Journalists hunt for summertime news
Summertime, and the livin’ may, indeed, be easy, and the fish might even be jumpin’, but, here in Newfoundland, it’s usually a downtime for juicy news, invariably a frustrating couple of months for reporters on the prowl for headlines or a lead story, and, as it naturally follows, an aggravating occasion for columnists in search of yarns that might inspire a thought or two, or politicians to scold or mock.
I mean, what’s a fella to do? Here’s the premier, Dwight Ball, a leader so atrocious he could — in the everything’s relative school of retrospection — bring Kathy Dunderdale from an F to a C on her political report card, constantly serving up juicy pitches that beg to be belted from Confederation Building to St. Pat’s Ball Field, but suddenly performing a disappearing act, and, most recently, escaping to the Yukon to cry on the shoulders of his fellow premiers, all of whom share the complaint that they’re just misunderstood, that their messages of hope and optimism are being hijacked by those jaded jackasses in the newsrooms of the country. (They will emerge from their wining and dining and self-aggrandizement with, undoubtedly, a typical, breathtaking announcement: “We have agreed to further investigate the possibility of a policy a decade from now that will incorporate all of our common denominators of purpose.”)
Reporters still haven’t had a chance, I don’t believe, to ask the premier, our Man from Glad, Mr. Mannequin, about Siobhan Coady and her Newfoundland version of the Hillary Clinton email scandal. No, the security of the most powerful nation in the world wasn’t placed in jeopardy by Coady, but she certainly appeared to have handled her electronic communications in a rather cavalier fashion (conveniently sloppy if her goal was to thwart access to information requests).
And how about Ball explaining why three senior members of his office staff have either quit in recent weeks or been moved to less important roles. Were they dismissed (and made an exit longing for an Ed Martin severance package)? Did they quit before they were pushed? Is their departure still another piece of evidence that the Liberals came into power like a bunch of naive schoolboys and schoolgirls playing a made-up parliamentary game, unable to distinguish their arses from the proverbial hole in the ground, and are now in deep search for a few scapegoats to blame for their incredible ineptitude?
If I might digress here: the shakeup in the premier’s office reminds me of an amusing, double-entendre headline in the then Evening Telegram in the 1970s (that Ray Guy had taped to the wall above his desk for years), one that announced that the Tory government had decided that Frank Moores (whose promiscuity was legendary) needed more people to keep him on track in his dayto-day affairs. The headline stated, simply enough: “Premier’s Staff Grows and Grows.” BA-DUM. TSHH. Now, I should admit that there was some scrambling in newsrooms at one point this past week — a hullabaloo about who could and could not participate in the Pride parade; much ado about nothing, if you ask me. The real story was the fact that thousands marched, something that would have been unheard of not so long ago, when religious nut-cases promoted, and delighted in, homophobic attitudes in St. John’s. Here’s hoping those narrow-minded Bible thumpers upchucked their fish and chips when they watched coverage of the parade on their evening news shows.
Then there was that UNESCO announcement: the United Nations decided that Mistaken Point should be designated a world heritage site because it contained some of the oldest fossils known to man. “Mistaken Point holds the history of life on Earth” read the Canadian Press headline. Who’d have known? And here I had been giving credit all along to David Suzuki or perhaps the CBC Radio program “Quirks & Quarks.”
I couldn’t help but wonder whether a century from now, another UNESCO site might be designated in the province, a place of ignominious history, at Muskrat Falls.
Perhaps the distinctive, fossilized footprints of Danny Williams might have been found, with dollar signs spelling out “Danny’s Debacle.” Or perhaps Stan Marshall’s prints might be evident, with a single word etched into the rocks: “Boondoggle.”
Nearby, there might be other fossils, 50 years older than the evidence of the Muskrat Falls project, an outline of a tiny man with big glasses and a bow tie, and the infamous, ironic section of his speech promising that the waters of the mighty Churchill would be developed for the people of Newfoundland.
What the archeologists and the UNESCO types might also uncover would be fossils of what appear to be thousands of Newfoundlanders, long gone.
Ancient electrical bills might also be visible, along with bankruptcy documents.
There could also be fossilized tears, and the words: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”