[PHOTO] Growing things in Rollo Bay

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Centauri Dreams' Paul Gilster comments upon Brian Stableford's argument that modern science fiction traces its origins to 19th century France.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes a new study suggesting that 0.5% of G dwarf stars and 0.8% of K dwarf stars have very close-orbiting planets.


• At Eastern Approaches, Joe's Biden's reassurance to Poland that NATO would defend Polish frontiers in the case of conflict is noted.


• Far Outliers observes that, at the beginning of the Second World War in the Pacific, Australian defenses in Melanesia were quite weak, additionally commenting on the first Japanese naval deployment south of the equator.


• The Financial Times' World blog notes that, while the Cypriot economy is doing less badly than predicting, the ongoing dependence on Russia is a problem.


• Language Log's Victor Mair is critical of a new system for learning Chinese script.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen observes, after the New York Times, that the economy of South Ossetia five years after the Georgian war isn't doing very well.


• Open the Future's Jamais Cascio, reacting to the Crimean crisis, doesn't think much of futurological methods which keep making errors.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes Ukraine's exceptional economic dependence on Russia.


• Visiting Toronto, Peter Rukavina quite likes the inexpensive integration of the TTC into Pearson International Airport.


• Towleroad notes that Susanna Atanus, a Republican congressional candidate in Illinois who said autism was God's punishment for same-sex marriage, won the party primary.


• The Volokh Conspiracy's Eugene Kontrovich observes the difficult situation of France, which has contracted to sell helicopter carriers to Russia.


• John Scalzi at Whatever commemorates twenty years of his online presence.


• Window on Eurasia notes that the Russian annexation of Crimea is accelerating the disintegration of the post-Soviet space and warns of a crackdown on Russian civil society.

[LINK] Two links on Uighur terrorism and its consequences in China

Alas, the recent mass-stabbing of commuters in the Chinese city of Kunming by Uighur separatist terrorists seems likely to sour Uighur-Han relations across China.

Liam Powers at Open Democracy ("Beyond the Kunming attack") fears a worsening as the Chinese state and Chinese at large react to the indiscriminate attacks.

[T]he attacks in Kunming are far more disturbing than other recent episodes of violence. To begin, they occurred outside Xinjiang. But unlike the October crash of an SUV in front of Beijing’s iconic Tiananmen Square, Kunming, the subtropical capital of Yunnan Province, is not a touchstone of Chinese political might. And unlike recent attacks in Kashgar and Khotan wherein perpetrators have targeted individuals with identifiable pro-CCP leanings – police officers, village secretaries, and other government officials, the assailants in Kunming indiscriminately and mercilessly attacked unsuspecting crowds.

As the nature of these attacks change, so too will China’s treatment of the Uyghurs.

For Uyghurs in Xinjiang, they will inevitably face more stringent surveillance and control as the government tries desperately to prevent further violence. Policy experts have already identified Zhang Chunxian’s, the current Party Secretary of Xinjiang, recently adopted hardline approach to stability in China’s far northwest as a nod in this direction. Invariably, these policies are aimed at curtailing the influence of Islam.

[. . .]

For the growing number of Uyghurs who work and study in eastern Chinese cities, they will likely face more distrust and harassment from Han Chinese. Even before the Kunming tragedy, young Uyghurs living in Chinese cities claimed widespread discrimination. According to reports I have gathered, several college-educated, bilingual (Chinese and Uyghur) individuals have been refused rooms at Han-owned hotels. At transport hubs, they are routinely targeted by police during “random” checks and forced to present their identification cards. Unfortunately based on the practices already in place, the next step may be to round up Uyghurs who do not possess proper documentation and send them back to Xinjiang.

Based on my experiences on university campuses in Beijing, Uyghur and Han students keep their distance. The rare encounters between Uyghur and Han are regularly shrouded in misunderstanding and prejudice. Uyghur students are routinely asked condescending questions by their Han peers, such as: Why are the Uyghurs thieves? Do you travel by camel in Xinjiang? Do you share rooms with domesticated farm animals? If Chinese blogs provide any indication of the immediate future of Han-Uyghur relations, the teasing will soon mutate into vicious slurs.

The blog China Change, meanwhile, posted translated excerpts from Chinese writer Wang Lixiong's 2007 book My West China, Your East Turkestan. Wang's predictions of "Palestinianization" look prescient.

What is “Xinjiang?” Its most straightforward meaning is “new territory.” But for the Uighurs, how could the land possibly be their “new territory” when it has been their home and their ancestors’ home for generations. It is only a new territory for the occupiers.

The Uighurs don’t like to hear the name “Xinjiang” because it is itself a proclamation of an empire’s expansion, the bragging of the colonists, and a testimony of the indigenous people’s humiliation and misfortune.

Even for China, the name “New Territory” is awkward. Everywhere and on every occasion, China claims that Xinjiang has belonged to China ever since ancient times, but why is it called the “new territory?” The government-employed scholars racked their brain, insisting that “new territory” is the “new” in the phrase “the new return of old territories” by Zuo Zongtang’s (左宗棠, best known as General Tsao who led the campaign to reclaim Xinjiang in 1875-1876). This is far-fetched, because in that case, shouldn’t it be called the “old territory”?

I will never forget a scene once described by a foreign journalist in which, every evening, a seven-year-old Uighur boy unhoisted the Chinese flag, which the Chinese authorities required them to fly during the day, and trampled it underfoot. What hatred would make a child do that? Indeed, from children, one can measure most accurately the level of ethnic tension. If even children are taking part in it, then it is a united and unanimous hostility.

That’s why, in Palestinian scenes of violence, we always see children in the midst. I use the term “Palestinization” to describe the full mobilization of a people and the full extent of its hatred. To me, Xinjiang is Palestinizing. It has not boiled to the surface as much, but it has been fermenting in the heart of the indigenous peoples.

The indigenous peoples regarded Sheng Shicai (盛世才) , the Han (Chinese) war lord who ruled Xinjiang during the 1930s and 1940s, as an executioner, and they call Wang Lequan (王乐泉), the CCP secretary who carried out heavy-handed policies in Xinjiang, Wang Shicai. But when, in Urumqi, the Han taxi driver saw I was holding a copy of Sheng Shicai, the Lord of the Outer Frontiers, a book I had just bought from a bookstore, he immediately enthused about Sheng. “The policies at his time were truly good,” he exalted.

CCP’s policies in Xinjiang today have been escalating the ethnic tension. Continuing on that path, it will not take long to reach the point of no return where all opportunities for healthy interaction will be lost, and a vicious cycle pushes the two sides farther and farther apart. Once reaching that point of no return, Xinjiang will likely become the next Middle East or Chechnya.

[LINK] "Too poor for pop culture"

I've been meaning for some time to post a link to D. Watkins' powerful autobiographical Salon essay about life in East Baltimore. Focusing on an evening of card playing, Watkins describes just how alienating the effects of poverty and racism can be.

I arrived, fifth of Black Watch clenched close to me like a newborn with three red cold-cups covering the top. We play spades over at Miss Sheryl’s place in Douglass Housing Projects every few weeks. (Actually, Miss Sheryl’s name isn’t really Miss Sheryl. But I changed some names here, because I’m not into embarrassing my friends.) Her court is semi-boarded up, third world and looks like an ad for “The Wire.” Even though her complex is disgustingly unfit, it’s still overpopulated with tilting dope fiends, barefoot children, pregnant smokers, grandmas with diabetes, tattoo-faced tenants and a diverse collection of Zimmermans made up of street dudes and housing police, looking itchy to shoot anyone young and black and in Nike.

Two taps on the door, it opened and the gang was all there — four disenfranchised African-Americans posted up in a 9 x 11 prison-size tenement, one of those spots where you enter the front door, take a half-step and land in the yard. I call us disenfranchised, because Obama’s selfie with some random lady or the whole selfie movement in general is more important than us and the conditions where we dwell.

Surprisingly, as tight as Miss Sheryl’s unit may be, it’s still more than enough space for us to receive affordable joy from a box of 50-cent cards and a rail bottle.

“A yo, Michelle was gonna beat on Barack for taking dat selfie with dat chick at the Mandela wake! Whateva da fuk a selfie is! What’s a selfie, some type of bailout?” yelled Dontay from the kitchen, dumping Utz chips into a cracked flowery bowl. I was placing cubes into all of our cups and equally distributing the vodka like, “Some for you and some for you …”

“What the fuck is a selfie?” said Miss Sheryl.

“When a stupid person with a smartphone flicks themselves and looks at it,” I said to the room. She replied with a raised eyebrow, “Oh?”

It’s amazing how the news seems so instant to most from my generation with our iPhones, Wi-Fi, tablets and iPads, but actually it isn’t. The idea of information being class-based as well became evident to me when I watched my friends talk about a weeks-old story as if it happened yesterday.

Read the whole thing.

[ISL] "Vodka distillery owners leaving P.E.I."

As reported by Teresa Wright in the Charlottetown Guardian, the founders of the Prince Edward Distillery--a potato vokda distillery in eastern Prince Edward Island--are leaving the province. The incredulous reactions at the newspaper website, and on Facebook, are shared by me.

The province happens to be very heavily invested in wind energy, even being a net exporter of electricity to the mainland from wind farms at North Cape and elsewhere. Inasmuch as there's a lack of scientific evidence that there are health side-effects, and inasmuch as the people involved received nearly a hundred thousand dollars for their business (happily remaining active), it's difficult for me to see this as anything but a reaction based on aesthetics not anything objectively real.

Arla Johnson, one of the owners of the Prince Edward Distillery in Hermanville, says she and her partner, Julie Shore, are opening a second distillery in Nova Scotia.

Operations in P.E.I. will continue, but the two owners are moving to the mainland due to their concern over the Hermanville-Clear Springs wind farm project.

[. . .]

Shore was a vocal opponent of the wind farm during the initial approval phase of the project in 2012. In her role as the spokesperson for the Hermanville-Clear Springs Property Owners Association, she urged the provincial government to reconsider the project, citing concerns over diminished property values and potential negative health effects.

The project went ahead after 71 per cent of area landowners within a one-kilometre area around the development site signed agreements with the province for the 30-megawatt wind farm development.

[PHOTO] Cavendish Farms potato warehouse, 24 St. Charles Road, Rollo Bay

The potato warehouse belonging to potato agribusiness Cavendish Farms, located at 24 St. Charles Road just north of Route 2, is one of a dozen Cavendish Farm locations in the Maritime provinces and Maine and one of four dozen potato dealers on Prince Edward Island.

Potatoes are huge on Prince Edward Island, as the Canadian Encyclopedia notes. The biggest potato-producing province in Canada despite its small size, Prince Edward Island agriculture depends heavily on the potato and has for quite some time, as noted in this historical essay at the website of the PEI Potato Blossom Festival.

Prince Edward Island was first introduced to potatoes in 1758 when the British took over from the French. An ideal growing place for potatoes the potato harvest was 'a phenomenal success'. Soon, potatoes were being exported to other colonies, and in 1802, Lord Selkirk brought settlers from the Scottish highlands to the Orwell Bay area of the Island. Provided with potatoes to cultivate, the Scots survived almost exclusively on a diet of potatoes and cod for a few years, and by 1806 John Stewart was quoted as saying: 'potatoes are raised in great abundance, and in no country better'.

Faced with land covered almost entirely by a dense forest, the settlers who arrived on Prince Edward Island had to clear land tree by tree to make room for their farms. Often it would take several years to get their fields completely clear of tree stumps. Making as much of their land as they could, they were forced to plant their crops among the stumps while they were still at work clearing out the fields. Because the potatoes took little care or attention, the land owners were free to focus on the development of their farms. In 1822 a man named Walter Johnstone described the potato planting among tree stumps and the piles of soil over the potatoes as resembling 'mole hills'.

In 1805, statistics showed that out of 10,000 acres of farm land on PEI, 15% was devoted to potatoes. This percentage increased over time, and by 1820 over 40,000 bushels of potatoes were being sent as far away as the West Indies. By the '40s this number had increased to 124,000. Exports kept increasing until 1845, when the Island was hit by the same blight that caused famine in Ireland. The modern potato industry in PEI eventually became world famous, beginning in the 1920s after two new varieties of potatoes were introduced: the Irish Cobbler variety and the Green Mountain variety.

In the 1920s, potato acreage in PEI almost doubled, with yields tripling. The beginning of a period of cooperation between federal and provincial governments resulted in the development of the seed potato industry and the control of potato diseases. Realizing that with the small size of the Island, scientists could familiarize themselves with all of its potato farms. This, along with the Island's cold winters, made disease and pest control and prevention much easier. These advantages of the Island's size and isolation have resulted in exceptionally high quality potatoes. Today, no seed potatoes are able to leave the Island without the certification of government inspectors.

The 1950s brought around the introduction of large-scale mechanization to potato farming on Prince Edward Island. The result: more potato acreage, less individual potato growers. Today, PEI's largest number of the acres used for the cultivating potatoes are found in our area, Prince County (the western part of the Island).

The website of the Canadian Potato Museum in the western community of O'Leary has more information on the contemporary potato.

[LINK] "Meet the 4 Most Desired People in New York (According to OKCupid)"

Logan Hill's recent New York Magazine article examining the most popular OkCupid is an interesting read. How do these people--by extension, every user--be so successful? The strategies they describe are interesting.

Hill's evenhandedness is also appreciated, as the four people are picked from specific gender/sexual orientation demographics (gay male, et cetera).

I found [Lauren Urasek] after a conversation with ­OKCupid­ co-founder Christian Rudder, who famously crunched the site’s user data on the blog ­OKTrends­ and sold a book based on it, Dataclysm, for seven figures. In New York, online dating is practically a municipal utility, connecting millions of strangers. To find out how some people manage to stand apart from the masses, and how it feels to be so desired, I asked Rudder to introduce me to the most popular OKCupid daters in the city in four categories—straight and gay women and straight and gay men.

Rudder analyzed the data from a one-week period in January and used a simple methodology: finding the users who receive the most messages from potential suitors. The four people selected wouldn’t necessarily claim to be the wealthiest, most stunning or successful singles, but, out of 400,000 annual citywide users on the site, they were among the top five in their respective categories and, perhaps less scientifically, were the four who were also willing to be interviewed for a story.

Lauren received 245 messages in that one-week period. While she was surprised to find that she is the most sought-after straight woman, she doesn’t think guys are complicated. “I’m not a stuck-up girl, but I think looks are No. 1 for everyone,” she says. As a makeup artist, Lauren spends her days at photo shoots and knows what makes a good picture. “I believe in a head-to-toe shot to show what you look like,” she says. “But you don’t need to have your ass hanging out!”

She thinks it helps that her profile reflects her idiosyncratic interest in astronomy: She has a moon and a planet tattooed on her knuckles; she quotes a physicist and links out to NASA.gov. “Even if an amazingly attractive girl said something stupid in their profile, she’ll still get messages,” she says. “So I feel like I’m intelligent and people think I look good, so I guess it’s as simple as that?”

It doesn’t hurt that Lauren, after getting out of a four-year relationship with a “pathological liar” who had a drug problem, isn’t necessarily looking for anything serious. So, in OKCupid’s searchable “I’m looking for …” section, she, like most women, selected “long-term dating,” “short-term dating,” and “new friends.” Unlike most women, she also selected “casual sex,” figuring she might as well tell the truth.