Cheers: to the citizens who spoke for most of the rest of us at Thursday’s sitting of the Public Utilities Board in St. John’s. Keith Fillier, James Murphy and Lori Moore made a plea for an electricity rate freeze as people brace for an extreme hike in rates once Muskrat Falls power comes into play in 2020. As Murphy so aptly noted: “This really isn’t the time for our politicians to be having a one-upmanship of each other, trying to fool the electorate into voting for them in the next election. This isn’t an election campaign. This is basically our futures we’re looking at and everybody is affected.” Thanks for making citizens’ voices heard.
Jeers: to road rage. If only the driver spotted leaving the Tim Hortons’ parking lot off Mount Scio Road the other day had been looking in a mirror and instead of glaring out through his windshield. He would have seen his own red face, twisted into an angry grimace — jaw twitching and eyes bulging — as he shook his fists and screamed obscenities at a driver who had done nothing untoward except presumably drive her car in a lane he wanted to get into. Oh, did we mention he had a child in the backseat? There’s a good life lesson for you. Take a breath, folks. It’s a road, not a battlefield.
Jeers: to vague assurances. When asked last week about the possibility that the provincial government might give people some tax relief in Budget 2019, Finance Minister Tom Osborne offered the consummate politician’s reply: “If we’re able to afford to provide some levels of relief in Budget 2019 we will. We will only do that if we’re able to do so while still maintaining our plan to return to surplus by 2022-2023 and continue to strengthen the economy of the province.” In other words, he can’t say yet. I’m guessing any plan for tax relief is being kept under the same wraps where they’ve stashed the province’s plan for electricity rate mitigation.
Jeers: to over-exposure. There’s one way to stave off a tussle about to break out on an athletic field — hang a moon. That’s what 57-year-old Debbie L. McCulley of Virginia is said to have done on a softball field in May, when she says she thought the coach from the opposing team was about to attack her husband, who coaches the junior varsity team from Glenvar High School in Salem, Va. As the Associated Press reported: “A Floyd County sheriff's deputy’s report says McCulley took the field after a loss to Floyd County High School and exposed her right butt cheek.” She’s been charged with indecent exposure, but that might be dropped, since she has apologized and will do community service. After all, everyone makes an ass of themselves now and then.
