[PHOTO] Hollyhock

Hollyhock
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

The short-lived hollyhocks, like this one, bloomed in Toronto earlier this month.

[LINK] "Has the world reached replacement rate fertility?"

Over at Demography Matters, co-blogger Aslak takes on the common knowledge that replacement-rate fertilty--the number of children that an average woman in a society must have in order prevent population decline-- is 2.1. That, he points out, is a mistake.

At first glance, the question might seem odd, given that the global fertility rate is currently estimated by the UN to be somewhere around 2.5, well above 2.1, which is usually cited as the replacement rate. However, 2.1 is a number that is often bandied about somewhat lazily, even by people who should know better. It is important to remember that the replacement rate is not a constant and the 2.1 number is only really relevant for developed countries where the actual replacement rate is usually in the 2.06-2.08 range.

Three factors--age-specific fertility rates, female mortality rates and sex ratio at birth--play a huge role in determining replacement fertility. In some unfortuante countries, replacement fertility can be almost as high as 4!

[URBAN NOTE] The union doesn't care about bad PR, does it?

CUPE has just threatened Centreville Amusement Park, a children's amusement park located in the Toronto Islands, with threats of pickets and threatened delays to visitors if the suffering park set up a private shuttle service.

A behind-the-scenes solution to open Centreville, Toronto Island's privately owned amusement park shuttered since the strike began, was quashed last Friday with a threat by CUPE 416 to picket park customers.

Shawnda Walker, Centreville's director of marketing, said the month-old civic workers' strike has cost the park $3 million in sales. The majority of its 400 employees, mostly students working for the summer, have been thrown out of work.

"We never thought it would go this long," Walker said yesterday. "They are killing our summer. "They're killing the summer for the little kids ... and they are killing the summer for our students who want to work and pay for university," she said.

Last week the park's owners tried to lay the groundwork to open despite the strike, something the city was receptive to, she said.

To help gain the union's blessing, they offered to make it clear to everyone they were operating under the generosity of CUPE 416.

Just 20 minutes after CUPE received the written proposal, the park got a terse answer.

"The Union will review all of its recourse including but not limited to picketing to ensure that the work of the Local 416 bargaining unit is respected," union officials stated in an awkwardly worded e-mail.

Later, they told Centreville they'd delay customers, set up pickets on the island and at the boats arranged to ferry people to the park, Walker said.

See a reaction here, for instance.

I would have gone to the Toronto Islands several times by now if not for the strike. I am not amused.

The city workers' union is trying to make generally hostile Torontonians care, but even the left-leaning Toronto Star points out that the banking of sick days is mostly gone elsewhere in Ontario.

[URBAN NOTE] Mel's Delicatessen is gone: Should I cheer?

blogTO was the first to let me know that Mel's Delicatessen, a Montreal-style deli in the Annex, was closing down. absinthe_dot_ca links to a National Post article that goes into more detail.

Mel’s Montreal Delicatessen, the smoked-meat mainstay located at the corner of Bloor St. West and Howland Ave., had a chain locked to its door and a ‘Notice of Distress’ posted on its window last week. The notice states that the property within the restaurant will “be sold for the best price that can be got for them towards the satisfaction of rent.”

Mel’s Diner, which boasts the words “We never close” beside its sunny logo, was an Annex fixture for more than 15 years. As the only 24-hour restaurant in the neighbourhood, the diner was the spot where shift workers headed before or after work, and where drunken students emerging from the Brunswick House stumbled into before heading home.

The restaurant was known for its meat-laden poutine, Montreal smoked meat and matzo soup balls. First-time visitors found themselves reading the yellowed newspaper articles glued under the glass tabletops that told the story of the many children the proprietors adopted and in turn employed at the restaurant. Some of the adult children were still working there at the time of the closure. Owner Melanie Simpson did not return e-mail requests for an interview.

The thing is, as the commenters noted, the food was bland at best and the service very bad. (I don't like waiting for minutes and minutes on end while the staff are chatting at the counter.) If it's in fact true that the recession is shaking out sub-par businesses, good.

[LINK] "Pennsylvania Group Campaigns In Maine"

Thanks to Joe. My. God for letting us know that the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, a group current campaigning against same-sex marriage in Maine, are also against the existence of civil marriages as well.

A group of men from Pennsylvania is in Maine this week supporting the concept that marriage is between a man and woman.

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property is based in Pennsylvania. This week the group is in Maine with signs and handouts about marriage.

The group says gay marriage is harmful to society because children do not have a mother and father. They also claim that marriages performed at City Hall, without God present, are not really marriages. However the group is not arguing that issue while in Maine.

They just haven't gotten around to talking about those terrible sins against the sacrament of marriage. Funny, that.

This whole incident just goes to demonstrate one very real reason why straight people should be interested in same-sex marriage: After us, they'll come after you.