[PHOTO] Bloor/Gladstone Library, under lights

I like the way the Bloor/Gladstone Library melds its older eastern section with its shiny new glass-and-steel western one. That my new phone takes better photos in night conditions is gravy.

[OBSCURA] "The diving horse at Hanlan's Point"

Some days ago, Facebook's algorithms recycled Derek Flack's 2014 blogTO post noting that this photo is the most popular one at the City of Toronto Archives' Flickr site.

In it, a white horse is plunging head first into the still water off Hanlan's Point. In a second it will crash below the surface, swim to the top, and do it all over again a short time later.

The horse in the picture was named either King or Queen and was one of a pair owned by J.W. Gorman, a travelling American entertainer who appeared at amusement parks in Boston, New York, and other parts of New England, as well as Toronto.

At the time these photos were taken, Hanlan's Point was home to a popular amusement park that featured a wooden roller coaster, merry-go-round, athletic field, and water shows. The diving horses, a popular form of entertainment, would walk up a ramp to the top of the diving platform and either jump or be dropped through a trap door.

It's not clear whether the horses enjoyed performing the stunt but it's hard to imagine the show maintaining its allure if the animals had to be poked and prodded to the top of the ramp (though that does appear to have been an issue in later years in the U.S.) They clearly weren't injured by the fall, either - King and Queen performed several times a day.

Then, there were 6,500 views. As of this posting, there are 10,965.

[LINK] "French's Canadian ketchup gives Leamington lift"

This story, recounted by the Toronto Star's Vanessa Lu, recounts an interesting episode in the history of Canadian retail. (For the record, I don't use ketchup. I prefer tomatoes.)

If it was mustard, no one would care. But it’s about ketchup — and Canadian pride is on the line.

The grocery giant Loblaws suddenly said this week it would stop selling French’s ketchup, which boasts that it’s made entirely from Canadian tomatoes. That’s a subtle jab at rival Heinz, which moved production to the United States in 2014.

The public backlash ensued. Online posts blasted Loblaws. French’s ketchup was trending on Twitter. And politicians got into the act, with Liberal MPP Mike Colle threatening to launch a boycott of Loblaws and its stores over the unpatriotic move.

“I think your company has made a huge miscalculation and underestimated the value that we put on supporting local foods and local jobs,” said Colle in a letter to Loblaws president Galen Weston Jr.

Hours later on Tuesday, Loblaws reversed its decision. “We will restock French’s ketchup and hope that the enthusiasm we are seeing in the media and on social media translates into sales of the product,” said Kevin Groh, vice-president of corporate affairs, in a written statement.

[LINK] "Postmedia sale complicated by unsustainable debt and sagging business model"

The CBC's Don Pittis reports on the grim future of Postmedia, and by extension of the Canadian newspaper industry. At best, the mass media in print might become a heritage industry. (At best.)

Reports this week that the U.S. hedge fund GoldenTree Asset Management is looking to sell its stake in the Canadian newspaper chain Postmedia may be less important than they appear. And whatever happens, a Canadian businessman will hold the balance of power.

This development does, however, shine a light on a company that many financial industry observers say is so indebted that share ownership may be a moot point.

It is the holders of the debt that matter. And it reminds us of the uncertain future for a company that owns some of Canada`s most illustrious newspaper titles less than a year and a half after it announced a merger with the Sun chain would solve its financial problems.

Some harsh name-calling between Terence Corcoran at the National Post and David Olive at the Toronto Star recently has only drawn attention to the fact that the entire print newspaper business is in trouble.

Print chains across North America have been cutting staff and titles, desperately trying to find a business model that will attract readers and replace lost ad revenue.

[URBAN NOTE] "Factory Theatre drops curtain on layoffs, union drive"

NOW Toronto's Steve Fisher reports on the grim news surrounding Toronto's Factory Theatre.

Factory Theatre is offering no comment on why half its 12 full-time staff, including technicians involved in a recent union drive, received layoff notices last month.

On February 3, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) posted a press release on its site proclaiming “Factory Theatre – Now Manufacturing Union Jobs!”

It states that Factory’s stage technicians had unanimously voted to join IATSE Local 58. “This is a great result for the employees, who are looking forward to working under their first collective bargaining agreement.”

Two days later, those technicians, along with “about half,” according to IATSE, of Factory’s 12 full-time staff, were called into separate meetings and given layoff notices of between two and 10 weeks.

An internal memo to all staff from artistic director Nina Lee Aquino reads in part: “Factory Theatre is not closing. The company is restructuring its staffing model to meet our current needs and position us for long term success. These were tough but necessary decisions, and we are supporting staff as they manage this transition. We remain committed to completing the current season with no disruption to our artists and audiences, and are looking forward to announcing our 2016/17 season in the coming months.”

[LINK] "Japan is worried about China, but the U.S. may not be able to help them"

Michael Den Tandt's National Post opinion piece notes the vulnerability of the Japanese-American alliance.

Modern Japan is a country steeped in pacifism, whose people are deeply ambivalent about the plan by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s governing Liberal Democratic Party to further relax strict constitutional limits on the military that were imposed by the American occupiers after the Second World War. The U.S., ironically, would like nothing better than to see the Japan Self-Defence Forces become more assertive.

Although there’s growing popular worry here about Chinese naval and aerial incursions in the East China seas, polls show, it has not yet translated into broad support for Abe, whose party faces a pivotal vote in Japan’s upper house in July. Amending Japan’s constitution would require a super-majority of two-thirds in both houses. The constitution has remained unaltered since it came into force in 1946.

Like Canada, Japan spends less than one per cent of its Gross Domestic Product on Defence — about 4.86 trillion yen for the fiscal year beginning in April, or about $56.6 billion. Though the Abe government is gradually increasing its defence budget year over year at about 0.8 per cent on average, this is still below the spending of a decade ago.

Yet the Japanese military is now routinely on point, addressing incursions by a determined strategic adversary. In 2013, China unilaterally extended its Air Defence Identification Zone southward and eastward to include the Senkaku Islands, which lie in Okinawa Prefecture, southwest of Japan’s main islands, and have been under Japanese control for more than a century. Intrusions by Chinese ships spiked during the ensuing controversy, then dropped in 2014 amid intense diplomatic efforts. But scrambles of Japanese jets in response to Chinese air incursions, according to data provided by Japanese defence ministry officials, have risen from 306 in 2012 to 464 in 2014, and 373 in just the first nine months of fiscal 2015.

Never in Japan’s postwar history, therefore, has its alliance with the United States been so critical to its security. That alliance is cemented primarily by American air power based on the island of Okinawa.

But Okinawans, while generally accepting the need for a Japan-U.S. defence pact, are increasingly demanding at least some of the bases — which consume almost a fifth of the prefecture’s land area — be moved elsewhere.

[LINK] "Two Coal Barons, One Overdue Bond Payment and the End of an Era "

Bloomberg's Jodi Xu Klein notes the beginning of the final stage of the American coal industry.

Both men worked down in the mines, in helmet and headlamp, digging out the coal that would one day make them piles of money.

As early as Tuesday, the mining empires the two men built from scratch could start to crumble.

Billionaire Christopher Cline, 57, hailed as the savior of the Illinois coal industry, is the founder of Foresight Energy LP, which has until March 15 to pay $23.6 million of overdue bond interest.

Industry champion Robert E. Murray, 76, would suffer with him. The company he created, Murray Energy Corp., paid $1.4 billion in April for a 50 percent stake in Foresight. A default would wipe out that investment.

So far the two titans have survived the U.S. coal industry’s worst downturn in decades, a result of tough environmental policies, a flood of cheap natural gas and slowing global demand. In the last two years, at least six U.S. coal-mining companies have filed for bankruptcy, restructuring a total of $23 billion. With a boost from fracking, the U.S. produced more natural gas in 2015 than it ever has, while U.S. coal production fell last year to its lowest level in decades and is projected to fall even more this year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

[LINK] "A Russian-Cuban Entrepreneur Is New Face of Florida"

Bloomberg View's Leonid Bershidsky looks at a Russian-Cuban entrepreneur making his fortune in Florida. May Cuba be as lucky as Zakharov.

At a rally on Wednesday in Hialeah, Florida, which has the biggest share of Cubans of any U.S. city, Senator Marco Rubio told his audience that they embodied the American dream. "As I walk the streets here, it's small business after small business," he said with a fellow Cuban's pride.

One of these 44,000 businesses in Hialeah -- 80 percent of them Hispanic-owned -- belongs to Fabian Zakharov. It also provides evidence that Rubio's view of his community and its relationship with Cuba is increasingly out of touch.

Zakharov Auto Parts sells the rarest of commodities in the U.S.: components for Soviet-built Lada cars. In the Miami area, where Ferraris outnumber Ladas, nobody except perhaps Zakharov himself, who owns several of the Russian clunkers, needs the parts. But the store, its owner says, does $1 million worth of business per year, and Zakharov keeps expanding his retail space.

His customers are mostly locals, but the parts ultimately go to Cuba, where, he says, up to 50,000 Russian cars still roam the potholed roads. Besides, much of Cuba's signature fleet of U.S. vehicles from the 1950s is equipped with Lada engines and other parts: That's how the stately sedans survived the Communist era. Zakharov has no competition: Since he founded the business in 2011, he has obtained deep discounts from suppliers in Russia and brought delivery times down to three days or less, a steep entry barrier to anyone who doesn't speak Russian and doesn't know the ropes.

Zakharov was born in Moscow to a Russian mother and a Cuban father, not an infrequent intermarriage thanks to active student and professional exchanges between the Soviet Union and Cuba. The family moved to the island, where Zakharov grew up and trained as an electrical engineer. But he dreamed of making a fortune, an impossibility under Fidel Castro, so he went back to President Vladimir Putin's Russia in the early 2000s, when that country still looked like a land of opportunity. It didn't work out as he planned.

[LINK] "Why the New Poland Offers Handouts for Kids That Exceed Norway's"

Bloomberg's Dorota Bartyzel and Wojciech Moskwa look at the politics behind Poland's new baby bonus. I'm not inclined to think that much will be altered, demographically, apart from the timing of births. Deeper institutional and cultural changes are needed to make significant upward shifts in fertility.

Poland’s new rulers have outraged their biggest benefactors, stifled opponents and threatened foreign investors -- all while keeping their supporters happy with promises of unprecedented largesse.

Welcome to the country’s latest post-communist incarnation: The right-wing Law & Justice party is moving at breakneck speed to upend the status quo with the European Union and impose a new social compact that mixes Scandinavian generosity with a touch of Kremlin imperiousness.

The largest test of this political pivot comes in a few weeks with a child-subsidy program that’s more generous than oil-rich Norway’s. The handouts will lift an average family of five’s income by a quarter. The goal is to narrow a yawning wealth gap and reverse what is projected to be one of the steepest population declines in Europe. Critics of the initiative, which will cost almost half as much as national defense and endanger crucial funding from Brussels, call it a populist ploy to distract voters from a nationalistic agenda.

“People come to city hall almost every day to ask about the money that Law & Justice has promised,” Robert Biedron, the independent mayor of Slupsk in northwest Poland, said by phone. “They appear to be willing to sell some of their freedoms for more financial comfort.”

[LINK] "Donald Trump’s success a ‘wake-up call’ for Michigan’s Muslims"

The Globe and Mail's Adam Radwanski notes how Muslims in the Michigan city of Dearborn are responding to the success of Donald Trump in their city's Republican primaries.

On Thursday, Muslim leaders in this Detroit suburb were saying that members of their community still felt safer here than they would in just about any other place in their country.

Then, late that night, while staff at the Dearborn-based Arab-American News were finishing up the latest edition of their newspaper, two men tried to break through their office’s bullet-proof door with a hammer.

As it turns out, the attempted break-in may have been nothing more than a failed robbery. But the wave of fear that it caused on Friday morning nevertheless seemed a fitting cap to an unsettling week in one of the unofficial Muslim capitals in the United States.

The source of considerable angst and reflection was this past Tuesday’s Michigan presidential primary. In one of the most Muslim-heavy states in the country, Republican front-runner Donald Trump – a candidate so overtly playing to Islamophobia that he pronounced during a CNN interview this week that “Islam hates us” – cruised to victory with about 37 per cent of the Republican vote. And in Dearborn itself, where nearly half the city’s roughly 100,000 residents are Arab-American and many country- or state-wide Muslim or Arabic organizations are based, Mr. Trump’s percentage was a couple of points higher than that.

Unsurprisingly, most of his votes came from the half of Dearborn that’s not really a Muslim capital at all. While the vast majority of residents on the east side of town are of Arabic descent – with roots primarily in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian territories – the west side is primarily white. Of the 3,153 Dearbornians who voted for Mr. Trump, only about 500 live on the east side. (Christian Arabs, a small population here, may account for a few of those.)

But until recently, Dearborn seemed to be a success story of Muslims integrating into a city with a history of segregation, and a state that has seen more than its share of racial strife. Many have opened businesses on the west side, some have even moved there, and they are increasingly engaged civically, including on the city’s council. The town has attracted its share of attention from cranks: Right-wing bloggers have long propagated various bogus conspiracy theories, including that the city is under Sharia law, and the likes of Koran-burning Florida pastor Terry Jones occasionally show up seeing attention. But even following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there wasn’t the degree of backlash for which many of its immigrant families braced themselves.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly wonders why people read at all in the 21st century world.


• D-Brief notes how chickens have been modified to have dinosaur-like legs.


• Dangerous Minds shares 19th century photos taken of Native Americans in their traditional and ceremonial wear.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper predicting exoplanets orbiting HD 202628 and HD 207129 based on gaps in the debris disks of those stars.


• The Dragon's Tales notes that the director-general of the ESA asked China to opt to contribute to the International Space Station.


• Joe. My. God. notes that the lesbian subtext of Xena will be made explicit in the remake.


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• Language Log looks at odd names, in the Chinese world and in the wider world.


• Marginal Revolution links to a paper speculating that future economic growth will be absorbed entirley by life extension.


• pollotenchegg maps changing birth rates across Ukrainian regions from 1960 on.


• Towleroad quotes lesbian comedian Joy Behar on her incredulity about Caitlyn Jenner's professed politics.