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Posts Tagged ‘Comments’

The Gas City? - Original Photo by Mitch Woods via Flickr

The Gas City? - Original Photo by Mitch Woods via Flickr

To those of you who haven’t been following this, several weeks ago, Mayor Norm Boucher told the Medicine Hat News’ Amanda Stephenson that he was thinking of trying to re-brand Medicine Hat; he described that the current slogan and marketing might not be giving us much credit in terms of recognition. He also brings up the point about how Medicine Hat is ranked 82nd out of 157 best places to live in Canada which he postulates might be a matter of “how we sell ourselves”.

There’s been a huge uproar over this in both the comments section and in the Ticked Off & Tickled Pink sections on the Medicine Hat News. The majority of which are personal assaults against Norm Boucher – real mature, guys/gals.

Released today in a Medicine Hat News story by Amanda Stephenson, the slogan will officially stay “The Gas City” after the much criticism against the change. The votes against the change was unanimous by the Medicine Hat Aldermen who meet last night to settle the fate of the slogan.

While I understand the heritage and long standing culture behind the slogan, does it really represent what Medicine Hat is now or where it is going in the future? If we are keeping it for the sake of tradition then what’s the point of a slogan that doesn’t describe the place that you live accurately. I originally moved here from Regina, “The Queen City” and even though I am attached to the slogan and heritage behind it, It doesn’t represent it anymore – its slogan, like Medicine Hat’s becomes functionless nostalgia. I’m a little bit torn on the whole thing.

Rebranding the Gas City – Medicine Hat News
Gas City slogan to stay – Medicine Hat News
Mitch Woods’s Photostream @ Flickr


As plastered on the front page of the Medicine Hat News, Gregory Fritzke has been arrested and charged with accessing and distributing child pornography. Okay… pretty sick, but to make matters worse, he was the vice-principle at Ross Glen School. Start the angry parents riot! Parents of children that go to Ross Glen are going crazy, and this is just from the comments posted on the Medicine Hat News website (most of the comments are now gone when the Medicine Hat News website was updated), who knows what the future of Ticked Off & Tickled Pink will look like.

Gregory Fritzke, 43 - Image from CTV

Greg Fritzke, 43 - Image from CTV Calgary

Quotes have appeared like “We as a society need to screen the people involved in our childrens lives on a daily basis more carefully” from one commenter. Comments like this remind me of the Grey Hound bus situation – one person gets killed, or one sick bastard is all it takes to warrant spending thousands if not millions of dollars for these “screening” procedures. Obviously in this case, I believe the commenter is referring to using ourselves as a “screen” to weed out child pornography collectors (somehow). This is a rare and  isolated event in this community – just like the Grey Hound bus slaying. There’s no magic “pedophile-meter”, just like there is no method to gauge if somebody is just going to wind up and kill somebody; obviously there are warning signs to these types of psychological issues, but they aren’t accurate, even so, the average person is not trained to spot these “warning signs”. In no way am I defending Gregory Fritzke or his actions, I’m just against the irrationality involved with people commenting and ranting over these isolated events (isolated in terms of the Medicine Hat community, not on a global scale).

Supposedly Gregory Fritzke did not have any images/photography of children at the school in his stash – but the fact of the matter is he was a vice-principle and he seen kids all day. Obviously this makes parents feel pretty sick even if he didn’t actually harm any children at the school. Psychologically speaking, Gregory Fritzke knew that what he was doing was wrong which is why he never acted out on his thoughts at school, instead he went home and downloaded child porn to satisfy his urge. Obviously I’m not a psychologist but I’ve read enough on the subject to know that most of these people aren’t pure evil, Satan incarnates; rather, they may have psychologically traumatized in their past or some past experience made him this way (maybe he was molested as a child). Obviously I’m being general and pretty speculative on the incident until actual details arrive. The bottom line is he downloaded and looked at child pornography which is wrong, granted, but he is NOT a child molester, child rapist, nor did he physically abuse children in any way as far as anybody knows currently (this may have changed though – see below). Guilty before proven innocent? I guess there is no gray area to most people…

*UPDATE – February 11th, 2009*

More charges have been laid against Fritzke which leads me to not retract my above statement but to clarify. I said that “nor did he physically abuse children in any way as far as anybody knows currently” which is still the case right now since he has NOT been found guilty.

THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »


If you are like me then your favourite section of the Medicine Hat News is reading the commentary, and one section in particular “tickles” your fancy – Ticked Off & Tickled Pink. Home to the strange, weird, stupid, infuriating and funny comments from people around the city. Recently the Medicine Hat News website has posted a “best of” list showcasing 20 of the funniest (stupidest) comments submitted this last year.

Medicine Hat News – Ticked Off/Tickled Pink – Best of 2008

Some of my favourites from the list:

A little specific aren’t we?

“Ticked Off: I’m ticked off that my assistant CEO is allowed to abuse employees by throwing shoes at them. It’s a degrading and an embarrassment to our industry. Something needs to be done.”

Definition of irony?

“Ticked Off: I’m a little bit ticked off because all you have in the Ticked Off/Tickled Pink column is ticked off. Nothing positive, everything is negative. How about putting some stuff that is a little brighter so everyone can smile and laugh.”

Wow… possibly the best comment ever?

“Tickled Pink: I am tickled pink that the 1970s cheesy, pornstar, handlebar mustache still exists in this world. It can turn a little man into a big man, especially if he suffers from small man syndrome.”

Definitely has their priorities in order:

“Ticked Off: I’m fed up with the constant time change every six months. In our house, the clocks are not changed and every six months we are right on time.”

1 word: Google

“Ticked Off: I’m ticked off on Thursday’s paper, it shows Malcolm Bauld, a Montreal based artist, coming to play in Medicine Hat at the Ottoman Lounge. I’d like to know where the Ottoman Lounge is. Is it in Medicine Hat? In Montreal? Or Calgary?”


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