[PHOTO] Acores and Minho, Toronto

Acores and Minho, Toronto
Originally uploaded by randyfmcdonald

Where you're at the intersection of Acores and Minho--located just north of Ossington and Dupont, on the far side of the railway tracks--you know you're in a heavily Portuguese area.

[URBAN NOTE] Judy Tak Fong Lam Chiu:Toronto::Kitty Genovese:New York City?

Toronto has an annoying, intermittantly endearing, tendency to compare itself to world metropolises like New York City? On Monday, as the Globe and Mail article "Toronto woman’s desperate attempt to stay alive in freezing temperatures" (among others) indicates, Toronto had its own Kitty Genovese moment.

In the snowy streets of a Scarborough, Ont. neighbourhood, Judy Tak Fong Lam Chiu left a chilling trail that led to her frozen body.

Her winter coat and glasses were discarded, a symptom of the dementia that clouded her mind, while fingernail marks on the screen door of a house and on a parked car demonstrated her desperate attempt to stay alive as the temperatures dipped as low as -20 C early Monday morning.

[. . .]

She was pronounced dead in hospital at 7:05 a.m., but may have survived, police say, if some of the neighbours who heard her screams for help around 2 a.m. had intervened or called 911. One resident even looked outside and noticed someone stumbling around in the dark and cold, said Sergeant David Dubé, and then went back to bed.

“It’s a circumstance where we should have been notified to attend,” Sgt. Dubé said. “As a community, we have an obligation to look after each other. That’s what it’s about.”

[. . .]

George Cheang, a 22-year-old York University business student who lives on Kennaley Crescent, awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of screaming, but assumed it was neighbours arguing or returning home from a party, and stayed in bed. He would have acted differently if he had he known what was happening, he said, and insisted that most neighbours on the quiet street are friendly, say hello and help each other out.

“The way I see it is, it happened on my street. It could have happened on your street,” said Mr. Cheang, who has lived with his parents in the neighbourhood since they moved from Macau 10 years ago. “I’m not worried about people judging me. I’m more worried about what happened to the woman on the street.”

Other residents said they believed people should have helped, but may have been too fearful to intervene. “You don’t know who’s going to be there when you open the door,” said Lucy Abdelmaseeh, who lives about half a block down from where the woman was found, but said she didn’t hear anything.

Of course, the Kitty Genovese incident was overblown: none of the 38 identified witnesses saw the entire incident, and people who did see elements of the incident had reasonable grounds to think that something else was happening. Much the same seems to be true of Monday's early morning tragedy. That just highlights the similarities, mind.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• At Acts of Minor Treason, Andrew Barton argues that the very low-density city of Phoenix, existing in the desert with very problematic water supplies, is going to become the 21st century Detroit.


• Richard at Castrovalva considers the field of literary criticism, noting its recent tendency to be isolated from literature and populated by people speaking to a limited number of others, and praising Morgan Meis' suggestion that critics shouldn't judge so much as enable enjoyment.


• In an extended GNXP piece, Razib examines the history of the Assyrians--a Christian population in the Levant and Iraq--and suggests that their history of relative isolation and endogamy in a Muslim region not only compares with that of the Mizrachi Jews of the same area but are actually relatively closely related from the genetic point of view, perhaps reflecting the population movements of Semites in the Middle East in the first millennium before the common era.


• At the Invisible College, Dov Jacobs is somewhat skeptical about the special tribunal investigating the assassination of Lebanon's Rafiq Hariri, noting the general opposition in Lebanon to its work and with (as Jacobs says) ill-defined jurisdiction and powers, suggesting that its ability to conduct trials in absentia may be important.


• At Lawyers, Guns, and Money, Paul Campos observes that blogger Matthew Yglesias--Jewish, of Cuban-Spanish descent--wouldn't have been considered white in the not-too-distant future. As the category "white" expands, it seems that the Republicans may continue to do well notwithstanding their weakness with non-whites: how long will Hispanics stay non-white?


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen writes of Haiti that the relative youth of the population means that many people won't have memories of the Duvalierist dictatorship.


• At Nissology PEI, Hans Connor quotes folklorist David Weale as arguing that global popular culture is lazy, an unwillingness to engage with local culture. Oh, he is so wrong. I didn't make an extended post on this because blogging when angry is usually a bad idea.


• The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla corrects a recent post suggesting that the Kuiper Belt binary pair of Orcus and Vanth were close to the same mass; math error in the original paper.


• At The Power and the Money, Noel Maurer points to the spread of "No Pants" subway rides to Mexico City as an example of that city's radical social liberalization.


• Sublime Oblivion's Anatoly Karlin ranks the ten most powerful countries on Earth. It's interesting, though I think the role of soft power--cultural influence, for instance--is underestimated.


• Finally, if a bit tardily, Towleroad displayed the video "The Bizarre World of the Bisexual." Comedy, see.

Watch on YouTube

[CAT] "Sal the Cat summoned for jury service... and court rules he 'must attend'"

The Daily Mail, sketchy tabloid that it may be, can carry some amusing articles

A pet cat has been summoned for jury duty - and has been told by courts he 'must attend'

Despite owner Anna Esposito's protestations that a mistake has been made, a jury commissioner has ruled that Sal must attend the court.

She wrote that Sal was 'unable to speak and understand English' - and included a letter from her vet saying that the animal was a 'domestic short-haired neutered feline'.

Bizarrely, the court ruled the animal must report to the courtroom. If the matter is not resolved he will have to report to Suffolk Superior Crown Court in Boston, U.S. on March 23.
Anna wrote her Sal's name under 'pets' on the last census - she crossed out 'dogs' and said he was a cat.

She said: 'When they ask him guilty or not guilty? What's he supposed to say - miaow?

Case closed? Sal's details were recorded when there was a Boston state census - and he appears to have been mistakenly identified as a human when the forms were processed
Husband Guy added: 'I said, Sal, what's this? I was shocked. He likes to sit on my knee and watch crime shows with me but even so he's still under qualified for jury duty if you ask me.'

There are ten statutory disqualifications preventing people from serving on a jury - and Mrs Esposito said Sal was not suitable because he could not understand the language.
However, jurors are 'not expected' to have a perfect command of the English language.

The other exemptions did not apply because Sal was not ill, too old or a convicted felon.

Myself, I think that cats might well bring something to juries. Certainly they're quick to judge, and have excellent reflexes besides being able to read human body language reasonably well. Just, as Scott said over at Facebook, keep the laser pointers and treats away.

[LINK] "Misery in Haiti"

Hans at Nissology PEI says what needs to be said

Following hurricanes, earthquakes, political unrest, more hurricanes, a cholera epidemic and more political unrest - all since 2010 - we now get reports that former thuggish dictator, robber-baron and full-time coward Baby Doc Duvalier has returned to his native land from luxurious exile in France.

[. . .]

Of course, I have previously offered a solution to Haiti's problems that involves revoking Haitian sovereignty and mass migration of Haitian refugees. Canada could take three million, America could take three million and France could take three million. I mean, France already hosted Baby Doc for 25 years or so. I bet it would be cheaper to have three million regular Haitians than that prick. It would also be a net gain in morality.

The depopulation of Haiti isn't in the cards, but as I've written at Demography Matters Haiti's economy depends hugely on remittances sent back to the homeland by the migrant diasporas in North America and elsewhere. A more open immigration policy in traditional receiving countries would certainly be beneficial for Haitians.

[LINK] "Should Microstates Have Standing?"

Geocurrent Events' Martin Lewis considers this question.

'[T]hematic maps are portraying these exiguous sovereign states as sizable circles, their regular geometric shapes indicating that they are not mapped to scale (as in the second map posted above). Although unspecified, the rationale seem to be that such entities deserve depiction on any state-based map, as they are indeed internationally recognized sovereign states. Leaving them off or mapping them (invisibly) to scale would unfairly deny them their rightful places within the so-called community of nations. In the standard model of geopolitics, all sovereign states are juridically equivalent individuals, and it would hardly be right to deny certain individuals recognition simply because they are smaller than others.

But recognizing microstates in such a manner entails severe geographical distortions. In the second map above, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Lichtenstein, Malta, and the Vatican City are vastly enlarged, appearing substantially larger than Luxembourg. All other countries in Europe are basically mapped to scale here, but the micro-countries are treated as deserving special notice. In a number of sources, microstates are literally mapped at vastly finer levels of resolution than others, merely by virtue of their anomalous sovereignty. In the maps used in the CIA World Factbook, one kilometer of Monaco is equal to roughly 1,400 miles of Russia.

In the standard world model, all sovereign states are portrayed as equivalent units, entities of the same scope and capacities that interact as fellow members in the “international community.” From data tables to encyclopedia and almanac entries, sovereign states tend to be depicted in the same manner, regardless of their area or population.

[. . .]

Treating microstates as equivalent to ordinary countries wastes effort and leads to misleading comparisons. Consider, for example, the Wikipedia table of average life expectancy across Europe, posted above. The numbers given seem to indicate that there is something quite special about Andorra, which posts longevity figures well beyond those of other states. In actuality, the average age of death in Andorra is much the same as it is in neighboring areas of northern Spain and Southern France, as Andorra is merely one of many similar regions in this vicinity, albeit one that happens to have sovereignty. By juxtaposing Andorra with France and Spain rather than with neighboring districts of the same scale in northern Spain and Southern France, a distorted picture results.

[. . .]

Ironically, in our drive to portray all countries in an egalitarian way, as if they were all individuals worthy of equal consideration, we end up depicting the world’s human individuals in a preposterously unequal manner. Consider the distortions that result when Nauru and India are regarded as equivalent units of the human community, worthy of the same level of attention when it comes to tabulating basic information about the world. The population of India (1.2 billion) is more than five orders of magnitude greater than that of Nauru (10 thousand), and its land area is larger still. By insisting on their equivalence, the standard world model seems to advance the claim that Nauru is 100,000 times more recognition-worthy than India, or perhaps even that each Nauruan counts as much as 100,000 Indians. Yet such an unhinged view of the world, one might argue, is essentially encoded in the very principles of the global political order. As represented in the United Nations General Assembly, each citizen of Nauru essentially has the voice of 100,000 citizens of India.

I'd suggest that weighted averages would offer a way out of these distortions, but how would it be weighted, and where?

Go, read.

[LINK] "Does Gliese 581g exist?"

Bother. Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait reports on the subject.

Back in September 2010, astronomers announced the discovery of a remarkable and exciting planet: it was three times our mass (high, but far closer to Earth conditions than the super-Jupiters usually found) and orbiting in the "Goldilocks zone" of its star… which meant that it could possibly have liquid water on its surface! This achingly earth-like planet made a major buzz, and in fact I used its characteristics to estimate that there could be billions of Earthlike planets in our galaxy.

But there’s just one small, really eensy-teensy problem: the planet may not exist. But it also might. Maybe.

[. . .]

Almost immediately, the planet was called into doubt; the Swiss team re-examined their data and could not be absolutely certain that Gliese 581 g was there, but still gave it a thumbs-up at the 90+% level. That’s not too bad.

Interestingly, not too long after the announcement I was at a meeting with several astronomers, and one noted that Vogt’s team made a big assumption: all the planet orbits were circular. If in fact one of the planets had an elliptical orbit it could set up a false-positive, making it look like another planet was there when it wasn’t. According to Vogt this turns out not to be the case; I contacted him and he let me know that orbital ellipticity was one of the characteristics they modeled as a variable. In other words, their computer model made no assumptions about orbit shape, but in fact the best fits in the end were circular orbits.

Still and all, there have been some questions about the planet’s existence, and I’ve been holding back from posting until something happened. Well, something did: Philip Gregory, an emeritus astronomer with the University of British Columbia, has analyzed both data sets using sophisticated statistical techniques, and he concluded that Gliese 581 g almost certainly wasn’t real. In fact, he says the odds of it being a false alarm are 99.9978%!

Let me be up front with you: I don’t know. Gregory analyzed the data using Bayesian analysis, a method of looking at the statistical certainty of a set of observations. This is fiendishly complex in practice and to be honest is not something I’m familiar with. However, in his paper, Gregory himself claims that Vogt and Butler underestimated the amount of noise in their data. Vogt disputes this, saying that Gregory adds noise to their data rather arbitrarily. I’ll admit that it seemed odd to me that Gregory would add noise the way he did, but again I’m no expert.

Vogt also notes that how you run the computer model will change whether or not you find the planet. This part interests me, because I’ve run into similar situations myself. If you tell your computer that one of the planets (in this case, Gliese 581 d) has a highly elliptical orbit, then Gliese 581 g disappears: when you calculate the statistics, it’s far more probable that the planet does not exist. But if you keep Gleise 581 d’s orbit circular, Gliese 581 g can be seen in the data. These two different assumptions lead to two different solutions, where one has Gliese 581 g in it and the other doesn’t.

Plait's conclusion? He just can't judge which is the more likely outcome. The mass of controversy and accusations and counter-accusations isn't helping things, either.

Go, read.

[LINK] "Downbelow Station: Here's how you write a novel"

I've written a couple of times about C.J. Cherryh's brilliant novel Downbelow Station. Over at io9, Josh Wimmer backs me up.

This book doesn't have any flashy-cool technology, or superhumans, or phenomena beyond the ken of mortal understanding. It is set a few centuries in the future, but the characters are for the most part people like today's. And though it takes its title from a space station, you could argue that the novel could be recast in a non-science-fiction format — set on Earth in the present day or past — without altering the basic story too terribly much.

[. . .]

Humans, in the form of the privately held Earth Company, started colonizing the galaxy by building huge space stations in a chain of star systems extending away from ours, out toward the Beyond. Ships, moving at near-light-speed, ran a long trade loop: They carried essential organic materials to the stations, and brought mined minerals back to Earth. Because those organic materials couldn't be grown well in space, Earth remained the controlling power in the Great Circle.

And then Pell's World was discovered, the first inhabitable planet besides Earth — and one that already hosted intelligent life, the primitive, monkey-like hisa. (Later, the humans on Pell station started calling the world "Downbelow," from the hisa's pidgin English.) Now that there was another, closer planet that could supply the stations in the Beyond with biostuffs, Earth's grip on trade began to weaken. It tried to hold on, the stations resisted — and a quiet conflict began.

More life-supporting planets were discovered, and then on one, Cyteen, the faster-than-light jump drive was invented by the Beyonders. That enabled them to work together more easily, and eventually, they joined forces, calling themselves Union.

When Downbelow Station opens, full-on war between Earth and Union has been in swing for some time, and Union — with better technology, able to mass-produce cloned soldiers in vats — is winning. The Company fleet has been reduced to a ragtag guerrilla force, all but disowned by an out-of-touch Earth. Its ships survive only because they operate as near-independent units, striking at Union quickly and then retreating into hiding.

If there is a driving theme of this book, it is the clash between independent desires and the good of the group as a whole. The story begins with the Company's Captain Signy Mallory forcibly docking at Pell to drop off six thousand refugees from two other stations, recently all but destroyed. For years, Pell has served as a neutral zone on the border between Company and Union space; with the arrival of the refugees, that fragile neutrality starts to shatter.

[. . .]

Like an infection, the circumstances spread throughout the station and down to the planet below. War, and a population swollen by six thousand unexpected guests, means shortages of everything: resources, living space, mere time. Such acute scarcity turns people into rats, scrambling over each other heedlessly to bite at whatever's available.

And the inertia of it all imposes impossible decisions even on those who want to improve it: Stationmaster Angelo Konstantin can't afford to do much for the refugees — he has Pell's own population to take care of first — and so Q festers like a sore, one that will eventually erupt.

[. . .]

Cherryh tells the story in limited third-person, moving from character to character. (So we get inside Jon's head enough to know that he is intensely dislikable, but into Angelo's enough to guess that he has a gotten a little comfortable in the seat of power, and would rather have his brother-in-law accept his orders uncritically than try to communicate with him.) We spend a lot of time with Damon Konstantin, head of legal affairs on Pell, and I think it would be easy to assume that he is the protagonist (not least because he is a young man, and that demographic makes up the bulk of SF protagonists). Damon's story is more illustrative of the general point of the book — the moral, I guess — though:

He spends the whole book trying to maintain order on Pell (his job title is a symbol), and expends a lot of energy in the service of others. He's particularly committed to helping those who are weak: There's Josh Talley, a Union prisoner of war left on Pell by Captain Mallory, who has undergone Adjustment — mind-scrubbing to remove any dangerous information or violent tendencies. Damon and his new wife, Elene, befriend him and vouch for him again and again. And then there are the alien hisa, or Downers. Unlike most humans, all of the Konstantins treat them like sentient beings deserving of basic rights.

Damon's treatment of Josh and his relationship with the hisa eventually prove essential to his survival. As civilized society falls apart, his refusal to abandon the people and principles he cares about is what saves him. That is true of other characters, too — his brother, Emilio, who leads the workers and refugees on the planet below; his mother, Alicia, beloved of the hisa; Satin, a Downer who has come up to the station to honor a human who sacrificed himself saving hisa lives. And so is the converse: The characters like Jon Lukas, who think purely of themselves, ultimately find themselves needing help and with no one they can rely on.

Go, read.