This is an email sent to me by by fans of Patricia Cano:

Hello Fans of Patricia Cano: Morning North/CBC Radio is calling for suggestions for a Northern Ontario anthem.  Well, Patty's (Cano)'shivers up my spine' original song Home Again has to be The One!
Let's start the ball rolling and everybody call in Home Again as the Northern Ontario anthem.
Here is Patty's web page, with the clip Home Again on MP3 (scroll down on the Music selection square...) to hear it.
CALL TALK BACK at  1-800-461-1138 to suggest HOME AGAIN by Patricia Cano from her CD This is The New World. This spectacular song needs to be heard. Patty's Page:  http://www.myspace.com/patriciaceciliacano
The Feature Page about her CD: http://tinyurl.com/ye9uftg

Sudbury's Jubilee Folk Ensemble presents an afternoon of music and poetry, Sunday. Jan. 31.

The community orchestra, conducted by Oryst Sawchuk, will perform and complement the words of poets Robert Burns, Pablo Neruda, Taras Shevchenko and Walt Whitman. I am delighted to be involved with this event and work with these talented people.

The afternoon performance, which will start at 2 pm will be hosted by Sudbury poet Roger Nash. Poets will be performed by Ron Tough (Burns), Alex Martinez (Neruda), Wilfred Szczesny (Shevchenko) and John Lindsay (Whitman).

The poets selected for this special event are well known for their contributions to their homelands and the world.

Tickets for Four Poets Who Changed the World are $10. There will be complimentary refreshments.  (I am in charge of refreshments.) Tickets will be available at the door at the Jubilee Centre on Applegrove St.

This is a copy of an email I sent to the mayor this morning.

Dear Mr. Mayor,

As a big booster of the City of Greater Sudbury, as well as a patron of the arts, and an advocate for saving the city's few remaining heritage buildings, I am disappointed in your comments on CTV. You said, "Absolutely not," when asked about saving the Pearl St. watertower.

When I moved to this city in 1986, the watertowers (the Ash St. one as well) are something I thought gave the city's landscape character.

As Bruce Mau has said so elegantly, many of us do not want to live in a city that is all parking lots and big box stores....this progress means the city looks like everywhere else.

I am attaching a letter that appeared in Northern Life in the Tuesday, Jan. 12 issue from artist Irvin Marshall, and I hope you will reconsider, and champion this issue:

Mural should be painted on water tower - Irvin Elwood Marshall

It is with great concern and urgency that I write this letter to you. My concern is the state of appearance of the Pine Street Water tower, and my urgency is that I have heard rumours of demolition.

Those water towers have been a part of the Sudbury landscape for many years, and have served the city well. They should indeed be considered a heritage site as much as the Flour Mill silos. The one on Pine Street, which is owned by the city, is a definite eyesore and has been left in the state of disrepair for some years.

I am a long-time resident and artist, and have created many landmark murals within the city. I would like to propose that this sculptural piece of our history be given a new cultural life. I would transform it into a piece of creative genius that could be seen by all as a source of pride instead of the aura it now presents.

Whatever the cost of demolition, I would accept as payment for my creative transformation. Thousands are spent every year in other cities to either preserve or create public pieces of art.

We have been innovators and leaders in the past, and we can be that today. You be the leader and I the innovator, and (together we can) will that diamond in the rough into a sparkling gem that will grace the landscape and give credence to our re-greening transformation.

They have raped the landscape we have worked so hard to restore by flattening our green hills in order to build high end housing. The Mountain Street hill and the Copper Street hill have all but disappeared, and beautiful, young pine trees are being cut down to accommodate bricks.

When we can no longer run free on our hilltops, I no longer want to be here. A view from the Pine Street Water Tower is magnificent, and when that view disappears, a lot of our heritage goes with it. Give me this creative opportunity, and I will give you back a gem of a tourist attraction.

Irvin Elwood Marshall
Greater Sudbury

This is a note I sent to Canadian Press this morning.

I listened with interest to your discussion with CBC Radio North's Markus Schwabe today regarding CP capitalization policy on Northern Ontario (northern Ontario).

As a reporter, and later an editor in Sudbury, I capitalize Northern Ontario--but not northeastern Ontario or northwestern.

I believe when I first started writing for Northern Ontario Business in 1986, CP capitalized Northern Ontario but not southern or southwestern. Then a few years ago, the new style book came out...and lowercased northern Ontario!

My reasons for capitalizing it is that it is a region like the Maritimes or the Prairies. For years, the federal government has had a FEDNOR program with programs just for Northern Ontario. At one time this was north of the French River; then it became Parry Sound, and now I believe includes Muskoka.

The Ontario government has a ministry that looks after just Northern Ontario--the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines.

And, as you say, for the people who live in Northern Ontario, it is a state of mind, a place very different than the rest of the province for many reasons including landscape, natural resources, scattered population, and until very recently two-lane highways. The 400 series used to stop just north of Barrie, and still hasn't made its way to Sudbury.

Hope you reconsider.

I am not superstitious about most things, but I don't like black cats (aka bad luck) to cross my path.
And I have also always considered 13 to be an unlucky number, although I have no reason to think so, other than the old wives' tales. I haven't had a lot of bad luck in life...well except for with men.
I was only a little distressed to note that I was sitting in seat number 13 at my university graduation. But the number 13 keeps crossing my path. When I awake in the middle of the night, more often than not, the digital clock reads 2:13 or 3:13.
How worried am I about 13? I ask to be reassigned if I am sitting in row 13 on an airplane, and I prefer not to stay in a hotel room with the number 13. Maybe for me, 13 is a lucky number. I sure hope so. I attended the New Year's Eve dance at the Navy League Hall, and you guessed it, I was seated at Table 13! Here's wishing readers a happy 2010. I can't wait for 2013.