[PHOTO] Looking west down the subway tunnel at Ossington Station, Toronto

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly advises readers how to conduct interviews.


• City of Brass' Aziz Poonawalla thanks Obama for quoting his letter on Islam in America.


• Crooked Timber takes issue with The New Yorker's stance on Sanders.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes the complexity of interactions between stellar winds and the magnetospheres of hot Jupiters.


• Joe. My. God. notes that ex-gay torturers in the United States have gone to Israel.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the scale of the breakdown in Venezuela.


• Marginal Revolution looks at changing patterns in higher education.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes that carbon capture is difficult.


• Peter Rukavina shares a preliminary printed map of Charlottetown transit routes.


• Savage Minds notes the importance of infrastructure.


• Strange Maps shares very early maps of Australia.


• Torontoist notes an early freed slave couple in Toronto, the Blackburns.


• Window on Eurasia notes the implications of global warming for Arctic countries.

[URBAN NOTE] "Shaping Toronto: Chinatowns"

Torontoist's Jamie Bradburn shares the story of Toronto's different Chinatowns.

A glance at the listing for Adelaide Street East in the 1878 city directory shows a mix of Anglo-sounding businessmen whose trades range from contracting to insurance. The name at number 9 stands out: Sam Ching & Co, Chinese laundry. Mr. Ching’s presence was a cultural milestone, as he was the first recorded Chinese resident of Toronto.

Since Ching’s era, Toronto has included several Chinatowns, a term which has evolved from its original negative connotation. As Library and Archives Canada observes, “’Chinatown’ was coined in the 19th century as a European concept to signify an undesirable neighbourhood full of vice, and peopled by an inferior race.” That proper Torontonians of the early 20th century viewed the city’s small Chinese population—just over 1,000 in 1910—as lesser beings puts it mildly.

Both the respectable and gutter press hyped up the “yellow peril,” editorializing on how the eastern mindset was alien to western concepts of democracy and good citizenship, and how the Chinese would corrupt morals via gambling and opium. Efforts to curb their presence in the laundry and restaurant trades ranged from licensing fees to unsuccessful attempts by City Council to deny business licenses. Paranoia led to provincial legislation preventing Chinese-owned businesses from hiring white women, lest they be sold into white slavery. The Rosedale Ratepayers Association wanted to keep Chinese laundries out of their neighbourhood, adding them to the long list of things people don’t want in Rosedale.

While there had been small clusters of Chinese along Queen Street (one at George, another at York), by the end of the First World War a stable community established itself in The Ward, the neighbourhood west of Old City Hall which, despite its great poverty, had welcomed numerous immigrant communities. Elizabeth Street between Queen and Dundas served as this Chinatown’s spine, lined with businesses, restaurants, and societies. It mostly served single men, thanks to a series of harsh immigration measures preventing families from joining them. These laws escalated from head taxes to the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, which all but banned entry to Canada for two decades.

Over that time, the “almond-eyed Celestials,” as the Globe dubbed Chinese residents during the early 1920s, endured frequent police raids on gambling houses, a riot, and periodic rumours of imminent tong wars. If anything, the gambling dens offered lonely people social space, work, and shelter during hard times. Viewed as a threat to the existing social order, the Chinese found Chinatown a refuge they felt accepted in.

Much more, including photos, can be found at the link.

[URBAN NOTE] "The Yonge and Bloor of today could be anywhere"

The Toronto Star's Christopher Hume mourns, perhaps prematurely, for the end of Yonge and Bloor as a happening cultural destination.

The richer Toronto grows, the poorer it feels. The most recent reminder came with the death of Avrom Isaacs, long one of the two or three most important art dealers in Canada.

For several decades his gallery on Yonge St. just north of Bloor was Ground Zero for anyone interested in contemporary Canadian art. Just doors away was Carmen Lamanna, the other legendary Toronto gallerist, not so much Isaacs’ rival as a fellow traveller. A few blocks west in Yorkville, Walter Moos opened his gallery in 1962, a year after Isaacs moved to Yonge

Eventually, the Village, as it was then called, was enshrined as Toronto’s designated art district. At its height, there must have been more than a dozen art galleries in Yorkville, not all of them worthy, but part of the scene nevertheless.

Today, little remains. A few dealers have hung on, but even before Lamanna and Isaacs died, both had been forced to relocate, victims of rising rents and land values that they did as much as anyone to increase.

[. . .]

By the turn of the century, however, this stretch of the city’s main street had become a series of restaurants and after the demise of the Fiesta, none of them particularly noteworthy. Lamanna’s old place even did time as a massage parlour.

Pretty soon the three-storey mid-19th century buildings that comprise the streetscape will be part of a 58-floor condo tower that has also displaced the venerable Cookbook Store that stood at the corner of Yonge and Cumberland for 31 years.

[ISL] "From Charlottetown to Ottawa, Anne & Gilbert rises to the top"

Sally Cole, writing for The Guardian of Charlottetown, notes the successful recent performance of Anne & Gilbert in Ottawa. As someone who saw a 2013 performance in Charlottetown, I am pleased at the success.

Celia Koughan is well versed in “Anne & Gilbert - The Musical”.

From age 11, as a member of the young company at the Harbourfront Theatre in Summerside to full-fledged cast member where she plays Annetta Bell at The Guild in Charlottetown, Koughan has risen up from the ranks of the popular musical.

But of all the shows she’s done, nothing compares with performing at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa Dec. 1-23.

“It was the highlight of my life, so far,” says Koughan.

“It was everything I could have hoped or dreamed of.”

The 20 year old was one of 25 artists in the show that took the centre by storm earlier this winter.

“It was a large company, compared with other productions we’ve staged. And a very spirited group,” says Nathan Medd, managing director of English Theatre, during a telephone interview.

[URBAN NOTE] "How Ottawa got its groove on. No, seriously."

In MacLean's, Paul Wells writes about Ottawa's urban renaissance.

Much of what makes Ottawa annoying is on its way to being fixed. The city, I mean: if you’re annoyed by Ottawa as a set of ideas about how Canada should be governed, I can’t offer much hope. But as a place to live and visit, lately each year is better than the last.

Sparks Street had long been a forest of construction cranes. It’s looking good, its government buildings buffed and its private commerce more energetic. Parliament’s West Block, a dingy heap of stonemasonry when I moved to Ottawa, has been polished until it would make you proud. Soon a glass dome will cover its courtyard so MPs can debate there, while work crews renovate the stately Centre Block itself. Over the same period, senators will move across Wellington, to the long-abandoned train station, to do whatever it is they do.

Grotty Rideau Street is being repaved in stages. The big mall there is completing a quarter-billion-dollar improvement. Ground will be broken next week on a $110-million facelift for the National Arts Centre. Light rail stations are going up across the city. Any day now the mayor, Jim Watson, will visit the long-abandoned old U.S. Embassy, with three ministers from the Trudeau government, to brainstorm a new cultural vocation for an elegant old building that has been dormant for 16 years.

Taken together, it’s a modest renaissance for a modest city. There remains one big mess: a huge barren field only a few blocks west of Parliament. This is the grandly named LeBreton Flats. It was the industrial heart of dirty old Ottawa. For 40 years it has been nothing much. The ground is contaminated from the heavy industry that used to be situated there, and from the mountains of snow that city crews dumped there later.

In the last decade, civilization has begun creeping back. Results are mixed. A big and well-run Canadian War Museum opened in 2005. Condominium towers have gone up at the flats’ east end, but no business or pedestrian traffic enlivens the neighbourhood. Most of the field is still just field.

Even this is starting to change. More at MacLean's.

[ISL] "P.E.I. Supreme Court tosses out $25M e-gaming lawsuit against province"

This CBC report leaves me baffled by the whole scandal. What, exactly, went on?

The Supreme Court of P.E.I. has tossed out a $25-million e-gaming lawsuit against the provincial government and two P.E.I. businessmen put forward by Capital Markets Technologies Inc. and 7645686 Canada Inc.

But the court also left an opportunity for the company to start over — something the company says it plans to do.

In his decision, Supreme Court Justice Gordon Campbell called the statement of claim filed by CMT "a long, rambling narrative replete with irrelevant and immaterial facts, evidence, opinion, argument and speculation." He goes on to say the statement of claim constitutes an abuse of the processes of the court.

Campbell states in his written decision that he does "not consider the claim as written to be capable of being 'fixed,'" however he grants the plaintiffs the opportunity "to start afresh and file a newly drafted statement of claim."

Campbell also says, "If the plaintiffs are incapable of succinctly stating the material facts of their claim without reliance on inappropriate or improper pleadings, their claim should not be allowed to proceed."

[LINK] "Morocco Unveils A Massive Solar Power Plant In The Sahara"

NPR notes a new massive solar power plant in Morocco, one producing power for domestic consumption. This could be the start of something big.

Morocco has officially turned on a massive solar power plant in the Sahara Desert, kicking off the first phase of a planned project to provide renewable energy to more than a million Moroccans.

The Noor I power plant is located near the town of Ouarzazate, on the edge of the Sahara. It's capable of generating up to 160 megawatts of power and covers thousands of acres of desert, making the first stage alone one of the world's biggest solar thermal power plants.

When the next two phases, Noor II and Noor III, are finished, the plant will be the single largest solar power production facility in the world, The Guardian says.

Morocco currently relies on imported sources for 97 percent of its energy consumption, according to the World Bank, which helped fund the Noor power plant project. Investing in renewable energy will make Morocco less reliant on those imports as well as reduce the nation's long-term carbon emissions by millions of tons.

[LINK] On the loss of the African grey parrot from the wild

Paul Steyn's National Geographic report about this intelligent bird is terribly sad. May it flourish in protected areas, and perhaps in the diaspora, too.

Flocks of chattering African Grey parrots, more than a thousand flashes of red and white on grey at a time, were a common site in the deep forests of Ghana in the 1990s. But a 2016 study published in the journal Ibis reveals that these birds, in high demand around the world as pets, and once abundant in forests all over West and central Africa, have almost disappeared from Ghana.

According to the study, the pet trade and forest loss—particularly the felling of large trees where the parrots breed—are major factors contributing to the decline.

Uncannily good at mimicking human speech, the African Grey (and the similar but lesser-known Timneh parrot) is a prized companion in homes around the world. Research has shown that greys are as smart as a two-five year-old human child—capable of developing a limited vocabulary and even forming simple sentences.

Google the term “African Grey talking,” and you’ll find hundreds of videos—including Einstein the talking parrot’s TED presentation—showing the birds whistling and mimicking words and phrases.

The grey parrot has a wide historic range across West and central Africa—1.1 million square miles (nearly three million square kilometers)—from Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana in West Africa, through Nigeria and Cameroon and the Congo forests, to Uganda and western Kenya. Ghana accounts for more than 30,000 square miles (75,000 square kilometers) of that range, but losses of greys there have been some of the most devastating.

[LINK] "Ravens might possess a Theory of Mind, say scientists"

The Christian Science Monitor's Molly Jackson reports on the latest research to suggest ravens are quite smart indeed.

From ancient Greek mythology to Native American folklore, ravens tend to have the same role: the clever tricksters you don't want to cross. Corvus corax and its relatives were even spies for Apollo, which didn't end well for his unfaithful lover Coronis, and served as the eyes and ears of Norse god Odin.

Ravens do spy on each other, it turns out, and they can infer when other birds are snooping on them. New findings, released Tuesday in a study in Nature Communications, highlight just how sophisticated – and human-like – ravens' cognitive abilities are.

"What really is the feature that's unique and special about human cognition?" asks co-author Cameron Buckner, a philosopher at the University of Houston.

Something helped propel us to learn language, built political institutions, develop arts and culture. Many biologists and philosophers think it's our ability to see things through another person's eyes, and to think about what they might be thinking, skills referred to as "Theory of Mind."

But ravens do have basic Theory of Mind, the authors suggest, after cracking one of the biggest puzzles in animal cognition debates: without speech, how can we tell what a bird is thinking?

We find out how at the article.

[URBAN NOTE] On the 35th anniversary of the Toronto bathhouse raids, "Toronto's Stonewall"

At NOW Toronto, James Dubro commemorates the 35th anniversary of the police raids which kick-started Canada's gay rights movement.

It was Toronto’s Stonewall, a brutal police raid that brought the many divided elements of the gay community together on the streets to protest in large numbers for the first time.

On February 5, 1981, 150 Toronto police officers armed with crowbars, billy clubs and sledgehammers carried out violent raids on four gay bathhouses.

The cops roughed up and arrested 289 mostly gay men on prostitution and indecency charges or as “found-ins at a common bawdy house.” Twenty more, including owners and staff at the bathhouses, were charged with being “keepers of a common bawdy house.”

Except for the roundup of suspected dissidents during the imposition of the War Measures Act in Quebec in 1970, the raids were the largest police action to that point in Canada.

Operation Soap, the cops’ code name for the raids, inspired novelist Margaret Atwood to wonder, tongue-in-cheek, “What do the police have against cleanliness?” Indeed, the majority of city councillors wanted to know the same thing and ordered an independent review by Arnold Bruner on relations between the police and “the homosexual community.”

Outrage as well as fear of outings, firings and suicides of gay men caught up in the raids led to the largest gay rights demonstrations the country had ever seen.

On the eve of the 35th anniversary of the raids, questions still remain: Why did the police never apologize? Who gave the order?

No one knows, or, at least, no one is telling.

[DM] "How the world went from 170 million people to 7.3 billion, in one map"

At Demography Matters I link this video, publicized by Vox, which does a good job illustrating the general contours of world population growth in the past two millennia.