[PHOTO] Towers of Jameson Avenue, Parkdale

Apartment towers line Parkdale's Jameson Avenue, a north-south street that connects Queen Street West to coastal routes like Lake Shore Boulevard and the Gardiner Expressway. The apartment towers offer some of the lowest rents in the downtown core, but then, as this Reddit thread points out, the low rents can also reflect poor living conditions.

[VIDEO] 63 Ossington, from Ossington Station south to King

"63 Ossington, from Ossington Station south to King" (Watch on YouTube)

Saturday evening, as evening shaded into night, I rode the 63 Ossington bus south from Ossington Station to King Street. The bus took me past Bloor, past the Ossington strip between College and Dundas (roughly), and down to the new condo neighbourhood of Liberty Village.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Beyond the Beyond's Bruce Sterling reflects on the apparent absence of Kardashev Type III civilizations.


• Centauri Dreams looks at beamed power systems for spacecraft.


• The Dragon's Gaze looks at the debris disks of Zeta Reticuli.


• The Dragon's Tales notes NASA's interest in researching deep space habitats.


• Far Outliers evaluates Romania's Second World War-era dictator Antonescu.


• The LRB Blog responds to Beyoncé's Lemonade.


• Out There interviews Mike Brown about the search for Planet Nine.


• Personal Reflections considers the impact of asylum controversies in Australia.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer still thinks Trump is dangerous.


• Towleroad notes the advent of LGBT equality in the Faroe Islands.


• The Volokh Conspiracy considers whether Prince's estate could sue magazines for lying about him having AIDS.


• Window on Eurasia notes a Russian claim that the country's newly-discovered Christianity prevents it from collaborating with the West.

[OBSCURA] Haubitz and Zoche and the evocative abandoned hotels in the desert of Egypt

Late in March, Dangerous Minds featured an evocative post showing photos of the skeletons of abandoned hotel projects in the Egyptian desert.

The word ruins ordinarily conveys a connotation of scarcely delineated brick walls and rubble dating back hundreds if not thousands of years, but the work of German artists Sabine Haubitz and Stefanie Zoche serves as a powerful reminder that unfortunate events, especially economic ones, can easily create ruins of much more recent vintage almost anywhere.

Haubitz and Zoche’s 2006 book Sinai Hotels vividly documents hotel projects in the Egyptian desert that were commenced in good faith but then, for reasons unknown, were abandoned. In virtually every case, the failed investment projects resulted in concrete foundations but remarkably little else, stranded in an otherwise vacant landscape of sand.

Caitlin Peterson has written that the buildings in the series

have proven to be the ruins left by misinvestment in state-funded tourism projects. The sculptural shells point to one of the consequences of a tourist industry that encourages uncontrolled urban development of whole landscapes and, against the backdrop of current political developments, amounts to a socio-political fuse. In their promise of holiday idylls, the names of hotel chains, which the artists have adopted for their titles, jar with discrepancy against the abandoned concrete skeletons in the pictures.

Much more, including many more starkly beautiful photos, can be found at the site.

[NEWS] Some Monday links

• Bloomberg looks at the Vietnamese government's response to a mass fish death, examines political instability in Iraq, notes a potentially problematic nuclear plant in the United Kingdom, and studies an illegal amber rush in western Ukraine.


• CBC looks at the recent New Brunswick ruling on interprovincial alcohol shipments, notes an auction of Prince's blazer from Purple Rain, suggests that a Facebook rant by a man convicted of neglecting the health of his son may not help him in sentencing, and looks at the retirement of Pierre Karl Péladeau as head of the Parti Québécois.


• The Inter Press Service notes African support for West Papuan freedom.


• MacLean's looks at the Island's preparation for Mike Duffy's return to the Senate, notes Karla Homolka's children will have to deal with their mother's past crimes, and reacts to the new Drake album.


• National Geographic interviews the author of a new book on abandoned cities.


• NPR notes how Somali-British poet Warsan Shane has become a star thanks to Beyoncé.


• Universe Today notes Russia's first launch from its Far Eastern Vostochny cosmodrone and reports on the identification of an extragalactic neutrino source.

[ISL] "P.E.I. Buddhists monks welcome outside world this weekend"

CBC News' Sara Fraser reports on the decision of a Buddhist monastery in southeastern Prince Edward Island to hold an open house.

P.E.I.'s Buddhist monks are opening the doors wide for their biggest-ever open house this weekend at their monastery complex in Little Sands.

The Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS) has made the Island their home for the last eight years. They've built up a large compound of about a dozen buildings, which they've said is worth about $10 million, and still expanding. Hundreds of Asian monks study there year-round.

"This is just a way for us to make personal connections with Islanders," said Venerable Dan, GEBIS public affairs spokesperson.

"This weekend, the Mother's Day weekend, will be a perfect opportunity for us to open the door and welcome Islanders and friends to come in and get to know more about us."

Islanders can tour the facilities, which include a prayer hall for up to 500 monks adorned with gold-plated Buddha statues, and living accommodations where the monks bunk in austere, 10-man rooms.

They'll also show off some of their traditional handwork including drawing and intricate, colourful sculpture created from butter.

[ISL] On the potential renaming of Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst by Parks Canada

Michael Conor McCarthy, writing for The Guardian of Charlottetown, notes Parks Canada's interest in renaming the Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst National Historic Site. The Amherst of the name was associated with atrocities against indigenous peoples and Acadians. Is renaming the site a good way to make a rhetorical break with the past? I do wonder.

A new name may be part of the future for Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst as Parks Canada is putting forward a request to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to look into giving the national historic site a name that better reflects its past.

Parks Canada is putting forward a request to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to look into renaming Port-la-Joye-Fort Amherst, a national historic site on the southwestern entrance to Charlottetown Harbour.

This is coming after local aboriginal leaders, the P.E.I. Presbytery of the United Church of Canada and the Council of Canadians have all expressed wishes to have the name changed.

"I am pleased that they are reviewing my request and the 638 other people that signed the petition to have his name removed," said John Joe Sark, a member of the Mi’kmaq Grand Council.

[. . .]

Some historians believe Amherst used biological warfare against indigenous people through advising the distribution of smallpox-laced blankets.

[ISL] "Erosion could cause Gibraltar Point to split in two, says Toronto conservation authority"

The Toronto Star's Dan Taekema notes how substantial erosion might end up splitting the Toronto Islands' Gibraltar Point.

The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is betting on a breakwater to stop one of the city’s most popular summer destinations from washing away.

The Toronto Islands have long been victim to erosion caused by waves and winter storms, but in recent years the problem has gotten worse — stabilization of the Scarborough Bluffs and the creation of the Leslie Street Spit have limited the amount of sand and soil carried by the current to feed the island.

“We essentially started to starve the islands of a source of sediment to sustain itself,” said Ethan Griesbach, a project manager with the TRCA.

According to a report from the conservation authority titled the “Gibraltar Point Erosion Control Project,” erosion on the islands has been documented in the area since 1879.

Significant storm damage in the ’70s led to several possible solutions, but only short-term attempts to solidify the shoreline were used.

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto library workers reach tentative agreement"

CBC reports on the happy last-minute deal that averted the possibility of a library strike here in Toronto.

The Toronto Public Library Workers Union says it has reached a tentative agreement with the Toronto Public Library Board on a new four-year contract.

Maureen O'Reilly, president of local 4948 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Toronto Public Library Workers Union, announced the tentative deal hours after the city's 2,200 library workers passed their strike deadline at 12:01 a.m. Monday.

"This has been a difficult round of bargaining, but our bargaining committee has secured a deal which we believe addresses some of our concerns and allows Toronto's library workers to continue to provide great services in the city's 100 branches," she said.

Toronto's public libraries will be open today and operating with normal hours of service.

The union said ratification is expected to start sometime this week.

[URBAN NOTE] "Star Trek TV series to begin filming in Toronto this fall, CBS confirms"

CBC News' Jonathan Rumley reports on the impending filming of the new Star Trek television series here in Toronto.

Heads up, Trekkies — filming for the new Star Trek television series is slated for Toronto, where local fans hope it will live long and prosper.

The news about the new television series was confirmed by CBS Television Studios on Twitter. The show will begin filming in the city sometime this fall.

"We don't have [any] other details to share at this point," Kristen Hall, CBS Television Studios' vice-president of communications, told CBC News via email.

Last November, CBS said the series would make its debut in January 2017.

"The brand-new Star Trek will introduce new characters seeking imaginative new worlds and new civilizations, while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes that have been a signature of the franchise since its inception in 1966," CBS said last fall in a release.

[DM] "On the return of the long-form census to Canada in 2016"

At Demography Matters, I have a brief note, crossposted below, about the return of the long-form census to Canada this year.

* * *

It's time for Canadians to deal with the 2016 Census, and this year, as the Liberal government has promised, the long-form census is back. CBC News' Hannah Jackson outlined this in "The long-form census is back, it's online — and this time, it's mandatory".

Statistics Canada today officially begins mailing out access codes so Canadians can prepare to complete the 2016 census online — either the regular or the newly restored long-form version — next week.

Census Day is May 10, but Statistics Canada is encouraging Canadians to complete their census forms as soon as they receive them.

The letters will provide a 16-digit access code to allow households to complete the census online, but also gives Canadians the option of having a paper version mailed to their homes.

[. . .]

One in four randomly selected households in Canada will receive the 36-page long-form questionnaire known as the National Household Survey, while the remainder of Canadians will receive the 10-question short version. Both are mandatory.

Under Section 31 of the Statistics Act, the consequence for failing to provide information to a mandatory census or falsely answering is liable to a summary conviction carrying a fine of up to $500, imprisonment of up to three months, or both.

The import of the census is outlined in Jordan Press' Canadian Press article "Long-form census forms return to mailboxes this week after absence", published at MacLean's and the Toronto Star.

For provincial coffers, the population estimates in the census determine how much per capita funding they will receive in transfers from the federal government.

For local governments and community groups, the demographic details in neighbourhoods help with decisions on where to place new schools, transit routes, seniors’ housing and emergency services.

For companies, the census data act as a much-needed complement to what’s become known as big data.

“Some people wonder, well, why do you even need a census when we have big data?” said Jan Kestle, president of Environics Analytics.

“When you combine the kind of data we now can collect with census data, you can really get a more integrated view of what consumers want both in terms of products and services and that’s also true in terms of what citizens want from government.”

The politics behind the 2011 cancellation are also explored briefly by Press.

The previous Conservative government replaced the long-form census with the voluntary survey five years ago in a move that caught many by surprise and lit a political fuse over the depth of data Statistics Canada collected through regular population counts. The results from the 2011 count prevented comparisons to previous years, left out some small communities over quality concerns, and raised reliability questions around response rates of immigrants and aboriginals.

As one of its first acts in government, the Liberals brought back the mandatory, long-form questionnaire.

Kestle said there will remain gaps in the data collected five years ago, but the return of the long-form census this year should bridge many of them created by the one-time absence.

“To be realistic, of course there will be breaks (in data), but I think missing one (census) is not nearly as bad as if we hadn’t had it come back,” she said.

Craig Silverman's humourous article at Buzzfeed is worth reading for the chuckles.