From The Editors

Oh, those lights in the sky

Posted by Phil Andrews

The protagonist of W.P. Kinsella's novel If Wishes Were Horses is a newspaper reporter who is duped by a UFO hoax. He loses his job after convincing his editors to run with an alien encounter story that turns out to be bogus.

It's a fictional but cautionary tale about the perils of doing such journalism.

Our coverage Wednesday surrounding strange lights in the sky over Guelph proved a day after our story to have a terrestrial and heart-warming explanation.

Frequent contributor Troy Bridgeman told me after the mystery was solved that he had been urged in the past to do a similar UFO sighting story which also turned out to be linked to lanterns being released into the sky.

 

50 years and still motorin'

Ted Woods cuts into a special cake shaped like a Viper, complete with his license plate on the back, to celebrate his 50th anniversary of fulltime employment at Wellington Chrysler Jeep Dodge FIAT. The party attracted special guests/friends/customers such as Norm Jary, John Valeriote, Barry Cullen, Howard Robinson and Noreen Clemes, along with his family and the team at Wellington, including some retirees.

Ted's father, along with two other partners, started Wellington Motors in August of 1940 in downtown Guelph. Ted started working part-time at the age of nine but didn't start fulltime until May 1962. Fifty years later he's still here full time, every day.

It’s been jokingly suggested a few times that retirement might be a consideration. He jokingly suggested he's good for another 50 years!!! Three more years until Wellington Motors' 75th anniversary.

I guess we'll take the special milestones one at a time.

-- Information supplied by Mike Woods

Celebration of cultures at John F. Ross

Idayalys de la Caridad Mendoza Galan, Javier Quinteros, Miguel Castellanos Suarez, Emcir Ramirez Ochoa, Qinyan Ren, Stefani Paoli Kuster and Yi-Ting Yuan work to create a banner during the recent Multicultural Week at John F Ross CVI.

Organized by Hewan Wossene, the third annual celebration included fun lunch activities such as an artfest, henna design, a spelling bee, an amazing race, and a multicultural feast.

-- Information supplied by Carolyn Frielink, English as a Second Language department head at John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational Institute

Marino Gazzola finds himself in a political hot spot

Posted by Phil Andrews

The chair of the local Catholic school board finds himself in a hot political debate as the new head of the Ontario Catholics School Trustees Association.

This could see Gazzola receiving a lot of media attention as he represents the association on the gay-straight-clubs label controversy.

*** This post has been updated***

The story now has another Guelph angle as Cardinal Thomas Collins has offered a public statement on the matter.

 

Southern exposure

About half the population of Clyde River on the north shore of Baffin Island in Nunavut are under the age of 18. Fifteen of those kids are being hosted by Guelph CVI this week during a school exchange.

On Thursday they planted three trees on the school's grounds, helping to achieve the goal of planting 100 species of trees around the school. Started in 2007, the Guelph CVI arboretum is believed to be the first high school arboretum in Canada, and was started to promote urban forestry and increased biodiversity.

With a population of about 800, mostly Inuit, Clyde River has a spectacular view of mountains, but very few trees. It has 24-hour sunlight during the summer, and the sun doesn't shine for about two months during the winter.

-- Rob O'Flanagan, Guelph Mercury

A statement from Andrew Prescott

Posted by Phil Andrews

An insider on the campaign of Guelph Conservative Party of Canada candidate Marty Burke has issued an "official statement," on his blog.

Andrew Prescott's statement does little for me to clear the air about the robocalls caper he has been connected to in various media reports.

There's no public evidence of which individual or individuals are behind the fraudulent robocalls.

This blog-statement twist -- with video -- just puzzles me.

Kelly-Pflug Back on being a G-20 'scapegoat' and more

Posted by Phil Andrews

This is an interesting Q and A with former Guelph activist Kelly Pflug-Back.

It will be interesting to see if it influences her sentencing.

She asserts some interesting positions on the criminalization of wearing a mask in a protest and on how she characterizes the G20 property damage credited to her.

She also side-steps a question about whether violently criminal protest should be supported.

Local girl meets Camilla, maybe

Posted by Phil Andrews

We're chasing suggestions that a Guelph girl was part of a Royal visit ceremony Tuesday that saw her present flowers to Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.

It's a tricky proposition though in that our sources haven't known the name of the child who is purported to have participated in the event.

All tips welcome on this one...

Almost a Guelph call to revive the spring bear hunt in Ontario

Posted by Phil Andrews

I'm interested in what the reaction will be to Owen Roberts next Urban Cowboy column.

Roberts comes very close to suggesting that Ontario should reinstate the spring bear hunt -- in light of the headache such bruins cause farmers and since black bears have been in the news over the shooting of such an animal in Burlington this week.

There is a good public policy discussion to be had about whether to reinstate this hunt. But I can's see the pro-hunt side getting much support in Guelph.Unfortunately, discussion on this point is very polarized and quite split along rural-urban lines.

 

 

Reader reaction at marijuana supply store boom

Posted by Phil Andrews

Reader reaction online and off-line has differed greatly regarding our story about the recent local proliferation of marijuana-smoking accessory stores.

Online, there is no commentary ripping the Mercury for paying attention to this subject. The comments relate to the issues raised in the story and this retailing issue generally.

Off-line, I'm fielding calls and the promise of letters to the editor from readers greatly troubled that the Mercury has given this subject coverage and prominent coverage at that.

A similar divide was experienced a few years back when we explored a boom in the number of local tattoo shops. We were doing market research with focus groups when that was published and hard-copy readers in that process were greatly displeased we had tackled such a subject.