[PHOTO] On the 50th anniversary of the Bloor-Danforth line, as celebrated at Chester station

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Toronto's Bloor-Danforth line, as both blogTO and Transit Toronto. Both of these blogs have extensive photos from the beginning of this west-east subway route, back when Toronto built mass transit. The latter blog, however, also mentions the upcoming artist-led celebration at Chester station, described last week at NOW Toronto.

The subway is part of the daily grind for many of us, but Jess Dobkin and the fine folks at the Artists’ Newsstand in Chester station aim to add some fun and celebration to our commutes.

To that end, they’re throwing a 50th birthday party for the Bloor-Danforth line, which opened on February 25, 1966, starting at 4 pm on Thursday, February 25, in the space in front of their revitalized former Gateway newsstand.

Theatre artist Moe Angelos, whose historical research uncovered the anniversary, kicks off the event at 4 pm with a performance. Newsstand founder Dobkin says that the timing is designed to catch the early rush hour of young people coming home from school, many of them fans of the newsstand. Dainty Box does a family-friendly burlesque performance to the music of the Supremes at 6:30 pm, and DJ Nik Red spins sounds of the 60s, including black power anthems. Artist Jackie Lee transforms the kiosk into a piñata, and there’ll be birthday cake and balloons.

In addition to focusing on the subway’s construction, the event also explores what was newsworthy in 1966, including the Vietnam War, the rise of second-wave feminism and the founding of the Black Panther Party.

The project has transformed the stall in the east-end station, which sat empty for six year, into a hybrid performance space/gallery/alternative press and artist books outlet that also functions in the usual way as a source for snacks and magazines. The programming is sensitive to the needs of TTC users and the surrounding community. Performances usually last around 15 minutes, since there is no seating, and Dobkin reports no problems with the TTC. She relished the mix of intentional and accidental audience members, recalling a service interruption on the line last fall that brought hundreds of commuters spilling into the station during an artist talk on the history of newsstands.

The Toronto Star has more.

Would that I could attend! Work intervenes, alas.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Apostrophen's 'Nathan Smith updates readers on his writing projects and points them to anthologies looking for new submissions.


• blogTO talks about the origins of Bay Street.


• Centauri Dreams notes new discoveries about the origins of mysterious "fast radio bursts".


• The Dragon's Tales notes how a genetic study of Panama's population showed the impact of colonization.


• Joe. My. God. notes Germany's opening of a centre for LGBT refugees.


• Language Log notes controversy over simplified characters in Hong Kong and poor fluency in kanji in Japan.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the controversies surrounding the commemoration of the death of Scalia at Georgetown University.


• Steve Munro looks at various routes for a relief line in the east of the city.


• North's Justin Petrone talks about teaching his daughter who ran Estonia during the Soviet era.


• Strange Maps maps Europe divided into city-states.


• Window on Eurasia notes Kazakhstan's plan to shift to Latin script for Kazakh and looks at ethnic Russian converts to Islam.

[URBAN NOTE] "Hidden Poverty Lurks Beneath the City of Vaughan’s Wealthy Veneer"

Torontoist's Catherine McIntyre notes that, in the suburb of the city of Vaughan, general prosperity masks concentrations of poverty.

Over the past 25 years, the suburb exploded with rampant development and a population spike of nearly 190 per cent. It’s become a haven for people with money looking to buy themselves some extra space just 45 minutes outside Toronto. In Vaughan, the average household income is nearly $114,000, well above the provincial average of $86,000 and $76,000 in Toronto. The median house price is $890,000, and you’ll be hard pressed to spot any homelessness or decrepit high-rises.

It almost appears as though Vaughan has bypassed poverty entirely. That’s why when Vaughan Community Health Centre (VCHC) opened its doors nine years ago, many residents thought the service would go unused. “Community health centres are for the marginalized, for the poor,” says Isabel Araya, executive director of VCHC. “People were saying: ‘Why are you going to be located in Vaughan? Where’s the poverty in Vaughan?’ And much to my surprise, I am seeing a great deal of poverty and marginalized populations.”

While Vaughan has a large proportion of high income residents, poverty in the city, and York Region in general, is growing rapidly. The Vaughan Community Wellbeing Report, initiated by the VCHC and released in November, shows that the number of low-income residents in the region increased by 61 per cent between 2000 and 2012. During a similar period, the average cost of a new single detached home increased by 87 per cent, while hourly wages only rose by 26 per cent. Between 2008 and 2012, the wait list for social housing increased by 63 per cent.

[URBAN NOTE] "Shaping Toronto: Centennial Projects"

Torontoist's Jamie Bradburn looks at the various places and monuments built in Toronto to commemorate the centennial of Confederation in 1867. There is much in this article, including photos.

From neighbourhood tree plantings to the international spectacle of Expo 67, Canada proudly celebrated its centennial. The stylized maple leaf logo graced everything from historical sites to reservoirs. Cities and towns applied for governments grants to spruce up parks, restore historical sites, and build attractions to last long after the centennial spirit faded.

Across Toronto, many legacies remain of, as Pierre Berton’s book on 1967 termed it, “the last good year.” There are the community centres and parks in the pre-amalgamation suburbs with “centennial” in their name. Celebratory murals lining school walls. Caribana and its successors celebrating Caribbean culture each year.

Many of these projects received funding from programs overseen by a federal commission, whose work sometimes felt like an Expo footnote. “They felt like poor cousins,” British author Peter Ackroyd observed. “Expo was so big, so appealing, so clearly headed for success that it discouraged those who were plodding away on the less focused, something-for-everyone program of the Commission.”

As is our habit, Toronto wanted spectacular major centennial projects. As is also our habit, they were mired in bureaucratic squabbles involving penny-pinching city councillors, politicians and pundits who swore delays embarrassed us in front of the rest of the country, and bad luck.

Discussions over marking the centennial began in earnest in September 1962 when the Toronto Planning Board proposed a $25 million cultural complex. With financial pruning, this evolved into a $9 million centennial program focused on the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, which included a repertory theatre, arts and culture facilities along Front Street, and a renovation of the decaying St. Lawrence Hall. Proponents also tossed in an expansion of the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the AGO) and refreshing Massey Hall. Mayor Phil Givens supported the project wholeheartedly—during his re-election campaign in 1964, he said “I have never been so sincerely convinced in my life that something is right.”

[LINK] "The Muslims of Appalachia: Kentucky coal country embracing the faithful"

Al Jazeera America's Kevin Williams reports on the Muslims of Appalachia, a small but apparently well-accepted minority.

With its coal-caked hills, isolation and deep poverty, Southeastern Kentucky is probably not the first place that springs to mind when one considers the Muslim experience in America.

But nonetheless a small Muslim community has settled in the Appalachians, making a home forged in the ash-black-smudged margins. Friendships are made and communities are established, even as a wider debate rages around the prejudice of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims immigrating to the U.S.

Bilal Ahmed, 22, is from Elizabethtown, an affluent area near Louisville. But he decided to come to the University of Pikeville near the Virginia border to challenge himself and get out of his comfort zone. He described his freshman immersion in Pikeville as “brutal,” not because of anti-Muslim backlash, but just adjusting to college life.

In fact, after the first semester, Ahmed was so homesick that he filled out an application to transfer. But then exams intervened. Ahmed was taking Biology 151 and stressing over an upcoming exam, so he stepped out of his comfort zone and approached the kid behind him, asking him how he planned to prepare for the big test.

“We started studying in the library together and just hit it off and became best friends from that time on,” recalls Shey Spencer, 23. The two went on to become resident assistants, tutors in organic chemistry, and co-founded a campus chapter of National Society of Leadership and Success.

[LINK] "Why Orange County police departments have trouble recruiting Vietnamese American officers"

The Los Angeles Times' Brittany Woolsey looks at how Orange County is trying to boost Vietnamese representation on the county's police force, the better to promote good communal relations.

The most recent example of the need for better relations occurred just weeks ago, when police and other officials sought help from the Vietnamese community in the search for three inmates who had escaped from the Central Men's Jail in Santa Ana and were believed to be hiding in Little Saigon: Jonathan Tieu, Bac Duong and Hossein Nayeri. The men, considered dangerous, were eventually recaptured.

In the Westminster Police Department, seven of its 87 officers are Vietnamese, Vu said. Of those seven, three are set to retire in the next few years. Since 1999, the department has had as many as eight full-time Vietnamese American officers and one reserve officer.

In Garden Grove, four out of 155 police officers are Vietnamese, according to the agency.

"We do have calls for service where we do need a Vietnamese-speaking officer to help translate," said Lt. Bob Bogue, who has been with the Garden Grove Police Department for 29 years. "We come across that probably on a weekly basis. We do have civilian Vietnamese employees that can come out and help, and we also have a translation service, but if we can get our numbers of police officers up in the Vietnamese population, it will help us in our service to the public."

[LINK] On the origins of the word "petaloso" (#petaloso)

The BBC's article "How an eight-year-old boy invented a new word" looks at how the Internet helped birth an Italian word.

A few weeks back, primary school teacher Margherita Aurora, in the small town of Copparo in central Italy, was intrigued when one of her students, Matteo, used an unfamiliar word in a written assignment.

Matteo described a flower as "petaloso" ("full of petals"). The word doesn't officially exist in the Italian dictionary, but grammatically it makes sense as a combination of "petalo" ("petal") and the suffix "-oso" ("full of").

The assignment got Aurora thinking - could the eight-year-old Matteo have invented a new word? With his teacher's help, the student wrote to the Accademia della Crusca - the institution that oversees the use of the Italian language - to ask for their opinion.

To their surprise, the pair got an encouraging reply.

"The word you invented is well formed and could be used in the Italian language," one of the Crusca's top linguistic experts wrote. "It is beautiful and clear."

But, the linguist added, for a word to officially be part of the Italian language, a large number of people need to use it and understand its meaning. "If you manage to spread your word among many people who start saying 'What a petaloso flower this is!', then petaloso will have become a word in Italian."

[LINK] "How North Korea Funnels Cash Into the Country"

Blooomberg features an extended examination of how Chinese interests have been helping North Korea beat international sanctions.

A trail of money stretching from a Panamanian shipping agent to an octogenarian Singaporean to a Chinese bank provides a window on why U.S. efforts to tighten sanctions on North Korea may be harder to achieve than in the case of Iran.

For decades North Korea has built networks of front companies and foreign intermediaries to channel currency in and out, circumventing attempts to isolate it over its nuclear-weapons program. Court documents and interviews with investigators, banks and prosecutors show the cornerstone of those networks is China.

"Its geographic proximity, the huge trade volume, having the contacts, and having the historic relationship all contribute to making China the center point for any North Korean initiative to evade international financial sanctions," said William Newcomb, a former member of a panel of experts assisting the United Nations’ North Korea sanctions committee. "China is a very important piece in making sure that blockages work."

[. . .]

North Korea relies on China, its biggest trading partner, for food, arms and energy. The countries describe their ties as "friendship forged by blood" during the 1950-1953 Korean War where the U.S. was a common foe. China has criticized North Korea for provocative actions but historically opposed harsh sanctions that might precipitate a regime collapse and a flood of refugees across its 870-mile (1,400 kilometer) shared border.

To inject life into an economy made moribund by the fall of the Iron Curtain, failed centralized policies and sanctions, Kim Jong Un needs foreign currency to pay for equipment from abroad, such as the recent purchase of Russian jets to upgrade the national airline.

[LINK] "Montreal a haven for homosexual Yemeni refugee"

CTV Montreal reports on a Yemeni man who has found refuge in Montréal, fleeing homophobic persecution.

Five years ago, Ala’a Jarban was a university student in Yemen. Now, he’s starting his life over in Canada, seeking refuge from a government hostile to his sexuality.

In 2011, inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, Jarban and some fellow students began protesting Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year-long rule.

“It started as a student movement and then more people joined who were not politically involved before,” said Jarban.

[. . .]

While taking a course in human rights work with advocacy group Equitas, he decided to declare his sexuality on his blog, a move that would garner him death threats from his home country. He decided to apply for asylum in Canada, a status he was granted by the government.

[LINK] "Descendants of black loyalists seeking help to gain land title"

Oh, my Canada. From MacLean's, via the Canadian Press:

Residents of a black community in Nova Scotia say they’re hoping for progress this week in gaining title to their land, 200 years after their ancestors were handed rocky plots without clear ownership.

The Nova Scotia government provided land to black loyalists in the 1800s, but the Crown didn’t provide land titles – though it did for white settlers.

Dwight Adams, a volunteer with a community group in the North Preston area, says that up to one third of residents in the community of about 3,700 people still don’t have title to the land.

“We don’t want to continue paying taxes and find out down the road we don’t even have a property to pass on,” he said during an interview.

Journalism students at the Nova Scotia Community College released an online documentary Monday depicting how a government-funded process to gain title in the 1960s lapsed.

[URBAN NOTE] "There's A New Subway On The Way": @SwanBoatSteve on the Bloor-Danforth Line

Over at his blog, Steve Munro has a brilliant multi-post examination of the Bloor-Danforth subway line's birth, in time for the line's 50th anniversary. (So far, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.) Munro takes a look at the line from many angles--planning, construction, controversy, consequences for the rest of the TTC network--and includes all kinds of images. (I took the above from the fifth post in his series.) The entire series is strongly recommended.

[MUSIC] The Smashing Pumpkins, "Ava Adore"

"The Smashing Pumpkins - Ava Adore" (Watch on YouTube)

I know all about the flaws and other failings of The Smashing Pumpkins and Billy Corgan. Despite all of this, "Ava Adore" has a deserved place on my soundtrack from the late 1990s. The band could be really, really good.