In 1993, I was working at the Regina Leader-Post newspaper -- one of two Edmonton Eskimos fans in the newsroom.

The Esks were coached at the time by Ron Lancaster, who died of lung cancer yesterday at age 69.

My mighty Esks got off to a slow start, slow enough to make me muse darkly about whether a coaching change would be needed to shake things up.

However, the Esks caught fire and won the Grey Cup that year! Woohoo!

Skip ahead two years. The Grey Cup is being hosted in Regina.

Publisher Bob Hughes is BFF with Lancaster, who is in town for the festivities. "Do you want to meet him?" Hughes asked. I said sure, what the hell.

It never happened. Hughes told Lancaster that he had a hardcore Esks fan working for him. But then, for reasons known only to himself, Hughes also mentioned my utterances during the 1993 trough period -- and phrased it in a way that suggested I had demanded the Little General be fired.

Upon his return from a visit with his little buddy, Hughes then relayed a message to me from Lancaster: "'Tell him to go fuck himself.'"

With mock indignation, I told Hughes that I had never demanded Lancaster be fired, that he had misquoted me, and that if Lancaster hated me forever, it would be on his conscience.

And now I'll never know whether Lancaster went to his great reward holding a grudge against me. :)

Here's the CP story posted to CTV.ca.

From the NYT:

Barely a month before Tata, one of India’s most powerful conglomerates, was due to roll out the world’s cheapest car from a new factory on these former potato and rice fields, a peasant uprising has forced the company to suspend work on the plant and consider pulling out altogether.

The standoff is just the most prominent example of a dark cloud looming over India’s economic transition: How to divert scarce fertile farmland to industry in a country where more than half the people still live off the land.

At the heart of the challenge, one of the most important facing the Indian government, is not only how to compensate peasants who make way for India’s industrial future, but also how to prepare them — in great numbers — for the new economy India wants to enter.