Before its widespread use in business, the phrase "trimming the fat" literally referred to the practice of customers asking butchers to "cut the fat" in order to get more and leaner cuts of meat. In a climate such as ours with no deficiency of calories, the fat is what is left over and sometimes used to feed dogs in lieu of expensive foreign chow. This provides an interesting alternative way to read the recent utterances of the Minister of Legal Affairs. ���
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If, as the minister and his colleagues assert, many of those people have become too comfortable living off the fat of the land, I wonder if it is because it is all they have been getting while others have been feasting "on high" on the rare meat/flesh of this nation? A "tiny" lad like Minister Taylor probably was not the right mouthpiece to bring this message of cutting back on the fat. Indeed, in the coming weeks we will witness among the masqueraders, ministerial and presidential bodies and others who have not had to live off the fat of the land but who have enjoyed the leanest and choicest meats. �
While the Prime Minister may soon be advising us once again to tighten our economic belts, Taylor is right to point out that the population has become too sedentary, idiotically indolent and democratically (albeit not politically) lazy. One wonders though what may happen when even the fat is no more. Perhaps then we will exercise our rights? Pray that it is not then too late. �
Steven Khan
Canada