[PHOTO] Woman waiting for the next train, Yonge and Bloor

[PHOTO] Some Anne of Green Gables merchandise around the Island

There was plenty of Anne of Green Gables merchandise--books, toys, shows--being advertised in Prince Edward Island. These six photos merely hint at the plenty.

This ad, occupying the empty window of a building at University and Kent, advertises the musical Anne of Green Gables and the Charlottetown Festival's other shows.



This poster advertises all of the Anne-related facts you could want.



The Two Sisters, on the Cavendish Boardwalk, had a nice selection of merchandise.



So did Summerside Souvenirs and Treats on Spinnaker's Landing in Summerside.



Borden-Carleton's Gateway Village had a shop with a nice display, too.



The plush dolls of Anne Shirley and Diana Barry on sale in the Anne of Green Gables Store in downtown Charlottetown, just a couple of shelves below the photographed lobster doll shared here yesterday, were cute.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• blogTO recommends things to do in Bloorale and the Junction Triangle.


• The Cranky Sociologists look at the portrayal of gender in The Wire.


• The Dragon's Gaze examines the phenomenon of the tidal disruption of extremely eccentric asteroids in orbit of white dwarfs.


• A Fistful of Euros recommends Orlando Figes' Just Send Me Word, a history of a couple whose romance survived the gulag.


• Geocurrents contests the idea of an "arc of instability".


• Joe. My. God. reports on a Berlin Grindr-based art project that got shut down early for streaming private messages and images.


• Language Log shares video of Jiamg Zemin demonstrating his multilingualism in criticizing a Hong Kong journalist.


• Languages of the World's Asya Perelstvaig is critical of the idea that some words are "ultra-conserved", preserving records of ancient languages.


• Marginal Revolution notes a study suggesting that the French economy is less productive than its age structure indicates.


• The Russian Demographics Blog suggests that the Russian campaign in Ukraine has worked, at least in making European integration more difficult.


• Spacing Toronto notes one complication for construction companies: Toronto's bedrock swells.


• Torontoist covers the Torontonian relief given to survivors of the great 1922 Teminskaming fire in 1922.


• Towleroad shares video on the occasion of Denmark's first recognized same-sex union.


• The Volokh Conspiracy shares information on how Ebola is transmitted.


• Window on Eurasia notes Crimean Tatar disappearances, notes continuing divisions in Ukraine on attitudes towards Russia, and observes that many Chinese immigrants to Kazakhstan are not ethnically Chinese.


• The Financial Times's The World notes that many in Norway are still divided about their country's rejection of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

[NEWS] Some Sunday links

• Al Jazeera notes the effects of population aging worldwide, observes the quarantining of four individuals possibly exposed to Ebola, comments on the huge costs associated with reconstruction in eastern Ukraine, and reports on a conference held by the Vatican on the plight of Middle Eastern Christians.


• Bloomberg notes the recovery of house prices in Hungary, notes that elderly Koreans are being warned against speculative investments, looks at Southeast Asian Muslims going off to fight in Syria, notes the resistance of farmers to Thailand's junta, quotes Angela Merkel's comparison of the Ukrainian crisis to the decades-long Cold War and East Germany, looks at possible Russian capital controls and growing Spanish public indebtedness, points to the aging of Sweden's nuclear reactors, looks at Catalonia's separatists as they prepare for a controversial independence referendum, and warns the world about Japan.
  
• Bloomberg View notes the profound uncertainty over Ebola, suggests Shanghai cannot replace Hong Kong as a financial centre yet, looks at skyrocketing real estate prices at the far upper end of the New York City scene, and suggests that Hong Kong's revolt will sputter out.


• CBC notes that Makayla Sault, a First Nations child who refused treatment for her leukemia, is relapsing, notes that global warming is leading Greenlanders to hunt more orcas, observes that the Islamic State has ended the Arab spring, and wonders what China will do with Hong Kong.


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• IWPR notes the odd optimism of many eastern Ukrainians, looks at the problems of Syrian Armenian refugee schoolchildren in the Armenian school system, and notes controversy over the creation of a Russian satellite university in Armenia.


• National Geographic notes the new phenomenon of sanctuaries for former pet pigs, and suggests that threats to an Ottoman tomb could bring Turkey into Syria.


• Open Democracy notes the plight of Syrian Kurds, suggests that secularism is an alternative to oppressive religious identities, and criticizes European Union migration policy.


• Wired looks at Europe's history of trying animals for crimes and examines Andy Warhol's sketching of Blondie's Debbie Harry on an Amiga.

[FORUM] Do you think that human beings are too dumb for democracy?

I heard the CBC Ideas documentary Too Dumb for Democracy on Thursday. Centered around the arguments of PhD student David Moscrop, the documentary's thesis is that democracy isn't perfectly compatible with the human being. Far from being perfectly rational individuals, human beings are actually substantially non-rational, and in politics we are prone to accepting claims and persons who aren't good objectively simply because they or things they do appeal. (Rob Ford's popularity was an example.) The argument was summarized at CBC.

“You would think that for high-involvement situations, like deciding on who to vote for, we should be creating spreadsheets of pros and cons and deliberately considering the pros and cons of candidates’ platforms,” says [neuroscientist Tanya] Chartrand.

But the truth is, most of us don’t.

Moscrop says that election campaigns are run on a presumption that voters’ political preferences are already formed.

A campaign, then, isn’t really about engaging citizens in a rigorous exchange of transformative ideas, but rather reaffirming people’s existing ideological biases and mobilizing citizens to vote for their respective camp.

If the goal of democracy is to engage in a rigorous exchange of ideas that results in a greater good for all citizens, one of the first things to do is downplay the role of television ads during election campaigns, says University of Toronto philosophy professor Joseph Heath.

“Reason resides in language and our ability to explicitly articulate how we get from point A to point B in an argument,” says Heath.

“If you’re trying to communicate through visual stimulation, it won’t encourage a rational appreciation of things, and that has a bunch of implications. Reason is very, very slow. Speed encourages gut reactions.”

What do you think?