[PHOTO] The fruits and flowers of the CNE

The displays of award-winning produce and flowers at the Exhibition were cinematic. I was particularly fond of the allium flowers, so unearthly and spherical.

[PHOTO] Lighthouse behind orange construction mesh, Spinnaker's Landing, Summerside

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• blogTO lists five things Toronto could learn from Barcelona.


• The Dragon's Tales links to one paper analyzing the distribution of methane in Titan's atmosphere, a news item suggesting the survival of some Ediacaran fauna in the deep ocean, and expresses concern about the course of the war in eastern Ukraine.


• Eastern Approaches considers the political complexities of the Slovak national uprising in the Second World War in modern Czechoslovakia.


• Far Outliers notes the complaints of Tsar Nicholas I in 1853, on the eve of the Crimean War, about Europe.


• Joe. My. God. has a photo of the lineup in New York City for the release of the iPhone 6.


• Language Hat analyses the etymology of the Scots Gaelic word "geas", as used in Charlie Stross' laundry novels.


• Marginal Revolution warns Scotland and the United Kingdom could face a currency crisis if Scotland leaves.


• The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla examines the final years of the Cassini mission int he Saturn system.


• Registan examines traficking on the Pamir Highway connecting Tajikistan to Afghanistan.


• Spacing Toronto has a photo of the CNE's Orbiter.


• The Speed River Journal's Van Waffle writes at length about why and how he writes.


• Strange Maps shares an early 20th century map of the city of Portland, divided according to moral depravity by social reformers.


• Torontoist describes Copenhagen's bicycle skyway.


• Towleroad notes controversy around a Toronto-based Pakistani author's children's book about a child and a gay uncle.


• Window on Eurasia notes the decline of the proportion of ethnic Russians in parts of Siberia, and suggests Russian sponsorship of the war in Ukraine makes it all the less likely that Ukrainians will care about ethnic Russian concerns post-war.

[LINK] "NASA to reformat Mars rover's memory from 125 million miles away"

The Verge reports that NASA is going to remotely format the flash memory of the Opportunity rover on Mars.

NASA's long-running Mars rover Opportunity is going to have its memory reformatted in an attempt to resolve a series of recurring errors that have been interrupting its work for a day or two at a time with some frequency over the last month. The rover, which is now over 10 years old and well beyond its original mission lifetime, reset itself over a dozen times last month because of what NASA says is likely an issue with worn-out flash memory that it's attempting to store data in. Pieces of flash memory can wear out after repeated use, and it's possible that the rover is still attempting to use these worn-out parts of its memory.

"The flash reformatting is a low-risk process, as critical sequences and flight software are stored elsewhere in other non-volatile memory on the rover," John Callas, project manager for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project, says in a statement. By reformatting the memory, NASA says that it'll be able to identify and disable use of the bad flash memory cells, hopefully avoiding frequent resets like these for the foreseeable future. All "useful" data remaining on Opportunity will be downloaded before it's reformatted, and the rover will communicate with NASA at a slower data rate during the formatting process in order to improve reliability of the transmission.

[LINK] "Canadian beekeepers sue Bayer, Syngenta over neonicotinoid pesticides"

This CBC report is good news. My Canada includes, among other things, pollinators.

Canadian beekeepers are suing the makers of popular crop pesticides for more than $400 million in damages, alleging that their use is causing the deaths of bee colonies.

The class action lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the Ontario Superior Court on behalf of all Canadian beekeepers by Sun Parlor Honey Ltd. and Munro Honey, two of Ontario's largest honey producers, the Ontario Beekeepers Association announced Wednesday.

The lawsuit alleges that Bayer Cropscience Inc. and Syngenta Canada Inc. and their parent companies were negligent in their design, manufacture, sale and distribution of neonicotinoid pesticides, specifically those containing imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiomethoxam.

The pesticides, which are a neurotoxin to insects, are widely coated on corn, soybean and canola seeds in Canada to protect the plants from pests such as aphids. Studies have shown that bees exposed to the pesticides have smaller colonies, fail to return to their hives, and may have trouble navigating. The pesticides were also found in 70 per cent of dead bees tested by Health Canada in 2013.

The European Commission restricted the use of the pesticides for two years and Ontario has indicated it will move toward regulating them, due to concerns over bee health.

[LINK] "Campaigner calls for Scottish border to reach the south bank of the Tyne"

Over in the United Kingdom, The Journal's Will Metcalfe describes an activist in England who wants northernmost England--basically, everything above the River Tyne to join an independent Scotland.

This sort of thing is interesting, not least since it gets down to the economic rationale for Scottish independence that has at least partly displaced and/or supplemented the nationalism behind Scottish separatism. Does it indicate an English lack of understanding in the existence of a separate, non-English Scotland, I wonder?

Andrew Gray, a member of the Green Party, has launched a petition that he hopes could lead to a referendum which could see Newcastle vote to leave England.

While the eyes of the nation have been on Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling, Mr Gray, who lives in Heaton, believes the independence debate should extend beyond the Scottish borders.

Distance from London, tuition fees, the rising cost of social care and the privatisation of the NHS are among a hat-trick of reasons Mr Gray believes Newcastle should join Scotland.

His call said: “Many people in the North East feel distant from our government in Westminster, both economically and politically.

“The Scottish Parliament has proved that different ways of running public services are possible, including an NHS without the internal market, higher education without tuition fees, and, if there’s a yes vote in the referendum, defence without the threat of Trident.

“We therefore call on the UK Government to grant a referendum to all who live north of Hadrian’s Wall, or in Newcastle and North Tyneside council areas.

[URBAN NOTE] "It's the End of Berlin's 'Sexy' Era"

Bloomberg View's Leonid Bershidsky celebrates outgoing--and out--Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit, who in his tenure has helped boost Berlin and its reputation internationally.

To the world at large, Wowereit is known for his 2003 description of Berlin as "poor but sexy," a rare example of a mayor coining an unofficial motto that was both truthful and appealing (more recently, Wowereit has been downplaying the "poor" bit as tourists and new residents have driven up prices and rents). In Germany, he will also be remembered as the politician who outed himself during his first run for mayor in 2001 by declaring, "I'm gay, and it's good that way." It takes more than that, however, to be re-elected twice in a city as complicated as Berlin, and for a Social Democrat to run it in coalition first with the former East German communists of the extreme Left Party and then, for the last three years, with Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats.

Thirteen years in office is too long for any politician, and Wowereit's party is now behind the Christian Democrats in the polls, a reversal of their positions during the 2011 election, when Wowereit triumphed for the last time. This, however, is Wowereit's city, one he has shaped. The German capital had just been moved to Berlin from Bonn when he was first elected, and the city was not just poor -- it was still painfully split between the post-communist east, with its ugly concrete blocks, pitted pavements and grim-faced residents, and the bourgeois west with its pretty tree-lined streets, art squats and addiction to Cold War-era subsidies. It wasn't so much a city then as an uneasy collection of wildly divergent neighborhoods without a common culture or purpose. People didn't particularly want to live here: Berlin's population had gone down slightly between 1990 and 2000.

By the end of Wowereit's tenure, the seams between east and west are still there, but it's definitely one city. Moreover, it is Germany's one shot at a metropolis: culturally sophisticated, cosmopolitan, English-speaking, proudly multiethnic and tolerant, perennially partying. The population has increased to 3.52 million at the end of last year from 3.38 million in 2000. Many new Berliners are foreigners, but then, the year after Social Democratic politician Thilo Sarrazin published the best-selling anti-immigration book, "Germany Does Away With Itself," Wowereit answered with a pro-diversity book of his own.

Anybody coming to the German capital after a long absence will be struck by the increased number of people cycling to work. Although it has an 11 percent unemployment rate more typical of France than Germany, Berlin feels safer and more welcoming than most big European cities. Wowereit, who has never been one for modesty, should get his share of points for that good-time feeling.

[URBAN NOTE] "How gentrified is your neighborhood (circa 1985)?"

Facebook's Ned was kind enough to link to this very insightful San Francisco Chronicle article from 1985 taking a look at the consequences of gentrification in San Francisco. I have seen many of these processes at work in different Toronto neighbourhoods in my decade here. Documentation of this going on earlier in North America history is insightful.

Why Success May Spoil S.F.

By Mark Z. Barabak and Tim Schreiner

Picture the year 2000: A wave of Asians and white- collar professionals has lifted San Francisco to a wealth unprecedented for a major American city.

There would be no poverty or blight, thus none of the associated headaches afflicting most urban centers.

In many ways, it may seem ideal: a pristine city populated by 712,000 well-educated, well- heeled residents savoring a flourishing array of restaurants, theater, opera, symphony and other first-rate amenities.

Already, the city has realized dramatic increases in household income, property values and commercial growth. Although all the signs point to prosperity, an underlying question has emerged: Is success spoiling San Francisco?

The city “may be pricing out its janitors, its teachers, its nurses and its gas-station attendants the way Marin County already has, ” says Richard Le- Gates, head of the urban studies program at San Francisco State University. “Aside from humanitarian concern for people, there’s a tremendous social cost of pricing them out. On the more mundane level, there’s just the texture, quality of life, being made more interesting by a mix of ages and incomes and backgrounds.”

The case of the city’s black community, which lost 10,000 residents between 1970 and 1980, illustrates LeGates’ fear.

Rotea Gilford recalled what it was like to grow up 40 years ago in the Western Addition. Despite crime and poverty, he remembers a tightly knit, thriving neighborhood filled with “good sounds, good food, good talk, good music.”

“That’s all gone now, ” he said. “It has been displaced.”

Gilford, an aide to San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, is troubled by an attitude he senses in the city.

“People who have come here and bought the housing they can afford, or moved into the rental housing they can afford, want to change the neighborhood, ” he said. “All of a sudden my neighborhood, the way it has existed for all these years, isn’t good enough.”

[LINK] Two links on Neanderthal abstractions and intelligence

The first comes from CBC.

Researchers from 11 European institutions reported that deep in Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, they found carvings that resemble nothing so much as a rococo Twitter hashtag: eight partially crisscrossing lines with three shorter lines on the right and two on the left, incised on a shelf of bedrock jutting out from the wall about 40 centimetres above the cave floor.

The engraving is covered by undisturbed sediment that contains 294 previously discovered stone tools. They are in a style long known as the signature of Neanderthals, who had reached Europe from Africa some 300,000 years ago.

Standard techniques had dated the tools at 39,000 years old, about when Neanderthals went extinct, meaning the art below it must be older.

Modern humans, who painted the famous caves at Lascaux in France and Altimira in Spain, by then had not reached the region where Gorham's Cave is located.

The researchers ruled out the possibility that the engravings were accidental or from cutting meat or animal skins. Instead, they were made by repeatedly and intentionally using a sharp stone tool to etch the rock, reflecting persistence and determination: one line required at least 54 strokes and the entire pattern as many as 317.

The second comes from

( Error: Irreparable invalid markup in entry. Raw contents behind the cut. )

[ISL] An interesting Prince Edward Island television commercial ...

... one that is not about tourism to the Island.

"Boyles Optical TV Commercial" (Watch on YouTube)

Peter Rukavina is responsible for linking to this ad and giving his readers some context.

[H]ere’s a television ad, produced by my longtime friend and former business partner David Moses, that ran on the CBC in the mid 1990s. It was an ad most remarkable for the fact that despite having seen in dozens of times, it was only years later that I realized it was an ad for Boyles Optical[.]

To this day I have no idea whatsoever how David managed to convince Ron that producing a minute-long noir drama set in abandoned buildings down by the docks was exactly what his optical business needed. But he did. And it aired.

I remember this, but I actually did not know that this was an eyeglasses commercial.

[BRIEF NOTE] On how the past American-Canadian relationship may reflect on Russia and Ukraine

While thinking earlier today about the situation of Russia and Ukraine, my thoughts turned to North American history. It seems to be generally true that Russian public opinion, and Russian policymakers, find it difficult to imagine a Ukraine that might exist independently of Russia, a Ukraine that might make its own decisions and join alliances without Russia. This, in turn, is connected to Russian skepticism that a separate Ukrainian ethnicity actually exists. Talk of said, whether in Ukraine never mind inside Russia, seems to be one of the many things that Russian official language would define as "fascist". Putin said in 2007 that Ukraine was not a real country, after all.

Was this really so different from the situation between the United States and the future Canada? After the War of American Independence, many Americans confidently imagined that the British North American colonies would soon be part of the American union. The British North American colonies' series was an American desire during the War of 1812, and throughout the 19th century many Americans seem to have believed that the poorer, more conservative British North American colonies would inevitable fall into the American orbit. (To be fair, a not-inconsiderable number of British North Americans, not only of American descent, agreed with this.) Prominent public support for the annexation of Canada could be voiced as late as the early 20th century, when statements in favour of annexing Canada ended up determining the outcome of the 1911 Canadian election.

The Democratic Speaker of the American House of Representatives Champ Clark declared on the floor of the House that: "I look forward to the time when the American flag will fly over every square foot of British North America up to the North Pole. The people of Canada are of our blood and language". Clark went on to suggest in his speech that reciprocity agreement was the first step towards the end of Canada, a speech that was greeted with "prolonged applause" according to the Congressional Record. The Washington Post reported that: "Evidently, then, the Democrats generally approved of Mr. Clark's annexation sentiments and voted for the reciprocity bill because, among other things, it improves the prospect of annexation". The Chicago Tribunal in an editorial condemned Clark, warned that Clark's speech might had fatally damaged the reciprocity agreement in Canada and stated: "He lets his imagination run wild like a Missouri mule on a rampage. Remarks about the absorption of one country by another grate harshly on the ears of the smaller".

Then Republican Congressman William Bennett of New York, a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee introduced a resolution asking the Taft administration to begin talks with Britain on how the United States might best annex Canada. Taft rejected the proposal, and asked the committee to take a vote on the resolution (which only Bennett voted for), but the Conservatives now had more ammunition. Since Bennett, a strong protectionist, had been an opponent of the reciprocity agreement, the Canadian historian Chantal Allen suggested that Bennett had introduced his resolution with the aim of inflaming Canadian opinion against the reciprocity agreement. Clark's speech that provoked massive outrage in Canada, and was taken by many Canadians as confirming the Conservative charge that the reciprocity agreement would result in American annexation of Canada. The Washington Post noted that the effect of Clark's speech and Bennett's resolution in Canada had "roused the opponents of reciprocity in and out of Parliament to the highest pitch of excitement they have yet reached". The Montreal Daily Star, English Canada's most widely read newspaper which until then had supported the Liberals and reciprocity now did a volte-face and turned against the reciprocity agreement. In an editorial, the Star wrote: "None of us realized the inward meaning of the shrewdly framed offer of the long headed American government when we first saw it. It was as cunning a trap as ever laid. The master bargainers of Washington have not lost their skill."

The pro-integration Liberals lost that election.

The point of this analogy is that, eventually, Americans stopped caring so much about Canada being part of their country. I think I'm correct in suspecting Americans wouldn't mind, but that they just don't see the pressing need. What of Russia? I only hope it won't take more than a century for recognition of Ukrainian distinctiveness and rightful statehood to become accepted.

Thoughts, criticisms?