National Geographic

Anthony: ‘What do you like best about living here?’ And there goes my day . . .

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"Time and tide wait for no man" -- Geoffrey Chaucer
“Time and tide wait for no man” — Geoffrey Chaucer  Wait! Did Chaucer ever visit Belize? I think not.

“What do you like best about living here?”

My neighbor Anthony just pitched that question to me. And my answer was a swing-and-a-miss.

“Well,” I fumbled around, stalling while my thought processes kicked into gear. If there is such a thing as a WD-40 for the brain, I needed me some. “That’s a really good question.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Opened a coconut with a machete today and, yes, I’m typing with all my fingers

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Did you know more people die from falling coconuts (and falling out of coconut trees) than from shark attacks every year? Apparently that is a false statement. So, rest easy Belize!
Did you know more people die from falling coconuts (and falling out of coconut trees) than from shark attacks every year? Not true! Apparently this false statement is resurrected every time a shark attacks a human. So, rest easy Belize, knowing we have both a lot of coconut trees and sharks and that we’re relatively safe from both.

The mere fact that you are reading this is proof that I can, and did, successfully open my first coconut.

With a machete.

I bought the machete a few weeks ago. I suppose I could have bought a mahogany club, as some of my neighbors have. But a machete is dual purpose: self-defense and opening coconuts. Read the rest of this entry »

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Waterfront property? Wait for it … wait for it ….

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In this screen grab from the National Geographic, Belize would be a small lump of land and San Francisco would be the Venice of the West should all the Earth's ice melt. Though it would take 5,000 years for that to happen, climate change and rising sea levels are already having an impact on coastal lands.
In this screen grab from the National Geographic, Belize would be a small lump of land and San Francisco would be the Venice of the West should all the Earth’s ice melt. Though it would take 5,000 years for that to happen, climate change and rising sea levels are already having an impact on coastal lands.

As Rose and I ponder the pros and cons of living inland or on the coast of  Belize, a new thought enters my mind: Could we be going about all of this wrong?

I have been looking at this scary interactive map on the National Geographic website titled “If All the Ice Melted.” The map invites you to “explore the world’s new coastlines if sea level rises 216 feet.”

Apparently 216 feet is how high the oceans would rise if the title of this interactive comes true. In other words, if Tea Party’s climate-change deniers and industrial polluters prevail and Ted Cruz gets elected president and puts Sarah Palin in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency …

Naturally I went straight to Belize on the map.

Or, where Belize used to be. Read the rest of this entry »

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