"Overheard

Freshly squeezed

"Bev Oda's lifetime pension should cover about 43,841 glasses of $16 orange juice."

-- Derek Fildebrandt, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's national research director, reacting to news International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda resigned this week. Her annual pension will start at $52,183 and add up to $701,464 by the time she reaches the age of 80.

Then come the locusts

"What we're seeing really is a window into what global warming really looks like. It looks like heat. It looks like fires. It looks like this kind of environmental disasters."

-- Princeton University geosciences and international affairs Prof. Michael Oppenheimer bites back an 'I told you so' before America's East Coast was hit with above 38 C temperatures and a killer windstorm blew through Chicago to Washington.

Small-town goodness

"I guess you could say I created Andy Taylor. Andy Taylor's the best part of my mind. The best part of me."

-- American icon Andy Griffith reflects on his beloved Mayberry sheriff's role in 2007. The actor died this week at the age of 86.

An inspiration to us all

"It is what it is. I wouldn't put it up there with doctor or astronaut. I think there's a little bit 'This isn't what I would have chosen for myself.' "

-- 'Blake,' a 31-year-old self-taught male stripper from Chicago, isn't as enthralled with his profession as the latest Hollywood take on it, Magic Mike.

A cultural shift

"Very rarely do we get to bear witness to a major paradigm shift such as the one KFC is currently responsible for. By putting the cheese on top of the burger at their restaurants in the Philippines, they've shown us that, when it comes to food, all rules have now been shoved aside."

-- Malene Arpe, Canadian pop-culture commentator, who worries the new KFC system will put cheese on customers' noses.

What a monopoly can do

"It is interesting that with some other major promises Harper couldn't fulfil in a minority government -- such as eliminating the long-gun registry and the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board -- he simply held off until he got his majority and then pushed the changes through. But when it came to an appointments commission to turn off the taps to the patronage gravy train, Harper earned his majority and then eliminated the whole idea entirely in a little more than a year."

-- Mia Rabson, Winnipeg Free Press Ottawa bureau chief

Laughter above?

"Nora Ephron died. Christopher Hitchens is about to find out just how bleeping funny women really are."

-- Denis Leary tweeted his feelings upon hearing of Ephron's death last week.

Hollywood ending

"Let's be honest, if he does another Mission Impossible, no one will care one lick about the divorce."

-- Paul Dergarabedian, a box-office analyst, on the hit Tom Cruise's career could take over his divorce from Katie Holmes.Holmes.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 7, 2012 j2