Cut me some slack, all you PC mopes, as well as my estimable readers of Greek heritage. No ethnic slur is intended by the headline. It’s a famous literary expression penned by the Roman epic poet Virgil referring to the celebrated Trojan horse episode in the Iliad tale of ancient Greece. Given the contents of that Trojan horse, Virgil’s sentiments were right on the money.
And so, too, is my borrowing of the saying to describe an interesting development on the utility competition front. Crossing my desk recently was an unsolicited manuscript by one M. William Brier, vice president, marketing and communication, of the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association of the electric utility industry. It was an op-ed commentary aimed at contractor publications — although someone at EEI forgot to stroke some keys in the word processor and it went out under the title, “Only Truly Competitive Electricity Markets Will Benefit Manufacturers.” Having suffered my share of typos, I will refrain from gloating, but not from noting that the mistake inadvertently draws attention to the article’s status as boilerplate propaganda.