Cheers & Jeers

Cheers: to a thought. The province wants to cut insurance costs, save money on health care, reduce accidents on our highways and the list goes on. How about mandatory driver’s education, so every new driver on our roads gets the best possible, safest start? Heck, we could even offer retroactive courses for those already on the road. Chapter One: using your turn signal. Chapter Two: the safe merge. Chapter Three: this is the speed limit. Chapter Four: securing your load.

Jeers: to a distinct lack of imagination. Why is it that the pamphlets from most of the returning St. John’s City Council candidates all look like colour variations on the same web-based template? Do we vote for “smiling suit jacket, no tie, blue banner” or “smiling suit jacket, necktie, green banner”? Decisions, decisions. Same as always, or something new?

Cheers: to correspondence from the spam world. This just in: “We the Board of Directors, United Bank Of Africa (UBA BANK) has ordered our Foreign Payment Remittance Unit to issue you a CORPORATE ATM CARD where your African Beneficiary fund of 7.5 million U.S Dollars will be uploaded, and today we got notice that your Payment has been uploaded into this CORPORATE ATM CARD and also have registered it with DHL courier company {DHL} for delivery to you.” All we have to do is file our personal details. We’re NGDI about that — not gonna do it.

Cheers: to objectivity. When pitching a story to a newsroom about your need to respond to a controversy, make sure to describe your “obligation” to “balance the growing hysteria kept alive by fear mongers with self-serving interests,” as one company recently suggested to The Telegram. It works almost as well as starting your missive with “Listen, you shameless hacks.” We’ll be back to you shortly.

Cheers: to existential questions. At the crack of dawn, the line painters move through the city painting crosswalks, turning arrows and the rest of the traffic direction we need for safe driving. But after watching a crew put out new lines on the parkway, complete with bright orange traffic cones to warn of wet paint, a question comes to mind: when a car changes lanes through the wet paint leaving a long row of tire-dashes in its wake, does the mess irk the careful painters? Or is it just par for the course?

Jeers: to the sea, my friends, to the sea. When a judge starts a sentencing hearing with “Mr. Payne has been angry for a long time,” you know things are going a little sideways. But rarely does the ocean share the blame. In one recent Corner Brook case, though, that was part of the defence: “Mr. Payne agreed that his voice was raised and that he was swearing. He stated that the ‘more I swear the more contrary I get.’ He referred to having been a fisherman for 20 years and indicated that ‘salt water makes a man contrary.’” Indeed.