The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 1998 THE NEW TANNER Ln GRAPEVINI! New top staff at AHS Staff at Acton High school have' welcomed their newly appointed principal Greg MacPherson and vice-principal Caroline Conn-Smith with open arms. Before the ink was dry on the press release announcing their appointments for September, staff at Acton High had phoned to invite them to a staff golf outing. "What a welcome," exclaimed Conn-Smith on Friday. "I've heard great things about Acton and can't wait to meet everyone. Conn-Smith, who lives in Kilbride, north of Burlington, leaves her vice-principal post at Aldershot High school to come to Acton. Principal MacPherson was most recently in charge at Burlington Cen- tral High school where he was posted for seven years. Prior to that MacPherson was principal at Milton District High. Doggone missed it! Barley, the blues singing bowser, didn't get to show his stuff on Sat- urday in Toronto at a pet food com- pany's auditions for a singing spokespet, but his chances for star- dom are not over. Although his han- dlers showed up late for the live au- dition, they can still submit a video to the Advantage singing pet con- test, a North America-wide search for a "carolling cat or musical mutt." Barley's owner, Scott Masales of Singing Dog Cycle in Limehouse, said he'd set up a video machine at the shop because he expects * "every- body and their dog" sa poet to want to know what "T thought I'd better ener 'some- thing to show people since Barley didn't get there on time," Masales said. A video of Barley singing al- ready won a west-coast preliminary audition and Masales said a musi- cian friend is coming by this week to jam with Barley while they shoot some new footage of the video. Successful clinic The number of new, first-time blood donors at Thursday's Red Cross blood donor clinic at the Acton Legion made organizers very happy. Along with 20 new donors, a very large number for Acton, there was a huge turnout of students from Acton High, who along with the faithful regulars, donated 94 units of blood. On any given day the Toronto Blood Centre needs 650 units of blood for patients at the 61 hospitals in central Ontario that it covers. Acton Red Cross volunteers will hold an extra clinic at the Legion on Wednesday, July 8 from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. to meet the increased demand for blood during the summer months. Green light alert Do you know what to do if you see a car with a flashing green light while you are driving? Safety-minded and courteous drivers pull off to the side of the road and get out of the way because they know that the green light signifies that the driver is a fire fighter, on his or her way to the fire station to respond to an emergency call. As of July 1, the Province is giv- ing all fire fighters the option of us- ing a green flashing light, usually mounted on the dash, when they are responding to a fire call. The Halton ills fire department has launched an education campaign to let people know what the light signifies. One-half of Halton Hills fire fighters use the green flashing lights when they respond to a call. cur Our creas eee Should Mill Street be made a one way street? No, it wouldn't help. They should limit park- ing at Mill Street and Willow Street instead. Teresa Uiterwyk, Acton It would be inconvenient. I've never had any problems going through downtown. Ian Thomson, Eden Mills No. I've been in a lot of towns where it is a one-way street downtown and it doesn't help. Joe Gobin, Rockwood Yes they should. It would help cut down on accidents. Amanda White, Guelph This week's New Tanner survey by Angela Tyler HAVING A BERRY GOOD TIME: Lisa and Colleen Burt enjoyed strawberries and whipped cream at Churchill Churchs strawberry social this past Thursday. -- Angela Tyler photo Last week was kind of a slow news period. Nothing pithy piqued my interest. Time then to clean out the files and present a little pot pourri of comment. The World Cup Soccer tour- nament is on for the month. Al- though our kids all played (some still do), I can't get interested in watching the matches on TV. It's almost as exciting as watching aaa I love it when, in one layer is writhing | on the ne in excruciating pain and clutching his knee. Thirty seconds later, he's sprint- ing down the field at a pace only Donovan Bailey could exceed. I watched 15 minutes or so of a match last Saturday. Haven't seen so many dives since the last Sum- mer Olympics. Many of the a are on during the day so 'or the benefit of those readers who might miss a game, here are the scores: 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 0-0. That covers about 80 per cent of the games. Boring! kkk kk Convicted murderer and as- piring separatist Paul Rose was shouted down during a recent speaking engagement in Ottawa. Good for those who did that. Yes, I believe in free speech. But who says we have to provide a public forum for traitors? Paul Rose is a murderer and a traitor. Who will Ottawa U. have on next? Clifford Olson? Kkkkkk The new impotence pill, Viagra, is in the news again. Seems that 16 men have died while taking the new drug. Ru- mours that it took morticians hours to get the smiles off their faces have not been confirmed. All kidding aside, anyone using this product must get a full physi- cal and find out about the phar- macological side effects. Anyone on heart medication should be very wary. After all, you want this product to make you stiff; not make you a stiff. 'A bit of this, a bit of that! issue? His latest gaffe was to lump these poor people in with smokers who contract cancer. Will he ever admit he made a mistake and do the right thing? Don't hold your breath. - It was when he was i a question and sternly ieoured he couldn't Just "spend money" be- cause "it isn't mine, it's the tax- payers'." I started to gag. Now this is cae same P.M. gibose gins on. For} years now, prison staff' ave had to refer to inmates as cli- ents. As a result of the Guy Paul Morin inquiry, Crown prosecutors have been instructed to call accused people by name instead of referring to them as "the accused." The idea behind this is to present the accused as more of a person. The accused should also be allowed to sit beside their lawyer as opposed to being en- sconced in the prisoner's box. That will last until some Shylock has the poop beaten out of him by a client. I suppose, in most cases, it's a good idea. The problem comes when you're dealing with some child mo- lester, rapist or murderer. I have dif- ficulty being concerned about these creeps' dignity. I don't hold out much hope, though, that any mean- ingful re: erence will be made to these cretins. Something like "slime-suck- ing scumballs" would be nice. Well, wouldn't it? kkkkk I watched Hugh Segal announce his candidacy to lead the federal To- ries. Segal, who has twice gone down to defeat while running for a seat, is well known in the Toronto area as a "Red Tory." Now why would the Conservatives pick someone who would lead them down the same road to disaster they so recently trod. It is widely expected that Joe Who (Clark) will announce this week. Great, that makes Joe Who and Hugh Who the front runners for the job no one wants. Maybe God is a Liberal. Speaking of Liberals, is there any Duh! chance the P.M. will get his shoe out Problem is, he'll probably get of his mouth over the Hepatitis C it. It's only tax money, you see. Calling the raise "a modest one" and "completely justifiable," Mon- sieur Chretien seemed annoyed the press would even question the trough top-up. MPs' pay is now in the top 10 per cent salary bracket in the country. For this, we get to watch MPs vote against their con- sciences because the P.M. has given them marching orders. You'd think that for the equiva- lent of $140,000 (if fully taxed), we could attract some people with the courage to do the right thing. Seems not. Speaking of political hacks, ar other bunch just got appointed gaggle was well known hockey player Frank Mahovlich. Now the Big M has always been a left winger, but this is ridiculous. What's next? Eddie Shack to the Supreme Court? kkkkk And lastly, yet another Rottweiler has been shot by police. The officers were at a house in- vestigating a domestic dispute. On three occasions they asked the owner to confine the dog in a sepa- rate room. From my viewpoint, when armed people ask me to do something, I tend to comply. In- stead, the dog was allowed to run at the officer and was subsequently shot. Now the owner is looking for compensation for the vet's bill in mary fer cone for MPs. the Senate. The big surprise in the Got a Beef? Write a letter to the editor! Deadline is Tuesday at noon cs