[PHOTO] Looking south, Yonge-Dundas Square, amid grey clouds at evening

[PHOTO] Four photos of The Water Molecule, Niagara Falls (#niagarafalls)

I do not know why The Water Molecule, a 1967 sculpture by Derek Costello of a water molecule down to the nuclei and electrons, was ever apparently controversial. I am glad that it is in a public space, poised in the Rosberg Family Park just a couple of blocks south of the bus and train stations on Erie Street at Queen, visible to at least some visitors.





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[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams notes a strange corridor of ice beneath the surface of Titan, a possible legacy of an active cryovolcanic past.


• D-Brief notes one study suggesting that, properly designed, air conditioners could convert carbon dioxide in the air into carbon fuels.


• Dead Things reports on the discovery of an unusual human skull three hundred thousand years old in China, at Hualongdong in the southeast.


• Gizmodo notes the identification of a jawbone 160 thousand years old, found in Tibet, with the Denisovans. That neatly explains why the Denisovans were adapted to Tibet-like environments.


• JSTOR Daily examines Ruth Page, a ballerina who integrated dance with poetry.


• Language Hat shares a critique of a John McWhorter comment about kidspeak.


• Victor Mair at Language Log shares a well-researched video on the Mongolian language of Genghis Khan.


• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how Donald Trump, in his defiance of investigative findings, is worse than Richard Nixon.


• James Butler at the LRB Blog writes about the bombing of London gay bar Admiral Duncan two decades ago, relating it movingly to wider alt-right movements and to his own early coming out.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen notes a recent review article making the case for open borders, disproving many of the claims made by opponents.


• Paul Mason at the NYR Daily explains why the critique by Hannah Arendt of totalitarianism and fascism can fall short, not least in explaining our times.


• Corey S. Powell at Out There explains how, and why, the Moon is starting to get serious attention as a place for long-term settlement, even.


• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog explores the fund that she had in helping design a set of scientifically-accurate building blocks inspired by the worlds of our solar system.


• Drew Rowsome reports on the new restaging of the classic queer drama Lilies at Buddies in Bad Times by Walter Borden, this one with a new racially sensitive casting.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers the massive boom of diversity at the time of the Cambrian Explosion.


• Towleroad features the remarkable front cover of the new issue of Time, featuring Pete Buttigieg together with his husband Chasten.


• Window on Eurasia considers if the new Russian policy of handing out passports to residents of the Donbas republics is related to a policy of trying to bolster the population of Russia, whether fictively or actually.


• Arnold Zwicky considers the various flowers of May Day.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Scotiabank, Parkdale, Integral House, Queen Video, #TinyTown

• blogTO shared the remarkable news that the Scotiabank Theatre, on John south of Queen, is set to be replaced by a condo development.


• Emily Mathieu at the Toronto Star reports on how a trust in Parkdale bought a rooming house for the benefit of tenants there.


• The world-famous Integral House in Rosedale is on sale for more than $C 20 million. blogTO reports.


• Norm Wilner at NOW Toronto notes how the Criterion Channel is in no position to immediately replace the broad selections of now-departed Queen Video.


• Francine Kopun reports at the Toronto Star about the sad state of the Tiny Town, the miniature scale model in the atrium of Toronto City Hall.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Mississauga, Miami, Montréal, Jakarta, Lausanne

• Missisauga's mayor Bonnie Crombie makes the case for her city's independence from Peel Region, over at the Toronto Star.


• CityLab features a Richard Florida interview with sociologist Alejandro Portes on his new book examining the history and future of Miami.


• New maps showing flood risks are available to municipalities in the Montréal region, but for various reasons they are not using them yet. CBC reports.


• Guardian Cities reports on how the new president of Indonesia wants to move the country's capital away from megacity Jakarta to a new location on the island of Borneo.


• CityLab reports on how the Swiss city of Lausanne is making use of innovative new community consultations to decide how to manage its Place de la Riponne.

[PHOTO] Some photography links: CONTACT, Christopher Porter, Don McCullis, Antanas Sutkus, Laos

• NOW Toronto profiles some eye-catching exhibits part of the Contact Photography Festival.


• Toronto Life profiles some recently recovered photos by Christopher Porter dating from the 1990s.


• The NYR Daily took a look at the war-themed photographs of Don McCullin, here.


• The NYR Daily examines the work of Antanas Sutkus, who began his work in Soviet Lithuania.


• These images of the legacies of the Vietnam War in Laos, decades later, are stunning. VICE has them.

[NEWS] Five notes on journalism: E-books, communities, funding, history, future

• That Microsoft's E-Book store is closing, depriving book owners of the their titles, is bad news for the online world. Global News reports.


• Motherboard notes how the decline of local news sources is hurting smaller communities and their residents.


• The Discourse explains how it, and other independent media, will be harmed by new government funding proposals.


• Marginal Revolution looks at a new book reviewing how providing global news in the early 20th century was a major and competitive industry.


• The Conversation sees some productive future approaches for science journalism, and perhaps journalism more generally.

[MUSIC] Five music links: St. Vincent, Madonna, Ireland, Ukraine, globalization

• Michael Cuby at them praises the musicianship of St. Vincent.


• Queerty notes that the new Madonna video, for the song "I Rise", will feature multiple drag queens.


• The Signal looks at how the Library of Congress is preserving, and indexing, its archives of traditional Irish music.


• Zbigniew Wojnowski writes at Open Democracy about how Ukrainian popular music has evolved from the 1980s on, facing all sorts of cultural and political issues as Ukraine itself has changed hugely.


• CBC looks at how pop music these days has become increasingly globalized, major hits incorporating languages other than English and stars often initially unknown to North American audiences.