[PHOTO] Looking east, Yonge and Carlton

Taken just shortly before or after this photo of a streetcar at Yonge and College) west across Yone from Carlton, this shows one of downtown Toronto's busiest hubs in the busy early afternoon. I love the density.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• 80 Beats notes a recent finding that injectable hormonal birth control shots--the sort commonly used in Africa--can double the risk of HIV infection.


• blogTO covers the construction of the railway overpass on Dufferin and Queen Street West in the 1880s.


• GNXP refers to a study suggesting that, in the Americas, populations separated by latitude tended not to intermix, perhaps lending some support to Jared Diamond's theory that the large areas of the Eurasian landmass which shared similar latitudes and climates gave that continent's inhabitants the advantage over the rest.


• At The Numerati, Stephen Baker argues that as computers start to learn how to make evidence-based judgements and construct rules, humans remain--are becoming more?--bound by blind ideology than ever before.


• The anthropology group blog Savage Minds has an interesting examination of the dynamics of breastfeeding in Chinese society, where the extended family is so much more notable than the nuclear.


• The Volokh Conspiracy's Ilya Somin celebrates the worldwide decline of conscription as a victory for human freedom.


• At Wasatch Economics, Scott Peterson notes, cartographically, that population growth in Oregon as measured by the US Census is linked strongly to the growth of that state's Hispanic population.


• Zero Geography has mapped content from Arabic Wikipedia. It turns out that the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, the Nile Valley, Israel/Palestine, and much of the Arabian peninsula has the densest coverage.

[BRIEF NOTE] Fuck you, Tim, or, Not an endorsement of the Progressive Conservatives of Ontario

Homophobia and transphobia, sadly, have become campaign issues in Ontario.



Copied from A Rusty Little Box, this is a copy of an ad trying to criticize anti-homo/transphobia educational initiatives in Ontario at election time. It's been published in the National Post, which apologized the day after publication, and in the Toronto Sun, which ran the ad two days later and which has refused to apologize. The timing before the election on Thursday is no coincidence.

This set the stage for this ad.



Produced by Progressive Conservative candidate Ben Shenouda, this ad criticizing--inaccurately, of course--the Ontario Ministry of Education's anti-homophobia and anti-transphobia initiatives. Hate speech? As Torontoist observes, the ad is wrong on its particulars. Ivor Tossell's debunking is necessary reading.

Progressive Leader Tim Hudak actively defended this ad.

Hudak deflected specific questions about the flyers and instead went on the attack about the Liberals’ sex education plan.

“I think they reflect Dalton McGuinty's out-of-the-mainstream policy ideas to have a sex-ed curriculum that would begin with grade ones,” Hudak was quoted by the CBC. “And the notion that Dalton McGuinty thinks a priority in our education system is a sex-ed curriculum starting at Grade 1 when they should be learning their ABCs or math skills, tying their shoes — I just think this shows another example of how Dalton McGuinty's lost touch with mainstream Ontario.”

Spokespeople for the PC Party and for candidates who Liberals say distributed the homophobic and transphobic campaign materials did not return phone calls from Xtra on Oct 2 or 3.

Liberals fired back with press releases that debunked the claims put forward in the flyers. They also pointed out that no changes to the sex-ed curriculum have been made since 1998, when the PCs were last in power.

The quotes that appear in the flyers, which were taken from a Toronto District School Board guidebook called Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism: A K–12 Curriculum Resource Guide, are exactly the same as quotes they say appeared in the TDSB’s 2002 guidebook Rainbows and Triangles: A Curriculum Document for Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism in the K–6 Classroom, when Hudak was a cabinet minister in the Harris government.

Later in the day, the PC Party released a statement saying their objection is that "in the 2011 version, teachers are explicitly told not to consult with parents."

That also is untrue; the TDSB guidebook says that best practice is to inform parents of any equity issues that will be part of the curriculum at the beginning of the term.

Okay, Tim. If you're so ill-informed and ideologically overextended as to defend demonstrably false claims, and especially if you've the malign intent of enabling homophobia in the schools and elsewhere, fuck you and your party.

Everyone? If you are eligible to vote in Ontario, do vote; and, don't vote for the Progressive Conservatves.

[LINK] "On Tim Hudak's Very Disappointing Performance"

As with me, for James Bow Hudak's sloppy endorsement of homophobia was it.

I decided to stay out of this campaign, even as I watched in amazement as Conservative leader Tim Hudak squandered a twenty-point lead to bring this race to at least neck-and-neck. Other bloggers were saying what was needed to be said about things like Hudak’s characterization of decent Ontario citizens as “foreign workers”, or Horvath’s willingness to stand by her hilariously incomprehensible candidate in Niagara.

But then the Hudak campaign went decidedly negative. Not that this should be a surprise in an election this close, and not that it should suggest that the Liberals or New Democrats have their hands clean. But this pamphlet, introduced with the official blessing of the Conservative Party for its use in Brampton area ridings, was something I simply could not ignore. In it, the Conservatives suggest that the McGuinty Liberals have “a hidden agenda” to sexualize the education of children as young as six, with references to “cross-dressing” and “celebrat(ing) sexual diversity (with a) kissing booth”.

A lot of things get said in an election. A lot of inaccurate things. A politician’s character gets impugned, and the opponents’ policies are predicted to bring economic ruin and the death of kittens. But I cannot stand idly by with this flyer in the campaign. My daughter turns six this November. She is currently in grade one. I have paid attention to her education, been in touch with her teachers, and just this afternoon had a pleasant and productive conversation with my daughter’s school principle over concerns I had over the school’s fundraising.

In short, I have a fairly clear picture of what’s going on, and I know that what this flyer is claiming is being done to our children’s education is inaccurate. Worse, it’s misleading. It is a deliberate attempt to manipulate me and my vote by wrongly suggesting that my children are in danger. That’s ugly.

Ivor Torsell does a thorough point-by-point fact check on the offending pamphlet in the Toronto Standard. And it irks me beyond belief that Hudak sidesteps the inaccuracies in this flyer by raising a further spectre, hyperventilating about the possibility (considered and then dropped) of teaching sexual education to our children as early as grade one. Never mind that this isn’t currently planned under the Liberal government. Never mind the fact that we’re just talking about describing the body parts in the correct way. Never mind the studies which suggest that this is of benefit to our children in dealing with the overly sexualized images they get in the media these days. Never mind that we’ve already given frank answers about where babies come from to our eldest daughter when she asks. What does Hudak propose instead? Ignoring the issue does not make it go away.

The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario should be ashamed of itself, to have stooped to such misleading levels with this pamphlet, and to have engaged in such blatant fear mongering throughout this campaign, using our children for their political gain. Their attacks have had no basis in fact, have demonized decent people, and really do not paint an accurate picture of how education is being conducted in this province at this time.

Ultimately, it shows that their policies, especially with respect to education, cannot stand on their own merits. Why else would they choose to lie?