[PHOTO] A hobbit grave?

A hobbit grave?
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

That's what talktooloose called this Mount Pleasant Cemetery tomb, and I think he picked the right name for it.

[DM] "On Tunisia's continuing demographic transition"

I've got a post up at Demography Matters translating a French-language article describing Tunisia's ongoing demographic transition. Go, read.

[BRIEF NOTE] On Toronto's bicycle problem

John Spears' Toronto Star article "Nothing settled in bicycle wars" makes the point described in the article title. While better education for drivers is a must and better bike lanes is likewise very good where possible, I find myself increasingly annoyed with Yvonne Bambrick et al. for their opposition to the regulation of bicycles in Toronto: if bicycles are to become part of Toronto's official transportation strategies, shouldn't they (and their drivers) be regulated just as strictly as other vehicles and other drivers in Toronto?

In a city still stunned by the death of cyclist Darcy Allan Sheppard, resulting in charges against former attorney-general Michael Bryant, the city's works committee discussed two proposals yesterday: That all cyclists be required to wear helmets, and all cyclists be licensed.

Both proposals had been made by Councillor Michael Walker before Sheppard's death.

The committee resolved nothing: Cycling advocates opposed both proposals, which were referred to city staff for review. But the debate traced continuing tensions among cyclists, drivers and pedestrians.

Jiang showed raw emotion as he recalled the death of his sister Cheng-Li Jiang, 56, struck by a 15-year-old cyclist on a sidewalk on Kennedy Rd. near Sheppard Ave. E. on Aug. 9. She died the next day, without regaining consciousness.

The boy on the bike was not charged. "Nobody was responsible for an innocent woman's death," her brother said. "I cannot speak without anger: A person's life is nothing. A Chinese-Canadian's life is worthless," he said.

Toronto councillors haven't paid enough attention to safety, he said. "Cheng-Li's tragedy should never happen again if council takes action now." He supported mandatory helmets and licences for cyclists as well as speed limits for bikes.

[. . .]

[Toronto city councillor] De Baeremaeker, who regularly cycles to work, recalled a passenger opening a taxi door in front of him on Dundas St. "I flew onto the asphalt, hit my head, headfirst onto the asphalt, and slid under a taxi cab. That helmet, I'm sure, saved me from very serious harm."

And Carroll spoke of how her husband hit an unseen obstacle on a bike path at night a dozen years ago, falling and knocking a hole in his helmet. Were it not for the helmet, "that would have been his brain – there's no question in my mind."

But Yvonne Bambrick, of the 800-member Toronto Cyclists Union, vocally opposed both proposals, saying they miss the point.

Helmets protect cyclists after they fall, she said: The objective should be to prevent collisions in the first place. "(Removing) the things that are happening to them, which I think is the responsibility of municipal and provincial government ... that's the issue," she said, calling for more and better bike lanes and better education for drivers.

I've had problems with motorized vehicles on streets where I've been biking, true, but those vehicles have been exceptional. The very large majority of motor vehicles I've encountered on the streets have been driven by responsible people who've taken care to drive responsibly. The same certainly can't be said of cyclists, who by and large seem happy to persist in behaviours--running red lights, biking in the opposite direction of traffic, biking on pedestrian laneways so as to avoid red lights, veering across lanes, et cetera--which would fill Toronto's streets with flaming wreckage if these behaviours were ever adopted in similarly regular fashion by drivers of motorized vehicles. Contra Bambrick, cyclists and bicycles need to be strictly regulated, for the good of everyone.

[LINK] "Catalan Town Votes For Independence From Spain"

This is interesting.

Inhabitants of a small Spanish town voted Sunday for the region of Catalonia to secede from Spain in a poll which, though symbolic, adds to pressure on the minority Spanish government as it struggles to combat recession.

The referendum in Arenys de Munt came as Spain's socialist government braces for a court ruling by Spain's Constitutional Court to overturn a special statute setting out the boundaries of Catalan autonomy within the Spanish state.

Many Catalans, including Catalan members of Spain's ruling Socialist Party, feel that such a ruling would ignore legitimate aspirations of a people with hundreds of years of separate identity and which retains its own language.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero needs to pass tax increases to pull Spain's budget deficit back towards European targets, perhaps without the support of Catalan nationalist lawmakers in parliament.

More than 96 percent of votes in Arenys de Munt were in favour of Catalonia becoming an independent state within the European Union, a municipal spokesman said.

"This is a triumph for democracy," said local mayor Carles Mora, who got round a court order forbidding municipal authorities from organising the non-binding vote by holding it outside official offices. About 40 percent of the town's 6,500 eligible voters participated in the referendum.

Arenys de Munt might be a small town, but might this indicate that Catalan nationalism is moving away from regionalism towards a fully-fledged Catalan separatist movement on the Québec model?

[LINK] "Catalonian Influences in the Caribbean"

The Havana Times reproduces an interesting article examining Catalan influence in the Spanish Caribbean.

Even without meaning to highlight it, the opening of the cultural program “Catalonian Influences in the Caribbean” evoked the various periods in which Spain too was a country of emigrants.

For reasons of an economic, political or other nature, the richly endowed American possessions of the Spanish crown - or the newly independent republics, depending on the historical moment - once represented the dream of a better life for many Spaniards. Refugees of wars and dictatorships hoped they would find their second homeland in this new world.

With the aim of recovering and strengthening the cultural and emotional bonds between Catalonia and Spanish-speaking Caribbean nations, the program “Catalonian Influences in the Caribbean” was organized by the Casa América Cataluña, considered to be the first institution of its type in the world.

The very origin of that institution was based in nostalgia, because it was started by emigrants who returned to the peninsula after the loss of the former colonies - particularly the last two, Cuba and Puerto Rico. In Barcelona they first founded the Club Americano, in 1911, the predecessor of the Casa América Cataluña.

[. . .]

The Catalans came late, but they took very good advantage of their arrival. Around 1830, “Catalan emigration to Cuba began to convert into an economic, social and even political force of clear importance in national life,” contends writer and journalist Leonardo Padura in his article “La aventura americana” (The American adventure), originally published in the Cuban newspaper “Juventud Rebelde.”

“All economic strata seemed interested in those Spaniards who, from trade with the colony, provided the lungs for the air needed for Catalonia to make the leap to industrialization; at the same time they revived the mercantile life of the island,” noted the journalist.

In this way, Catalans practically directed trade from Cuba around 1850. Not only did they hand down into history famous names - such as Partagás (perhaps the best known Catalan connected to the tobacco industry), Facundo Bacardí (the father of Bacardí rum, whose legend endures even today), and Martí Torrens (whose fortune had a great deal to do with the profitable African slave trade) - but they also left us the legacy of today’s García Lorca Theater.

There were also Catalans recognized for their connection with other important areas of life - individuals like Mariano Cubí Soler, founder of the “Revista Bimestre de Cuba” magazine; and teacher Juan Olivella Salas, co-founder along with Cubí of the Buenavista school.

According to the article by Padura, “The economic surge of this emigration allowed them, by 1840, to even found what would become the first regional association of Spaniards in Cuba: La Sociedad de Beneficencia de Naturales de Cataluña. Its presidency would be passed along to the most noted individuals of this nationality, and the association would physically construct new institutions - first a hospital, where one could die in peace, and later a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Moreneta, where one could cry from their nostalgia.”

Go, read the article in its entirety.

[LINK] "New film looks at Quebec's inability to achieve sovereignty"

Nelson Wyatt's article covers what sounds like an interesting film.

In the 40-plus years since Quebecers began proclaiming some desire to become sovereign, more than 100 countries have achieved independence.

But not Quebec. It has more political power, it has gone through two referendums - one in which sovereigntists came achingly close to winning - but it's still part of Canada. The fate of non-sovereign Quebec, Scotland and Catalonia are explored in "National Matters," a new documentary by filmmakers Roger Boire and Jean-Pierre Roy that is screening at Montreal's World Film Festival.

Economic security and concern about what an independent state might look like are cited as two of the reasons for Quebec's inability to break away. And then there's the explanation by Bernard Landry, the firebrand former premier and ex-leader of the Parti Quebecois.

"First, WE were Canada," he said in the documentary, pointing out his ancestors had referred to themselves as "Canayans" and everybody else was "the English." The anthem that became "O Canada" was first composed for the Societe St-Jean Baptiste, he points out.

"Trying to explain to my grandfather why we had to separate from Canada, since Canada was part of his identity, was as if we were asking him to cut himself in half," Landry said.

It was a take that surprised the filmmakers, who didn't expect that to be Landry's first explanation for why his option has so far fallen short.

"That was very interesting for him to say that," said Boire, who says he personally has maintained a healthy skepticism of both the federalist and sovereigntist options.

[LINK] "Lithuania's challenge"

The Montreal Gazette's Karla Gruodis writes about the ways in which that country's current catastrophic economic shock is reflecting and shaping that Baltic state's culture and identity, caught between the Soviet and the European unions.

Vilnius is a tense and dynamic place, a dramatic blend of sparkling new skyscrapers and crumbling Soviet-era buildings, elegant modernist homes and ramshackle wooden cottages. Some of its residents enjoy all the freedoms and comforts of modern European life, but many Lithuanians are still struggling, both economically and emotionally, to adapt to the massive changes their society has undergone.

Angele Kiausiniene, a 57-year-old teacher who participated in the Baltic Way [when two million Balts held hands to symbolize their desire for independence in 1989], expresses the frustrations felt by many people here.

"We saw Lithuania's future through rose-coloured glasses. We knew that it would be hard, but we thought that the unity we felt during the Baltic Way would be with us for decades to come." She describes herself as a patriot but says she is disappointed with the political infighting and corruption that followed independence, and understands why her sons, a 33-year-old meat packer and 24-year-old taxi driver, hope to soon join the hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians who have emigrated to Western Europe in the last 10 years in search of better wages.

Establishing an independent Lithuania turned out to be messier than anyone expected, says Gintaras Chomentauskas, a prominent Vilnius psychologist.

While the political gains the country has made are unquestionably positive, he says, the psychological cost of such rapid change has been high. Lithuania leads Europe in suicides and accidental deaths, and surveys show citizens lack faith in politicians, police and government institutions.

"A good number of objective studies show that, despite the positive changes that have taken place, a lot of people are miserable."

The past's legacies remain, it seems.