[PHOTO] Subway doors

[MUSIC] Tegan and Sara, "Closer"

The lead single off of Tegan and Sara's seventh album Heartthrob, which debuted at #3 on the Billboard Top 200 charts to critical acclaim, is "Closer".

"Closer" is a deliriously happy and occasionally raunchy synthpop song about love and its consummation. I'm rather fond of it, and pleased that the duo is doing so well. (The facts that Tegan and Sara, both out lesbians, are doing so well, and that a video featuring love and attraction in its many orientations hasn't attracted controversy, are also pleasing.)

All I want to get is a little bit closer
All I want to know is, can you come a little closer?
Here comes the breath before we get a little bit closer
Here comes the rush before we touch, come a little closer

The doors are open, the wind is really blowing
The night sky is changing overhead

It’s not just all physical
I’m the type who will get oh so critical
So let’s make things physical
I won’t treat you like you’re oh so typical
I won’t treat you like you’re oh so typical

All you think of lately is getting underneath me
All I’m dreaming lately is how to get you underneath me
Here comes the heat before we meet a little bit closer
Here comes the spark before the dark, come a little closer

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto councillor got $275K in loans from realtors he backed"

CBC journalists Zach Dubinsky and Shannon Kari broke the story that Toronto city councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, a Ford ally who has had any number of public embarrassment, was accepting loans from real estate investors for whom he had previously gotten permission to put up billboards on their properties located next to Highway 401.

See also Torontoist's coverage.

A Toronto politician who helped a pair of real-estate investors get permission to place advertising billboards next to a major highway later received at least $275,000 in mortgage loans from them, a CBC News investigation has found.

The loans to Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti were, in each case, issued two years after he successfully put forward motions at Etobicoke York community council meetings to allow the billboards on properties alongside Highway 401.

One of the real-estate investors is also the landlord for Mammoliti's constituency office and has been involved in several realty transactions involving the city councillor over the last six years.

Loans from individuals to councillors are not prohibited by the conduct rules for Toronto politicians, and whether they must be disclosed is a grey area, according to experts in the field.

"Loans are a bit tricky because we all get loans sometimes in our lives from financial institutions that generally don't give way to any sort of obligation," explained David Siegel, a political science professor at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., who specializes in local government.

"But, say, when the loan is with somebody who does business with the city, there is always a question about whether there are special arrangements around that loan."

Mammoliti would not comment and referred inquiries to a lawyer, who did not return calls. The city councillor has previously said some of the billboard motions he brought forward were part of an effort to "clean up old signs" in an area where illegal advertising has multiplied over the years.

[LINK] "Latvia: Russia's playground for business, politics – and crime"

The Guardian's Luke Harding had an article recently published taking a look at the considerable scale of Russian influence at all levels in the Baltic state of Latvia. Starting from the murder of Russian tycoon Leonid Rozhetskin in the resort of Jurmala, it goes on to note how the country's large Russophone minority and history with the Soviet Union, the country's openness, and a compliant financial system has allowed Russians and Russia perhaps too much influence.

I've heard of this before. I have a November 2012 note regarding extensive Russian influence in the small states of Cyprus and Montenegro, the first a European Union member-state and the second on the threshold of said bloc. Latvia is another natural destination for Russians wanting a Russian environment within a law-abiding European Union, all geopolitics aside.

[Russian influence] It is most visible in Jurmala, the picturesque resort of pine forests and wooden dachas from where Rozhetskin is thought to have disappeared. Every summer Russia's fashionable super-rich gather here for the New Wave pop festival. They meet, socialise and party. A table in the VIP lounge of the town's concert hall costs £25,000. It is joked that their combined wealth exceeds Latvia's budget.

[. . .]

"Jurmala isn't really a music festival. You don't need to go to Latvia to listen to Russian pop stars. You can do that in Russia," Jakobson said. "In reality Jurmala is an important moment. The Russian mafia and Russian government are together in one place. They discuss common problems, global problems and how to move money through the Baltics."

Some including Jakobson believe the Kremlin's agenda in Latvia is to slowly reverse the country's strategic direction from pro-west to pro-Moscow. This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and, arguably, Georgia have all recently returned to Russia's geo-political fold following unsuccessful revolutions.

Latvia has the biggest proportion of ethnic Russians of the three post-Soviet Baltic states, accounting for about 25% of Latvia's population. Some 37% speak Russian as a first language, the highest figure for any EU country. The charming capital Riga is effectively bilingual, with Russian and Latvian spoken on its art nouveau streets.

There is also growing evidence the country has become a haven for dubious Russian money.

In a report last week the European commission praised Latvia's post-2008 economic recovery. But it said the authorities had not done enough to stop Latvia's banking system being used for "complex economic, financial, money laundering, and tax evasion crimes".

[LINK] "Orson Scott Card isn't the right man to write Superman"

Andrew Wheeler's essay at The Guardian's Comment is Free makes obvious, correct points about DC Comics' decision to get noted homophobe Orson Scott Card to write for them. As good as Card is, he's a bigot. In American public life, homophobia is one bigotry becoming increasingly unacceptable, and increasingly costly, as it should.

Superman is a good guy. More than that, Superman is the best guy. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1932, he's the archetypal superhero, a man of enormous power who places himself in service to the powerless. To borrow a famous phrase from the 1940s Superman radio serial, he stands for "truth, justice and the American way".

It's hard to reconcile Superman's principles with the values of science fiction author Orson Scott Card. As reported by the Guardian on Monday, DC Comics, a division of Warner Bros, has hired Card to write a digital comic featuring the iconic hero. The move met with an outcry among fans because of Card's ugly views on homosexuality, and some called for a boycott or demanded that Card be fired.

To say Card does not appear fond of gay people is to put it lightly. In his 2004 essay, "Homosexual 'Marriage' and Civilization", he created a sinister innuendo-laden portrait of "homosexual society" grounded in experiences of "disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse". It reads very strangely if you value truth.

In 2009, Card joined the board of the National Organisation for Marriage, a group at the forefront of the fight against same-sex marriage in the United States. NOM uses alarmist propoganda to convince voters to prevent gay people from enjoying the rights and reassurances of marriage. It looks very strange if you value truth and justice.

In 2008, in an op-ed that's now missing from the Mormon Times website, Card said that Americans might respond to broader civil rights by changing the government "by whatever means … necessary". It sounds very strange if you value the American Way.

Card's principles do not align with Superman's, though it's unlikely that Card will write a story about Superman spreading disinformation, robbing people of their rights or overthrowing the government. Yet, if DC Comics knew about Card's well-publicised views, why risk alienating parts of its audience by hiring him?

[LINK] "Euro Skepticism"

3 Quarks Daily linked to a worthwhile commentary by scholar of religion Philip Jenkins on the reign of Pope Benedict XVI. In an article subtitled "Why Benedict XVI tried, and failed, to evangelize Europe", Jenkins suggests that the Pope's strategy for reevangelizing the European continent was a failure. (And yet, the Church is committed to keep on fighting.)

In his vision, a faithful Christian core would begin the re-evangelization of the continent. As a precedent, the cardinal cited the Reformation era of the sixteenth century, when surging Protestantism seemed all but certain to overwhelm the Catholic establishment. Yet the church not only survived, but in the long term grew even more powerful and prestigious than ever before. Partly, it did this through cultivating new forms of piety and new devotions, particularly to the Virgin Mary in her many guises. Amazingly for many modern observers, John Paul II’s papacy followed this model closely, launching a full-scale Marian revival. Old shrines of the Virgin were restored and popularized, new ones fostered, and the strategy has enjoyed some success. Across the continent, pilgrimage sites really have welcomed unprecedented crowds.

But true reconversion, Ratzinger believed, could only be achieved by small, dedicated groups of highly active and committed believers, like the small, super-loyalist movements that emerged during the sixteenth century, chiefly in Spain and Italy. The Jesuits and Opus Dei are the best-known examples, but also influential were the Italian Focolare, the Sant’Egidio Community, and Communion and Liberation, Spain’s Neocatechumenate, and the Mexican-founded Legionaries of Christ. So were charismatic offshoots like Rinnovamento nello Spirito Santo (“Renewal in the Holy Spirit”) and the Emmanuel Community. Like the early Jesuits, such groups demanded extremely high levels of participation and activism, and some were accused of cult-like behavior. Focolare, for example, subjects members to ritualized public confessions and retreats that serve as a kind of total immersion in the group and its doctrines. Still, such movements spread widely, partly because they offered such a high role for lay activists, especially women.

[. . . W]hile Benedict's goals have been consistent, his achievements have been disappointing: Far from beginning a reconversion of Europe, Benedict’s papacy has actually witnessed an acceleration of European defections from the Church. Indeed, the Church’s position in Europe today is far worse than when he took office. The sex abuse scandals that have been revealed in a torrent in European countries since 2010, each quite as devastating as the American disasters of the previous decade and often implicating the church’s senior leaders, have gravely undermined the church’s claim to moral stature or spiritual leadership. A growing number of Catholic states are now openly defying Church authority; the rapid spread of gay marriage laws offers a gauge of the Catholic Church's fading influence.

It’s worth asking whether the emphasis on ecclesial movements actually contributed to the accumulating sequence of disasters. Benedict did try to combat some of the most severe problems among the groups: After several decades of ignoring sexual misconduct allegations against Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, the Vatican only took disciplinary steps after the new Pope took office. But the “ecclesial” strategy exacerbated other pervasive problems in the senior ranks of the hierarchy, especially a sense of elitism and a detachment from the ordinary faithful. Arguably, the new evangelism theme also took time and resources that might have been better used shoring up the church’s defenses against scandal—not least in developing a modern, professional public relations apparatus.

But the final chapter of the pope's European legacy might not yet be written. Throughout his papacy, Benedict's concern for Europe has also informed his appointment of new cardinals, the men who will choose his successor. By any reasonable standard, Europeans are already massively over-represented in the College of Cardinals, and any sense of justice would call for more African and Asian appointments. Benedict, however, not only continued to appoint European cardinals, but chose a striking number of Italians. Europe now notionally accounts for just 24 percent of the world’s Catholics, but 53 percent of the Cardinal electors. In tilting the balance towards a European successor, Benedict was not slighting the rest of the world: Rather, he was declaring his intention to keep up the fight for Europe.

[DM] "'South Korea Scours Himalayas for Staff as Population Ages'"

I have a post up at Demography Matters commenting upon a Bloomberg BusinessWeek article, Eunkyung Seo's "South Korea Scours Himalayas for Staff as Population Ages". Briefly, South Korea is really opening up as a destination for immigrants, arriving via any number of pathways (marriage migration, labour migration, and so on).