[PHOTO] The Rosedale Valley Road from above

The Rosedale Valley Road from above
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

This is a shot of the Rosedale Valley Road, a two-lane road that runs roughly eastwards down the Rosedale Ravine towards the bed of the depleted Don River. This shot was taken from above, from a pedestrian bridge dozens of metres above.

[DM] "A new perspective on Eurabia"

Over at Demography Matters I've a post up taking a look at Vancouver Sun journalist Douglas Todd's two-pronged attack on Eurabia, touching on the demographic and the cultural issues all at once. I then go on to explore some of the implications. And yes, I'm mentioned by name. (Thanks!)

[BRIEF NOTE] Toronto's mystery satellites

Mystery satellites, satellites launched into Earth orbit without any information as to what they do or where they orbit or even any acknowledgment that they exist, do exist. As noted in The New York Times in 2008, there's a large number of amateur astronomers--and, mentioned only at the end, other observers--who track them down. They call satellite watching a hobby, no matter that it's profoundly math- and time-intensive

When the government announced last month that a top-secret spy satellite would, in the next few months, come falling out of the sky, officials said that there was little risk to people because satellites fall out of orbit fairly frequently and much of the planet is covered by oceans.

But they said precious little about the satellite itself.

Such information came instead from Ted Molczan, a hobbyist who tracks satellites from his apartment balcony in Toronto, and fellow satellite spotters around the world. They have grudgingly become accustomed to being seen as "propeller-headed geeks" who "poke their finger in the eye" of the government's satellite spymasters, Molczan said, taking no offense. "I have a sense of humor," he said.

[. . .]

In the case of the mysterious satellite that is about to plunge back to Earth, Molczan had an early sense of which one it was, identifying it as USA-193, which gave out shortly after reaching space in December 2006. It is said to have been built by Lockheed Martin and operated by the secretive National Reconnaissance Office.

Another hobbyist, John Locker of England, posted photos of the satellite on a Web site, galaxypix.com. John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a private group in Alexandria, Virginia, that tracks military and space activities, said the hobbyists exemplified fundamental principles of openness and of the power of technology to change the game.

"It has been an important demystification of these things," Pike said, "because I think there is a tendency on the part of these agencies just to try to pretend that they don't exist, and that nothing can be known about them."

Torontoist's Amanda Happé reported on a recent forum that Molczan co-hosted in Toronto.

On Thursday night, Molczan participated in a talk called "The Other Night Sky" at the Power Plant, in conjunction with their ongoing summer exhibition, “Universal Code.” (Watch for our review of the exhibit, coming later this week.) He was joined by Trevor Paglen, an artist-geographer taking part in the exhibition with a large-scale installation featuring moving satellite orbits projected onto a massive blue globe.

Paglen is fascinated by the things that the American military doesn’t want us to see and the aesthetics of this secret world. He told the story of a covert satellite payload—code-named AFP-731—launched by the space shuttle Atlantis in February of 1990. About a month later, it was reported that this satellite had exploded in orbit and that the mission, whatever it had been, was a failure.

This is where Molczan enters Paglen’s story, as he and his network of observers began reporting an object in the night sky following the orbit and flying at the altitude of the “lost” satellite. Further research revealed that a patent had been filed in the United States that same month for a satellite signature suppression shield. As word spread of the discovery that AFP-731 (or “Misty,” as it is known) was likely not destroyed and was still racing around the globe carrying out undisclosed tasks, the satellite soon vanished from Molczan’s night sky. Those in the community believe that the unwanted attention he brought upon this secret payload had Toronto added to the suppression shield’s target locations.

Paglen wove the concept of democracy in with his narrative, something that both men consider to lie at the heart of this practice. Molczan believes that “space belongs to all of us” and that “the truth is out there for anyone to see.” Paglen recalled conversations the two have had, telling the audience that “Molczan reminded me that perhaps truth is sometimes like a point of light reflected in the evening sky, able to be seen by anybody who bothers looking through a telescope, [and] of the notion that, in a democracy, you’re supposed to have a right to your own opinion, but you're not supposed to have a right to your own facts.”

Yes, Molczan does do his observing from his Toronto balcony.

What is surprising is that Molczan is able to conduct his detailed monitoring from his downtown Toronto apartment. It would seem that a bright urban centre, rife with light pollution, is not the ideal place to track reflections in space. Torontoist asked Molczan about the viewing conditions in the city. “I’m a homebody," he responded. "I fantasize about spaceflight and all that, but the reality is that I’m happy to do this from my balcony or my bedroom window… Luckily I’m in one of the few high-rise buildings that has a roof that’s safe to visit, and I can go up there and have an amazing view of the sky, almost to the horizon in most directions. So, the city actually turns out to be not bad. It’s terrible for normal astronomy, if you want to see distant galaxies and that stuff, it’s horrible, but it’s quite tolerable. It could be better, but it’s tolerable."

This seemingly local and minor connection of one Torontonians to matters of utmost national security, this local attempt to defeat a certain kind panopticon even as many, many other Torontonian eagerly embraces others. this merger of a human instrument unnaturally separated from Earth into the mainstream--all of these things are wonderful.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the Corsican language

TF1 reports that the regional assembly of the French island of Corsica has rejected, by a majority of 28 out of the 47 representatives present, a plan to make Corsican an official language of the island alongside French.

L'Assemblée de Corse a rejeté à une large majorité une motion déposée par les nationalistes indépendantistes visant à donner à la langue corse un "statut d'officialité", dans la nuit de lundi à mardi. La motion a été rejetée par 28 des 47 conseillers présents sur un total de 51. Dix neuf autres ont voté pour. La motion avait été déposée par Jean-Guy Talamoni, le leader de Corsica Nazione Indipendente. "A défaut de donner un statut d'officialité à notre langue - un trésor que nous avons en partage - il n'est pas envisageable d'en enrayer le déclin", a plaidé le conseiller territorial devant l'Assemblée.

Le communiste Dominique Bucchini a estimé qu'"il fallait donner un statut aux langues de France" et s'est prononcé pour "un statut de "co-officialité" du Corse, qui ne serait pas en opposition avec la langue de la République mais en complémentarité" avec elle.

Selon les chiffres avancés lors du débat, environ un tiers seulement de la population de l'île, 100.000 personnes, parlerait le Corse. Lors du débat, plusieurs élus de la majorité ont estimé qu'"il ne fallait pas brûler les étapes mais commencer par un réel apprentissage du Corse". "Il n'y a pas eu de sursaut dans la population, le nombre des locuteurs n'augmente pas, le bilinguisme instauré à l'école maternelle n'est pas une réalité, pas plus que les 3 heures d'enseignement hebdomadaire prévues dans le primaire, et 12% seulement des collégiens de l'île suivent un enseignement bilingue", a ainsi rappelé Madeleine Mozziconacci (divers gauche).

The Corsican language, called a collection of Italian dialects by some and part of a continuum of Romance languages in the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea, doesn't seem to have a good fate ahead ofi t.

The January 2007 estimated population of the island was 281,000, while the figure for the March 1999 census, when most of the studies - though not the linguistic survey work referenced in this article - were performed, was about 261,000 (see under Corsica). Only a certain percentage of the population at either time spoke Corsu with any fluency. The 2001 population of 341,000 speakers on the island given by Ethnologue exceeds either census and thus may be considered questionable, like its estimate of 402,000 speakers worldwide.

The use of Corsican over French has been declining. In 1980 about 70% of the population "had some command of the Corsican language." In 1990 out of a total population of about 254,000 the percentage had declined to 50%, with only 10% using it as a first language. The language was clearly on the way out when the French government reversed its non-supportive stand and began some strong measures to save it. Whether these measures will succeed remains to be seen. No recent statistics on Corsu are available.

Euromosaic is quite skeptical of the idea of reversing the fall in the numbers of speakers of the Corsican language, that it "is a clear example of the gradual demise of a linguistic tradition. Bilingualism in one generation has normally been followed by monolingualism in the next. Despite the absence of reliable data (an absence which is significant in itself), the reduction in the number and percentage of Corsican speakers over the last few decades is obvious. Socioeconomic conditions for the preservation of Corsican have long been unfavourable, due to the twofold phenomenon of the emigration of native speakers and the immigration of non-speakers."

The lack of institutional support for Corsican, as mentioned above, hasn't helped, this lack derived in part from the identification since 1992 of French as the country's official language, with other languages at best coming in behind. As the above vote demonstrates, it doesn't seem as if very many Corsicans mind this fate for their island's indigenous language.

[LINK] Two Atlantic Canadian island links

• Lisa Keys' article in the New York Times about house-hunting on Prince Edward Island amazed me, not only because PEI has legislative restrictions against foreigners (like, say, Nova Scotians) buying up too much property, but because housing prices on the Island have risen so steeply and the region of the Island that Keys identifies is one of the more marginal and heavily rural there. Times change.


• Over at the Globe and Mail, Gordon Pitts takes a look at how, despite some concerns over the future and a well-balanced economy, Newfoundland's recent oil/mineral-driven prosperity might finally stop being a net exporter of the province's own population. Funnelling oil profits into sustainable post-oil businesses and workforces will be key.