[PHOTO] Backyard with melting snow

Yesterday morning saw the first heavy snowfall this winter.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Apostrophen's 'Nathan Smith writes about what he has learned from his huskie.


• Bad Astronomy shares some gorgeous Cassini images of Saturn's polar hexagon.


• Centauri Dreams looks at L2 Puppis, a red giant star that our own sun will come to resemble.


• D-Brief notes climate change is starting to hit eastern Antarctica, the more stable region of the continent.


• Dangerous Minds looks at some of the cool pins put out by supporters of LGBT rights over the decades.


• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at Susan Faludi's account of her life with her newly trans father.


• Far Outliers examines the War of American Independence as one of the many Anglo-French global wars.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money wonders why the Los Angeles Times allowed the publication of letters defend the deportation of the Japanese-Americans.


• Marginal Revolution's Alex Tabarrok argues that we are now moving beyond meat production.


• The NYRB Daily looks at Mexico as a seedbed of modernism.


• Savage Minds shares an article arguing for a decentering of the position of human beings at the interface of anthropology and science.


• Understanding Society has more on the strange and fundamentally alien nature of the cephalopod mind.


• Window on Eurasia notes that the North Caucasus is set to go through austerity.

[URBAN NOTE] "Who Has the Right to Walk?"

Cody Delistraty's blog post takes a look at the way women has been excluded from the city as random walkers, how the word "flâneur" is gendered masculine in more ways than the obvious one, and how a new generation of women are challenging this.

For centuries, the word ‘flâneur’ has burrowed itself into the historical conversation of what it means to intimately know a city, to walk in it, to fully experience it, to be independent within it. The term, meaning a man who saunters around observing society, can be traced back to at least 17th-century France. It was first explained in detail in an 1872 edition of Larousse’s Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle in which the dictionary’s authors define it taxonomically: “flâneurs of the boulevards, of the parks, of the cafés.” In his 1837 novel César Birotteau, Honoré de Balzac called it “gastronomy of the eye.” Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve said that to flâne is “the very opposite of doing nothing,” insofar as it is an intellectual pursuit. Some trace the word back even further back, to 1587, with the Scandinavian noun ‘flana’, meaning “a person who wanders.” And it was Walter Benjamin, drawing on the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, who first used the term in a scholarly context, writing about it in the 1920s and further honing its definition: a flâneur, for Benjamin, was at once an inherently literary character, a man of leisure, and a symbol of the modern, urban experience.

Flâneur became a historically valuable term. For at least two centuries, the word adopted a variety of meanings and contexts, but eventually it became a catchall byword for a modern, educated person. To be a flâneur was to encapsulate the progress and the civility of the Western world. The best-known flâneurs are also some of modern history’s most important writers, scholars, aristocrats, poets, and thinkers: from Thomas de Quincey to André Breton to Edgar Allen Poe to Charles Baudelaire to Will Self.

Google ‘flâneuse’, the feminine form of the word, and one only finds photographs and descriptions of a type of chaise longue. Women are excluded from the term. While this is a linguistic exclusion, it is also very much a historical one. To be excluded from the word is to be ostracised from the history of intellectualism, modernisation, even civilisation.

And yet it shouldn’t be so. Virginia Woolf was walking and learning and thinking; so too were the writers Jean Rhys and George Sand and the intrepid reporter Martha Gelhorn; likewise contemporary women like writer-artist Sophie Calle, artist Laura Oldfield Ford, and film director Agnès Varda. There have been dozens of important female saunterers, but centuries in the making, the word flâneur has failed to find room for them. Their contributions to the progression of modernity have largely been forgotten or rendered less important than those of their male counterparts.

Lauren Elkin, a critic, novelist, and author of the recent Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London, believes that the solution to women being omitted from the history of walking is not to try to retroactively integrate them into the definition of flâneur. Instead, she has sought to redefine “flâneuse,” not as a type of chaise longue, but as a female flâneur. In doing so, Elkin has allowed herself—and historians—to reflect on the history of women walking and to properly revise it.

[URBAN NOTE] "The new Toronto Courthouse emerges from The Ward"

Spacing Toronto's John Lorinc takes a look at an interesting new sort of public museum in downtown Toronto, set up around the artifacts excavated in the preparation for the construction of a new courthouse.

As archeologists begin to reveal two centuries of commerce on the North Market site, Toronto’s other major active dig site – the Centre Avenue parking lot that’s set to become a major new courthouse – has been fitted out with a hoarding mural display that evokes the stories of the city’s original arrival city, The Ward.

At a formal unveiling last week, the hoarding project – commissioned by Infrastructure Ontario and developed by the Toronto Ward Museum, The STEPS Initiative and visual artists PA System (Patrick Thomson and Alexa Hatanaka) – offers an innovative and stylized depiction of artifacts found on the site, as well as archival photos, and narratives and images of individuals linked to the neighbourhood’s various eras and demographic groups.

While the murals add a visually striking note to a long-neglected block, the execution is not without flaws: the text on some of the panels contains typos. As well, several of the guests who attended the unveiling, including those involved in the project, commented on the fact that some of the archival images of The Ward scenes installed along the Armory Street panels are printed backwards. At least one described the effect as disrespectful.

That move, however, was intentional. “The mirroring effect was used to create a continuous feeling of walking through a historical streetscape,” according to a statement by PATCH, the project facilitators who worked with The Toronto Ward Museum and designer Kellen Hatanaka on the exhibit. “The mirroring also allows alignment of the images in such a way that its effect is amplified and immersive, while allowing the viewer the experience of entering the exhibit from either side of the installation.”

In an interview following the unveiling, John McKendrick, IO’s executive vice-president for project delivery, and Reza Asadikia, director of major projects, outlined new details about the courthouse venture, which will become a major landmark structure estimated to cost between $500 million and $1 billion. It will be built under IO’s alternative financing and procurement model.

[URBAN NOTE] On the anti-Christmas squirrels of Mel Lastman Square

CBC News' Greg Ross and Laura Fraser cover this light news item from North York.

A pack of furry, pint-sized grinches have stolen the Christmas spirit from Mel Lastman Square.

The trees and the skaters are still there, but they're no longer bathed in the glow of the season — something Coun. John Filion blames on some particularly crafty squirrels.

The squirrels have been chewing through the wires holding up lights that normally decorate the North York park's trees, he says.

"I believe it totally has to do with one or more squirrels who perhaps don't like Christmas.

It first started two years ago. At first just a few strands went dark, but it soon turned into a virtual blackout. Last season, the city brought in a cherry picker to replace the extinguished lights.

But Filion says it proved no match for the wee scrooges.

"Less than two days, and they were not working."

[URBAN NOTE] "Mayor John Tory budget cuts unfairly target vulnerable: city expert panel"

The Toronto Star's Jennifer Pagliaro reports on findings that Toronto's budget cuts will hurt the vulnerable disproportionately.

A group of academics and representatives from community agencies assembled by the city say Mayor John Tory’s request for across-the-board budget cuts unfairly impacts the city’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable residents.

At the request of council, staff reported back on the social and economic impacts of Tory’s request that all city divisions and agencies find 2.6 per cent in reductions — what has been part of his carefully-crafted narrative about first saving money before announcing plans to raise needed revenues, including tolling the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway.

But that exercise, the expert group says, was flawed from the start.

“One of the primary conclusions of the reviewers was that an across the board 2.6 per cent reduction to all city programs and agencies, by design, disproportionately and negatively impacts low-income, vulnerable and marginalized residents — because these residents are at a disadvantage to begin with,” reads a briefing note prepared as part of the 2017 budget process and published Monday.

Tory has argued that all departments needed to participate in the search for “efficiencies” — that the public expects governments to find a way to “do the same for less.”

[URBAN NOTE] "Daycare fees in Toronto jump 15 per cent in two years, survey finds"

The Toronto Star's Laurie Monsebraaten reports on the exceptionally high cost of childcare in Toronto. It is difficult for me to imagine how this lack of affordability fits with public priorities at all.

Toronto mother Crystal Hunt is losing money every day she works because the cost of daycare for her baby and toddler is more than she earns in take-home pay.

“I had an opportunity to work for this amazing company,” says Hunt, 33, who took an entry position with the e-commerce company Shopify this fall.

“I needed to be in the workforce. If I waited until my kids were in school, my skills would be null and void. And I can’t afford to go to school again. We have a mortgage.”

Monthly fees for Hunt’s two boys — Ethan, 16 months, and William, 3 — are more than $2,600 in after-tax dollars, “my entire salary,” she says.

Hunt and her husband Jonathan are not alone in their struggle to pay for child care in Toronto, where parent fees are still the highest in the country, according to the third annual survey of child care fees in Canada’s largest 28 cities.

Median monthly fees in the city top $1,649 for infants, $1,375 for toddlers and $1,150 for preschoolers.

[URBAN NOTE] "Cycling advocates gear up to fight the use of bike lanes by people with mobility issue

The Toronto Star's Ben Spurr reports on a new cycling battle that, frankly, sounds like it might be politically bad to take on.

A coalition of cycling, pedestrian, and accessibility advocates is gearing up to fight a proposal that they claim could mean the death of safe bike infrastructure in the city.

The proposal, which will be debated at this week’s city council meeting, would make it legal for drivers with accessible parking permits to temporarily stop in physically separated bike lanes if they’re loading or unloading someone with mobility challenges.

Ahead of a press conference at city hall on Monday, a coalition that includes Walk Toronto, Cycle Toronto, and Stop Gap, issued a release that declared that if council approved the bylaw change it would spell “the end of protected bike lanes in Toronto.”

Burns Wattie, a member of the coalition, warned that the proposal would create “an extremely dangerous situation” for road users of all types. Wattie, a cyclist who often drives his wheelchair-using son in an accessible vehicle, said that allowing drivers to stop in protected bike lanes would force cyclists into traffic, and encourage wheelchair users into a space frequented by riders.

[LINK] "Ottawa eases rules for supervised consumption sites"

The Globe and Mail's Andrea Woo notes this decided progress for Toronto and Montréal, as the two cities try to deal with some of the problems of IV drug use.

Municipal politicians in Canada’s two largest cities are optimistic that new legislation aimed at clearing the path for more supervised consumption sites means they will finally be able to offer the harm-reduction service next year.

Ottawa on Monday tabled Bill C-37, which would overturn yet another piece of Conservative-era legislation and advance the Liberal government’s plan to approach drug use as a public-health issue.

Toronto recently submitted applications to operate three small-scale sites, and said they have long been needed; Montreal applied almost two years ago to have three supervised injection sites and one mobile unit. Vancouver, which is home to the only two sites sanctioned by Health Canada, recently applied to open two more.

City councillor Joe Cressy, who chairs Toronto’s drug strategy implementation panel, called Ottawa’s announcement a “good sign” and encouraging news for other cities.

The change would have no effect on Toronto’s applications, as they would be covered by the more stringent old rules. Toronto is also awaiting word on whether the Ontario government will fund the three sites.

[LINK] "With Trump presidency, some see chance for Canada to embrace China"

The Globe and Mail's Nathan VanderKlippe reports on the prospects that the Trump Administration might create an incentive and an opportunity for Canada to sign a free-trade deal with China. Should it? Would it be economically wise? What about the politics?

Donald Trump has vowed dramatic change to the U.S. position on the world stage, threatening new antagonism with China even as he pledges to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal that promised to drive down tariffs and impose a Western order around the Pacific rim.

It is a moment of upheaval, trade enthusiasts say, that Canada should seize by abandoning its qualms and embracing China in a way it has never done, as Beijing positions itself for a more prominent position of global leadership.

“The whole world is wondering what Mr. Trump is going to look like,” in terms of the policies and priorities he will pursue, said Derek Burney, former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney and ex-ambassador to the United States. “Well, we don’t have to wait. We could be moving right now to forge a closer relationship with China.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already sought warmer ties with Beijing and, in September, placed Canada on a path toward a free-trade deal with China, with the two sides agreeing to exploratory talks. But that can be a slow process. It took Australia nine years and 21 rounds of negotiations to conclude a free-trade agreement with China.

If the Trudeau government pursues it strongly enough, Mr. Burney believes a Canadian deal can be done in two years, by cribbing from Canada’s approach three decades ago in negotiating the 1987 free-trade agreement with the U.S. – an approach that included a special cabinet committee dedicated to concluding a deal.