[PHOTO] Planter in the street, that's what you are

Planter in the street, that's what you are
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

I snapped this photo of a planter full of pansies and greenery and a small tree, on Palmerston Avenue just north of Vermont Square Park in what Wikipedia tells me is Seaton Village, on Victoria Day.

[LINK] "US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive"

Thanks to absinthe_dot_ca for linking to this article fromThe Telegraph of the need for some failing ex-industrial cities in the US Midwest to shrink in a planned fashion.

Most are former industrial cities in the "rust belt" of America's Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis.

In Detroit, shattered by the woes of the US car industry, there are already plans to split it into a collection of small urban centres separated from each other by countryside.

"The real question is not whether these cities shrink – we're all shrinking – but whether we let it happen in a destructive or sustainable way," said Mr Kildee. "Decline is a fact of life in Flint. Resisting it is like resisting gravity."

Karina Pallagst, director of the Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective programme at the University of California, Berkeley, said there was "both a cultural and political taboo" about admitting decline in America.

"Places like Flint have hit rock bottom. They're at the point where it's better to start knocking a lot of buildings down," she said.

Flint, sixty miles north of Detroit, was the original home of General Motors. The car giant once employed 79,000 local people but that figure has shrunk to around 8,000.

Unemployment is now approaching 20 per cent and the total population has almost halved to 110,000.

The exodus – particularly of young people – coupled with the consequent collapse in property prices, has left street after street in sections of the city almost entirely abandoned.

Go read the whole thing.

[LINK] "A Longer Life for Earth's Biosphere?"

Over at Centauri Dreams, the possibility is raised that rather than being suffocated by Venus-like conditions in a billion years or so, life could continue for another 1.3 billion years if enough nitrogen could be sequestered so as to allow for a thinner atmosphere better able to regulate conditions. This sequestration might even happen naturally, it seems.

[LINK] "China Launches First Gay Pride Festival"

Slap Upside the Head blogs about the recent Shanghai Pride, the first GLBT pride celebration ever to take place in the People's Republic.

Shanghai’s first ever Gay Pride festival is going on this week, and while not as spectacular as other Pride events elsewhere on the globe, the festival is the first of its kind in China.

Homosexuality is still somewhat of a taboo subject in China, having been decriminalized only as recently as 1997, and having only been removed off the country’s list of mental disorders in 2001. That China’s heavy-handed government would permit an event like this so quickly afterwards is nothing short of remarkable. Even a state-run newspaper reported that the festival was of “profound significance.”

It’s not entirely a resounding success, mind you. At the last minute, the government forbid a planned film screening and theatrical play from taking place, informing venues that any attempts to ignore the ban would result in “severe consequences.” The BBC speculates that this has more to do with the Chinese government’s nervousness about uncontrolled public gatherings than direct homophobia, and while it’s a setback whatever the reason, the peaceful and entertaining festival is a far cry from some other firsts around the glove.

[URBAN NOTE] What's going on along Bloor Street West from Landsowne to Dufferin?

Michael's Bloor Lansdowne Blog features an interview with a Nation of Islam representative who's active on this street. It's a fascinating bit of street ethnography, actually.

Sometimes when I go downtown I see representatives of the Nation of Islam selling literature. They are instantly recognizable by their dark suits and bow ties. I don't know when the Nation first came to Toronto, but it's only been in recent years that I've noticed them around the Eaton Centre. I used to only see NOI members on TV, but now I run into them fairly often.

Still, I was surprised a month ago to see a young man in the familiar dark suit and bow tie standing at the northwest corner of Dufferin and Bloor selling copies of the Final Call outside the subway station. I bought a copy of the newspaper out of curiosity. Since then I've run into him a few more times.

A few weeks ago I asked him if I could take his picture for my blog and he was kind enough to let me. He told me his name was Brother Richard. I learned he lives outside the neighbourhood and sells newspapers at other locations as well. When I approached him, he was willing to talk about his group. I've spoken to him a few times now and he's always friendly.

Michael's blog also covers the upcoming BIG on Bloor street festival this Saturday coming, from 1 pm to 9 in the evening.

On Saturday June 20, Bloor St. W. will be closed from Christie in the east to Lansdowne in the west for a giant street party. The festival hours are 1-9pm, but Bloor will be closed from 9am-11pm. This is the second year the festival is being held. Last year thousands gathered on Bloor to enjoy the displays and activities. This Saturday's festival promises to be even better. I'm looking forward to seeing the Fort York Fife and Drum Corps marching on Bloor.

[LINK] "Ignatieff Says Liberals Prepared to Bring Down Harper"

This news from Bloomberg is rather pleasing, actually.

Canada’s main opposition Liberal Party threatened to topple Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government this week unless lawmakers get more information on how the administration plans to fight the recession.

Michael Ignatieff, 62, the leader of Canada’s Liberals, said he will oppose the government in key votes unless Harper details plans to ease eligibility for unemployment benefits, speed up stimulus spending and bring the budget back to balance. Harper told reporters Ignatieff’s conditions aren’t clear, adding the government isn’t prepared to make “back of the envelope” changes over the next few days.

“Our job means standing up for our principles, standing up when the government lets Canadians down,” Ignatieff told reporters in Ottawa. “I need accountability, I need some answers.”

The Conservatives have seen the Liberals, who have helped to keep Harper in power since October 2007, surpass them in some recent opinion polls, amid criticism of the government’s response to the global economic slump. The governing party may now be forced to turn to the Bloc Quebecois or New Democratic Party to remain in power, as those parties are also trailing in opinion polls, said Peter Donolo, a pollster with the Strategic Counsel.

“The Liberals are the only party that have had some kind of lift” in the polls, said Donolo, a former adviser to Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien. “The other two parties stand to lose seats. I have a hard time seeing them voluntarily bringing down the government and losing all those seats in an election.”

The Conservatives lack a majority of seats in Parliament and need backing from at least one of the country’s three opposition parties to remain in power.

[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] Françafrique and Francophonie

The death Monday of Omar Bongo, long-time president of the oil-rich Francophone central African state of Gabon, is symbolic in more ways than one: Not only is Gabon without its long-time leader, but the last regional leader in Africa beholden to the French has gone.

Bongo had kept a tight grip on power in the oil-rich former French colony since he became president in 1967, and his ruling party has dominated the country's parliament for decades. Opposition parties were only allowed in 1990, amid a wave of pro-democracy protests.

Elections since then have been marred by allegations of rigging and unrest. In 2003, parliament — dominated by his supporters — removed presidential term limits from the constitution.

While most Gabonese genuinely feared Bongo and there was little opposition, many accepted his rule because he had kept his country remarkably peaceful and governed without the sustained brutality characteristic of many dictators.

Bongo, meanwhile, amassed a fortune that made him one of the world's richest men, according to Freedom House, a private Washington-based democracy watchdog organization, although nobody really knows how much he was worth.

Earlier this year, a French judge decided to investigate Bongo and two other African leaders over accusations of money laundering and other alleged crimes linked to their wealth in France.

The probe followed a complaint by Transparency International France, an association that tracks corruption. French media have reported that Bongo's family owns abundant real estate in France — at one time owning more properties in Paris than any other foreign leader.

Gabon hasn't benefited substantially from its oil, almost the contrary.

Gabon is the No. 5 oil exporter in sub-Saharan Africa, and Bongo built a vast system of patronage, doling out largesse in part through the salaries and benefits that came with Cabinet posts.

But oil dependency means the country has more oil pipeline — 886 miles (1,425 kilometers) — than paved roads _582 miles (936 kilometers). Only 1 percent of its land is cultivated and Gabon produces virtually no food.

Instead, basics such as tomatoes are imported from France, the former colonial master, and neighboring Cameroon, pushing prices so high that Libreville, the capital, is the world's eighth most expensive city, according to Employment Conditions Abroad International.

The term "Françafrique" was used to describe the close ties of France with the newly independent Francophone states of Africa under the Gaullist regime, using all manner of personal, economic, military, and other connections to keep France involved in the area. Regional leader's like Côte d'Ivoire's Houphouet-Boigny and Gabon's Bongo were used as supporters of French influence regionally, often channeling French resources through their own networks into neighbouring states. This is something that François Xavier Veschave, a writer critical of these networks, did not like.

Over the course of four decades, hundreds of thousands of euros misappropriated from debt, aid, oil, cocoa… or drained through French importing monopolies, have financed French political-business networks (all of them offshoots of the main neo-Gaullist network), shareholders’ dividends, the secret services’ major operations and mercenary expeditions.

Undermined in 1990 by the growth in democracy and "Sovereign national conferences", Françafrique very quickly came up with an arsenal of constitutional manipulation and ballot rigging which enabled it to transform the massive electoral rejection of dictatorships into approval. This double talk (French aid finances the elections ; French networks reverse the results) had a profoundly debilitating effect and resulted in the legitimisation of dictatorships in Togo, Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Guinea, Mauritania, Djibouti, the Comoros and the Congos.

With "Angolagate" and such people as Pierre Falcone or Arcadi Gaydamak, we are seeing the beginnings of globalised management of the flows of unofficial money come from the predation of raw materials, from debt fraud and from arms-sales commissions - under the "control" of the secret services. The financial layers generated in this way, sheltered in tax havens, are beginning to interconnect ; the networks and treasures of Françafrique are connecting to those of their American, British, Russian, Israeli, Brazilian, etc. counterparts. In short, we are witnessing Françafrique gradually joining a mafiafrique.

"Françafrique" is breaking down. Not only does the current Sarkozy government express disinterest in the concept, at least as it was traditionally expressed--France remains heavily invested in Nigerien uranium, for instance. Official France also favours links with non-Francophone states of note like Nigeria, Angola and South Africa, but the growing interest of other countries--the United States and China notably--in the petrochemical resources of many Francophone African states is eroding French commercial hegemony.

The same is true for the role of France in la francophonie, which, it's important to note, never really functioned as a vehicle for French hegemony. rather, it was an initiative taken jointly by the leaders of various Francophone African states like Senegal and Tunisia, along with a newly assertive Québec, to promote multilateral relations rather than one-on-one ties. The Francophonie helped African states diversify their foreign relations, looking to Canada and to Québec, to Belgium and its French community, even to Switzerland. As the number of second- and even first-language speakers of France grows, French influence diminishes proportionally.