Emerging
from the whine cellar
by
Robert LaFrance
Time to quit whining about winter
coming. Let’s get on with complaining about other things!
It was interesting to hear
Environment and Local Government Minister Bruce Fitch say, after he’d made his
government’s long-delayed relocation announcement, that the people of
Perth-Andover are ‘partially to blame’ for the fact that only some of the
flooded houses will be moved this fall. He said there should have been a lot
more than twenty lots ready.
I could be wrong (I often am) but I’m
quite sure that everybody in and around the village and others who were
listening to and watching the news realized that there wasn’t much point
getting lots ready if the government decided to do everything BUT move houses.
If I were a land developer in Perth-Andover, would I really want to spend many
tens of thousands of dollars to develop lots only to find that the government
had decided to put all their money on ‘mitigation’?
It was his own government that
caused the problem, but then, isn’t it always?
I found it odd that in neither government
announcement was the flooding of Muniac Road mentioned. During the flood, most
of those on the Perth side of the river could leave the village via Jawbone
Mountain, but in order to get to Waterville hospital, they had to go up to
Arthurette, over to the St. John River, cross Brooks Bridge (if possible) or go
up to Grand Falls and downriver on the Trans Canada Highway. If they could have
gone via Muniac it was just a matter of driving down through Bath etc. and crossing
the river at Hartland. Too simple?
Well! That was a good start on the
complaining, wasn’t it?
On to sibling matters, I see that
it’s time to start hating my sister again. It won’t be long – a month or two
- before the snowy swirling winds of
Kincardine are all around me and she sends an email letter from Florida: “It’s
82 degrees here today with a nice breeze. We took a walk around the lake…” You
want to know the definition of hate? Call me on that day. I will not only
define the word, but will add some adjectives, free of charge.
While I’m in the whine cellar, I
should mention one of the most annoying things about working with a computer. I
have a feature on my computer’s operating system that tells me when I plug in
earphones. This fabulously helpful sign pops up and says: “You have just
plugged a device into your audio jack.”
Really?
It’s nice to be informed about this
sort of thing. Just think, if a burglar or my Aunt Marion somehow sneaked up to
my office while I was typing and they plugged in my earphones, I would know
immediately and could call the police during one of their frequent patrols
through the Scotch Colony. I daresay that Stephen Harper’s Omnibus Crime Bill (Safe Streets and Communities Act), passed in March, has something to say
about these hoodlums plugging ‘devices’ into the audio jack of my computer.
Those
who read this column but don’t use a computer don’t have any idea what I’m
talking about, but here’s a comparison: You are sitting in your living room and
a dump truck backs onto the lawn just outside, then dumps a load of topsoil
there. This is a load that you have ordered. The driver comes in and says: “I
just dumped a load of topsoil onto your lawn.” Oh, really?
I
sure got reaction to last week’s column that listed many (about .0004%) of the
things I hate. People phoned and emailed in defence of wind chimes, and even
though I didn’t mention cats, they defended them too. I will not despair
though; of the 261 letters I received, almost one percent agreed with me on at
least one of the points. That’s progress. In 2007 I wrote an anti-cat column
and received 1,432 letters, all against. It’s probably time to write a pro-cat
column, and I will. As soon as I find something good to say about cats.
-end-
No comments:
Post a Comment