…but no cigar

More in the culture wars. Another blow has been struck for political correctness, another victory in the war against that heinous crime – smoking.

Pitiful isn’t it? Poor Winston’s mouth now looks like he survived a stroke. And who was responsible for this nice bit of historical revisionism? The Cancer Society?  Close but no cigar. A London Museum!

In the well-known original image, Churchill makes a “V” shaped symbol with his fingers – while gripping a cigar in the corner of his mouth.

But in a reproduction of the picture, hanging over the main entrance to a London museum celebrating the wartime leader, he has been made into a non-smoker through the use of image-altering techniques.

And it took a museum patron to notice.

The alteration of the original image, taken in 1948 during the opening of a new military headquarters, was noticed by David McAdam, a visitor to the museum.

He told the Daily Mail: “I pointed out this crude alteration to a museum steward who said she hadn’t noticed the change before, nor had anyone else pointed it out.

“So much for the notion that only communist tyrants airbrushed history.”

Well, ahem. David McAdam should think again about that statement.

Facades are skin deep

We know that our readers sometimes consider us too negative but it is hard to be positive when we see so much wrong happening in our town. [Councillors, when we start being positive about something you will know you are really on to something, but we digress]. We would love to be positive about an investment in our town, even if it is from ACOA which

Obama – Lord of the Dance

UPDATE Jan 23 : And apparently it was prerecorded.

We suppose many of you were watching the Obama Inauguration. So were we. How could we not? It’s history right? Anyway, we listened to the speech and the prayers and the terrible poetry and then ah… Itzhak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma. Here was something worth listening to. A John Williams composition arrangement. You know Superman, Star Wars… then we listened with increasing incredulity.

Others must have noticed the similarity between this composition -“Air and Simple Gifts” , and “Lord of the Dance“? Starts to be really noticeable at about 2 min in.

Lots of versions of Lord of the Dance on You Tube including Michael Flatley’s

We expect there is a message in this theme Williams used. Later: Apparently both pieces are based on an old shaker tune by Joseph Brackett.

Heritage heretics

We absolutely agree with the confederacy of dunces on this issue.

HRM Council and the Heritage Society defeated a development by the Armour Group to build a nine-story building behind a facade of heritage buildings in downtown Halifax. Mayor Peter Dolittle Kelly and his Heritage Society have their heads in the clouds if they think that stopping this sort of development is going to preserve the heritage sector in Halifax.

It is a matter of cutting your nose off to spite your face. By being intransigent the municipality will lose not only the guts of the building but the facade as well. Hasn’t anyone heard about negotiation? Where there

Who cares about heritage?

It’s funny how things happen. A heritage warehouse burns to the ground and the same day a poignant appeal by our local Lois Lane appears in the Advertiser decrying the loss of heritage buildings in Grand Pre to all kinds of forces, not just fire.

The two-storey building, located across from the Grand Pre National Historic Site, was one of the original railway siding buildings where apples were loaded in

Early Easter

Easter is early this year. It hasn’t been this early since 1913 and we won’t see another this early in our lifetime as it won’t be this early in the year again until 2060. The Telegraph’s QI has an explanation of how Easter is determined in case anyone asks you.

But even this early Easter isn’t early enough for one United Church in Toronto or Michael Valpy of the Globe and Mail! who is reporting it is celebrating it today!

Planning interests

The following piece was contributed by David Daniels via e-mail. It concerns the Woodman lands and an amendment to the Development agreement.

PLANNING IN WHOSE INTERESTS?

The developer of the Woodman Grove subdivision (the “Development”) has asked the Town to amend the Developer Agreement (“DA”) approved by the Town on June 20, 2005. The Town’s Planning Staff has recommended the proposed amendment.

Property Value Alert

Someone else has a bee in their bonnet if the “flyer” we brought home from the Post Office is any indication. Don’t know who the author is but it weren’t us. The sheet has the heading –

TOWN OF WOLFVILLE PROPERTY VALUE ALERT

YOUR property is in immediate danger!

The future of Wolfville

The future of Wolfville is on the table and the next couple of montha will tell the tale. Do its residents really care about its future or not? The Municipal Planning Strategy and the Land Use Bylaws, which have been under review by the “Sustainability Planning Task Force”, stacked with Council members, are now in draft and some of the changes should worry every Wolfvillian.

Wolfville re-Zoning concerns

As some of you know, but many Wolfvillians perhaps do not, the Town is in the process or rewriting the Land Use Bylaws and the Municipal Planning Strategy ( LUB and MPS)

The recommendations of the Sustainability Task Force, which has been meeting and discussing various important issues for some time, will most certainly be approved by Council since there are several Councillors on that committee, enough to swing the vote. Most members of the Committee seem to have bought into the ideology that further