[PHOTO] Splash of colour off Richmond Street, between Church and Jarvis

Looking south, my eye was naturally drawn to this spot of colour, in the murals in the background, amid the somewhat drab condo buildings on an overcast Sunday late afternoon.

[PHOTO] Security camera selfie, Macy's

The impulse hit me, there in the moment as I stood in the menswear entrance off West 34th.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• First, a new blog. The Buzz...About Books, official blog of the Toronto Public Library's Book Buzz, has interesting book-related posts. I liked this one from last December, noting the most popular books in dozens of neighbourhoods according to TPL stats.


• Centauri Dreams celebrates the life and achievements, as a writer and as a dreamer, of Ursula K Le Guin.


• D-Brief notes that yesterday was NASA's Day of Remembrance for lost astronauts, and takes a close look at the Columbia disaster 15 years ago.


• Hornet Stories notes a recent interview with Tonya Harding, famous again thanks to I, Tonya, that takes a look at some of her more controversial opinions. (Is the pro-Trump enough to prevent her from being some sort of camp icon, I wonder?)


• JSTOR Daily links to a paper examining the import of artificial intelligence victories in board games, like Go, over human players. Of course simple iterations are able to overcome human-style intelligence, so long as you go through enough iterations at least.


• Language Hat notes how many languages, and dialects of languages, can survive in far-removed immigrant enclaves. Greek in Ohio is used as one example.


• Marginal Revolution imagines, through the person of an athlete, what it would be like for someone to know all the data that is to be known about them. (I think it could be empowering.)


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw shares his sad thoughts about how, in an age of instant and potentially overwhelming digital outrage in a polarizing era, he resorts to self-censorship.


• The Planetary Society Blog explores the work of scientists who are assembling a guidebook indicating what the spectra of Earth-like worlds, at different stages of their history and orbiting different stars, will look like.


• Drew Rowsome takes a look at how #metoo is revealing sexual harassment and assault everywhere, among gay and straight, in Ontario and abroad.


• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy demonstrates that the anti-immigration policies of Trump show the man is uninterested, as some would have it, in deregulation.


• Understanding Society examines the question of how organizations can ensure that their members will act in compliance with stated organizational values.


• Window on Eurasia s the ongoing emigration of ethnic Russians from the North Caucasus, a massive and--I suspect--irreversible migration.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: ride-hailing apps, marijuana, Bruce McArthur, Annex, First Nations

• The idea of adding a fee for ride-hailing apps that would go towards funding the TTC makes perfect sense to me. CBC reports.


• NOW Toronto profiles ten people, neither white nor male, set to join in the post-legalization marijuana boom.


• This Toronto Star article sums up the state of what is, and is not, known about the state of the Bruce McArthur investigation.


• A new emergency shelter for the homeless is opening up in the Annex, notwithstanding the complaints of NIMBYist neighbours. The Toronto Star reports.


• The application of respondent-driven sampling methods reveals that the First Nations population of Toronto is much larger than official statistics indicate. The Toronto Star reports.

[NEWS] Five politics links: Patrick Brown and Ontario, NDP and abortion, First Nations, Franco, EU

• Arshy Mann at Daily Xtra notes that the fall of moderate Patrick Brown might embolden social conservatives in the Ontario Progressive Conservatives.


• CBC notes the belated clarification of the NDP that its opposition to federal government requirements for NGOs offering summer jobs does not mean it is reneging on support for abortion rights.


• The Nisenan tribe of California had recognition of their native status stripped by the federal government in the 1960s, and they want it back. VICE reports.


• The dead of the Spanish Civil War are at last being extricated from their graves in Catalonia. This is a cause for political controversy. CBC reports.


• Rapid economic growth in the new, post-Communist, member-states of the European Union is starting to translate into growing political heft, Politico Europe notes.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: London play, Cameroon refugee, leather, Transnistria, Indonesia

• The school boards of London, it turns out, will now fund a play that features a gay student's struggle to bring his date to a prom. CBC reports.


• A woman from Cameroon claims--credibly, I think--that she will face persecution on the grounds of her sexual orientation if she is deported back to her homeland from British Columbia. Global News reports.


• VICE reports on how one man is now finding acceptance and even welcome for people of colour in the leather scene, looking at his experiences in the recent Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend.


• Katya Myachina reports on one documentary photographer's efforts to document LGBTQ life in the Russian-dominated exclave of Transnistria, and the effect these photos and their display have had, over at Open Democracy.


• The Jakarta Post notes that, while Indonesians are willing to accept their LGBTQ fellow citizens as citizens, they are strongly opposed to their exercise of civil and human rights.