Media Masturbation…

By: Mike Rudon Jr.

On Monday morning driving into work I caught a bit of the Love FM talk show with Rene Villanueva Sr. and Ava Diaz. The hot topic was the transportation system, and one mother who called in was clearly furious, frustrated and almost in tears as she explained how difficult it is to get her son, a student, onto a bus to Belize City every Monday morning. Another caller right after spoke about all the students left on the road because of an inadequate number of bus runs and messed up scheduling. I don’t need to go into much details about the transportation chaos because everybody who commutes by bus knows that the experience can range anywhere from inconvenient and annoying to damned unpleasant and infuriating. I usually try not to get pissed off before 8:00am, but I had to make an exception as the talk show hosts agreed that the transportation system is messed up, and then immediately launched into ‘protect UDP/GOB mode.’ This morning the hosts blamed everybody but the Minister and chief policy-maker for the shambles – hell, even terminal managers got their dose. Melvin Hulse got a free pass, as usual. The hosts even attempted to deflect blame by claiming that the past administration had the same problem. Like we shouldn’t expect or demand anything from this crowd because of the past administration. That’s just plain bogus.

Melvin Hulse appears regularly on Love FM’s morning show, where he is pampered, powdered, petted and treated with ‘love.’ A couple times when callers have ratcheted up the tension with complaints, Melvin’s response has been – yes, we know about the situation and have taken steps to correct it, so in a month or so everything will be under control. The thing is – that month or so hasn’t happened yet. Meanwhile commuters continue to bear the brunt of incompetence and political interference in the bus industry. Since the UDP got in they have turned the transportation system upside down to suit their own purposes.  So don’t give me that crap about it not being the Minister’s fault, because it is. And don’t tell me that this isn’t the worst it has ever been, because it is.

I’m getting a little pissed off at some elements of the media whose objectivity seems to have flat-lined and whose tenacity seems to have gone on vacation. From the tone of the callers to the morning shows these days, I think they’re getting a little pissed off too. The thing is that under the previous administration, if the former PM broke wind the media was there to tell him what he had for lunch and to castigate him for daring to pollute the environment. Now this bunch of crooks and half-wits and no-wits has veritable diarrhea and nobody seems to give a damn. Even worse – the PM realizes that nobody seems to give a damn and is utilizing his free pass for all its worth. It’s just sick.

Case in point – the City Council’s audit report! To put it as diplomatically as I can, the report tells the tale of a stinking mess of corruption, mismanagement and misappropriation in City Hall. Dem people tief! In just the first two pages, investigators turned up hundreds of thousands of dollars missing. There were no controls in place and our money was flying in and out of that place. There is cause at least for a criminal investigation; cause for immediate suspensions and terminations and I believe cause for the Mayor to be hauled out of that place in bangles and thrown into the piss-house. This article is way too short for me to even get into all the instances of missing money and corrupt practices, of sweetheart deals, bloated contracts and abused resources. It’s all there in black and white. We didn’t write the report. It didn’t come from the PUP. It’s not political propaganda.

That report was delivered to the Prime Minister way back in September, five months ago. Maybe it sat on his desk, or maybe it is still gathering dust in a drawer somewhere. Maybe the PM got so busy coming up with schemes to make his family richer that he forgot about it. Who knows? But the thing is that despite the shocking nature of the report; despite the accusations against the Mayor and despite the fact that it is our money that was being pilfered and plundered by the UDP, Dean Barrow didn’t do s@#t. He still hasn’t done s@#t. With all that evidence in front of him, Dean Oliver still had the balls to stand in front of us and say that he was putting another tax in place so that we could pay the City Council more so that Zenaida could get more of our money to play around with.

And you know what? The media has been silent, with the exception of a few. And this is just one example of many. Hell, I can understand the concept of a honeymoon after elections, but this has got to be the longest honeymoon in history. It’s been two damned years, people. Way past time to stop blaming the past administration for everything and way past time to stop giving the UDP a free pass. Hell, I’m not asking the media to crucify the UDP just for the hell of crucifixion. All I’m asking is for the media to do what it’s supposed to and get to the bottom of all this crap that’s bogging down our people. Jeez. Let’s start taking the UDP to task when it does wrong. Is that too much to ask?

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