[PHOTO] Kimlau Memorial Arch, Chatham Square, New York City

Chatham Square is an intersection in the Lower East Side, in what is now Chinatown, where seven streets connect: Bowery, East Broadway, St. James Place, Mott Street, Oliver Street, Worth Street and Park Row. Located in the middle of the square is a small park of 0.92 acres, Kimlau Square, named after the Chinese-American memorialized with this arch.

Second Lieutenant Benjamin Ralph Kimlau (1918-1944) was a Chinese-American bomber pilot who died serving his country in World War II. Born in Concord, Massachusetts, Kimlau moved to New York City with his parents when he was fourteen. After graduating from Dewitt Clinton High School in 1937, Kimlau first traveled to China, where he witnessed firsthand Japanese military aggression. The next year, he returned to the United States and entered the Pennsylvania Military College (now the United States Army War College). Kimlau graduated with honors, earning a commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Field Artillery. Interested in airborne defense, Kimlau transferred from Field Artillery to the United States Army Air Force, and, following flight school, he was assigned to the “Flying Circus,” the 380th Bombardment Group of the Fifth Air Force in Australia. Beginning on February 27, 1944, along with four other pilots, Kimlau embarked on a mission to bomb Japanese airbases around New Guinea. On March 5, 1944, Kimlau and his fellow pilots were ordered to attack the Japanese rear line at Los Negros, an island adjacent to New Guinea. During the attack, the Japanese defenders shot down the attacking U. S. bombers, killing Kimlau and the other pilots. For their heroism and devotion to duty on this occasion and several others, the members of 380th Bombardment Group earned two Presidential Unit Citations. The Lt. Kimlau Memorial monument was a gift of the Lt. B.R. Kimlau Chinese Memorial Post 1291, founded by Chinese-American World War II veterans in 1945. The post is the largest in New York City, promoting numerous patriotic programs and community service initiatives within Chinatown, such as petitioning the Department of Transportation for more traffic lights in Chinatown, establishing and contributing to a capital fund for the construction of a recreation center at the Chinese Community Center, publishing the American Legion’s first bilingual newsletter, offering a weekly Tai-chi class, as well as teaching new immigrants basic English. Located at the intersection of Oliver Street, East Broadway, the Bowery, and Park Row, Kimlau Square stands at the center of Chatham Square. In 1961, a local law named this island within Chatham Square in recognition of the contributions of Lt. Kimlau and the veterans post. That year, the post erected this memorial, designed by architect Poy G. Lee (1900-1968). Standing at the head of Oliver Street, it is reminiscent of a triumphal arch. The memorial stands eighteen feet nine inches in height and is sixteen feet wide. Inscribed on the memorial is a dedication in both English and Chinese: “In Memory of the Americans of Chinese Ancestry who lost their Lives in Defense of Freedom and Democracy.” In June 2000, the post celebrated its 55th anniversary, which included a parade and a rededication of the Kimlau Memorial.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• At Acts of Minor Treason, Andrew Barton points out that despite its flaws, nuclear energy is still a much cleaner energy-production technology that fossil fuels.


• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait looks at U Camelopardalis, a spectacularly dying red giant star 1400 light-years away that offers us a glimpse into our own star's future.


• Daniel Drezner finds it meaningful that two of the complaints made in the American Declaration of Independence were that the British Crown wasn't promoting enough immigration and foreign trade.


• Eastern Approaches takes a look at the controversy over the Ukrainian language law granting Russian official status.


• The first Geocurrents link of the day looks at the origins of Corsican distinctiveness and Corsican separatist terrorism.


• The second Geocurrents link of the day? An overview of different African populations claiming ancient Jewish descent, and their reasons for doing so.


• Third Geocurrents link? The politicization of Phoenician ruins in modern Lebanon.


• Supernova Condensate examines the whole Higgs boson affair.

[LINK] "Georgian-Ossetian discord rumbles painfully on"

Writing for Open Democracy, Vakhtang Komakhidze writes at length about how the official policies of the Georgian government towards secessionist South Ossetia--basically, doing the best to cut off all contact with South Ossetia in the hopes that the South Ossetians will give in and unify with Georgia on Georgian turns--is counterproductive.

Over the 20 years of political and military confrontation between Georgia and its two separatist regions, it is South Ossetia that has had relatively better chance for settling its problems. The most difficult time has undoubtedly been the last few years since the 2008 war. Relations are virtually frozen: on the one hand, the Georgian government is refusing to accept recommendations which could have allowed greater cooperation; on the other hand, it offers no alternative to the EU’s recommendations and says nothing about any prospects for settling the Georgian-Ossetian question.

The shadow of the August war still looms large in Georgian-Ossetian relations and the bombing of Tskhinvali, the region’s capital, by Georgian artillery in August 2008 dominates the Ossetian media to this day. Unofficially, however, the Ossetian side has already expressed a hope that economic relations will be restored, most particularly in the Georgian-Ossetian border zone, where they were cut off unilaterally by the Georgians before the war.

The Ergneti open-air market extends over several hectares right on the administrative border. It came into being spontaneously in the second half of the 1990s, thanks to improved relations between the then presidents, Eduard Shevardnadze and Lyudvig Chibirov. The Ergneti market was an unofficial free trade zone of sorts and the business operations that took place there led to a rapid improvement in Georgian-Ossetian relations. Georgian currency began to circulate in the South Ossetian financial sector and people were able to move around on both sides of the conflict zone almost without restriction. The level of trust in trade relations improved to such a degree that trading partners on both sides distributed goods without prepayment. Georgian and Ossetian NGOs ran joint projects; the subject of the 1991 war almost disappeared from the media on both sides.

By 2003 Georgia and Ossetia were ready to start negotiating a political settlement, but relations began to deteriorate with the arrival in power of President Mikheil Saakashvili. His most important pre-election pledge had been the restoration of the country's territorial integrity, but he tried to force events: under the banner of fighting corruption and improving the economy, the Georgian government closed down the Ergneti market, which accounted for a substantial part of South Ossetian revenue. The South Ossetian administration took this as a manifestation of political pressure. Georgian and Ossetian experts believed that economic regulation of the Ergneti market would have been possible, and its arbitrary closure led to a cooling in relations between the two sides and the eventual evaporation of any hope of a political settlement. The Georgian government responded with greater political pressure and militant rhetoric, which, in the end, escalated into the Russian-Georgian war of August 2008.

Is it cynical to suggest that Saakashvili doesn't want to settle the South Ossetian conflict, since keeping the conflict going suits his interests and those of his government? Actually, if the treatment of refugees is indicative, it's only honest to say that.

The town of Akhalgori remained under Georgian jurisdiction after 1992, but was occupied by South Ossetia in 2008. During the August war, refugees from this town and from other parts of the conflict zone headed for the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The Georgian government quickly created camps, with basic housing painted in bright colours, to accommodate many of the displaced. These camps are however located away from population centres, and the refugees have little hope of finding work. They live in extreme poverty and their brightly-painted houses are a constant reminder of the war.

After the end of the hostilities, the South Ossetian administration offered the Akhalgori refugees a chance of returning to their homes. A crossing was set up on the administrative border, enabling people to move in either direction. Given the difficult social conditions in the refugee camps, many refugees decided to return to the occupied territory.

The Georgian government made unofficial attempts to stop refugees from Akhalgori District returning to their homes, and when a significant number of them did decide to head back, the government cut off the supply of natural gas to the district.
The Georgian government, however, made unofficial attempts to stop refugees from Akhalgori District returning to their homes. When a significant number of them did decide to head back, the government cut off the supply of natural gas to the district. In the winter, the lack of heating led many of the refugees to go back to the refugee camps and even those who had wanted to go home chose to stay in the camps.

Russian policies aren't helping, clearly, but Georgia's not exactly helpful, either.

Go, read.

[LINK] "The true north LGBT: New poll reveals landscape of gay Canada"

Kathryn Blaze Carlson's National Post article reporting on the demographics of non-heterosexuals in Canada. The results surprise me a bit; they suggest that recent estimates of GLBT populations, at 2-3% of the total, are marked underestimates.

The Forum Research poll, commissioned by the National Post and taken twice in June to confirm its accuracy, found that 5% of Canadians identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. And contrary to the popular wisdom that the same-sex marriage rate is surprisingly low, the poll found that a third of LGBT people say they are in a same-sex marriage.

“Social scientists have never been able to pin down how many Canadians are LGBT, but we believe this is the best estimate to date,” said Lorne Bozinoff, president of the polling firm. “This is something people want to know; they’re curious. And now is the time to measure it: people are less reluctant to answer the question, so we can actually ask it.”

Statistics Canada says on its website it “has neither the definitive number of people whose sexual orientation is lesbian, gay, bisexual, nor the number of people who are transgender.” The statistical agency asked the question in 2009, but sociologists cautioned the rate is likely under-reported because some gays are suspicious of how the government will use the data or are offended Ottawa would even ask.

That 2009 survey found 2% of Canadians aged 18-59 said they are gay, lesbian, or bisexual — a full 8% lower than the “one in 10” truism that has circulated since 1948, when American biologist Alfred Kinsey pronounced that 10% of all men are gay. Gary Kinsman, a Laurentian University sociologist and leading Canadian expert on sexuality issues, said the new Forum poll will undoubtedly provoke contestation from both the gay community, which will say the rate is under-reported and far too low, and social conservatives, ‘‘who will argue the results are somehow bogus and too high.”

But Forum’s 5% figure jibes with the latest number out of the United States, where a University of California Los Angeles think-tank last year found 4% of Americans are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. University of British Columbia professor Amin Ghaziani said it is “terrific” that Canada has joined the U.S. in producing a more comprehensive snapshot of its gay community.

“I think this survey will prove useful for demographers and anyone who is tracking public opinion on sexuality — on the relationship between knowing someone who is LGBT-identified and support for LGBT issues,” said Mr. Ghaziani, an expert in the sociology of sexuality who is working on a book about gay neighbourhoods.

One particular result jumped out at me: "Younger Canadians are far more likely to say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender than older Canadians, with 10% of those aged 18 to 34 answering the question with a “yes,” compared to 2% or 3% in the four older age categories." Does that mean that Kinsey's one-in-ten figure was actually right?

[BRIEF NOTE] A note on a Third Option for Canada in the 2010s

Lawyers, Guns and Money's Robert Farley commented upon a Foreign Affairs article written by two Canadians of a particular right-wing and continentalist bent--one was Canada's ambassador to the United States under Brian Mulroney of free-trade agreement fame--who claimed that Obama's decision not to authorize the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline connecting Alberta's oil sands to American refineries ruined Canadian-American relations.

Permitting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline should have been an easy diplomatic and economic decision for U.S. President Barack Obama. The completed project would have shipped more than 700,000 barrels a day of Albertan oil to refineries in the Gulf Coast, generated tens of thousands of jobs for U.S. workers, and met the needs of refineries in Texas that are desperately seeking oil from Canada, a more reliable supplier than Venezuela or countries in the Middle East. The project posed little risk to the landscape it traversed. But instead of acting on economic logic, the Obama administration caved to environmental activists in November 2011, postponing until 2013 the decision on whether to allow the pipeline.

Obama’s choice marked a triumph of campaign posturing over pragmatism and diplomacy, and it brought U.S.-Canadian relations to their lowest point in decades. It was hardly the first time that the administration has fumbled issues with Ottawa. Although relations have been civil, they have rarely been productive. Whether on trade, the environment, or Canada’s shared contribution in places such as Afghanistan, time and again the United States has jilted its northern neighbor. If the pattern of neglect continues, Ottawa will get less interested in cooperating with Washington. Already, Canada has reacted by turning elsewhere -- namely, toward Asia -- for more reliable economic partners.

It goes without saying that the original authors' conclusion passed by the fact that a recent poll suggets that United States and Obama are still quite popular in Canada, the Keystone XL pipeline being an issue of niche not national interest in Canada (Albertans and/or Conservatives much more than other Canadians), that Canadian-American relations were much worse in 2003 while Canada opted out of the Iraq War. It could also be concluded--as Farley does--that the authors are best understood as people trying to gain attention for their country in the world's superpower in an effort to make the patron-client relationship run more the way that they want (Israel, Poland, Taiwan, and Georgia are all name-checked as examples of countries which do the same thing).

What Farley or many of the non-Canadian commenters at his blog don't seem to get is that it might actually be in Canada's interests to cultivate non-American trade partners and avoid overdependence on the United States, and that it's not at all clear that Americans would really mind this diversification of Canadian interests. Do Americans really care if Canadians develop profitable economic relations with countries other than the United States, so long as Canada doesn't follow up by offering the Chinese missile bases? I'm far from convinced that the Third Option that the Trudeau government tried to develop in the 1970s, cultivating Europe and Japan as trading partners to avoid overdependence on the United States, is automatically a bad policy, or that a new version mightn't be worth trying to cultivate in the 2010s with China's addition to the list of major Canadian trading partners