[CAT] Food and water for the neighbourhood stray

I've seen this cat around my laneway a half-dozen times before, and I've seen its pawprints in the snow every night that we've had soft snow. It followed me to my door tonight as I was coming home; I didn't let it in, for fear of how Shakespeare might react to this neighbourhood resident he, too, has seen outside the apartment through my study window as this new one looked in, but I laid out some dry food and water. It ate something, at least.

[PHOTO] Watching, Dupont at Gladstone

[PHOTO] Matzo ball soup, Emphasis, Brooklyn

The matzo ball soup of Bay Ridge's Emphasis diner (6822 4th Avenue) is strongly recommended.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Eddie Chong at anthro{dendum} shares a listing of anthropology-relevant links from around the blogosphere.


• The Everyday Sociology Blog takes a quick look at the sociology of food.


• Joe. My. God. notes that a court ruling making same-sex marriage imaginable has helped an evangelical Christian candidate leap to the front of Costa Rica's presidential elections.


• JSTOR Daily explains the import of President's Day to, among others, non-Americans.


• Language Hat examines the spelling of the Irish word "imbolc" or "imbolg", used to describe a festival marking the start of spring.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money calls for legal enforcement of supply chains for minerals and the like, to ensure that they were not produce through human exploitation (for instance).


• Miranda Vane at the LRB Blog introduces her readers to the northern English sport of Cumberland & Westmorland Wrestling.


• Marginal Revolution highlights the argument of a commenter who argued that self-driving trucks cannot perform on themselves the tasks that human truckers are expected to. (Yet?)


• The NYR Daily examines the transformation of Putin in office from mere oligarch to the world's leading kleptocrat.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw celebrates a new Australian satirical newssite, the Betoota Advocate.


• At the Planetary Society Blog, Emily Lakdawalla notes new findings suggesting some Kuiper belt objects have huge moons, relatively and absolutely.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that while a powerful laser cannot rip up space literally, it can do pretty remarkable things nonetheless.


• Towleroad shares an essay by Cyd Ziegler talking about the importance of gay Atlantis Cruise ships for him, in the light of a scandal onboard a ship involving a fatal drug overdose.


• Arnold Zwicky looks at, among other things, tulip trees and magnolias.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: TTC, Davenport Triangle homeless, Parkdale, HQ2, Kanopy

• Steve Munro takes a look at his blog at the long history of the TTC promising to tackle crowding.


• Shawn Micallef takes issue with the anti-homeless shelter NIMBYism in the Davenport Triangle, i.e. the northeastern Annex, over at the Toronto Star.


• Samantha Edwards at NOW Toronto notes the rent strike of some tenants at Parkdale's 1251 King Street West against Nuspor Investments.


• Toronto may be on the shortlist for Amazon's HQ2, but there are good reasons why it is not likely to win it. The Globe and Mail reports.


• Toronto Life highlighted ten noteworthy films available via the new Toronto Public Library Kanopy service.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Halifax, Edmonton, Vancouver, Singapore

• CBC notes the perplexing case of Matt Whitman, a Halifax city councilor who has the astonishingly bad luck to keep accidentally retweeting racists and white nationalists.


• Global News reports on the redevelopment of land of an Edmonton church into affordable housing for immigrants.


• Global News reports on some Vancouverites who believe new city housing policies are discriminating against those with second homes in the city.


• The redevelopment of Vancouver's Oakridge Mall into a modern new high-density district sounds amazing. The Globe and Mail has it.


• Apparently it actually is possible to pull off a rave in Singapore. One mastermind reports on how it happened, from VICE.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: crime, Church and Wellesley, politics, Cape Breton, flannel

• The vigil that Toronto's Metropolitan Community Church is holding tonight for the victims of the Church and Wellesley serial killer sounds necessary, meaningful. CBC reports.


• Vjosa Isai reported yesterday about a string of unsolved murders committed against gay men in the late 1970s in Toronto. I'm impressed; this is the first time I've come across mention of these victims since I read their names in digitized copies of the Body Politic. The article is at the Toronto Star.


• The confidence of John Ibbitson that Church and Wellesley's LGBTQ identity will remain fixed is bracing. The Globe and Mail has it.


• The refusal of Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor Cecil Clarke to accept being blackmailed and to instead come it is good news, an item that made international headlines, for instance at Queerty.


• Is flannel tired as a lesbian signifier? I wonder. Thoughts? VICE starts a discussion.