KITCHENER, Ont. - Russ Kelly had sucked back so much beer that May night, he was barely sentient.

The National Post is conducting a search to find Canada's most important "public intellectual" -- which we define as a thinker who has shown distinction in his or her own field, and can communicate ideas and influence debate outside of it.

Jamie Reaume prefers to be behind the scenes. He calls himself an urbanite, but as its executive director, he's the voice of the Holland Marsh Growers' Association, a group of farmers working together to put Canada's salad bowl back on the map.

Judy Brillinger can't remember a time when she didn't draw. As a youngster, she would copy the comics from the newspaper, and says anyone who sat near her in the rural schoolhouse in Windsor, Ontario was fair game for a portrait "My father encouraged me by supplying me with wood to make plaques that I would draw and then woodburn.

The German great, Waldo von Erich, died suddenly last night at Grand River Hospital in Kitchener.

An Elmira, Ont.-based company is cashing in on the growing number of post-consumer plastic film and bag recycling programs available by processing plastic garbage.