[PHOTO] Undone wall

Undone wall
Originally uploaded by randyfmcdonald

This wall has stayed undone--facade unfinished, concrete core barely higher, structural wiring--has been unfinished for as long as I've lived on this stretch of Dupont.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• 80 Beats reports that Neandertals lived just as long as the direct--rather, majority--ancestors of homo sapiens sapiens, putting paid to theories that they were outcompeted by virtue of a short lifespan.


• A BCer in Toronto's Jeff Jedras notes that while the incumbent Conservative government of Canada might condemn Liberal leaders for criticizing government policy while outside of the country, the Conservatives themselves have been willing to do so in office, while the predecessor Canadian Alliance's leadership went so far as to pay for an ad in the Wall Street Journal apologizing for not supporting the invasion of Iraq.


• At A (Budding) Sociologist's Commonplace Book, Dan Hirschman takes issue with the idea of a pre-tax income as meaningful, since that income is itself dependent on investments made from tax money. A commenter disagrees, suggesting that it's still meaningful if not in as precise a way as some might have it.


• Crooked Timber's Henry Farrell notes that, already, and arguably reasonably, the French and Germans are telling the Irish that their low corporate tax rates aren't acceptable at a time when the economy's being bailed out.


• Eastern Approaches' notes a few things about Estonia's accession to the Eurozone, everything from Estonia's hosting any number of Europe-wide cultural events to the unique topography of Estonian Euro coinage.


• Geocurrents explains that Belgium became a country because it's the Catholic, non-French, rump of late medieval Burgundy.


• The Global Sociology Blog has so many good posts that it's difficult to share them all. Start with his post arguing that the poor are truly more altruistic than the rich, continue with this post observing that cash transfers to the poor like Brazil's Bolsa Familia are more effective than traditional charities and demonstrate the trustworthiness of the poor, and end with this review of Richard Sennett's new book arguing that modern capitalism destabilizes traditional bureaucracies as a matter of course and threatens social capital.


• Language Hat covers the Stalin-era shift of minority languages' alphabets from Latin to Cyrillic.


• Marginal Revolution suggests that things were so bad for early 19th century Mexico that average height--that basic metric--was declining.


• At Registan, Joshua Foust observes that Uzbekistan's cotton harvest still depends on forced labour, by students and others.


• On the anniversary of Haiti's terrible earthquake, at Savage Minds anthropologist Chesley Kivland writes about his experiences that day. The extent to which people mobilized is impressive.


• The Search's Douglas Todd reports on a fascinating-looking history of lesbians in early- and mid-20th century Canada.


• Slap Upside the Head notes that a Conservative MP is unhappy with a court's ruling that, as civil servants, marriage commissioners in saskatchewan can't refuse to marry a same-sex couple.


• Window on Eurasia argues that, contrary to Lithuanian arguments that Russia is responsible for Soviet attacks on Lithuanian civilians in Vilnius in 1991, the Russian republic under Yeltsin worked actively against these attacks.

[MUSIC] Casey Spooner, "Faye Dunaway"

I've been listening to the New York-based electroclash duo Fischerspooner for some time--I even linked to their Sontag-lyriced song "We Need a War" back in December 2007--but it wasn't until my cousin D. visited Toronto this summer just past that I learned that the front man, out Casey Spooner, had surprised himself by writing a solo album--Adult Contemporary--and that he was opening for the Scissor Sisters in their North American tour.

Since I learned about Spooner's solo material, I've been listening to it fairly frequently on YouTube (and, yes, I've gotten the album). The song "Faye Dunaway"--in the below video, performed in his stop in Toronto the 30th of October just past--is catchy.

Watch on YouTube

(An album version is here.)

[BRIEF NOTE] On Zellers

Venerable Canadian retail chain Zellers (official site, Wikipedia), after nearly a century of existence, is facing its doom.

U.S. retailer Target said Thursday it is buying the store leases of Canadian discount retail chain Zellers from the U.S. investor who owns the Hudson's Bay Co. assets for $1.8 billion.

Under terms of the deal, Minneapolis-based Target will make two payments of $912.5 million in cash, in May and September 2011, to acquire the leasehold interests of 220 Zellers locations in Canada.

The Zellers locations will continue to exist under that brand name for "a period of time," HBC said in a release. But Target will convert 100 to 150 of those Zellers locations to Target stores in 2013 and 2014 and possibly sell the rest of the current Zellers network of store leases to other retailers.

"I think there would be a number of U.S. retailers that would feel that there is opportunity to make some inroads in Canada," said Paul Taylor, chief investment officer at BMO Harris Private Banking.

But the fate of the 70-odd Zellers stores that aren't destined to become Targets is far from clear. "The company still has plans to operate a portfolio of Zellers stores in some communities across the country," HBC spokeswoman Freda Colbourne told The Canadian Press.

Over at Torontoist, Jamie Bradburn explained the chains very Canadian genesis.

Walter Zeller entered the retail business through the stock room of a Woolworth’s in his native Kitchener in 1912. Over the next two decades he rose steadily in the five-and-dime field on both sides of the border, working at store and corporate management levels for the likes of S.S. Kresge and Metropolitan Stores. In 1928 he launched his own small chain with locations in Fort William, London, and St. Catharines. By the end of that year, the original incarnation of Zellers was purchased by American retailer Schulte-United, who rebranded the stores under their banner. Dreams of opening two hundred stores were quashed by the economic crash, which resulted in Schulte-United’s bankruptcy in January 1931. The bankruptcy trustees called in Zeller, who decided after several months of examination to buy the dozen or so stores left in Canada.

Zeller sounded optimistic about the chances for the new Zellers Ltd. when he announced its formation in November 1931. “In building our new company,” he told the press, “one important thought has been borne in mind—that the buying public to-day is more discriminating and thrifty than ever before. It knows and demands style merchandise of good quality. It insists on popular prices.” Among the first stores to carry the new banner was the chain’s sole Toronto location at Yonge and Albert streets (now occupied by the Eaton Centre). Prior to its grand opening on November 11, store manager F.C. Lee told the Star both he and the employees that had been retained were confident about the prospects for Zellers, due to the retail experience, managerial skills, and financial backing of the new corporate overlords. “While Zellers is extending a chain of stores throughout Canada,” Lee noted, “nevertheless the business is founded on the principle that the local success depends on catering to local conditions and preferences—and local managers are empowered to operate on this basis.”

Within two years of Walter Zeller’s death in 1957, a majority interest in the company was held by American discounter W.T. Grant. The Hudson’s Bay Company became sole owner in 1978. Later acquisitions included many Toronto locations of K-Mart and Towers. Though various marketing strategies and older, messy stores never won Zellers the cheap-chic cachet that Target has earned, we suspect there will be a tear or two shed at the end of a long-time Canadian brand. So long Club Z, family restaurants, and Zeddy.

The neglect of the chain's stores that Bradburn mentions is a sad reality; the chain's closest outpost to me, the Zellers in the Gallleria Mall, is dingy and faintly dirty and somewhat depressing. It's not surprising that, at least according to the Globe and Mail, the deal is as much about freeing up real estate opportunities as it is converting existing chains.

I wonder: will the Galleria Zellers will survive to become a Target?

[LINK] "China versus world"

Scott Peterson's point at Wasatch Economics is well put. I've heard and read people talking about this for some time.

It appears that the PRC is and will continue to be unresponsive to the concerns of essentially the rest of the world in terms of trade policy. This is understandable from the perspective of the PRC’s leadership, as their primary objective is to remain in power and continuation of current policy seems the best way to achieve that objective.

What can the rest of the world do to offset the result of the above? The indoctrination of policymakers and the public regarding the virtues of “free trade” over roughly the past 30 years in Western countries means that setting up tariffs and trade restrictions against Chinese products would be an admission that “free trade” has been a failure. The logical conclusion from this would be that policymakers and politicians who created and advocated for “free trade” need to be replaced. Therefore such a policy reversal is unlikely to come from current leaders. In addition the status quo has been highly profitable for elites both in the West and in the PRC, which means that these groups will be strongly opposed to policy reversal, decreasing the chance that this will happen.

This derives from a Michael Pettis post suggesting that while developing countries--particularly China--are able to limit the strength of their currencies, the United States and the Eurozone aren't so able, and are consequently going to be forced to "give up the hope to rebuild growth and employment based less on consumption, and more on production and manufacturing" or to do something else, perhaps (as in Portugal) resolve its external imbalances with a collapse in demand.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the latest "embarrassment" involving the RCMP in British Columbia

What is it with the RCMP in British Columbia? This sort of thing keeps happening.

Officers from the Abbotsford Police Department arrive in Kelowna Tuesday to begin an investigation into an alleged incident of excessive force by an RCMP officer.

Const. Geoff Mantler has been suspended with pay after he was accused of using excessive force during the arrest of a Kelowna man on Friday.

[. . .]

Police were responding to a report of shots fired near the Harvest Golf Club. Officers later apprehended the suspected shooter, Buddy Tavares, on a Kelowna street.

A freelance reporter who observed the arrest began video-recording events as police converged on Tavares with their guns drawn.

Tavares, 51, is seen getting out of his truck and, on police orders, falling to his hands and knees. Next, the RCMP officer kicked Tavares in the face.

Moments later, the video shows the handcuffed Tavares lying on the ground in a pool of blood.

B.C. Liberal leadership candidate George Abbott said the incident shows it is time for the province to look seriously at civilian oversight for the RCMP. "This is, I think, fortuitous in some way," he said.

Oh, but it gets better.

Mr. Tavares was arrested after police responded to a call that an employee of the Harvest Golf Club in Kelowna was on the grounds firing a gun. Mr. Tavares is a long-time employee of the club and one of his duties was scaring away geese with a shotgun.

But police say Mr. Tavares is on disability leave from the club, did not have permission to be there Friday, and there were no permits in place for the use of firearms or noisemakers to scare birds.

Mr. Tavares, however, says he resumed geese-control duties about two weeks ago and was authorized to use a shotgun “at my discretion.”

“I go there every day but there's not geese every day,” he added.

The Harvest Golf Club's administrative assistant, Keri Fisher, said the club would not comment on the incident or Mr. Tavares, who has been charged with careless use of a firearm.

Police have said the incident is connected to a “domestic violence situation,” an allegation that baffles Mr. Tavares and his family.

Mr. Tavares’s former wife, Trudi Tavares, also works at the golf club but has said she was “absolutely not” the victim of violence at her former husband's hands.

[. . .]

Police pulled Mr. Tavares over in his truck about five kilometres away from the club. Mr. Tavares said he was shocked to see police pointing guns at him.

He said he obeyed an officer's order to get out of his truck and onto the ground. “And then it's sort of a blank,” he said of his memory.

The video, however, clearly captured an officer giving him a swift kick to the head. The video also shows Mr. Tavares's bloodied and battered face as he is led away.

Am I justified in wondering if there's something terribly wrong with the culture of the RCMP, whether only in British Columbia or in Canada as a whole?

[LINK] "Once upon a time ... the technologies of the past"

Via Crooked Timber comes the below fantastic video showing a dozen or so Québec Grade 2 students investigating the technological items--Game Boys, LPs, rotary telephones--that my generation grew up with but theirs has no experience of.

Watch on YouTube

"My generation." Wow.