Click The Pic For The Slide Show With Thom’s Pics

McPherson Senior Christmas Party Slide Show From Thom Falzorano

A fitting end for Andrus and the Argos

In an all-around ugly season, the Argos saved perhaps their worst performance for last. Despite resting several starters with the playoffs looming, the Montreal Alouettes took command early and romped to a 42-17 win in Saturday’s season finale at Rogers Centre.

The Alouettes, with backup quarterback Anthony McPherson starting in place of the league’s top passer, Anthony Calvillo, scored on their first three possessions and took a 26-4 lead to halftime. McPherson was near flawless all afternoon, completing 16-of-20 passes for 151 yards and two touchdowns before giving way to third-stringer Chris Leak to start the fourth quarter. McPherson also ran for 55 yards.

For the Argos, it was only a fitting end to a season of frustration. Even so, head coach Bart Andrus had positive things to say about his squad after the game.

“I told them how much they persevered throughout this year,” Andrus said of his post-game speech. “The way they came to work, their professionalism — this is a good group of people.

“When you have a group that works as has as they work, it’s just a matter of time before positive things begin to happen.”

Of course, time will tell if Andrus is around to witness a possible turnaround. He declined to comment after the game regarding his future and the future of the franchise as a whole. After a 3-15 campaign and with talk of the team potentially being sold, Andrus is as good a bet as anyone not to be back in 2010.

With little more to play for than pride, Andrus handed the starting quarterback duties for the finale to rookie Stephen Reaves. The southpaw struggled from the get-go in his first CFL start, overthrowing Brad Smith on Toronto’s opening possession for an interception that led to a Damon Duval field goal. In all, Reaves threw four picks and had another negated by a roughing-the-passer penalty.

“It was tough,” Reaves said afterward. “I pressed too much. I have to do a better job of taking what the defense gives me. I’d love to have a few of those back. Overall, a tough day against a tough defense.”

Reaves wasn’t the only Argo to slip up on an error-filled day. Andre Durie returned a first quarter kick 104 yards for an apparent touchdown, only to have it called back because of an unnecessary roughness call on Raymond Fontaine. Earlier in the quarter, long snapper Etienne Legare airmailed a snap to Justin Medlock, resulting in a turnover and an 18-yard McPherson touchdown pass to Kerry Walkins one play later.

Running back Jamal Robertson scored Toronto’s only touchdown on a one-yard run late in the third quarter but struggled horribly the rest of the afternoon, finishing with negative six yards on five carries. The Argos finished with zero rushing yards as a team.

If it’s true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then the Argos will have something to take from this nightmarish season. Durie, for one, suggested the team gained mental toughness that will provide an important boost in the future.

“We’re looking forward to more stability next year,” he said after the game. “Every championship team goes through losing, and we had a lot of it this year. We all stayed mentally strong though, and we’ll take that into next season for sure.”

Perhaps the biggest thing that will come from Saturday’s loss is closure. And with that, a fresh start.

“I’ll go to bat with these guys anytime,” linebacker Zeke Moreno said after the game. “I’d love to come back next year and see no new faces. We have the talent and the potential.”

In recent years, we’ve heard a lot of talk about increasing college access for working-class students.  As I have noted before, access is just the starting point.  A new study by William G. Bowen, Matthew M. Chingos, and Michael S. McPherson, Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities, finds that while lower-income students may be entering college, they are less likely to graduate than their wealthier counterparts.  (It’s worth noting here that their data focuses almost exclusively on income rather than other aspects of class.)  At flagship universities, only 68% of lower-income students graduate in 6 years, compared with 83% of higher-income students.  Across state systems, the numbers are even worse (for both groups): 55% of lower-income students finish in 6 years, while 74% of higher-income students graduate in that time.

Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson identify two primary causes for this disparity.  The first, money, seems obvious.  Especially these days, as workers lose jobs amid the economic crisis, working-class students and their families are more vulnerable to tuition increases as well as other rising college costs, such as books, transportation, and housing.  As states defund higher education, many colleges have responded by raising tuition and other fees, and we shouldn’t be at all surprised that some working-class students drop out, at least for a while.  Working-class families tend to have less wealth to help them get through a tough economic period, so often students’ only option when faced with either lost family income or increased college costs is to drop out of school.

But the other reason offered in Crossing the Finish Line is more surprising:  the authors suggest that lower-income students often “undermatch” in their college choices.  That is, they tend to enroll in less-selective institutions than they could.  Students with family incomes in the lowest quartile and/or whose parents did not attend college are the most likely to choose a less-selective and the authors therefore surmise less demanding college than their test scores and high school grades suggest they could.  While this choice seems to puzzle the authors, it actually makes perfect sense to me.

Many working-class families have limited knowledge about the landscape of higher education, so they may not recognize the differences among types of institutions.  Working-class students may also choose less-selective schools because they are closer to home, less expensive, or offer aid packages that cover more of the cost of attending school.  For others, undermatching may reflect self-doubt about whether they will succeed in college.  Working-class students often have less confidence in their academic abilities than more well-off students have.

As someone who has taught at an open-enrollment university – exactly the kind of place that Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson would see as an “undermatch” for a bright working-class student – I have long believed that less prestigious campuses with many working-class students serve those students well because we are likely to provide a friendlier atmosphere, better support, and stronger faculty commitment to teaching working-class students.  In some cases, such schools also provide more financial aid, and a scholarship at a lower-cost institution can go much further toward covering the cost of college.

Certainly, the experiences of working-class students on elite private or more-selective flagship campuses would support this notion.  As Bobby Allyn notes in an essay on his experience as a working-class student at American University, such elite settings can be alienating.  He advocates creating “spaces where like-minded students from comparable socioeconomic backgrounds can come together and foster a community,” exactly what the Working Class Student Union is doing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

So I was puzzled by the claim that undermatching could undermine students’ academic success.  One reason might be that academic challenge yields better performance.  A Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching study of student learning at community colleges advocates for asking more of our students rather than less.  Faculty who teach working-class students are often tempted to make their courses a little easier than they would at a more elite school.  After all, we know that many of our students come from high schools that didn’t offer strong college prep programs.  Many are also working long hours to pay for school, or commuting long distances to avoid the cost of campus housing.   We’re also concerned about the challenges that single parents face in juggling school, work, and family.  Because we want to help students succeed, we ask a little less.  This study suggests that we may be cheating them.

While feeling like an outsider creates emotional and social obstacles for working-class students, it might also work as an academic motivator.  Such students want to prove that they do belong among their more elite peers, so they may work harder just to “show them,” while on a more working-class campus, they fit in and may feel less of a need to demonstrate their full abilities.  Indeed, working-class schools may even encourage this, as strong networks of support services to help students get through college can communicate, inadvertently, that the goal is to get through, not to excel.  Because middle-class culture emphasizes individual success and competition, more elite campuses may, in contrast, create a stronger atmosphere of achievement.

Another key difference in the educational experiences of working-class students who attend more selective schools and those who undermatch is geographical.  Attending a selective school is, in many cases, more likely to involve moving away from home.  Allyn’s experience is typical, as he went first from Pennsylvania to Ithaca, New York, and later to Washington, DC.  Why would leaving home help?  After all, going away to school usually means leaving behind a family support system.  On the other hand, that very support system can leave working-class students feeling torn between the competing demands of school, which is an essentially individual pursuit, and family, which reflects the greater commitment to the communal that is often part of working-class culture.  When students live near home, the pull of family commitments can often interfere with their school work.  As one of my students explained a few years ago, she had to miss classes for two weeks because her sister was having surgery and she had to look after her young nieces and nephews.  It may well be that families are less likely to make demands on working-class students, and students may be less likely to respond to family needs, if they’re living on a campus more than a few hours’ drive away.

While all of this may explain why working-class students are more likely to graduate if they attend a more selective college, it doesn’t solve the problem.  The real challenge posed by this study is to less selective, more working-class institutions:  how can we do a better job of helping students succeed?   Stay tuned.  I’ll take up that question next time.

Sherry Linkon

Meet Nepenthes attenboroughii, the most recently discovered species of carnivorous pitcher plant. It’s been dubbed the “rat-eating plant.”

Named after British naturalist and filmmaker Sir David Attenborough, the plant grows only on the unforgiving summit of Mt. Victoria, a remote, 5,000-foot peak in the central Philippines. Unlike most pitcher plants, which subsist on insects, the oversized Nepenthes attenboroughii can trap and consume vertebrates as large as mice and rats.

Its cone-shaped pitcher traps, which come in shades of bright green, mottled purple or blackish red, can grow more than 11 inches wide. Prey attracted by the plant’s sweet nectar slip helplessly into its sticky interior, which is half full of acids and enzymes. After the digestive process, only the bones remain…

That’s where Stewart McPherson, the Indiana Jones of botany who discovered the exotic new breed of pitcher plant, comes in. In 2007, the British natural history explorer and two colleagues ascended Mt. Victoria, hoping to verify reports of enormous pitcher plants at the summit. After days of battling up the slope, at times hacking their way through untouched underbrush with machetes, they got their wish.

“We found thousands of giant pitcher plants covering the landscape,” says McPherson, who recently visited the States to unveil photos of the new species at several carnivorous plant conferences. (Wait, SEVERAL? carnivorous plant conferences?!? “I’d been lucky enough to have studied most of the known species worldwide, and it was instantly clear to us that not only was this a new species but it was also one of the biggest and most spectacular that had ever been found.” Nepenthes attenboroughii, which got its name due to McPherson’s admiration for the naturalist, is actually the second-largest pitcher plant in the world, but the fact that it remained unseen by human eyes until the 21st century is testament to nature’s remarkable diversity and mysterious depths…

Read more about this crazy plant & the rest of the article here.

Something relevant to the business world jumped out at me from James McPherson’s Civil War Era narrative, Battle Cry of Freedom.

McPherson was discussing the progress of the North in the early 19th century. To quote:

“…the new mode[s] of production were division and specialization of labor, standardization of product, greater discipline of the labor force, improved efficiency, higher volume, and lower costs. These factors reduced wholesale commodity prices by 45% from 1815 to 1860. During the same year…consumer prices declined by 50%.

Mass consumption and mass production were the economic game-changers of the 19th century. The way civilization had traditionally interacted with their world had been overturned. In a way, we have not turned back since.

Now we’re in the 21st century. When we talk about efficiency in manufacturing, we talk about lean and Six Sigma. We’ve ironed-out processes and maximized efficiency in a way that would make the practices of the 19th century seem archaic. Still, what we do now is a reflection of what was started back then.

We live in a world that is able to do things quickly and cheaply, and getting cheaper and quicker all the time. We’ve come to expect this and, in fact, demand it using our wallets. (I recently spoke with an inventor who told me it was impossible to have his new toy manufactured in the United States and still make money; China was the only option.)

So, if our customers are expecting cheaper and quicker, what can we do to catch our customers off-guard? How can we exceed their expectations? What is the game-changer in our business?

Someone once said of his successful career, “I try to do simple things, flawlessly”.

I believe doing simple things, flawlessly is the game-changer of our time.

Simple thing: I want to buy a new song.
Flawlessly: iTunes

Simple thing: I want the chepest airplane ticket
Flawlessly: online travel agents (Expedia, Priceline, etc.)

Simple thing: I want to know if this widget is worth buying
Flawlessly: Amazon.com customer reviews

Simple thing: I want to eat something without wheat because I’m allergic to it.
Flawlessly: A waitress who knows the entire menu

When your business figures out how to do simple things, flawlessly, you’ll enjoy the success of the economically-booming North during the early 19th century. This revolution will be nothing less.

The game changes, the rules change, but the pay-off for figuring it out–whatever “it” may be–remains the same.

Now that the exciting Solheim Cup tournament is finished, it is back to the normal grind.  This week’s LPGA tournament was pretty exciting, in general.  A three way playoff to decide the winner is great for the tournament and the T.V. network.  But, the problem is that things returned to normal.  Another Korean won the tournament.  At the end of it all, I felt like I wasted the entire weekend watching the leaderboard and the broadcast. 

For a while I thought Michelle Wie had a shot.  At the beginning of the day, I had high hopes for Natalie Gulbis.  But, neither was able to come through.  I even started rooting for Suzanne Petterson in hopes of seeing a non-Korean win.  But alas, we are back to the status quo.  From here on out, I will most likely just glance at the leaderboard once in a while.  I am not going to waste my time watch Koreans win.  The U.S. and European ladies need to get there acts together and take back this league.    Since the Korean ladies are so much better, they should go back to Korea and make their version of the LPGA the premier tour in the world. 

The LPGA has a real issue with all these Koreans winning.  There is going to come a point where the American crowds will stop buying tickets and attending these events.  The T.V. audiences will stop watching.  This will put the league out of business and the only reason will be the dominance of the Koreans on tour.  How can the LPGA promote a non-American product here in the states?  So somehow the leadership of the LPGA needs to figure out how to make the American ladies more competitive.  The only hope for this league lies with people like Michelle Wie, Stacy Lewis, and Vicky Hurst along with some of the younger  veterans like Brittnay Lang, Paula Creamer and Kristy McPherson.

The league needs to figure out how to make these ladies compete week in and week out.  Otherwise the league will go under.

por: taramcpherson

e como se sofre de amor feliz?

ps: (…)

[suspiro] ; mãos frias; cafuné e companhia

July 18, 2009

F. Wallace Pope
Johnson, Pope, et al
PO Box 1368
Clearwater, Florida
33757-1368

re: McPherson Settlement Agreement, yours of July 13

Dear Wally,

Your letter mischaracterizes my letter as asking you “to explain why you are bound by the confidential settlement agreement.” I asked nothing of the sort.

In my letter of June 29 in response to your letter of June 22, I asked that you provide me with documentation that supports your contention that I served as an agent of your client at the time you all allegedly entered into a settlement agreement with the Estate of Lisa McPherson. I also asked that you identify your client.

You ignored both of my requests. During the two weeks it apparently took your client to convince you to send a non-responsive letter, it occurred to me just how specious your demand is.

Your client was put on notice of what I had told reporters about Lisa McPherson well in advance of the June 21, 2009 St Petersburg Times publication of which you complain. In that substantial time period leading up to publication you chose not to contact me to inform me of the alleged settlement terms Miscavige had chosen to keep secret from me for over five years.

Instead, Miscavige decided that rather than abide by whatever it is you are claiming precludes your client from speaking about the case he would have his paid agent Monique Yingling attempt to project his own acts onto me. The June 22 article stated in part, “Still she (Yingling) said that Rathbun botched the case from the start, and ‘possibly caused the whole thing.’”

It is just like Miscavige to insist on having it both ways.

Miscavige’s personal attorney is on record accusing me of causing the entire Lisa McPherson tragedy and botching the legal cases surrounding it. No right-minded citizen would consider it constitutional, lawful or even ethical to attempt to muzzle someone from defending such a damning public condemnation with specific facts.

Your client chose not to inform me of any alleged confidential settlement terms when he was informed of what I had to say about McPherson. Rather, he chose to respond with statements of his own that went to the very heart of the merits of the McPherson affair. That he apparently became disappointed with the consequences of that decision when statements concerning the McPherson case by both he and I were published, does not afford Miscavige the opportunity to suck the toothpaste he issued back into the tube and pretend nothing happened. I am afraid you must inform Miscavige that he doesn’t get unlimited Mulligans in the real world.

Had enforcement of the alleged settlement agreement been a valid concern, rather than merely an intimidation tactic, Miscavige would have had you put me on notice of a claimed breach the moment he was informed of the topics I discussed with reporters. According to the Times special report that date was no later than May 13, 2009. Instead, through his attorney, Miscavige did exactly what he accused me of doing (though unlike me, he claims knowledge of the terms of, and thus is presumably bound by, the alleged settlement agreement).

Perhaps you can appreciate the untenable position you are in and can prevail on your client to cease these baseless attempts to harass.

Sincerely,

Marty Rathbun
PO Box 269
Ingleside, TX 78362

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (August 13, 2009) – Peak 10, Inc., the leading independent data center operator and managed services provider, continues its involvement in the computer and video game industry through participation in the Second Life Community Convention in San Francisco from August 13-16, 2009. In addition to sponsoring the event, Sean McPherson, a Peak 10 engineer and long-time Second Life resident, will be attending the event and serving as a panelist on various IT related topics.

Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. The program enables its users, called residents, to create and run the virtual world, interacting with one another to explore, participate in virtual activities and trade virtual property. The software also contains a three dimensional modeling tool which allows users to build objects. Basic memberships are free and upgrades are available at a low cost.

“We are proud to serve as a sponsor for the Second Life Community Convention and thrilled about Sean’s participation in the event,” said Jeff Spalding, the executive vice president of market operations at Peak 10. “Our commitment to the industry is reflected with our participation here and at the upcoming Austin Game Developers Conference in September.”

McPherson, a facility engineer at Peak 10, has been involved in Second Life since 2003 and has seen first-hand the evolution of high-speed technology, particularly in the computer and video gaming arena. In his 15 years of professional experience, including his last decade with Peak 10, he has served in various roles relating to the design and operation of more than 150,000 square feet and 30+ Megawatts of data center space. In Second Life, McPherson operates the Angel-funded Blank Canvas project, a no-cost incubator for designers and builders who have a vision for projects that can use a temporary home in-world, such as Grace McDunnough’s Musimmersion, which is being performed live in Second Life and streamed into the Second Life Community Convention.

A regular attendee of the Second Life Community Convention, McPherson takes a more formal role this year by participating on various panels and providing technical leadership for the Music Track. He will serve as a panelist for the “Second Life Performer’s Handbook” discussion on the setup and configuration of a variety of audio streaming tools from the client and server side, as well as acquiring and using an audio stream. As part of the “Designing Venues for Live Performances” discussion, McPherson will present ways to optimize the virtual environments in Second Life to avoid server and client lag for its large number of simultaneous users. He will also explain impacts of these possible solutions and the various constraints in designing for capacity.

“I am excited about participating in the Second Life Community Convention this year and I look forward to sharing IT best practices as well as serving as Technical Lead for the event’s Music Track,” said McPherson. “As part of that role, I have coordinated with the track leader and Second Life musicians to make sure proper networking is available for Internet connection at the convention and to stream live music events cross several locations inside Second Life.”

Active in the computer and video game industry, Peak 10 offers cutting-edge cloud-based services and virtualization solutions that allow businesses to reduce hardware and space requirements, optimize server utilization and provide higher levels of availability for an organization’s IT infrastructure. Peak 10 has leveraged this technology in customized solutions benefitting game companies in the interactive games sector such as Emergent Game Technologies, a leading source for all the game development tools required to build, test, manage and expand interactive games. Peak 10 owns and operates data centers in nine key markets that include Cincinnati, Ohio; Atlanta, Ga.; Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C.; Tampa and Jacksonville, Fla.; Nashville, Tenn.; Louisville, Ky.; and Richmond, Va.

GameIndustry.biz

JOHNSON, POPE, BOKOR, RUPPEL & BURNS, LLP
ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELLORS AT LAW
911 Chestnut St, Clearwater, Florida 33756

June 22, 2009

Marty Rathbun
P.O. Box 269
Ingleside, TX 78362

Re: McPherson Confidential Settlement Agreement

Dear Marty:

Following the article published in the St. Petersburg Times yesterday in which you were extensively quoted regarding the McPherson matter, the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Inc. (the “Church”, “Flag”) has asked me to write to you regarding the ongoing obligations of confidentiality imposed upon on all present and former officers, employees and agents of the Church regarding the McPherson confidential settlement agreement.

As you know, on May 26, 2004, the Church entered into a confidential settlement agreement.  The Agreement binds the “Scientology Parties,” which includes the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Inc., Religious Technology Center, and the three individual defendants.  All officers, employees and agents of the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Inc. and Religious Technology Center are bound by the settlement agreement to say nothing about the McPherson matter except

“The case has been settled, the terms are confidential.”  This language binds you as a former agent of both Flag and RTC.

The purpose of this letter is simply to remind you of your ongoing obligation of complete confidentiality with respect to the McPherson case and its settlement.

Very truly yours,

F. Wallace Pope, Jr.

Essa dai é a arte do Poster que a Tara McPherson preparou para sua turnê no Brasil em Agosto. Serão Impressas apenas 80 serigrafias dessa arte, todas assinadas e numeradas que estarão a venda nas noites de autógrafos, além de outras gravuras, adesivos e seus dois álbuns, Lonely Heart e Lost Constelations.

Tara McPherson Turnê Brasileira:

8/8 – São Paulo

Galeria Choque Cultural
Rua João Moura 997 – Pinheiros
(11)3061-4051 / www.choquecultural.com.br

10/8 – Curitiba

Kitinete Bar
Rua Duque de Caxias,175 -Sao Francisco
(41)8434-0314 / www.fotolog.com.br/kitinete

13/8 – Porto Alegre

Cabaret do Beco
Rua Independência, 590 – Independência
(51)3398-3983 / www.beco203.com.br

15/8 – Belo Horizonte

Quina Galeria de Arte
Rua da Bahia, 1148 SL 06, Edificio Maleta – Centro
www.flickr.com/quinagaleria

21/8 – Rio de Janeiro, cidade maravilhosa

La Cucaracha Bazar e Galeria
Rua Teixeira de melo 31-H – Ipanema
(21)2522-0103 / www.cucaracha.com.br

Informações, material p imprensa e etc:
Matias Maxx (tour manager) – (21)7855-1954 / tarjapretahq@gmail.com

La Cucaracha

As apposed to posting all my own stuff up,i thought it would be nice to show some of my favorite artists now and again. The first being Tara McPherson,  i came across her work in clutter magazine,around 2 years ago and from there I’ve bought some of her books and even did a college project on her.

Here is one of my favourite paintings entitled ‘why do i do what i do?”

For more visit her site www.taramcpherson.com

speak soon!

nx

Life in the Eighteen Sixties in Carleton Place is recalled in the present fifth installment of a series of annals reviewing events in the first hundred years of this community and its surrounding district.

The location of Carleton Place at a waterfall on one of the larger tributaries of the Ottawa River and on one of Eastern Ontario’s first railways proved in the Eighteen Sixties to place this community in a position of some advantage in the lumber economy of the Ottawa Valley.  A number of new industrial firms were established here.  Among them were two sawmills and a foundry each of which grew to become a substantial employer of capital and labour and a leading industry of the town.

Prince of Wales

1860 – Archibald McArthur (1816-1884), reeve and prominent wholesale and retail merchant, enlarged his business premises here by building a store of stone construction in 1860 near the corner of Bridge and Mill Streets.

The young Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, viewed Carleton Place while travelling by coach and railway through Lanark and Leeds Counties in the course of a tour of Canada.

Patrick Struthers (1830-1907), merchant and later magistrate, became postmaster of Carleton Place.  He continued in charge of the local post office for over forty-five years.

New Saw Mill

1861 – A steam-powered sawmill was built in the area of the present Riverside Park on the south bank of the river.  The old Muirhead sawmill, which was located near the present electric power plant, was leased and reopened by Robert Gray.

Brice McNeely Jr. (1831-1920) began a forty year period of operating the long established tannery.  The town bridge across the Mississippi was rebuilt.

Findlays Foundry

1862 – In the infancy of the town’s present leading industry, a new foundry was opened on the Perth Road, now High Street, by David Findlay (1835-1890) for the manufacture of stoves, ploughs and other castings.

Canadian military preparations were begun in view of risks of the United States Civil War leading to war between Britain and the United States.  At Carleton Place a volunteer rifle company, with newspaper editor James Poole as its captain, was equipped to take the place of the townships former militia regiment.  A new infantry company was formed at Almonte. 

In a match at the Almonte exhibition grounds between the Carleton Place and Almonte cricket clubs, the Almonte club’s resplendent uniforms featured white caps, pink shirts and white pantaloons.

Militia Training

1863 – The Ramsay lead mine at Carleton Place resumed operation.  A woollen mill at Appleton built by Robert Teskey (1803-1892) was opened under the management of his son John Adam Teskey (1837-1908) and son-in-law William Bredin.

In a target shooting competition at Carleton Place between the local Rifle Company and the Almonte Infantry Company, the rifle company appeared in its new uniforms with green tunics, grey pants with red facings, and dark belts.  The infantry uniforms had scarlet tunics, grey pants and white belts.  The impressive headpiece of both companies’ uniforms was an ornamented cap known as a shako.

Railway Extension

1864 – The Brockville & Ottawa Railway Company’s line was extended and opened from Almonte to Arnprior, providing rail transportation between the St. Lawrence River and Grand Trunk Railway at Brockville and the Ottawa River at Sand Point.  George Lowe became the station master at Carleton Place.

Temperance Movement

1865 – A temperance society known as Temple No. 122 of the Independent Order of Good Templars, was formed at Carleton Place to oppose the sale of alcoholic beverages.  A proposal to apply a local option Temperance Act to Beckwith township including Carleton Place was rejected by a majority of thirty votes.

The Beckwith municipal council elected for 1865 was Patrick Struthers, reeve, and Archibald McArthur, Donald Carmichael, George Kidd and Alexander Ferguson.

Gillies & McLaren

1866 – This town’s first large scale business had its start in 1866 with the opening of the Gillies & McLaren lumber mill with thirty employees.  James Gillies (1840-1909) came as its manager.  Five years later John Gillies (1811-1888), who had founded the firm in Lanark township, removed to Carleton Place.  Both remained here for life and were leaders in the town’s industrial growth.  James Gillies for over thirty five years was head of the later widespread lumbering operations of Gillies Brothers, a position occupied from 1914 to 1926 by his brother David Gillies (1849-1926) of Carleton Place.

A shingle mill also began business here in 1866, managed by John Craigie.  He was the builder of the town’s first two steamboats, the Mississippi and the Enterprise.  The local grist and oatmeal mills were bought by Henry Bredin from Hugh Boulton Jr.  They continued to be operated by James Greig (1806-1884), who ran these mills from 1862 to 1868 after the death of Hugh Boulton Sr., founder of this first industry of the community.

The union of Lanark and Renfrew Counties was ended in 1866 by the establishment of a separate Renfrew County council and administration.

Fenian Raids

Raids from the United States upon border points were made in 1866 by groups known as Fenians, whose professed objective was political independence for Ireland.  The Carleton Place and Almonte volunteer companies were dispatched to Brockville in June.  Captain of the Almonte company was James D. Gemmill.  Total of all ranks serving from Carleton Place numbered fifty-seven.  Under local officers Captain James C. Poole, Lieut. John Brown and Ensign J. Jones Bell, they included such Carleton Place and township family names as Burke, Coleman, Cram, Dack, Docherty, Duff, Enright, Ferguson, Fleming, Hamilton, Kilpatrick, Leslie, Lavallee, Moffatt, Moore, Morphy, and McArthur, McCaffrey, McCallum, McEwen, McFadden, McNab, McNeely and McPherson, Neelin, Patterson, Pattie, Rattray, Sinclair, Stewart, Sumner, Williams, Willis and Wilson.

Volunteers from these and other Lanark County areas served also in the Fenian Raids of 1870.  Drill halls built in 1866 at county centres including Perth, Carleton Place and Almonte were used for many years.  The Carleton Place drill shed was at the market square between Beckwith and Judson Streets, at the present site of the skating rink.  Almonte’s military quarters were combined with the North Lanark Agricultural Society’s main exhibition building then being erected.

Confederation

1867 – Canadian confederation was hailed in Carleton Place by a day of celebration which extended from a sunrise cannon salute to an evening of torchlight processions and fireworks.  There were speeches by the clergy,  a military parade with rifles firing, a costume carnival and sports events featuring novelty races.

A new sawmill was built by the Gillies & McLaren firm to employ up to a hundred men.  At Arklan Island a smaller sawmill was built by William Bredin.  Erection of a large frame building on Mill Street for use as a woollen cloth factory was begun by Allan McDonald.  The Allan McDonald foundry was reopened by John Grant and operated for four years, producing stoves, ploughs, ploughpoints and other castings.  A local house construction boom was under way.  Daniel Galbraith (1813-1879) of Ramsay township was elected to the Ontario Legislature of North Lanark.  He represented this constituency in the House of Commons from the following election until his death in 1879.

Another Railway

1868 – Building of the Canada Central Railway between Ottawa and Carleton Place was begun and was completed two years later.  In ceremonies marking the start of construction, held at the Carleton Place end of the line and attended by Richard W. Scott, Q.C., M.P.P., of Ottawa, the sod turning ritual was performed by the Rev. J. H. Preston of St. James Church, Carleton Place.

Caldwell Sawmill

1869 – This towns second large sawmill business was started by Boyd Caldwell (1818-1888) and managed by his son William Caldwell.  It operated for twenty-two years on the site of the present Riverside Park.

An enlarged stone grist mill building was erected by William Bredin on Mill Street, together with buildings occupied in the following year by Joseph Cram as a planing mill and by John F. Cram as a tannery.  A stone church building for the Zion Presbyterian congregation was built at the church’s present Albert and Beckwith Street location.

The Mississippi Navigation Company was incorporated to build locks at Innisville and Ferguson’s Falls and open navigation from Lanark and Playfairville to Carleton Place.  Its directors were James H. Dixon of Peterborough, Abraham Code, M.P.P. (then owning mills at Ferguson’s Falls) and Robert Bell, John Craigie and Robert Crampton of Carleton Place.  The company’s brief existence ended with the building of a steamboat, The Enterprise.  Bought by the Gillies & McLaren firm , The Enterprise plied the Mississippi Lakes for about twenty-five years in the service of the lumber industry and provided transportation for many of the town’s public events of bygone summer days.

Arland Bruce III scores a first-quarter TD

The Toronto Argonauts opened up the 2009 pre-season last night at Rogers Centre, falling 37-24 to the Montreal Alouettes. To this point, I haven’t had any coverage of the Argos on the blog, but I’m hoping to get in touch with the Argos P.R. people and get some access and hopefully provide some player features and interviews. Exciting, exciting stuff. Let’s see what happens!

Anyway, the Argos, fresh off a disappointing 4-14 2008 campaign, had a tough time containing Montreal quarterback Adrian McPherson, who looked like a hybrid of Adrian Peterson and Peyton Manning. McPherson completed 9-of-12 passes and rushed for 68 yards and a touchdown in the first half before giving way to Chris Leak. Kerry Joseph tossed a couple touchdowns for Toronto and Jarrett “Sweetness Jr.” Payton rushed for a 14-yard touchdown against his former team.

The Argos’ second and final pre-season game is next Tuesday in Hamilton against the Tiger-Cats.