[PHOTO] Shakespeare, blue to red

[PHOTO] Three photos taken at night in Dovercourt Village

My walk home last night from Dufferin station through Dovercourt Village was enjoyable, in the chill and the dark.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait explains the astounding brilliance of distant quasar J043947.08+163415.7, as bright as ten trillion suns.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly considers elements of her personal style. (It makes me wonder about revising my own, to be perhaps more flamboyant.)


• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber links to a Guardian article of his, imagining a democratic socialist Australia in 2050.


• The Dragon's Tales links to Project Lyra, a proposal for a rendezvous mission to 'Oumuamua.


• Far Outliers places the Three Gorges Dam construction, and the mass population displacements involved, in the context of a long Chinese history of like relocations.


• Gizmodo examines a paper suggesting, based in part on lunar impact rates, an increase in the numbers of asteroids colliding with Earth in the era 300 million years ago.


• JSTOR Daily looks at the watchers, the now-forgotten profession of women who would attend to the dying.


• The NYR Daily looks at the problems that women encounter in getting their medical concerns taken seriously.


• Towleroad writes about sex advisor Alexander Cheves.


• Window on Eurasia notes a report that the inhabitants of the Belarus village of Oslyanka, transferred from Russia in 1964, have no wish to be transferred back.


• Arnold Zwicky notes the publication of a study of the English auxiliary system begun by his late colleague Ivan Sag.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: TTC, Davisville, 1080 Dupont, E Condos, Ontario Place

• The TTC needs $C 33.5 billion over the next 15 years to keep going, of which two-thirds is not yet sourced. Ben Spurr reports at the Toronto Star.


• Urban Toronto notes the demolition of the noteworthy modernist Davisville Junior Public School.


• blogTO highlights a new basement apartment at 1080 Dupont Street, at $C 1500 a month.


• Toronto Life notes that E Condos is beset by screams, produced by the interaction of high winds on unfinished exterior fixtures.


• This NOW Toronto feature by Richard Longley makes the point that Ontario Place needs innovative newness if it is to escape being ravaged by bad planning under Ford; the same old will no longer work.

[BLOG] Five city links: Mississauga, Simcoe County, Detrroit, Burnaby, El Paso

• Hazel McCallion, the nonagenarian former mayor of Mississauga, has been appointed an advisor to the Ford government in Ontario. Global News reports.


• A Simcoe County that faces a threat of amalgamation under the Ontario provincial government is already composed of communities feeling they lack adequate representation. The Toronto Star reports.


• CityLab notes how a history of racism complicated efforts to plant new trees in Detroit.


• Douglas Todd at the Vancouver Sun notes how ethnic tensions in multicultural South Burnaby surfaced in the former Liberal candidate's treatment of NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.


• The NYR Daily looks at what is going on in and around El Paso as the Mexican-American border facing further closing.

[URBAN NOTE] Five links on cities: sister-cities, Brexit, farms, existentialism, trade cities

• JSTOR Daily notes the extent to which sister-city relationships actually do matter.


• CityLab looks at how the relationship of British cities with their sister-cities in the EU-27, their "twin towns", will be affected by Brexit.


• This article at The Conversation makes excellent points about the need for major cities to support local farm economies.


• Markus Moos at The Conversation suggests that the philosophical stance of existentialism provides useful angles for thinking about climate change in cities.


• Politico Europe hosts an article justly skeptical of the idea of setting up semi-autonomous trade cities under European supervision in Africa to hold off migrants from that continent.

[URBAN NOTE] Five science links: coffee, CERN, Titan, HCN–0.009–0.044, panspermia

• Motherboard notes that climate change endangers a majority of the coffee species growing in the wild.


• Universe Today notes that CERN is planning to build a successor to the LHC, one a hundred kilometres in diameter.


• A review of data from Cassini, Universe Today reports, suggests the probe saw rain fall in the north polar region of Titan.


• A new analysis suggests that mysterious object in the heart of the galaxy, HCN–0.009–0.044, is actually a black hole massing 32 thousand suns. Universe Today has it.


• Universe Today shares an ambitious proposal for future humanity to use interstellar probes to seed life on potentially hospitable but lifeless worlds, a planned panspermia.

[NEWS] Five Indigenous links: Bantford quinoa, Listuguj, Dwawada'enuxw, DeMontigny, healing lodges

• CBC reports on the discovery of a substantial store of quinoa seeds in an Indigenous archeological site in Brantford, showing the existence of vast trade networks connecting the Andes to Canada.


• Oil exploration in the Gaspé peninsula, La Presse reports, upsets the Mi'gmag of the Listuguj there.


• National Observer reports on how the Dzawada'enuxw of British Columbia have filed suit against Canada over fish farm development.


• Angela DeMontigny is the first Indigenous fashion designer in residence at Ryerson University, CBC reports.


• Global News reports on how Sharon McIvor, founder of the first healing lodge in the Canadian correction system, says government interference has undermined its nearly completely.