would chat in English for hours; Old Joe was from Boca Del Toro, an English speaking town in the republic of Panama. One afternoon he asked me if I wanted to take a little trip up river, he said we would be gone for about three or four days. After I queried him on the dangers and health risks and what not, I made arrangements with my partner to do my shift at the weather bureau for a few days. The next morning, at an ungodly hour, he roused me and off we went. I had packed a few items I thought I might need like extra socks, canned corned beef, insect repellent (army Issue), a flash light with extra batteries, and a Colt .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol with extra rounds. I also carried a water-tight tin can of pineapple cookies my mother had sent me on the last boat that came from down home.

Food of the Gods

The banana that we are all familiar with has at most 20 years before it, too, will have to be replaced. This is because a new strain of the disease that previously wreaked havoc on the French banana has evolved. The strain is now devastating the Cavendish cultivar to the point that it could soon become unviable for large scale cultivation. Not to worry; many parts of the world have labs working on this potential problem. These laboratories collect wild banana plants and their seeds for cross breeding and cloning. There are collections centers in the US, Germany, and other locations including La Lima, Honduras. The collection center in La Lima maintains a collection of 470 cultivars and 100 species of the valuable fruit, which is actually classified as a berry!
The banana from Latin America is exported primarily to the United States and Europe. In the United States it is the most popular fruit, outselling the apple. When ripe, it is aromatic and sweet. It is also an excellent source of carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. It is most popular with athletes as it contains three natural sugars - glucose, fructose and sucrose - as well as fiber. Research has shown that just two bananas can provide enough energy for a strenuous hour and half workout. Other benefits include: controlling blood sugar, alleviating stomach problems, promoting the production of hemoglobin, lowering blood pressure, reducing risk of stroke, boosting brain power, and helping to restore normal bowel movements. Rubbing the inside of ripe banana peel on insect bites relieves the burning and itching. Finally, the banana is purported to be the best cure for a hangover when used in a banana and honey milk shake. Try it!
Before there was any banana export business on the mainland, the people of these islands made a living by exporting this fruit to New Orleans and New York. We islanders eat the green banana, and we call it "bread-kind" to differentiate it from "meat-kind." I don't know if a body gets any benefits from eating a cooked green banana, but I know that a "steamed old wife" (local queen triggerfish dish), baked meat and any kind of coconut dinner would not be possible without the venerable banana.
By the way, the banana belongs to the genus Musa and the family Musaceae. The word banana is supposed to have come from the Arabic word "banan," which means "finger." It should have been called "alasbaa althhbay," or "golden finger." Another good name would have been "food of the gods."

About one thousand years ago, the sweet potato mysteriously appeared in the Polynesian Islands in the South Pacific. This tuber is native to the tropical areas of South America. What makes this transplant unique is that the species of sweet potato that was found in the Pacific Islands are of the cultivated variety and can only be propagated by way of vine cuttings. This negates any theories of seeds transported by floating on the ocean or by birds. Today the sweet potato is found all over the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia, and in Papua New Guinea, it is now the staple diet of its islanders.
Five hundred years after the sweet potato reached Polynesia, the banana was brought to the Americas by Portuguese sailors. In many parts of Latin America the banana is still called "guineo," which literally means "from Guinea" or "Guinean," which might suggest that the Portuguese brought this fruit from Guinea, West Africa. However, the general consensus is that this most marvelous fruit originated in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. It took five hundred years to complete the trade of the banana for the sweet potato but it was worth it and I believe that we got the better part of the deal.
The banana as we know it is a seedless fruit that has many uses. The cultivar names do not suggest its intended use for desserts or cooking. In years past the most prominent type of banana planted in the local area were the Lakatan, slowly to be replaced by the Gros Michel cultivar (French banana), which was then phased out in the 1960s. The Gros Michel was replaced by the Cavendish, which was considered to produce a higher quality fruit than the other resistant cultivars.

Where are Our Friends?

Mr. Obama in a speech to the Russian people stated that it was not the concern of the American people who ran a country and it was most certainly not their business to dictate policy to any nation. Mr Obama must have flunked history because had he not flunked he would have known these answers when asked: Who ran the Spanish out of Cuba and the Colombians out of Panama? Who was it that placed the Somoza's in Nicaragua? Who overthrew Arbenz in Guatemala? Why did so many Americans fight and die to get rid of Adolph Hitler in Germany, Sadam Husssein in Iraq, and the Taliban in Afghanistan? He would have known that it was Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then a sub-secretary of the US Navy, who wrote the constitution of the independent republic of Haiti. How much more involved in a country's affairs can you get? The Americans have fought dozens of wars to preserve democracy and the Honduran people were saving them the trouble of having to fight another one. We took it upon ourselves to nip in the bud Mr Zelaya's move to convert Honduras into a leftist, socialist or totalitarian country.
Where are our friends? The last thing we expected was for the United States to turn against us. After all, it was Honduras that helped them fight communism in Guatemala and later in Nicaragua. Honduras is their second biggest partner in their fight against drug trafficking. It should be remembered that it is the United States that has a huge drug problem and every kilo of drugs captured and destroyed by the authorities of this country is another kilo that will not be sold on the streets of Washington or New York.
It is not too late for the United States to help us. It seems like every day things are getting worse in this country with curfews and rampant gangs of looters and delinquents. I guess Honduras is no longer important to the United States since the fall of communism in Europe. The only other reason I can imagine for this harsh treatment is that Honduras does not have any oil to sell to the United States. Maybe this cold shoulder is a blessing in disguise. Maybe it is time for Honduras to tighten its belt and start building this country into a nation of pride and prosperity, obligated to no one for anything. We have always been worried about what we say or do, afraid that someone will stop the aid or the hand outs that we have come to depend on so much. We have the land and the natural resources. All we are lacking is the will and the courage to make things work. We must start to look for other trade partners that will not exact so much for their friendship. Maybe we have been holding on too long to the trailing cuff of the pants leg of Uncle Sam. There is always communist China. They will start building huge stadiums and the likes for us. All we have to do is denounce Taiwan.

An June 28 of this year, the disorderly conduct of the Honduran head of state was interrupted by orders of the powers that be. The reigning president Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales was deposed and in his place the National Congress nominated (by order of succession) Roberto Michelleti Bain the president of congress. On the day following the soft coup-d'état, things began to go wrong for all the people of Honduras. Every nation in the world condemned us without a trial and threatened the new government. Until this date, almost three months later, the new government is not recognized as the legitimate government of Honduras. Not one of those nations bothered to send investigators or observers to this country to try to get down to the root causes that prompted the Supreme Court and the National Congress to replace Mr. Manuel Zelaya.
Mr. Zelaya's failure to get his own candidate appointed to presidency of the Supreme Court was the beginning of the whole fracas. He used every trick and every threat in the book to have his candidate approved, but his efforts were in vain. Had he succeeded there would have been no legal way to stop him from defrauding the people and nominating himself king of Honduras. He would have reigned until Mr. Chavez decided to change him. Of all the countries that are now chastising us, the United States is the most important to us because of our long dependency on our trade with the United States. The United States of America has been the champion and the sword wielder of democracy since it became a nation so many years ago. However, in the case of Honduras the new liberal president Obama turned his back on the people of Honduras and aligned himself with disciples of the Castro's and the son of the devil himself, Hugo Chavez.

What Went Wrong?

To provide the answers to these questions, it would probably take many years of hard work by physical anthropologists, sociologists and maybe other learned persons specialized in the human sciences. It is said that all countries with tropical climates are very slow in climbing the ladder of development and the reason for this is that there is no need to work diligently in the spring and summer in order to be able to survive the winter. A person in the tropics can survive in the wild quite well with a minimum of equipment; the land is bountiful. The climate itself does not inspire people to work very hard. I believe there is also a very basic but important difference in the colonizing done by the Spaniards and that done by the English. In most cases the Spanish founded towns leaving a few Iberian sailors and some livestock. This meant that for the town to grow the sailors had to obtain women from the local native population.
The Spanish brought their machismo and native Americans contributed their natural tendency to conserve energy. This mixture of blood has not served us well. When the English landed in Massachusetts they came with bag and baggage including their women, their children and their livestock. Their venture was a private endeavor and no government was involved. This is not true for the rest of the settlements started in the Americas where the Spanish maintained a master-serf relationship with the peoples of their part of the new world. We have never outgrown this and as was the custom during the colonial days we are still unable to refer to someone without placing a handle in front of their name and using as many last names as the paper can hold. Not even the media will refer to a person without making reference to their education level or status of some kind.
In some cases when a person have achieved some degree of success and does not have a title the media will make one up. For instance neither of the last two presidents of this country had titles so the media fixed it. This may not seem like anything drastic, but it truly reflects our inability to leave the colonial days behind us.
For us to grow as a people we need to forget the days of subjugation and lose our adoration for a mother country that has given back so very little for all the things they took from us. We should leave our Spanish and Indian egos behind us and learn how to change our attitudes towards each other and just maybe we could start building a progressive country, with fairness and respect for other individuals and honesty in government and then we will begin to see change and prosperity for all.

On the 14th day of August of 1502, Christopher Columbus set foot for the first time on the mainland of the American continent at a place called Punta de Caxinas (Punta Castilla). Twenty two years later Hernan Cortes founded the town of La Natividad (Puerto Cortes) and in that same year Cristobal de Olid founded the town of Triunfo de la Cruz (Tela). In 1525 Juan Medina founded the town of Trujillo.
It was not until 1607 that the English founded the Jamestown settlement and later in 1620 the Mayflower brought a group of English Separatists to the eastern coast of North America. The second group was called the Pilgrims and they landed in Massachusetts. Ten years after they landed they founded a town that would become the city of Boston and gave start to the greatest and most powerful nation the world has ever seen - USA. While Spain was the richest country in the world during America's conquest, all they left behind was a legacy of language and religion.
I have often wondered as to what went wrong with countries settled by the Spaniards? While the Spanish had almost a century head start on the English, their old colonies are still struggling to feed their people and depend on loans and handouts from the rest of world that has long since moved into the space age.
After about three hundred years of Spanish rule, Honduras became an independent nation in 1821 and only about thirty years before (1788) the British began colonizing Australia with the founding of what was to become the city of Sydney, starting with the most unlikely material, convicts. There were several hundred male convicts and 180 women. So, Trujillo is 105 years older than Boston and San Pedro Sula is 252 years older than Sidney. What has slowed our advancement? Where did we go wrong?

Boxes? What Boxes?

Mario rushed over to the Cay and started looking for another voting place but never found one, apparently the only place that had opened for business was in El Pichete. The days leading up to Sunday had been a confusing time for the followers of the president in Guanaja, mostly because all three biggies of the liberal party were out of town. The ballot boxes for the referendum were shipped in on SOSA under the guise of "didactic material" for the Guanaja public school on the Cay.
The directors of the school were unaware of what the box contained and delegated the pickup of the shipment to a student. The student took the material home on Friday and left it on his upstairs front porch. The student was unaware of what he had until early Sunday, June 28 when the person from El Pichete came looking for the ballot boxes. The student was promptly reprimanded for having handled so carelessly something of such importance. The student replied: "had I known what was in that package I would have dumped it in the canal." Sunday had been a bad day for Mr. Zelaya and his followers. The President was arrested, supposedly for treason and violations of articles in the constitution of the republic of Honduras.
Maybe he needed arresting but along with him they should have arrested all those politicians that took his money when this whole Chavista movement started. Those corrupt congressmen approved the joining of the ALBA and took the tractors Chavez sent. I can't believe that they did not know that there were strings attached. It should also be illegal for the two persons that are in-line for the presidency to instigate the procedures for deposing the duly elected president. In this day and age a coup d'état sends a foul smell into the international community as there are other ways to get rid of a president.
Sunday turned out to be a great day for Mario, around noon when the winning number was declared to be 05, Mario leaped for joy, he had the winning number and his prize was over 16,000 lempiras.

Mario was worried. It was Sunday and he did not have enough money to pay for his contracted lottery. Every Sunday morning he had to come up with 250 lempiras to pay his lottery seller to guarantee that she would not sell his favorite number. Mario searched his pockets again and all the cash he could find was 50 lempiras. He needed 200 more. He ambled down the main road in El Pichete wondering where he could borrow the money he needed. Half way down the walk he spotted a group of people in single file as if waiting their turn at something. After taking a good look at the crowd he thought to himself, someone must be giving away something. He quickly got into the line and then asked: "What's going on?" Someone replied: "Some guy is paying two hundred lempiras cash to each person that puts their mark on a ballot and places it in the urn." He further inquired as to the nature of the voting and was told that it had to do with the 'Cuarta Urna.'
Mario stepped out of line, he was certain that he would have nothing to do with anything the liberals were scheming. He was a born nationalist. He checked the line more closely and found many people from his own party awaiting their turn to vote. He asked one of them why and the reply was: "Two hundred pesos are two hundred pesos compadre!" Two hundred lempiras would come in handy today and if Mario was not able to pay the lottery seller and his number came up a winner he would lose a lot more than his pride. He asked his dead father to forgive him and got back into the line.
Mario did not get to vote because before he got to the door of the building the news broke that the great leader had been arrested and whisked away to Costa Rica. Confusion descended on the voting place as the person in charge called his superiors, but got no answer on his cell phone. Mario knew the person in charge so he walked over and asked the guy for a loan of 200 lempiras and he assured the potential lender that when ever they got it straight he would be willing to vote for the President of all the Hondurans. They never got it straight because the news that the president had been deposed was true.

Help Us or Leave Us Alone

There is a law that forbids the freighters from carrying passengers. That law was passed at the request of the owner of another vessel that runs both passengers and freight (the owner is a mainlander.) In another instance, a mainlander bought a freight boat for the coastal run and he petitioned and got a law passed that forbids other boats to carry freight no matter if it is was your freight and your boat.
The government went so far as to prohibit fishing boats from picking up their own lobster traps and other fishing gear because this paraphernalia was considered freight. I can't see where intent to carry passengers is in violation of any ordinance or law. The solution was as simple as to forbid the boarding of the passengers, but instead all the boats were tied up. Then the official said that the intended passengers were not on the Zarpe that was turned in during office hours.
For passengers to be listed ahead of sailing time there must be some sort of reservation system and none of the freighters have offices in La Ceiba. They can hardly afford the exorbitant amounts charged for dockage. Honduras is the only country in the world that requires permits to sail your own vessel within your own borders.
For now, nobody is required to have a permit to travel by car from anywhere to anywhere in Honduras. The registration of a car can be paid at any bank, but for a boat you need lawyers and lots of cash. In this country a permit to operate a boat must be signed by a minister of the president's cabinet and you must spend money to get that signature.
This island is going downhill fast and the Honduran government is pushing us along. Guanaja no longer has a judge, we no longer have a customs office, the mail service is due to disappear, we are down to one airline. We are being systematically driven out of business while others, especially Jamaicans, fish our waters without fear of retaliation.
For almost two hundred years we have plied the seas around us but now we are being controlled by persons from a landlocked city who presume to know more that we do about our vessels, our weather and our ocean. We are now being told when we can sail our vessels on the seas that our forefathers gave to us as our birthright. We are being told when, where, and what we can fish and on this island, fishing is a matter of survival.
We invented conch soup, but we can't dive for conch because those landlubbers have denied us that right also. If we really want to make a conch soup we must take an airplane trip and purchase this island delicacy in the super markets in La Ceiba.
To you bureaucrats in the capital I say: Help us or leave us. We were doing fine before you 'discovered us.'

On a bus ride a few years ago in New England I was surprised to see a State Trooper's Plymouth pull up next to the driver side of the bus. The policeman in the passenger seat of the police cruiser signaled to the bus driver with a ticket receipt book and a pencil. The bus driver immediately slowed the vehicle to a more legal speed, but we never stopped. I asked the driver why the policeman had threatened him out there on the highway. The driver said: "That was not a threat, he gave me a ticket. I was speeding."
He explained that the police could not stop an interstate carrier (our bus) on the highway for speeding. He said that what the police did was to ticket the bus by its license plate number and the bus company charges the ticket to the driver. "We have a schedule to keep and not even the police can interfere, unless it's a matter of life or death."
That incident occurred over 40 years ago and I still remember it because I was very impressed by that respect for schedules and the value placed on the passengers' time. I wish I could say the same for the authorities in this country.
Time seems to be that last thing on the mind of the authorities in Honduras and that is especially true when it's other people's time. In this country the people in charge make a special effort to foul up other people's schedules. It is such a common practice that nobody expects things to go right. On at least three occasions in as many months the top brass of the Mercante Marina has seen the need to refuse to issue sailing orders for our freighters going between Bonacca and La Ceiba. These freighters are the life line of this island; they sometime arrive with rotting vegetables and sour milk - everything is planned around their sailing and returning on the specified day.
On a few occasions orders came from Tegucigalpa to deny sailing permits (Zarpes) to our freighter because they (Mercante Marina) believed the sea to be too rough. The latest reason they came up with for denying the sailing permits was that one of the captains of the freighters was intending to carry passengers on his vessels. Befuddled by this dubious crime the port captain called his boss in Tegus and was told that he should not issue any permits to any freighter sailing to Guanaja until further orders.

Return of the Bees

Old men have a definite advantage in this argument and that's because no matter what age a man is, he is still likely to be able to produce offspring. An older woman will eventually ask, 'What does she have that I don't?' A truthful answer here would be that the younger woman has nothing more or better that the other woman, but the reptilian brain has made known its findings and the older woman lost.
The cerebrum saves the day because it is here that we find love, fidelity, kindness, compassion and all other human traits. Our love for, and our sense of, responsibility towards our aging partner keeps most of us on the straight and narrow but it is a hard battle as we are fighting against our evolutionary inheritance.
Sometime in the distant past we diverged from the normal path of mammalian development that uses the sense of smell to become attracted to the opposite sex. We are now more akin to the birds in that we are guided more by our eyesight than by anything else when searching for a mate. Maybe we should not touch but everybody knows that just looking can't hurt anybody.
In these times of hardship most people are making conscious decisions not to have many children but this reasoning does not change the programming created by evolution in the most primitive part of our brain. This part of the brain is what keeps us breathing, keeps our heart beating, maintains our body temperature and like functions of our autonomic nervous system. This system is what enables us to dodge an oncoming arrow, blinks our eyes when something touches our eyelids, makes us pull our hand away from a hot surface and a myriad of other self protection reflexes and all this without us ever having to think about it.
Imagine if we had to think about everything we did, when it came to split second decisions of self preservation our serially processing thinking brain would fall short and our survival would not have been possible in a world of eat or be eaten. Man and most mammals with their convoluted brain would not have risen to domination on this planet if not for the reptilian brain that lies beneath it. The cerebrum likens us unto God and the brain stem likens us unto animals, hence the words of Plotinus: Man is midway between God and beast.

Old Joe was peering at his neighbor's young daughter from behind the curtain of his living room window. He could not help thinking that she had become a very beautiful young woman. Other thoughts may have crossed his mind but he would not admit those to anyone. Old Joe's wife entered the room and caught him spying on the girl; she became furious and called him a dirty old man. Most people do not have any idea why older people, men and women alike, admire younger members of the opposite sex. Hardly anyone has taken the time to figure out why they find themselves attracted to beautiful people. To think about it is not the function of the sentient mind.
The main reason for our attraction to good-looking people is that the parameter for beauty has been set in our minds from the beginning and beauty implies health. Healthy partners bear healthy and strong offspring; these offspring have a better chance at surviving.
These logical conclusions are performed by our reptilian brain without the conscious participation of the host.
The reptilian brain is the reason men are not too attracted to older women. It has nothing to do with being a dirty old man, but that the primitive part of our brain has passed judgment and older women beyond the child bearing age are not considered good candidates for partners.

Return of the Bees

A bee hive is composed of one queen, a few hundred drones, and from twenty to forty thousand workers. The queen has some control of the hive through the use of pheromones that stimulates behavior but this is mostly to announce her presence and her health to workers to discourage the raising of other queens. Bees swarm in order to create new colonies. During a prime swarm the old queen leaves the hive with a large group of worker bees. As soon as the swarm is settled in the new hive the workers raise a new queen but sometimes there will already be a replacement virgin queen in the swarm. In a healthy working hive when the old queen dies or becomes infertile a supersedure occurs and the new queen replaces the old one in the hive.
The new virgin queen fills the air with her pheromones and takes off on her mating flight; she must attract as many drones as possible. She can produce eggs without mating but these unfertilized eggs only produce drones. To produce workers and queens she must mate with the drones and store enough sperm to last her a lifetime: about two years. If the queen becomes infertile she will be killed by the workers and replaced. On some occasions there can be two queens in a hive and the mother and daughter exist together for a while.
All the workers are females and their particular job is determined more by their age than by anything else, the last job they have is the gathering of pollen and nectar and they literally work themselves to death at it. Every worker bee has a determined job at a determined age and these jobs range from tending the young, grooming and cleaning the queen to defending the hive and gathering pollen and nectar. The older bees can go back to some previous jobs within the hive whenever it is deemed necessary. Man and his technology have been able to synthesize many things made by nature, but honey is not one of those things. aWith the on-site help of David Hyde and the expert advice of pastor Perry Elwin, we hope this new venture in apiculture turn out to be a resounding success.

Amid the crying and the gnashing of teeth among the people on this island that still have something to lose, the year ended in a tiny harmonious note. That note is the humming of thousand of bees as they go about the business of making honey, oblivious to all but their instinctual duties.
Little they know of the greatest financial crisis the island has faced in the last fifty years. It was only a few months ago that I reported the lack of these tiny industrious insects on this island but all that has changed now. A few persons on the island including Bill O'Driscoll and Cathy & Jim Springer were responsible for contacting pastor Perry Elwin on Roatan and were able to acquire three or four queens and some workers.
I have reasons to believe that this strain of bees is the same one carried from here to Roatan by the good pastor just after the Hurricane Mitch. This is good because this strain is much less aggressive than the possibly africanized strains available on the mainland. Bees are believed to have been on this earth for about 100 millions years but the first documented (cave paintings) instance of man interactions with bees is about six to eight thousand years. It is known that the Greeks were keeping bee hives over three thousand years ago.
The honeybee as we know it came to the Americas with the Europeans and by the late sixteen hundreds, bees were widespread along the East Coast of the United States and eventually moved to other areas as the pioneers pushed further into the country. The American Indians wondered about the sanity of the white men who carried around their own insects and called the honeybee "White man flies."

Vengeance Begets Vengeance

From a very early age Honduran children are taught to seek revenge for anything unpleasant visited upon them by another. This revenge can have minor or very serious consequences, depending on the misdeed. Revenge commonly ranges from killing a pet or farm animal to killing another human being.
In spite of male bravado about the father being the boss of the house, the truth is that a mother rears her children. Amongst her duties is training her children to face the rigors of life spiritually, morally and socially. She trains all her children, but she makes special efforts with her boys. She will teach her three year old son that only girls cry when they hurt themselves. She will encourage - even demand - machismo from her sons. Her oldest boy will have complete control over his siblings, including the right to inflict violence on them.
The mother's training will produce young men who believe violence solves all grievances. These young men will admire men who murder for vengeance. In most cases the victims of these murders will be unarmed. These young men will render a perverse homage to murderers, praising them as 'having their own private graveyard'. These young men will believe that one should never strike a man who has caused you harm - rather you should kill him.
A mother also teaches her boys to defend her honor at all costs. Her boys will become young men who feel duty bound to kill anyone to question the virtual sainthood of their mothers. It is too bad that these same boys are not taught to respect all women as they do their mothers. They might then refrain from the insults and obscenities with which they routinely barrage other women.
The Honduran mother is responsible for carrying the torch of rancor and keeping alive the resentment and the desire for vengeance for a past injustice, be it real or imagined. We must look to her to transform this culture of violence.

Caymanians All?

Almost all accounts of the Cayman Islands during this era describe turtles and alligators, with never a mention of human inhabitants. But the islands were eventually settled by British subjects knowledgeable in the construction of cisterns and tanks for storing rainwater.
Current-day versions of the history of the Cayman Islands ignore the Island of Bonacco, passing over its role in the growth of the Cayman Islands and vice versa. Yet the two islands have a similar history in that both were used by mostly British pirates and privateers. The Caymans served these pirates as waypoints, ports, and pantries abundant in rich turtle and caiman flesh. Bonnaco served them with drinking water and timber for refitting their vessels. Eventually both islands became colonies of Great Britain.
When turtles on the Caymans were almost extinct, Cayman vessels came to Bonacco for fresh supplies. The only cash crop the Caymanians planted was cotton, which quickly exhausted the limited available topsoil in the Caymans. When the US Civil War ended and southern states resumed full cotton production, plummeting prices forced Caymanian cotton growers out of production. Many former cotton farm masters and freed slaves made Bonacco their home, spearheading a migration of nearly half the Cayman's population to the Bay Islands.
Long before any kind of development on their islands, Caymanians traded their local thatch rope for any available Bonakian foodstuffs which could survive the return journey. Bananas, plantains and root vegetables were traded, even drinking water in years of little rain in the Caymans.
For many years most older residents of Bonacco were Caymanians by birth. Even after Boancco was turned over to Honduras, Bonakians and Caymanians traveled back and forth without need of visas or permits. Many years ago on a trip to the low land an old lady in West Bay asked me where I was from. I told her I was from Bonacco and she replied "Same dog puppy, we are all one blood son".
Bonakian names such as KirkConnell, Bodden, McCoy, McClean, Jackson, McLuaghlin, Bennett, Bush and Ebanks ought to be very familiar to Caymanians - indeed the name Ebanks originated in the Caymans. Bonakians of English descent are the only people in the Caribbean that speak Cayman's English.
But in recent decades much has changed. Younger Caymanians believe themselves to be God's gift to humanity. They forget the thatch rope days, and no longer distinguish between Spanish speaking Hondurenian and Bonakians. We Bonakians are all Hondurenians, and are kept from our ancestral home with all the legal power the Young Caymanians can muster.
I am one of many living outside the Cayman Islands who descends from John E. Banks, survivor of the Wreck of The Ten Sails. I send regards to all Caymanians from a fourth generation Bonakian/Caymanian.

New Project New Hope

Back in 1847 British scholar Thomas Young discovered the archeological site at Guanaja's Marble Hill, which was later rediscovered in 1930 by Mitchell-Hedges, a British explorer. Mitchell-Hedges compared it to the Druid stone formation found in Cornwall, England. In 1933, William Duncan Strong, an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institute, noted that the Marble Hill and Plan Grande areas were the most impressive archeological sites visited by institute personnel in this area.
I did some research and found out that Mr. Mitchell-Hedges' written remarks reveal a high regard for the Marble Hill site, even comparing the site to Stonehenge. He writes of the artifacts: "Of the hundreds of specimens we found there, scarcely one was of ordinary character." However, when I tried to find out the monetary value of the 1,100 artifacts carried away by Mr. Mitchell-Hedges, I was informed by personnel from the official Mitchell-Hedges website that the artifacts are worthless, have been forgotten and have been stored in a dark corner of the Smithsonian Institute since the 1930s.
I find it unbelievable that a person of Mr. Mitchell-Hedges' reputation and expertise would go to the trouble of gathering over a thousand artifacts and then smuggle them out in his fishing gear without realizing that they were worthless.
Some of his findings also went to the British Museum. A letter to him from a Capt. T.A. Joyce of the museum's Department of Ethnography reads, "The specimens that you submitted have been carefully examined. And in my opinion they represent a very early type of Central American culture, probably pre-Maya." I am not knowledgeable in these matters, but with these kinds of comments I cannot believe the artifacts are worthless.
The proposed construction cost of the hotel including the purchase of the land at the building site is only about a $1 million, not a significant amount for the agency which is in charge of finding the money, FIDE.

The Change

The idea to get houses for people that could not afford them goes back to 1938 and the idea was reinforced in 1970 by creating Fannie May and Freddie Mac respectively. These two organizations later specialized in subprime loans and private banks and mortgage lenders followed suit.
A subprime loan is lending money to people that are high risk borrowers, in other words you could lose you shirt giving credit to these people. It was in 1992 that Congress ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase low to medium income mortgages. During the Clinton administration Fannie Mae was investigated for racial discrimination because a lot of applications for loans by unqualified borrowers were being rejected.
It was also during this time that the secretary of HUD strongly suggested that at least 50% of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolios be made up of high risk borrowers by the year 2001. Clinton's federal housing authorities ordered these two organizations to allow welfare and unemployment benefits to be considered as legitimate income sources for a person applying for a loan to purchase a house. Loans for mortgages were extended to people that could not even afford the down payment.
The government should not have allowed speculators to invest securities money in these high risk real estate deals. Clinton's administration can be credited with making possible the highest home ownership in the history of the USA, but at what price? Well, now the chickens are coming home to roost.
On another note, Hispanic voters looking for adjustment to immigrations laws that will let their illegal alien relatives live and work permanently in the US. Democrats offered more and Hispanic voters went across traditional lines and voted heavily for the Democrats, 3 to 1 for Barack Obama. There is no doubt that this was instrumental in Obama's victory. Well, we now have the first African- American president ever and maybe next we'll have a Hispanic president.

Why Christianity

Jukebox Music

Working for a Wage

Ignorance - Not Bliss

Payback Time

Living with Your Name

Humanity Lost

When in Rome...

The Last Neanderthal

A Bad Hair Week

Road to Freedom

The Golden Calf

Whose Water Really Is It?

Unfair Nature

Trick Me Once Shame on You...

Trick Me Once Shame on You...

What we might be getting is some kind of immigration control and established companies will get permits to import duty free, anything considered to be directly related to the tourist industry. This consideration has to be determined by personnel of customs.
What about us little guys? Tricked again, my friend. But, we did get our 750 lempiras license to carry arms rescinded. I can remember an incident that I consider to be one of the biggest screwing over that we Bonaccan ever got from the Honduran government.
It was sometime in the late 1940's after years of begging for help that the government decided to help us get running water in our houses on the Cay. To get this project off the ground we would need about 1,800 feet of two inch pipe to cross from the main island to the Lower Cays. The whole town turned out to greet the little freighter that was bringing the pipes. We got a couple of hundred pipes, but the glee of the town soon turned to astonishment and then to anger when the pipes were inspected and it was determined that the pipes were all four inch cast iron sewer pipes that had to be joined together with melted lead. Instead of pipes for potable water, the government had sent us sewage pipe that had to be joined with hot lead at seven fathoms down on the ocean floor.
We eventually got some 2 inch brass pipe, but not from the Honduran Government. At this very moment the Ministry of Tourism is in the process of laying sewage lines on the Cay and I was surprised to see that the largest diameter pipe they are using is 6 inch PVC. That size pipe seems a little small to me as it is the same size I use in my house and I only have 4 baths. There are at least one thousand bathrooms on this Cay. I firmly believe that we should get ready for another screwing over and this time it will have a very distinctive odor.

Falling on Hard Times

Some of those owners never saw it necessary to own a home on this island.The money they made was invested in other parts of the country. Other packing plant owners amassed huge sums of money in other countries and made local banks loans to operate their plants. This island is going down the drain fast because of the huge amount of money that has left this place over the last few decades. There has not been a consequential investment on Guanaja in many years and the cash outflow continues until this day.
Not only packing house owners are guilty of shipping money off-island. Lately they are getting a lot of help from the three telephone companies that provide services on Guanaja. Of these three companies, only Hondutel has any salaried employees in Bonacca Cay, a grand total of four. Hondutel, Megatel and Celtel take millions out of here on a regular basis and that money is gone forever. There is not much that can be done about that. Our local cable network does the same thing.
With the fishing industry on the way out and no one trying to do anything else, there is not much hope that we will come out of these hard times soon. There is some hopeful news that someone is starting to build a first class hotel on the north side. This is good, but only a very few locals will get work with those foreign owned hotels. To help the whole island we need local investors to build small hotels and finance locally owned sport fishing and diving activities.
I know that European tourism will increase in these islands in the next few years in part due to terrorist activity in their usual Asian destinations. American tourism will also increase at the expense of the Cayman tourist industry. This is due to the fact that their biggest attraction, the feeding of stingrays, is no longer attractive after the accidental death of Steve Erwin sometime last year while handling a stingray.
For us to take advantage of this, we need to convince the few people of means that we have left to help bolster our overtaxed infrastructure and look towards an economy based on tourist dollars. They should set other goals not only for themselves, but also for the whole town and then maybe we will be able to pull ourselves out of this precarious economic situation in which we find ourselves.

Dear Mr. Bush

The children of those people who got old and have never contributed to the SSA must be obligated to take care of their parents. If these old folks do not have any kids then they should look toward the churches for support, or toward other organizations that beg millions every year for poor people overseas. Part of your job is to remind these organizations that charity begins at home and to remind everyone that the US government is not a charitable organization. You should make it a federal crime for individual states to maintain healthy poor people. That's like force-feeding a two-legged horse. There is nothing to get from that.
After you weed out these bums and goldbrickers, there is something else you can do to guarantee the survival of the SSA. You must open your borders to everyone who is healthy and is between the ages of 18 and 30. This will guarantee Social Security income for a long time. These workers will not be allowed to open IRA's and such things, and they would have to pay the maximum payment allowed by law no matter what their salaries are. These workers will be deported on their 61 birthday and they can be deported before that if they miss one payment to the system. The latter will be deported to their native countries on foot after they have swam the Rio Grande going in the opposite direction as new emigrants.
On your problem in Iraq you must call the Pope and, if he will talk to you, let him know that we are not fighting insurgents and terrorist as is believed by some. This war is Islam against Christendom, and it will have to be fought in every corner of this earth. The Pope must convince his followers (one billion or so) that in order for them to avoid a delay on their way to heaven (bypass purgatory), they must consider all Muslims as unbelievers and infidels. Christians must do as the Muslims have taught them: They must kill an infidel so their stay in paradise will be guaranteed and upon arriving in heaven they will be presented with seven virgins and all the Italian wine they can drink.
Dear Mr. Bush, I hope these ideas have been of some help to you. If you could run again, I'd vote for you.

Barbaret’s falling out

The foreigners at the meeting were concerned more with the aftermath of the incident and the scapegoat of foreigners in the local media. Several people raised concerns that both Roatan TV stations, run by Spanish speaking staff, have accused Kelcy Warren, an American owner of Barbaret, of ordering or personally killing the Helen island youth. "I was frightened of what Roberto [Romero] was saying and how far he was inciting the people," said Helen Murphy, an American living on Roatan, about a Channel 4 TV personality.
Channel 4 owner, Marco Galindo, agrees that the Barbaret coverage crossed a line: "These guys [Channel 4 personalities] are not very smart and when people call in, it makes a big commotion." While Galindo says that Channel 4 coverage is far from being journalism, he still gives his TV staff a wide degree of independence.
A different take on the matter had Congressman Jerry Hynds. "It was the Spanish media that took advantage of this. They [just] didn't want to say Spanish guys killed some black boys," said Congressman Hynds. "There was always a great rivalry between island people and Spanish people." As Bay Islands grow and the wealth gap amongst its residents widens, foreigners will likely play an active role in this "rivalry."

Lobster Guilt

My boat alone maintains forty families. Someone said that he could tell that the diving business was not a success because there were no rich divers. If he had looked a little closer he would have found out that there are no rich dive boat owners either.
The ad writers, using fallacious information stirred up interest in the international community for the "plight" of the Miskito Indian and now the international concerns are pressuring the Honduran government to close the diving.
Few mention the accident rates in diamond mines, gold mines, the petroleum industry and the fishing industry throughout the world. One recent year, in the United States alone, 285 fishermen lost their lives doing their job, the bigger percentage of those deaths occurred in Alaska. Maybe some headlines should have read "Some one may have died to get you that king-crab dinner".
In one fourteen year period (1972-1986) there were 960 linemen killed in the United States and Canada, but I don't remember seeing any headlines that read, "Some one may have died to keep your lights on."
There is nobody more concerned with the health and welfare of the Miskito diver than a dive boat owner. After all, we are the ones that have to pay and one sick diver can set us back quite a bit and a dead diver can create a permanent burden with a packinghouse. My motto has always been "Bring my boat back empty before you bring me a sick diver" and I want to believe that these are the sentiments of all dive boat owners.
There is an inherent risk in SCUBA diving, whether it is for lobster, for oil exploration or for pleasure and there are also dangers and risks in many other lines of work but there has been and always will be individuals that are willing to chance the odds in order to feed their families.

The Evil Amongst Us

The virus is present in all the bodily fluids of the infected person and during sexual contact it gains access to the uninfected person's blood stream through openings in the mucous membrane and through breaks in the skin.
HIV is a human retrovirus and once it has accessed the blood stream it then enters the human cells by binding to receptor proteins on the surface of human immune-cells (T cells). The virus then uses the cell's reproductive mechanisms to replicate itself as many times as it can before the cell dies. With the virus (HIV) using the cell's reproductive devices the immune cell cannot reproduce itself and over a period of time the immune-cell (CD4) count will drop from 1000 in a healthy person to 200 or less (per microliter of blood) in an infected person and this is when the full blown symptoms of AIDS appears.
With the continued depletion of the body's immune CD4-T cells, the immune systems will be unable to defend the body against any of 25 or so opportunistic diseases, any combination of which could be fatal. In spite of people's fear of being near an infected person, no evidence exists that link HIV transmission to casual contact with an infected person such as a handshake, hugging, or kissing on the skin, or even sharing dishes or bathroom facilities.
The HIV virus cannot exist for extended periods when exposed to the normal environment so you cannot pick it up from surfaces like you can with bacteria and other viruses like the ones that cause the common cold. During the last few years, this disease has become rampant among the inhabitants of this country, and it is now invading the islands. It is known that almost one hundred percent of the cases on these islands are attributed to unprotected sexual contact. To avoid contracting this virus, the safest thing to do is to "hold on to what you've got" and keep your loving at home and most importantly abstain from causal sex.

Jesus & Judas

The arguments for the resurrection are weak and could be classified as merely hearsay. Jesus predicted his death and placed great emphasis on his resurrection because the latter event would prove without a doubt that He was the long awaited messiah. His crucifixion was witnessed by all of Jerusalem but the resurrection, the single most important event on which the Christian faith is based, went without witnesses.
Our knowledge of the resurrection is based solely on the testimony of a few of his followers, the people he had to convince of his claim to be the Son of God. On that Sunday even Mary Magdalene did not recognize Him. He had only been in that sepulchre for about thirty-six hours. Mary Magdalene confused Him with the gardener (John 20:15) until he spoke in a special voice. He also had to use His special voice to convince Simon. Unfortunately Christ did not survive the ordeal on the cross: that gesture of mercy by that insignificant roman soldier was the reason why.
I'm not sure if the Gospel of Judas is important. There are about thirty other gospels written in about the same time period that go unmentioned in our bible. Judas has always been categorized as the villain in the Jesus story. Judas was the true friend and also the confidant of Jesus. There was only one person that could have saved Jesus from execution and that was Jesus himself.
On the occasion of his first day in the hands of the chief priest when asked if He was the Son of God, he answered them: Ye say that I am, (Luke 22:70). That expression can be translated into something like: if you say so! That is a wise crack in any language.
Judas Iscariot committed suicide but it was not because of a guilty conscience, it was from sorrow and grief because he had lost his best friend and that was not supposed to happen. We will just have to wait and see what affect these book and movie revelations will have on our beliefs. I must agree with Tom Hanks who, in the tradition of Yogi Berra, said: "You gonna believe what you gonna believe.

Wages of Sin

It is said that Jesus Christ came to earth to save mankind from sin, but the sentence was never repealed and man must still die before he can have eternal life.
According to some beliefs every person is considered a sinner from the moment of conception, or at least from the second we are born. This in itself is a great injustice. Adam was condemned without a trial by a jury of his peers and was denied the benefit of proper legal counsel. Even an inept public defender would have yelled entrapment. The real culprit of this case was not Adam, or Eve. The perpetrator of this crime (sin) was Satan.
On the day Lucifer was created, God must have left his crystal ball at home, because God apparently did not look too clearly at the future and did not know what lay ahead for mankind. If God did know what was going to happen, then I don't think that He should be credited with all that love and all mercifulness.
I always hear preachers yelling about. I believe that for that one crime (eating the fruit) there should have been no more than one punishment doled out. Death alone would have been punishment enough for that little crime.
If the judge was not satisfied with making death the wages of sin, He should have said "the wages of sin is death and mosquitoes" this most certainly would have been enough of a sentence.
Now that we have enough people to form a proper jury I'm calling for a retrial of Adam and Eve and I want to have a couple of Jewish lawyers on their side of the table. Satan must be brought in as a material witness and by his very nature he should be considered a hostile witness. Because he was the inventor of lies and deceit everything he says must be taken with a grain of salt. We must have the original judge sit at this new trial but the judge must be warned that the jury alone will decide whether to convict or to acquit the defendants.
If the defendant is acquitted the old sentence must be repealed and it must be retroactive back through time, and all those that have died because of sin must live again. If we win this case and Adam is acquitted, it will prove that the great one is not infallible and I will go on to demand some democratic changes in the dictatorial system of government that has held power in heaven for so long.

Instrospective

Democracy- Honduran Style

Every body knows that in this country we vote strictly according to tradition.
You might ask why is it then that in a specific area, the party that's in power during an election can end up losing that election..... /December 2005/

A Mother's Love

Many years ago on a small farm on the island of Bonnaco a small boy lay very ill and though he was being tended to by his loving grandmother the labored breathing of the child was a sure indication that without the proper medication this child would die..... /June 2005/

The Missing Button

In a previous edition of this magazine, I wrote an article about my present-day beliefs in Christ and Christianity. However, I was not always of this persuasion..... /January 2004/