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For certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair
When my friend Ron was going through his late mother’s photo albums, he turned up this gem. His mother was a 13-year old girl living in Ottawa in 1939. When King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (The Queen Mother) dedicated the National War Memorial on May 21st, 1939, they would be within’ a few blocks of his mother’s home. It is at the dedication we think this picture was taken (the clothes are the same from the pictures of the dedication and the Queen is carrying the same book).
For certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair
We didn’t come through too badly here in Hespeler, but there’s plenty of trees missing limbs this morning, and on a lovely morning walk branches cracking and sirens in the distance were the only sounds breaking the calm.
So many words spent trying to describe the bunch of tools who rioted in Vancouver Wednesday night. Dan Simon at March1Studios uses 11 pictures and a few words to cut through the verbiage and say it all: Way to go, Ass Hats.
University of Waterloo School of Architecture, Galt Ontario
via ShutterBugging
General James Wolfe (2 January 1727 – 13 September 1759)
In days of yore, from Britain’s shore,
Wolfe, the dauntless hero came,And planted firm Britannia’s flag,
On Canada’s fair domain.
Here may it wave, our boast, our pride,
And joined in love together,
The thistle, shamrock, rose entwine
The Maple Leaf forever!
h/t to Rondi for finding this great picture from the Australian Wildfires.
As she notes, the trusting gesture of the Koala holding firefighter David Tree’s hand is sweet, although other reports say the Koala is injured, so it may be a case of Tree holding the paw for other reasons. Nonetheless, a great picture from AP/Mark Pardew.
A small fuss is being raised in Paris as a photographic exhibit of “the only major collection of colour pictures taken during the 1940 to 1944 occupation of Paris.” The pictures, by French photographer Andre Zucca, who worked for the Nazi propaganda magazine Signal, are of Parisians enjoying life in the French capital during the German occupation of Paris.
Controversy has been ongoing as many want the pictures banned. The Parisian government has ordered that city historians provide additional information on the images to visitors:
Visitors are now handed an information sheet, written in French, English and Spanish, explaining that Zucca “has opted for a vision that doesn’t show — or hardly shows — the reality of occupation and its tragic aspects.”
While on the subject of World War II and Nazi’s, next Monday marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who is credited with saving the lives of almost 1,200 Jews during the German occupation of Poland, and the subject of the 1993 movie Schindler’s List.
I think it would be a good weekend for a Steven Spielberg movie.
As indicated by the last couple of posts, and possibly the next one, 
I wandered over to the neighbouring community of Guelph last night to hear the Prime Minister speak at a function for Guelph candidate Gloria Kovach. Guelph will be the site of the next federal by-election (along with a Quebec riding, I believe), a by-election that must be announced by Oct 10 – a lifetime for this government. Gloria Kovach is the Conservative candidate in that by-election, as well as being somebody I know, however informally, from outside politics. She in fact, used to work with Lady Hespeler.
Last nights event started off with the run through the usual cabal of protesters heckling the people entering the event. God bless their sincerity, it was a cold wet night to be standing outside being ignored for a couple of hours, but they kept with it.
Inside the hall, my MP Gary Goodyear kicked things off with a warm up speech that was, in my father-in-laws words, as entertaining as it was empty. But really, nobody was there to hear what Gary Goodyear had to say, so he got the meaningless lines and a chance to poke fun at the Liberals.
Next up was Gloria Kovach herself, who said little other than to introduce herself, thank everybody for their support, and introduce Prime Minister Harper. The two introductory speeches didn’t take ten minutes of the evening I am sure.
Then came the Prime Minister. He gave a fairly long speech, in the neighbourhood of half-an-hour I would estimate, and covered a lot of ground. He took a few jabs at Stephane Dion, particularly good was when he outlined all the times Dion swore he was taking down the government. But mostly he talked of the governments accomplishments, and what the Conservatives would like to do moving forward, including more crime legislation and senate reform. I thought the best line of the night was the most important (paraphrasing a little): in the by-elections Monday we did something very unusual for a governing party, we took a seat away from the opposition.
Overall it was a good effective speech for a partisan crowd. He hit all the right buttons, said most of the things a conservative crowd wanted to hear, and got an agreeable reaction. The night concluded with an opportunity to shake the PMs hand and get a picture with him. A nice opportunity, in which as I indicated earlier, I asked him where his wife was (I was hoping for a picture with her, actually). It resulted in a small, pleasant conversation about the kids schooling. I’ll tell you I had a far better chat with him (if 30 seconds = a chat) than if I’d asked him about tax policy or the Quebec question. If I ever get a chance to meet him again, I’m asking about Ben’s hockey
What would you ask him?
Me, I asked him where his wife was…
I’ll give details of the meeting tomorrow, including a few good pictures.
Never mind the strange sleeping lizard picture, ground zero or any of my other pictures I have posted here as picture of the day. Have you seen the amazing shots of Canadian soldiers in a firefight in Afghanistan that graced today’s papers?
The photographer responsible is Finbarr O’Reilly (a good Irish name). This guy was right in on the action, and took incredible shots, a few of which are here, a bunch more on a Globe and Mail slideshow.
Better yet, browse through his web site. Great stuff.
As I mentioned last year, when I opted for New York Photo Essay, others will do a much better job of covering the anniversary of September 11th than I will. Once again, I give this page over to my camera, with pictures, again taken in the spring of 2006, of ground zero. Please click on the images for a larger picture.
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