[PHOTO] One McLobster

I split a McLobster sandwich last night in Toronto. The sandwich, traditionally a feature of Atlantic Canadian McDonald's outlets, has this season been the subject of a national roll-out. Why not try it? I argued. $C 8 is not that high a price.

I'm used to lobster sandwiches being fresh, with a flavourless sauce like mayo. This lobster was not especially fresh, the lemony sauce was suspicious, and the lettuce-to-lobster ratio was high. This was not a bad sandwich, mind, certainly compared to the alternative of having no lobster sandwich was much better. It was fast food, for better or for worse. Expecting more would have been inappropriate.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Gerry Canavan shares his collection of links.


• Centauri Dreams reacts to the discovery of a polar cap at Charon.


• Language Log considers rhoticity and class in New York City.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money examines Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell from a productive intellectual property perspective.


• Marginal Revolution wonders if Wikipedia will survive the displacement of the personal computers used by contributors by mobiles.


• Steve Munro looks at the latest on the Yonge relief line.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer compares Greece to the Baltic States and Slovakia, and notes the depth of the Greek collapse.


• The Planetary Society Blog's Emily Lakdawalla shares the latest from New Horizons
.

• The Russian Demographics Blog reports on censuses in British India.


• Window on Eurasia notes the intense anti-Americanism of Russia.

[LINK] Ta-Nehisi Coates on what the Civil War was all about

In an essay at The Atlantic that demonstrates his typical brilliance, "What This Cruel War Was Over", Ta-Nehisi Coates goes to great lengths to demonstrate that the Confederacy--and, by extension, its flag--were all about slavery and white racism.

This afternoon, in announcing her support for removing the Confederate flag from the capitol grounds, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley asserted that killer Dylann Roof had “a sick and twisted view of the flag” which did not reflect “the people in our state who respect and in many ways revere it.” If the governor meant that very few of the flag’s supporters believe in mass murder, she is surely right. But on the question of whose view of the Confederate Flag is more twisted, she is almost certainly wrong.

Roof’s belief that black life had no purpose beyond subjugation is “sick and twisted” in the exact same manner as the beliefs of those who created the Confederate flag were “sick and twisted.” The Confederate flag is directly tied to the Confederate cause, and the Confederate cause was white supremacy. This claim is not the result of revisionism. It does not require reading between the lines. It is the plain meaning of the words of those who bore the Confederate flag across history. These words must never be forgotten. Over the next few months the word “heritage” will be repeatedly invoked. It would be derelict to not examine the exact contents of that heritage.

This examination should begin in South Carolina, the site of our present and past catastrophe. South Carolina was the first state to secede, two months after the election of Abraham Lincoln. It was in South Carolina that the Civil War began, when the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter. The state’s casus belli was neither vague nor hard to comprehend:

...A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

In citing slavery, South Carolina was less an outlier than a leader, setting the tone for other states[.]

I was pleased to see this reference:

Thus in 1861, when the Civil War began, the Union did not face a peaceful Southern society wanting to be left alone. It faced an an aggressive power, a Genosha, an entire society based on the bondage of a third of its residents, with dreams of expanding its fields of the bondage further South. It faced the dream of a vast American empire of slavery.

The island country of Genosha in the Marvel universe is a state off the east African coast notorious for its practice of mutant slavery.

If only I could exercise my wit and intelligence in as thorough and topical a manner as Coates! Read the essay: it's superb.

[ISL] "Ruining Rhodes: Greece's VAT proposal leaves islanders feeling deserted"

The Guardian features Angelique Chrisafis' article talking about how a new fiscal regime in Greece will hurt the Greek islands' economy. The major problem, alas, is that there really isn't any plausible scenario where Greek islands--especially the most remote and the less touristed--can avoid receiving cuts. The spectre of rural and insular depopulation in Atlantic Canada raised in the comments of this article is entirely relevant.

Just outside the medieval walled splendour of Rhodes’s old town, tourists and locals sip iced coffees at the pavement tables of the Gran Caffe restaurant and bar. Its owner, islander Seltsouk Atakli, is laughing and joking with customers. “Keep smiling is what I always say,” he shrugs. “But sometimes a smile is not enough.”

As the latest proposed deal to avoid Greece’s bankruptcy threatens to unravel, a row is raging on Rhodes and several other Greek islands over fears that they are being unfairly targeted. To the surprise of locals, one of the government’s proposals to its creditors is to get rid of the special lower VAT rate that applies to a number of Greece’s far-flung islands – not just the famous tourist destinations of Mykonos and Santorini, but scores of little-known smaller islands with ageing and depleting populations.

Greece has thousands of islands scattered over a vast area, fewer than 250 of which are populated. Some of those furthest from the mainland have long depended on a special VAT rate 30% lower than elsewhere, which offsets the high cost of having to ship basic everyday goods long distances.

Rhodes, Greece’s fourth largest island, is a case in point, along with all the other Dodecanese islands scattered at the country’s furthest south-eastern point between Crete and Turkey. Sunbathers on Rhodes can contemplate the nearby Turkish coast from their loungers, while Athens is more than 230 nautical miles away. Everything from milk to medicines has to be transported here. Many other countries have similar reduced VAT schemes to support isolated territories, such as Spain’s concessions to the Canary Islands. Indeed, for years the special rate for far-flung Greek islands was considered untouchable.

In January’s Greek election, the radical left party Syriza topped the poll in Rhodes, where islanders believed the special lower VAT rate was protected. A Syriza spokesman this week acknowledged that scrapping the special VAT rate would have a repercussion on island residents. Syriza’s coalition partner, the rightwing Independent Greeks party – keen to court voters on islands – has vowed this week to oppose any abolition of the special island rate “even if the government falls”.

[ISL] "Pitcairn Island passes gay marriage but has no wedding plans"

Towleroad linked to Nick Perry's Associated Press article reporting how, despite an apparent dearth of gay people, Pitcairn Island now has same-sex marriage.

Pitcairn Deputy Governor Kevin Lynch said Monday the new law came into effect May 15 but initially wasn't published online after the island's website encountered some technical issues. He said the change was suggested by British authorities after England, Wales and Scotland legalized same-sex marriage last year. He said the law change was unanimously approved by the local council.

Seventh-generation resident Meralda Warren said there haven't been any same-sex marriages since the law passed and she doesn't know of any gay couples wanting to wed. As with most law changes, she said, a notice was put up on the verandah of the town hall and a second at the island's general store.

"It's not Pitcairn Islanders that were pushing for it," she said. "But it's like anything else in the world. It's happening everywhere else, so why not?"

She said it wasn't even a point of discussion until the outside world began catching up on the news in the last few days.

"I kind of cracked up when I saw the Google alert in my inbox," she said. "I scanned down, and smiled again, and thought 'We've kept that one quiet for a couple of months.'"

[URBAN NOTE] "Chinese envoy says lack of oversight behind Vancouver’s house-price crisis"

The Globe and Mail's Iain Marlow reports on the entirely accurate statement of the Chinese consul-general in Vancouver blaming high housing prices on a lack of effective regulation. Canadian cities need to do much better on housing.

The Chinese government’s top envoy in Vancouver says the city’s skyrocketing house prices and affordability crisis are due to a lack of regulation in the booming real estate market.

In a wide-ranging interview over tea at the Chinese consulate in Vancouver, Consul-General Liu Fei said local residents are blaming wealthy Chinese buyers for the city’s increasingly costly real estate but that the real blame lies with officials who monitor buyers, sellers and real estate developers.

“People are blaming the buyer. It’s the wrong direction,” said Ms. Liu, who has served in Vancouver since 2011. “I mean, the regulation here, nobody’s playing the role.”

Ms. Liu said this situation would not be allowed to occur in China, and pointed out that China’s government frequently wades into the country’s real estate market, and has strict policies with regard to affordable housing. She suggested a number of possible measures Vancouver could take to make housing more affordable, including the introduction of quotas to increase the number of affordable housing units within new buildings, greater oversight of real estate developers from the city and a tax or fee for overseas investors who want to buy luxury properties in the West Coast city.

“If there are not enough [affordable] houses, you can set up rules – saying, ‘Okay, we have to save 30 or 40 per cent of [the units] for those families who need housing,’” she said. “And we can put on luxury houses … a higher price for the overseas investors. We can do it this way. So everybody could enjoy [Vancouver].”

[LINK] "Military parade with foreign troops an attempt to redraw China’s wartime past"

The Globe and Mail's Nathan Vanderklippe reports on China's new effort to integrate its memory of the Second World War, as a specifically anti-Japanese war in China, with global historical memory. This could lead to any number of interesting things. Thoughts?

On Sept. 3, Beijing will mount the 14th military parade in the history of modern China, as President Xi Jinping seeks to further cement the country’s major-power status by marking the 70th anniversary of the Second World War’s end in Asia. It will be a public display of military might that promises to show off never-before-seen weapons and, for the first time, include troops from other countries.

Plans for the parade have been made in secret. But on Tuesday, propaganda and military officials partially parted the curtains on an event they hope will bolster their argument that Beijing should be taken seriously as a long-time contributor to global security while also helping Mr. Xi secure even more power at home and shape a new identity for his country.

In a novel step, China is asking other countries to support its argument that it has played a historically important global role in fighting aggression, calling out Canada among a list of more than two dozen other nations whose “anti-fascist soldiers directly participated” in China’s efforts to fight Japanese aggression in the 1930s and 1940s.

Wang Shiming, vice-minister of publicity with the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee, specifically mentioned Canada’s Norman Bethune as he spoke about China’s desire to include foreign troops in the parade. Dr. Bethune was a physician who helped Mao Zedong’s Communists during the war; Mr. Wang mentioned him to buttress his argument that fighting in Asia is a shared memory.

[URBAN NOTE] "A tour of Queen & Spadina a hundred years ago"

Spacing Toronto's Adam Bunch shares some vintage photos and history of the intersection of Queen and Spadina.

It has been nearly 200 years since the intersection of Queen & Spadina was born. When the two roads first met, Toronto still wasn’t even a city yet: it was the town of York, home to less than two thousand people. Queen Street had been one of the very first roads the British built when they got here, part of the original plans for Toronto all the way back in 1793. They called it Lot Street back then, the northern edge of the first few blocks built in the new town (right around the St. Lawrence Market). A few decades later, it was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria.

By then, Spadina had also been built. It was laid out as a wide avenue by William Warren Baldwin, a doctor and lawyer who also designed Osgoode Hall and would play a leading role in the political struggle for Canadian democracy. He had just built a brand new house on his sprawling country estate; it stood on the hill above Davenport: the original Spadina House. Baldwin had the grand avenue carved out of the forest south of his home in order to get a better view of the lake. The estate, the house and the new road would all be given the same name: Spadina. It’s an Anglicized version of an Ojibwe word: “Ishpadinaa” (“a place on a hill”).

So it was when Baldwin built his avenue in the 1820s that the intersection of Queen & Spadina was first created.

Back in those early days, the intersection was way off on the outskirts of town, just outside the official border of the tiny new Upper Canadian capital. But it didn’t stay that way for long. Toronto grew quickly over the course of the 1800s. By the time the early 1900s rolled around, Queen & Spadina was at the heart of a bustling metropolis.