[PHOTO] Tree leaning over street, Toronto

[PHOTO] Tom Benner, Moose, 1999, at the Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown

Tom Benner's copper moose statue is oddly cheerful, put on display in one of the fern-filled recesses of the Confederation Centre.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• blogTO shares photos of the Eaton Centre immediately after its opening in the 1970s.


• Crooked Timber's Chris Bertram comes out in favour of a federal United Kingdom.


• The Dragon's Tales notes that Australia is set to buy ten submarines from Japan.


• Eastern Approaches picks up on the travails of the Crimean Tatars.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes how Slovakia is a bad model for Scotland, not least because a large majority of Czechoslovaks wanted the country to survive.


• The Russian Demographics Blog links to a study that has a frankly optimistic projection for Iraq's Christian community over the next half-century or so.


• Spacing Toronto's John Lorinc describes Rob Ford's trajectory as a Greek tragedy. I'm inclined to agree.


• Torontoist and blogTO share reports of how Torontonians and others react to Rob Ford's cancer diagnosis.


• Towleroad notes European Union pressure on Serbia to improve its gay rights record.


• Window on Eurasia notes the issues of Crimean Tatars as well and suggests that the Russian government maintains bad population statistics.

[LINK] "Belarusians try out a new language: their own"

The Christian Science Monitor's Rachel Stern reports on what might be the beginning of a renaissance in usage of the Belarusian language in Belarus. Apparently Lukashenko's government, hitherto content with presiding over the steady progress of Russian, is newly sympathetic to causes which might help differentiate Belarus from its eastern partner.

Every Monday evening, an airy contemporary art gallery in central Minsk is filled with a language rarely heard on Belarus's streets: Belarusian.

An average of 240 people pack the premises of the gallery, dubbed Ў after a character that only exists in the Belarusian Cyrillic alphabet, for a free course to practice and fine-tune their skills in the official language. Since 1999, use of Belarusian has dropped dramatically in favor of Russian.

“We have our own language but most people here don’t use it,” says Veranika Famina, an actress who has been attending “Mova Nanova” – or “Language Anew” in Belarusian – since it launched in January 2014.

But many Belarusians are now taking an increased interest in their native language to assert their country’s own identity and culture apart from neighboring Russia. Mova Nanova and a growing number of unofficial linguistic initiatives are taking Belarusian beyond the school classes that it's often isolated to and back into the public sphere.

“For young people, speaking Belarusian is cool. They feel more Europe-oriented,” says translator Iryna Harasimovich at the cafe at Ў, which showcases work only in Belarusian and English. “Belarus has historically been a pendulum between East and West and that’s only become more blatant due to the situation in Ukraine.”

[LINK] "Sanctions? What sanctions? Russians are shopping for food in Narva"

Estonia's Delfi reports that Russian shoppers are flocking to the Estonian border city of Narva in the search for foodstuffs unavailable in Russia following the imposition of sanctions.

The decision by Russia to ban the import of many Western foods in retaliation for sanctions over Ukraine in August has sent the grocery prices in the country soaring and greatly worsened inflation. Eesti Päevaleht reports that the Estonian border town Narva is experiencing a massive influx of daily shoppers from Russia, who are after cheaper food.

It used to be the other way round. Inhabitants of Narva - situated by the Estonia-Russia border - going to shop for vodka and cigarettes in Russia. Since the Russian embargo on many Western foods, most notably dairy products, the traffic has reversed – daily shoppers from across the border are carrying bags full of Estonian milk and sausages to Russia.

"Look, they are reporting about hungry Russians again," a local resident joked when Eesti Päevaleht’s journalists approached a supermarket in Narva.

Jokes aside, things have gone sour for many people on the other side of the border. Over the weekend, the four large supermarkets in Narva are full of queues. Tax-free shopping is not anymore the main reason for Russians to travel here. People come for foods that they can now only dream about in Russia. And it is cheaper.

The bags are full of cheese, sausages, sour cream. The Russian embargo on imported Western foods applies for large quantities, not for personal shopping. However, the Russians who have taken a trip to Narva, are not eager to admit that they are here for basic commodities, and tried to put on a brave face when questioned by Eesti Päevaleht.

[LINK] "In Korea, Adoptees Fight To Change Culture That Sent Them Overseas"

NPR's Steve Haruch started an interesting discussion with his article about changing attitudes about adoption in South Korea. Overcoming the stigma of adoption and adoptees is a necessary precondition for a country that even now remains a major source of adopted children elsewhere in the world.

In the Gwanak-gu neighborhood of Seoul, there is a box.

Attached to the side of a building, the box resembles a book drop at a public library, only larger, and when nights are cold, the interior is heated. The Korean lettering on its front represents a phoneticized rendering of the English words "baby box." It was installed by Pastor Lee Jon-rak to accept abandoned infants. When its door opens, an alarm sounds, alerting staff to the presence of a new orphan.

The box, and the anonymity it provides, has become a central symbol in a pitched debate over Korean adoption policy. Two years ago last month, South Korea's Special Adoption Law was amended to add accountability and oversight to the adoption process. The new law requires mothers to wait seven days before relinquishing a child, to get approval from a family court, and to register the birth with the government. The SAL also officially enshrines a new attitude toward adoption: "The Government shall endeavor to reduce the number of Korean children adopted abroad," the law states, "as part of its duties and responsibilities to protect children."

In the years after the Korean War, more than 160,000 Korean children — the population of a midsize American city — were sent to adoptive homes in the West. What began as a way to quietly remove mixed-race children who had been fathered by American servicemen soon gained momentum as children crowded the country's orphanages amid grinding postwar poverty. Between 1980 and 1989 alone, more than 65,000 Korean children were sent overseas.

For the first time in South Korean history, the country's adoption law has been rewritten by some of the very people who have lived its consequences. A law alone can't undo deeply held cultural beliefs, and even among adoptees, opinion is divided over how well the SAL's effects match its aims. The question of how to reckon with this fraught legacy remains unsettled and raw.

[URBAN NOTE] "The future of Honest Ed’s: Vancouver-style city building"

Sarah Sweet's Torontoist post about the future of the Honest Ed's site pointed me towards Alex Bozikovic's article in The Globe and Mail. A team of Vancouver architects and planners has ambitious desires for the site.

‘Just look around. There’s nobody here,” says Gregory Henriquez. The B.C. architect and I are standing next to Honest Ed’s on a rainy Saturday morning, and he is right. On this prime piece of downtown Toronto, the only figures are us and a few people he has come to meet – led by Ian Gillespie, the developer whose company will soon be rebuilding a 1.8-hectare site.

They are here together, for the first time, to establish a vision. Mr. Gillespie has a question: Why, in this prime spot in downtown Toronto, is there so little activity on the street? “We’re going to do something about that,” Mr. Gillespie says softly.

They certainly will, and their project will be one of the biggest – and one of the most visible – in Toronto’s recent history.

Mr. Gillespie’s company, Westbank Projects Corp., is signalling its approach by tapping Mr. Henriquez for the job. (An official announcement will come later this month, after he is officially registered as an architect in Ontario.)

A talented designer, Mr. Henriquez has a strong commitment to social justice. He and Westbank have collaborated, in Vancouver’s complex planning environment, on buildings with blends of market-rate and affordable housing, retail, and cultural institutions. “I bring something of a left-leaning social activist component as well as a design component,” Mr. Henriquez says. “It starts to temper the economics, and it becomes something really special.”

[URBAN NOTE] "‘Toronto needs Doug Ford' ..."

The National Post's Natalie Alcoba reports on Rob Ford's recorded statement of support for Doug Ford's mayoral bid.

Hours before he begins his chemotherapy, Mayor Rob Ford released a recorded statement in which he vowed to beat cancer and urged his brother Doug Ford to jump into the mayoral race, “wholeheartedly, right now.”

It’s the first time the city has heard from the mayor since he was hospitalized with a tumour last week which has since been diagnosed as a rare form of cancer called liposarcoma. Mayor Ford withdrew from the mayoral race last week and Doug Ford put his name forward, but the councillor has been at the hospital with his brother, not on the campaign trail.

[. . .]

“Last week I asked my brother to carry the torch and continue the work we started together,” the mayor said, sounding drained and with a raspy voice.

“Toronto needs Doug Ford as Mayor. There’s so much at stake in this election. The city’s future and the issues facing Toronto can’t wait. So, I’m encouraging my brother to jump into this race, wholeheartedly, right now.” He went on to tout his brother as a caring man with a “vision” and said he deserves credit, too, for the last four years.

“I could not have accomplished what we did without him,” said Mayor Ford.

[LINK] "Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans"

The Dragon's Tales linked to a study in Nature analyzing ancient DNA.

We sequenced the genomes of a ~7,000-year-old farmer from Germany and eight ~8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Sweden. We analysed these and other ancient genomes with 2,345 contemporary humans to show that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; ancient north Eurasians related to Upper Palaeolithic Siberians, who contributed to both Europeans and Near Easterners; and early European farmers, who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harboured west European hunter-gatherer related ancestry. We model these populations’ deep relationships and show that early European farmers had ~44% ancestry from a ‘basal Eurasian’ population that split before the diversification of other non-African lineages.

The study is not available in full at the link.

The Guardian provides more analysis.

The findings suggest that the arrival of modern humans into Europe more than 40,000 years ago was followed by an influx of farmers some 8,000 years ago, with a third wave of migrants coming from north Eurasia perhaps 5,000 years ago. Others from the same population of north Eurasians took off towards the Americas and gave rise to Native Americans.

Modern Europeans are various mixes of the three populations. Sardinians are more than 80% early European farmer, with less than 1% of their genetic makeup coming from the ancient north Eurasians. In the Baltic states such as Estonia, some modern people are 50% hunter-gatherer and around a third early European farmer.

The modern English inherited around 50% of their genes from early European farmers, 36% from western European hunter-gatherers, and 14% from the ancient north Eurasians. According to the study, published in Nature, modern Scots can trace 40% of their DNA to the early European farmers and 43% to hunter-gatherers, though David Reich, a senior author on the study at Harvard University, said the differences were not significant.

[LINK] "Canada’s great debt to Scotland"

Author Ken McGoogan's MacLean's article about the contribution of Scottish Canadians to the creation of modern Canada is a nice brief take.

In uptown Toronto, if you look east across the street from the Royal Ontario Museum, you will see an elegant building that symbolizes what the Scots have done for Canada. It also suggests why, in light of today’s divisive referendum, Canadians should take a moment to think of their Scottish cousins. Originally, this stately, three-storey structure formed part of the University of Toronto. Today, the main tenant is Club Monaco, a clothing-store outlet geared to young professionals. If you step inside on a Saturday afternoon, you will marvel at the ethnic and linguistic diversity swirling around you.

What does that have to do with the Scots? I would argue: everything. The architect who designed this building, working with philanthropist Lillian Massey, and as part of an architectural firm owned by G.M. Miller, was my wife’s grandfather—a Scottish immigrant named William Fraser. Few people know his name. The Scottish architect has become invisible. Yet, when you look around from inside this neoclassical edifice, you realize that the architect is all around you. So it is with Canada. The Scottish architects are invisible. But if we stop and look around, we realize that they played a preeminent role in shaping our country. Nobody owes them more than we do.

Obviously, Canada is not just a land mass bordering on three oceans and a superpower. It is a cultural, political, and economic entity. It is a web of interconnected governments, businesses, institutions, organizations, and individuals—a complex interweaving of social programs, cultural networks and communications and transportation systems. That is why we can think of it as being “invented.” Canada is a multifaceted creation, one that, more than a decade ago, Richard Gwyn rightly identified as the world’s first postmodern nation.

Today, there are almost as many Canadians of Scottish heritage (4.7 million) as there are Scots in Scotland (5.3 million). Scottish Canadians constitute only 13 per cent of the Canadian population, and have never exceeded 16 per cent. Yet their shaping influence has proven wildly disproportionate. No matter how you approach the history of Canada—through exploration, politics, business, education, literature—you find Scots taking a leading role.

[. . .] I think we should highlight how Scottish Canadians fostered the pluralism that is the hallmark of postmodern Canada. Of this country’s 22 prime ministers, for starters, 13 claimed at least some Scottish heritage, or almost 60 per cent. These include Sir John A. Macdonald, William Lyon Mackenzie King, John George Diefenbaker and Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Would anybody suggest that these figures made no difference?