[PHOTO] Three photos from a walk east from Victoria Park, Charlottetown

[PHOTO] Four Group of Seven works from the Art Gallery of Ontario

The Art Gallery of Ontario has many works of Group of Seven artists who are not Lawren Harris. I liked the landscapes of J.E.H. MacDonald, "Lake O'Hara" and especially "Fine Weather, Georgian Bay" speaking to me.





F.H. Varley's "Study of Joan (Fairley)" is a deserved classic.



His "Immigrants", meanwhile, is a wonderful tableau.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• blogTO notes a bike licensing proposal has been killed.


• The Dragon's Tales links to a study of the surfaces of magma exoplanets.


• Language Hat notes untranslatable Maltese phrases.


• Language Log is taken aback by Donald Trump's juvenile language.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money thinks that Trump's stance on trade might be an advantage.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer does not understand what Ian Bremmer means by saying that the presidential election does not matter to business.


• Savage Minds shares an indigenous take on anthropology and its charting of indigenous secrets and lives and cultures.


• Towleroad notes that survivors of the Orlando massacre and others are starting to get compensation from the OneOrlando fund.


• Window on Eurasia notes that Russians believed their propaganda today and argues Russian autocracy will always threaten Ukraine.

[URBAN NOTE] "Vancouver, London Top List of Cities at Risk of Housing Bubble"

Bloomberg reports on global housing bubbles.

Vancouver, London and Stockholm rank as the cities most at risk of a housing bubble after a surge in prices in the past five years, according to a UBS Group AG analysis of 18 financial centers.
Sydney, Munich and Hong Kong are also facing stretched valuations, UBS said in its 2016 Global Real Estate Bubble Index report, released Tuesday. San Francisco ranked as the most overvalued housing market in the U.S., while not yet at bubble risk.

House prices in the near-bubble cities have increased on average by almost 50 percent since 2011, compared with less than 15 percent in other financial centers, UBS said. Low interest rates, global capital inflows and optimism among investors about returns have helped to inflate values, the bank said.

“A change in macroeconomic momentum, a shift in investor sentiment or a major supply increase could trigger a rapid decline in house prices," UBS said. “Investors in overvalued markets should not expect real price appreciation in the medium to long run.”

Vancouver’s ranking soared to first from fourth place in 2015. Housing prices in the Canadian city have doubled in the past decade, prompting an outcry from local families struggling to afford homes that now chew up 90 percent of average before-tax income.

[URBAN NOTE] "London Mayor Khan Urges Labour to Win Cities in Push for Power"

Bloomberg's Thomas Penny reports on an interesting-sounding strategy for the United Kingdom's Labour Party. Could it work?

London Mayor Sadiq Khan will call on his Labour Party to use elections to run cities across Britain next year as a springboard to defeating Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government.

Speaking at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool, northwest England, Khan will say that effective local government can prove to voters that Labour is ready for power nationally. Current national polling shows the main opposition party, which has been split by a leadership battle, as much as 15 percentage points behind the Conservatives, suggesting Labour would be heavily defeated in a general election.

Mayors “can demonstrate that we can make a real difference to people’s lives,” Khan will say Tuesday, according to extracts of the speech released by his office. “With Labour in power, we can prove we are ready for government.”

Khan, who was elected in May and has the biggest personal mandate of any British politician, will say the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn on Saturday has “decided” the question of the party’s leadership and activists must concentrate on winning power instead of infighting. The mayor, who supported the leader’s challenger, Owen Smith, will say the party owes it to the most vulnerable in society.

[URBAN NOTE] On the new Toronto PATH map (#path360)

In Toronto tries to simplify byzantine PATH map. Take a look", the Toronto Star reports on a new map for Toronto's PATH network.

A new map for the downtown PATH was posted on Monday morning in the Royal Bank Plaza, after a recent survey found that 81 per cent of PATH users found the old signage didn’t help them navigate the underground system.

Some 200,000 pedestrians travel the PATH underground network each workday between 80 buildings, including five major banks.

The network keeps them out of the wind and snow but the Toronto Financial District BIA admits in a press release it’s “also notoriously difficult to navigate, especially for new users.”

Comments on the new map and signage are sought in an online survey and through #PATH360 on Twitter.

“We know there are further refinements to make and we hope both PATH experts and new users take the opportunity to assist in making the new map the best it can be,” said Evan Weinberg, policy and advocacy manager at the Toronto Financial District BIA, in a prepared statement.