[VIDEO] Tour of Toronto from the CN Tower's Skypod

"Tour of Toronto from the CN Tower's Skypod" (Watch on YouTube)

Monday, I filmed Toronto from above, from the CN TowerSkyPod. From nearly a half-kilometre above ground level, Toronto looks so small, so explicable.

[PHOTO] Three photos from the Skypod of the CN Tower

This morning's video post featured nearly a minute of me filming Toronto from high above, from the CN Tower's SkyPod 447 metres above the ground.

I also took still photos. Everything looks smaller, but everything is visible from such unusual angles. The Rogers Centre, the waterfront, even the CN Tower itself--all is transformed.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Centauri Dreams continues the debate over whether KIC 8462582 has been dimming.


• Joe. My. God. notes the collection, organized by the Romanian Orthodox Church, of three million signatures against same-sex marriage.


• The LRB Blog considers racism in old works of fiction.


• The NYRB writes on the handles of Wittgenstein.


• The Russian Demographics Blog notes a migration of Chinese prostitutes to Africa.


• Towleroad notes the defense by an Arkansas television station of a gay reporter who works there.


• The Volokh Conspiracy reports on a poll suggesting Native Americans do not care much about the name of the Washington Redskins.


• Window on Eurasia warns that Mongolia's dams of rivers feeding into Lake Baikal might kill the lake, and notes the Russian economic crisis is making the military more attractive to job-seekers.


• Arnold Zwicky shares photos of three native flowering plants of California.

[NEWS] Some Wednesday links

• Al Jazeera looks at the rejection of political Islam by Tunisia's Ennahda party.


• The Australian Broadcasting Corporation notes the ambition of Zambia to become a major food-exporting country.


• Bloomberg notes the negative impact of booming immigration on the New Zealand economy, observes Ireland's efforts to attract financial jobs from London-based companies worried by Brxit, reports on the elimination of Brazil's sovereign wealth fund, and notes a lawsuit lodged by Huawei against Samsung over royalties.


• Bloomberg View notes that Russia can at least find domestic investors, and worries about the politicization of the Israeli military.


• CBC reports on the Syrian refugee who has become a popular barber in Newfoundland's Corner Brooks, notes the sad news of Gord Downie's cancer, and wonders what will happen to Venezuela.


• Daily Xtra writes about the need for explicit protection of trans rights in Canadian human rights codes.


• MacLean's notes Uber's struggles to remain in Québec.


• National Geographic notes Brazilian efforts to protect an Amazonian tribe.


• The National Post reports about Trudeau's taking a day off on his Japan trip to spend time with his wife there.


• Open Democracy wonders what will become of the SNP in a changing Scotland.


• The Toronto Star looks at payday lenders.


• Wired examines Twitter's recent changes.

[URBAN NOTE] On the Indigo at Sherway Gardens and the return of the bookstore

In "The bookstore makes a comeback", the Toronto Star's Francine Kopun looks at Indigo, Canada's dominant bookstore. With growing sales of books among young people and an apparently successful reorientation as a cultural department store, Indigo's future seems assured.

After years spent battling a declining book market and defying prophecies of doom, Indigo is back in growth mode, said founder and CEO Heather Reisman, leading a guided tour of a new store at Sherway Gardens on Tuesday.

It’s the first store the chain has opened in more than five years, and follows a series of high-profile Indigo closures that included the Runnymede Theatre store, the World’s Biggest Bookstore and the location at John St. and Richmond St. W. in downtown Toronto.

“So many people were writing Indigo off,” said Reisman. “The key is to reinvent, to create a new vision and to go to that vision with real conviction.”

Reisman said sales of physical books grew eight per cent last year, which is creating a cautious optimism among Canadian booksellers.

In 2015, the number of books sold nationally increased to 52.6 million, up from 52 million in 2014 and 2013, according to data from Booknet Canada.

[URBAN NOTE] How one man’s obsession could help solve the mystery of Toronto’s missing sakura

The National Post's Joe O'Connor and Graham Runciman report, with video, on a fan of High Park's cherry blossoms who wants to find out what happened this year.

Steve (Sakura Steve) Joniak moves with weary-purpose, camera at the ready.

Treading slowly, pausing, peering up through a large zoom lens, while hoping that he might zero in on a telling bit of evidence that could unlock a baffling springtime mystery that has taken root in High Park. The park is a Toronto icon, an idyllic, 161-acre hub for community sports teams, skating and pool parties, picnicking families, joggers, dog walkers, fishermen and those who simply want to spread a blanket beneath a shady tree and while away the afternoon.

It is the trees that Sakura Steve is most interested in. Chiefly: the sakura (cherry) blossom trees. For many Torontonians — and for many others from parts nearby and from places as far away as Japan — the sakura blossoms are the Beatles of the park’s ecosystem. Each spring they bloom, transforming a slope at the southern end of the park into a sea of pink and white. This fleeting, flowery paradise lasts but for a handful of days, attracting blossom lovers and the curious by the tens of thousands to wander in their midst.

The sakuras were a gift from a Japan, an arboreal thank you note to the citizens of Toronto for welcoming thousands of Japanese refugees after the Second World War. They are a treasure and, alas, in 2016, they are not blooming — (neither are the crowds) — and Sakura Steve is determined to find out why.

“It is disheartening,” he says, of the blossoms mysterious absence. “The blossoms, they sort of become a part of you.”

[URBAN NOTE] "John Tory is right to be skeptical about a Toronto bid for World Expo 2025"

In The Globe and Mail, Marcus Gee is rightly skeptical about the good sense in Toronto hosting the World Expo in 2025. What good ever comes from these? (The Toronto Star reports on the mayor's caution.)

Those who want Toronto to host World Expo 2025 sure have awful timing. The same morning that they held a press conference to urge the city to make a bid for the exposition, Toronto’s top civil servant was warning that city hall is heading for a fiscal cliff.

City manager Peter Wallace told Mayor John Tory and the executive committee on Tuesday morning that the “tricks” the city has been using to balance its books won’t work forever. “The process of kicking the can down the road will inevitably come to an end,” he said.

Toronto already has trouble paying for keeping the potholes filled and the streetcars rumbling, not to mention all the “unmet capital needs,” such as public housing repairs and transit maintenance. What a fine time, then, to spend a bundle on a flashy international fair.

No one seems to know for sure yet what it would cost to host the expo, but you can be certain that it wouldn’t be cheap. A 2013 Ernst & Young study said it could range from $1-billion to $3-billion, depending on the breaks.

[URBAN NOTE] "Same-sex, gender talk leads Halton Catholic trustees to vote down policy"

Again: Why do we fund separate school systems, with public money even, if they want to retain the right to hurt students? From the Toronto Star:

Halton Catholic trustees have rejected an update to the school board’s discipline and anti-bullying policy after one raised concerns that mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity could violate religious teachings.

The changes had previously been approved, unanimously, by a trustee committee and at last week’s full board meeting it was explained that the updates are in line with what’s required under the provincial Education Act and Ontario’s Human Rights Code, said Chair Jane Michael.

“It was a shock to all of us, I believe,” said Michael, who expected the amendments — which she considered part of a routine update — to easily pass. Instead, they failed on a 4-3 vote.

And because the board is “already so far behind” in making the required changes that were ready back in February, Ontario’s Ministry of Education “was waiting for an affirmative answer (last) Wednesday morning” after the board meeting, Michael said.

The policy, which covers discipline and safety in schools, will now go back to the same committee, and she’s hoping it will reappear, as is, on the board’s June meeting agenda.

[URBAN NOTE] "LRT rollout delayed, Bombardier blamed" -- in Waterloo Region

Via James Nicoll, I found out about Paige Desmond's article in Kitchener-Waterloo's The Record describing how Bombardier has extended production delays for that city's mass transit, the Ion light rail route. It's good to know Toronto's not being singled out, I suppose.

The Region of Waterloo's light rail transit project won't launch until early 2018 due to a lengthy delay in train delivery from Bombardier.

Officials announced the late start on Tuesday.

"What's of particular concern to me and I suspect to the rest of council as well — is another shoe going to drop?" Coun. Tom Galloway said.

Bombardier and a senior regional official told The Record last week there would no further delay in the region's order, after the company announced it would transfer its Metrolinx contract to a Kingston plant in October in an effort to speed up delayed streetcars for the Toronto Transit Commission.

A staff report said the first train would be delayed three months longer than officials were told earlier this year. They were informed May 19.

The first train will now arrive in December instead of August. The 14th train, the final one, will be delivered in October 2017.

[URBAN NOTE] On the escaped capybara of High Park Zoo (#capybaraTO)

Yesterday, blogTO noted that two capybara escaped from their enclosure in the High Park Zoo.



(The above photo comes from the Friends of the High Park Zoo Facebook group.)

Today, I've found that they have gone viral. And what not? They are so incredibly cute.

What seems to have described by the CBC, the two female capybara escaped while being introduced to a new male.

City parks department workers were trying to introduce a new male capybara and female capybara to the enclosure to mate, and remove Chewy, when things suddenly went south.

In their attempts to make the swap, staff lost control of the new couple, hereby dubbed Bonnie and Clyde, according to Megan Price of the Toronto parks department.

The pair of bandits then made their escape, while Chewy was happy to hang out at home in his pen.

So did Bonnie and Clyde have a plan in the works for awhile? Did Chewy scare them off in an effort to keep his home? Or was it maybe just a spur-of-the-moment dash for freedom from a pair of young lovers?

As the National Post notes, the zoo staff are currently searching for the capybara on the assumption that they are currently hiding in the underbrush. I wish them well, and a quick recovery.

I just almost find myself wishing that a breeding pair had escaped: Could an indigenized capybara population be that bad?