[LINK] "Family of children found on Turkish beach were trying to come to Canada"

Terry Glavin's Ottawa Citizen article was heartbreaking. More will come from me later tonight.

The two small boys whose bodies washed up on a Turkish beach Wednesday were Kurdish refugees from Kobane, Syria, whose family had been desperately trying to emigrate to Canada.

Galib Kurdi, five, and his three-year-old brother Alan died along with their mother Rehan and eight other refugees when their boat overturned in a desperate flight from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos.

The boys’ father, Abdullah, survived. His family says his only wish now is to return to Kobane with his dead wife and children, bury them, and be buried alongside them.

“I heard the news at five o’clock in this morning,” Tima Kurdi, Abdullah’s sister, said Wednesday. The telephone call came from Ghuson Kurdi, the wife of another brother, Mohammad. “She had got a call from Abdullah, and all he said was, my wife and two boys are dead.”

Tima, a Vancouver hairdresser who emigrated to Canada more than 20 years ago, said Abdullah and Rehan Kurdi and their two boys were the subject of a “G5” privately sponsored refugee application that was rejected by Citizenship and Immigration in June, owing to the complexities involved in refugee applications from Turkey.

[URBAN NOTE] "Forgotten TTC architecture a reminder of nixed transit plans"

Spacing Toronto's Chris Bateman writes about the various architectural cul-de-sacs on TTC routes which reveal planned constructions which never took place.

The earliest and best-known rough-in project among Toronto transit watchers is the unfinished streetcar stop beneath Queen subway station. In the 1940s, before Bloor St. and Danforth Ave. were selected as the route of the city’s east-west subway, the TTC planned to bury the Queen streetcar line in the downtown core.

The Queen subway would have resembled Boston’s subterranean streetcar lines, likely running in an open trench west of University with stops at Trinity-Bellwoods, Bathurst, Spadina, and John, before dipping underground to connect with Osgoode and Queen subway stations. East of Church, the line would re-surface and continue in an open cut to Logan Ave.

During construction of the Yonge line, the TTC actually built the basic shell of the underground streetcar station beneath the subway tracks at Queen. The platforms and track beds were installed at a cost of about $500,000, but little other work was done. No rails were laid and no tiles were grouted to the walls.

Eventually, the city and the TTC’s focus shifted north and the Bloor-Danforth line was built instead. The shell of Lower Queen (it was sometimes called “City Hall” on planning documents) is now only accessible via an anonymous door off the underpass beneath the northbound and southbound platforms at Queen.

[URBAN NOTE] "Olympic expert questions extraordinary secrecy around bid"

The Toronto Star's Jessica Smith Cross writes about the unsettling oddities of the Toronto Olympics bid.

The “extraordinarily secretive” people behind Toronto’s potential bid for the 2024 Olympic need to stand up and identify themselves, one expert says.

It’s highly unusual that Toronto would be considering an Olympic bid so close to the application deadline without making the most basic information public, said Janice Forsyth, director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at Western University.

That includes who’s responsible for it.

“Normally we’d know the players at this point in time, because it’s one of the biggest decisions, economically, Toronto and Ontario will have to make, whether or not they commit themselves to this bid,” she said. “They should be very concerned about their lack of transparency at this point in time, and if they want to gain back the public’s trust they should put out clear press saying exactly what is going to happen.

“This is highly unusual for a democracy.”

[URBAN NOTE] "'Toronto' is an Iroquois word"

Someone on Facebook linked to this essay examining the history of the First Nations in the Toronto area. Suffice it to say it's long, and complex.

South-central Ontario has a complex history. There is evidence that people lived in the area 11,000 years ago, when downtown Toronto was under the water of Lake Iroquois, Davenport Road was the shoreline, and mammoths and mastodons were the game of choice. Between 7,000 and 2,000 years ago, the shoreline began to look like the one we know today, including the Scarborough Bluffs and the Toronto Islands. At some point, Aboriginal people began using the Toronto Passage – the Humber and Rouge rivers – as a shortcut between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay. It was a vital link in the trade route that ran from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Superior.

Between 600 and 1600 CE, corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers were introduced from the south, and Iroquoian villages began to take on their well-known appearance: multi-family longhouses, sometimes enclosed by palisades, surrounded by cultivated fields. During the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, some of these people moved north to amalgamate with the Huron (or Wendat) Confederacy – which was also an Iroquoian culture – around Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe. Others moved northwest and west to form the Petun (or Tionnontate) society around the Nottawasaga highlands and the Neutral (or Atiouandaronk) society around the Niagara peninsula. This led to larger confederacies that were stronger in warfare. It might also have been a calculated move to secure greater access to waterways. As a result of the amalgamations, the Huron-Wendat moved south from their traditional lands, using the now uninhabited area around Toronto for hunting, fishing, and settlements.

Between 1634 and 1640, half the Aboriginal population around the Great Lakes died from European disease, which meant the society now calling themselves the Haudenosaunee (“people of the longhouse”) – who were called the Iroquois by the French – had to capture and adopt outsiders to replace their losses. Competition for European trade was also a factor in the Haudenosaunee decision to destroy, defeat, disperse, or absorb the Hurons and other Iroquoian peoples living around the Great Lakes, including the Petun, Erie, Tobacco, Neutral, and Susquehannock. Some Hurons fled eastward toward Quebec and created a new nation, called the Wyandot. Others sought assistance from the Three Fires Confederacy – the Odawa, Potowatomi, and Ojibwe, collectively known as the Anishinabek – who were Algonquian-speaking societies living farther north. However, the largest group of surviving Huron were adopted by the Haudenosaunee when the Haudenosaunee created the Five Nations Confederacy (which included the Seneca, Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, and Cayuga nations, later joined by the Tuscarora to create the Six Nations Confederacy). The Odawa halted Haudenosaunee expansion northwest, but with the Huron withdrawal, the Haudenosaunee controlled south-central Ontario. By 1650-1660, the area around Toronto – and as far away as Pennsylvania, the Ohio Valley, and the lower Michigan peninsula – was Haudenosaunee territory.

[LINK] "Latin America's 100 Years of Slow Growth"

Bloomberg View's Justin Fox writes, with charts, about the slow economic growth over Latin America over the past century. Only Chile shows signs of converging strongly and consistently towards high-income levels.

[E]vident in [Hans] Rosling’s animations is the great breakout to much-higher living standards that the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand made in the 1800s, followed by the great catchup in Asia since the middle of the 20th century. Some African countries have begun making big strides, too, although sub-Saharan Africa remains the world’s poorest region by far.

Then there’s Latin America and the Caribbean, whose part in this story has always intrigued and saddened me. In the 19th century, some of the countries and colonies to the south of the U.S. were among the world’s most affluent. In the 20th century most of them have become much more affluent in an absolute sense (Haiti is the tragic exception). They have nonetheless lost relative ground, especially during the past half-century, as rich countries just got richer and Asian nations broke through to wealth.

[. . .]

Compared to these other, more dynamic economies, Latin America seems to have been making hardly any progress. I’m not even going to try to go into all the possible reasons for this, in part because they vary greatly among countries. I am willing to go out on a limb and say that I don’t think either U.S. imperialism or persistent bad luck is a satisfactory explanation for Latin America’s slow growth. Clearly these -- with the possible exception of Chile -- have not been among the world’s best-managed economies. And that really is too bad.

[LINK] "Peel board won't exempt kids from learning about gay families, gender issues"

The Toronto Star's Kristin Rushowy shares the Peel Region school board's strong support for human rights for all.

Tony Pontes, director of education for the Peel District School Board, will deliver a speech today warning parents they cannot withdraw their children from any classes where gay families and diverse gender identity is discussed.

Parents can remove their kids from sex-ed classes for religious reasons, but any requests for students to opt-out of learning about gay families or diverse gender identities won’t be tolerated, says the director of Ontario’s second largest school board — one that expects to be hard hit by protests over the new health curriculum.

The same day as anti-sex-ed rallies were planned outside Liberal MPP offices across the province, Tony Pontes was to tell teachers and superintendents about the Peel board’s tough stand, saying if parents have a problem with such strong support for equity and inclusion, the public system may not be right for them.

[. . .]

After noting the 905-area board is opening its first gender-neutral washroom at a high school as well as introducing a new gender identity guideline for educators, some parents “may choose to switch school systems … if so, that is a price we must be willing to pay.

“We cannot — we will not — by action or inaction endorse discrimination,” said Pontes, who cited Ontario’s Human Rights Code as applying to people of all sexual orientation and gender identity. “Supported by legal opinion, bolstered by our core values, I would no more say yes to someone wanting a child excluded because of a discussion about LGBTQ than I would a discussion about race or gender.”

[LINK] "China's Gas-Demand Growth Rate Below GDP Hinders Russian Deals"

Bloomberg's Haixing Jin notes that falling rates of economic growth in China, coupled perhaps with increasing Chinese efficiency, bodes ill for Russian exports to China. This, in turn, bodes ill for Russian plans to replace the sanctions-separated west with China.

China’s demand for natural gas is on pace to grow at a slower rate than the economy for a second straight year, a fact that bodes poorly for any energy agreements that President Xi Jinping and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin may sign during a meeting in Beijing today.

China’s natural-gas consumption through July rose just 2.3 percent from the same period in 2014, according to data released by the National Development and Reform Commission. Apparent demand actually fell by more than 5 percent in April and May, the first year-on-year declines since at least 2011.

That data reflects the shifting nature of China’s economy and the forces underpinning the two countries’ relationship. An economic slowdown and lagging industrial production has affected China’s appetite for everything from iron ore to fossil fuels, while Russia’s recession amid a plunge in oil prices and western sanctions only increases the urgency for it to sign new deals.

[. . .]

Russia’s economy relies more on China than the other way around. Bilateral trade last year was $92 billion, making the mainland Russia’s largest partner. From China’s perspective, Russia ranked just eighth, with the U.S., Japan and Germany the top partners. China’s $50.9 billion of exports to Russia weren’t enough to put that market in its top 10.

Russia’s nominal gross domestic product was $1.86 trillion last year in current dollar terms, only 12 percent more than in 2008. China’s GDP expanded 127 percent in the same period to $10.36 trillion. Russia’s reliance on energy for economic growth helps explain the divergence of the two economies.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the possibility of probes hitchhiking, as it were.


• Crooked Timber's John Quiggin considers the problems with replicating papers.


• The Dragon's Gaze reports on a search for gas giant exoplanets orbiting massive A and F type stars.


• Language Log looks at Scott Walker's proposal for a US-Canada wall and finds it was no such thing.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the case of Kim Davis.


• Torontoist notes the controversy surrounding a public discussion on carding.


• The Volokh Conspiracy quotes Scalia as to why Kim Davis should find another job.


• Window on Eurasia argues against Ukraine abandoning Crimea and Donbas, notes the negative impact of Donbas veterans on law and order in Russia, and examines the economic casualties of the Russian recession.

[PHOTO] My garden pots, September 2015

[MUSIC] Eurythmics, "Julia"

"Eurythmics - Julia (Official Music Video)" (Watch on YouTube)

The song "Julia", coming off of the Eurythmics' soundtrack album 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother), is a song of chill poetic majesty.

When the leaves turn from green to brown
And autumn shades come tumbling down
(Julia)
To leave a carpet on the ground
Where we have laid

(Julia)
When winter leaves her branches bare
And icy breezes chill the air
(Oh Julia)
The freezing snow lies everywhere
My darling, will we still be there?
(Oh Julia)