[PHOTO] Northbound train, Union Station

I went down to Union Station last evening during the weekend shutdown of the Spadina-University leg of the line, and spent a few minutes photographing some of the gorgeous glass-based art placed down at track level. The trains look good next to this.

[PHOTO] Entry, American Museum of Natural History

The front entry of the American Museum of Natural History is nothing short of spectacular, facing Central Park under that brilliant blue sky.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Larisa Kurtović writes at anthro{dendum} about her experiences, as an anthropologist studying Bosnia and a native Sarajevan, at the time of the trial of Ratko Mladić. Representation in this circumstance was fraught.


• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the remarkable claim that extragalactic planets have been discovered 3.5 billion light-years away through gravitational lensing and does not find it intrinsically implausible. Centauri Dreams also looks at the background behind the claimed detection of two thousand rogue planets, ranging in mass from the Moon to Jupiter, in a distant galaxy.


• Dangerous Minds reviews a fantastic-sounding book reviewing girl gangs and bikers in the pulp fiction of mid-20th century English-language literature.


• Hornet Stories links to the Mattachine Podcast, a new podcast looking at pre-Stonwall LGBTQ history including that relating to the pioneering Mattachine Society.


• JSTOR Daily notes the substantial evidence that fish can actually be quite smart, certainly smarter than popular stereotypes have them being.


• Language Hat reports on the existence of a thriving population of speakers of Aramaic now in existence in New Jersey.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the many ways in which the privatization of state businesses have gone astray in the United Kingdom, and suggests that there is conflict between short-term capitalist desires and long-term needs. Renationalization a solution?


• At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen argues</> that the prospect of the future financial insolvency of Chicago helps limit the large-scale settlement of wealthy people there, keeping the metropolis relatively affordable.


• Stephen Baker of The Numerati reflected, on the eve of the Superbowl, on the origins of his fandom with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1963 just before the assassination of JFK.


• The NYR Daily shares a rational proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian confederation that, alas, will never fly given irrational reality.


• Seriously Science notes a paper suggesting that Norway rats do, in fact, the reciprocal trade of goods and services.


• Strange Company notes an unfortunate picnic in Indiana in 1931, where the Simmons family was unexpectedly poisoned by strychnine capsules? Who did it?


• Window on Eurasia notes a demographers' observation that, given the age structure and fertility of the Russian population, even with plausible numbers of immigrants the country's population may never again grow.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: TTC and safety, Downtown Relief Line, crime, G20

• Ben Spurr argues that building the Downtown Relief Line is not only a matter of improving public transit, but rather of public safety as crowding increases, over at the Toronto Star.


• A man, Toronto Police announced today, has been arrested in the case of the murder of Tess Richey in Church and Wellesley late last year. The Toronto Star has it.


• CBC reports on yesterday's vigil at the Metropolitan Community Church for the victims of the Church and Wellesley serial killer.


• Trevor Dunn of CBC reports on the civil lawsuit lodged by Luke Stewart against the Toronto Police Services Board for the behaviour of Toronto police in 2010 during the G20 summit.


• Nicole Thompson's Canadian Press article noting how the repeated recent failures of the TTC undermine the credibility of Toronto as a burgeoning international centre is true. The National Post a href="http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/issues-with-toronto-subway-raise-questions-about-citys-position-as-major-hub">has it.

[URBAN NOTE] Five cities links: New York City, Caracas, Cape Town, Dallas, Tolyatti

• That New York City is the safest big city in the United States, as Henry Goldman reports for Bloomberg, does not surprise me. When I was there last month, it felt safe, throughout, even at 11 o'clock at night in the middle of Brooklyn.


• This brief article about the effects of the world-record high crime in Caracas terrifies me, and makes me feel very sorry for Venezuelans.


• Cape Town may be facing water shortages, Craig Welch writes at National Geographic, but it is not alone. Los Angeles and São Paulo are also on this unhappy shortlist.


• Tracey Lindeman argues at Motherboard that bike-sharing programs in cities like Dallas, where there has been no planning to make the city bike-friendly, are doomed to fail unless the work is put in.


• Diana Karliner at Open Democracy takes a look at the plight of workers in Russia's car industry, in its heartland of the city of Tolyatti.