"overheard

Chillin'

"I'm unable to comment on the key stories of the day because I don't want to exacerbate the lawsuit. It ain't no beach party being sued."

-- Winnipeg MP Pat Martin is hitting the fundraising road this summer to help settle an expensive libel lawsuit over comments he made earlier this year.

A for attendance

"I love school so much that I'm going to go to university so I can become a teacher and come back to school."

-- Neil Burnet, 17, graduated last week from Lundar School in the Interlake with perfect attendance from kindergarten to Grade 12.

Small bite of the apple

"I was earning $11.25 an hour. Part of me was thinking, 'This is great. I'm an Apple fan, the store is doing really well.' But when you look at the amount of money the company is making and then you look at your paycheck, it's kind of tough."

-- Jordan Golson, who sold about $750,000 worth of computers and gadgets at the Apple Store in Salem, N.H.

Going down, down, down

"A recession is when things are going down. A depression is when things are down."

-- Paul Krugman, American economist

Times need to be a'changing

"I'd been part, albeit unwittingly, of making millions of women feel that they are to blame if they cannot manage to rise up the ladder as fast as men and also have a family and an active home life (and be thin and beautiful to boot)."

-- Anne-Marie Slaughter explains why she wrote the article Why Women Still Can't Have It All, about why she stepped away from a high-profile Washington job to tend to her family.

Reporting's a bitch, Part 1

"Change the D to a B in your last name and we're even!"

-- Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau takes issue with Canadian Press reporter Jennifer Ditchburn's story that he has the poorest attendance record for this session of Parliament.

... and Part 2

"Dear Senator: Many a person has made fun of my name and (the) word 'Bitch'. But never a Canadian senator. That's a first."

-- Ditchburn responds, also on Twitter. Brazeau was absent for 25 per cent of the 72 sittings between June 2011 and April 2012, the Senate attendance register shows. By the end of that period, the Quebecer was four days away from being fined, Ditchburn reported.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 1, 2012 J2