I agree, it is ridiculous to sanitize history.  I thought things went
overboard when I heard they airbrushed out the cigarette from Paul
McCartney's hand in the "Abbey Road" album cover photo.  But the difference
in this case is that this is *not* a period photo.  It's a modern work, and
as such, it's bound to modern sensibilities, conventions, and laws.

Tek wrote:
>I have to disagree with you about the cigarette advertising. It's appropriate in
>this historical context, and I hardly feel an image displayed on the irtc is
>going to start people smoking. I have a particular gripe about this because a
>colleague of mine recently had to search through video footage of historical
>motor races looking for one shot of a man smoking a pipe, because he'd been told
>to remove it under cigarette advertising laws in some countries! Fair enough,
>cigarettes are a terrible thing and should be removed from our culture as soon
>as possible, but I think we should stop short of sanitising history.

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