Bill Rowe's column in this week's weekend Telegram is noteworthy for two reasons:
First of all, he repeats a story not realising that it is actually used by the less enlightened as a backhanded insult to both Loyola Sullivan and others from the Southern Shore. Rhyming off the times tables is not a mark of genius in any part of the world - except Bill Rowe's corner, apparently. The astute people from Da Shore apparently understand that far better than the townie columnist.
Second, Rowe plants so many passionate kisses on Sullivan's penny-pinching arse that one wonders if readers should avert their eyes for having stumbled, innocently but no less embarrassingly on the literary rendering of some school-child's first crush.
Loyola Sullivan was more commonly known as the Rain Man among denizens of the East Block for his ability to recite digits but assign them no deeper meaning than their mathematical value. He was indeed a well-respected politician, as are many and in Sullivan's case the high regard in which he was held was well deserved.
But beyond that and offering us no less than two reminders in two back-to-back sentences that Rowe was once in the same general vicinity as power (As Danny's ambassador to Hy's), Rowe's column gives us absolutely no insight into one of the political events of a year already chock-full of political events that will be long- remembered and oft-pondered.
Why did Sullivan give Danny a political kick in the goolies that evidently sent Danny's teeth a chattering just as it sent tongues wagging across the country? Do not look to Rowe for a possible answer, any more than one might look to him for an explanation of why he voted for the Churchill Falls deal. This is the print version of Rowe's host-talk-caller-listen show.
Such is the sheer inanity of the second half of Rowe's column, that he had the first PIFO Award sewn up until a few mouse clicks revealed the a better work by that other inveterate anony-quoter, Warren Kinsella.
But here's one for William to ponder: if Loyola Sullivan is such a penny-pincher with public funds, how could he sanction overspending $3.2 million of public money through the House of Assembly members accounts from 1998 to 2005, with the bulk of the overspending occurring while he sat both on the house management committee and as finance minister?