[PHOTO] Six photos of the Alexander the Great Parkette on the Danforth

The Alexander the Great Parkette, located on the Danforth in the heart of Greektown, is a wonderfully landscaped parkette occupying a corner next to some restaurants. On a warm summer evening, it's a very nice place to hang out, one of the nice things to come of the heating up of the Macedonia naming dispute in the first half of the 1990s. (Most of the individual statues date from this time.)

[PHOTO] Anne of Green Gables doll, Green Gables Heritage Place, PEI

The Green Gables Heritage Place gift shop is full of Anne memorabilia, as one would expect, all different sizes and forms and in any number of languages.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• At Antipope, Charlie Stross considers the ways in which Big Data could enable an updated version of 1984.


• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at all the ways in which this photo of galaxy NGC 5559 is cool, with a supernova and more.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly shares a week of her life as a professional writer.


• Crooked Timber looks at the potentially dominant role of racism as a political marker in the US.


• Far Outliers notes that the Confederacy's military options circa 1864 were grim and limited.


• Language Log shares an example of a Starbucks coffee cup with biscriptal writing from Shenyang.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that the Rohingya are being subjected to genocide. What next?


• Marginal Revolution notes the introduction of a new chocolate, ruby chocolate".


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw has it with ideological divisions of left and right.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer looks at the remarkably intemperate Spanish court decision that kicked off modern separatism in Catalonia.


• Charley Ross looks at the sad story of missing teenager Brittanee Drexel.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that now is an excellent time to start highlighting the politics of climate change.


• Towleroad mourns New York City theatre star Michael Friedman.


• Window on Eurasia notes the ways in which Russia is, and is not, likely to use the military.


• Arnold Zwicky shares a map of the regional languages of France.

[URBAN NOTE] Four notes on Toronto: Doug Ford, parking garages, department stores, temp workers

• At Spacing, John Lorinc is rightly concerned with the impending Doug Ford run for the mayoralty.


• Spacing takes a look at the futuristic parking garages of mid-20th century Toronto.


• blogTO looks at the classic department stores of mid-20th century Toronto, at the apogee of this retail model.


• This Toronto Star feature on the plight of temp workers in Toronto is upsetting. Is this the future we have made?

[URBAN NOTE] Four notes on the Canadian struggle to land the second headquarters of Amazon

• CBC's Pete Evans notes that Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Halifax and Ottawa are all interested in landing Amazon's HQ2.


• David Rider in the Toronto Star notes that John Tory is pushing forward Toronto as home to Amazon's HQ2, with its 50 thousand jobs.


• Bloomberg View's Conor Sen notes that Toronto is a strong candidate for Amazon's HQ2, alongside cities like Atlanta and Boston.


• Also in the Star, David Rider notes that ex-Amazon exec James Thomson is skeptical a crowded Toronto will land HQ2.

[URBAN NOTE] Four notes about urban change: Hamilton, Victoria, the Legion, St. James Park

• A Hamilton church is digging up hundreds of dead for an old cemetery turned parking lot to make room for condos.


• A RV fire that left an elderly couple in Victoria homeless highlights the affordable housing crisis there.


• MacLean's notes how the Royal Canadian Legion is starting to make a new fortune, in eateries and real estate even.


• Why is the St. Lawrence BIA using security guards to kick homeless people out of a park? (Rhetorical, I know.) NOW Toronto looks.

[DM] "On the labour shortages of Sarufutsu, Hokkaido"

I've a post up at Demography Matters reflecting briefly on Masahiro Hidaka's Bloomberg article "Japan's Richest Village Can't Find Workers for Its Factory". In this article, Hidaka describes how the village of Sarufutsu, northernmost village in Hokkaido and thus all Japan, is facing a shutdown of its hugely profitable scallops fishery because it is literally running out of workers.