[NEWS] Some Sunday links

[rfmcdonald]

• The Globe and Mail profiles the growing political tensions within Thailand, increasingly polarized between populist rural areas and conservative urbanites.


• io9 suggests that Russia is continuing to prepare for a long-range mission to Jupiter's moon Ganymede, to be launched in a decade's time.


• Open Democracy's Jamie Mackay describes how, in Venice, racism--especially anti-Asian racism--distracts and is used to distract Venetians from their city's decline as an actual inhabited areas.


• The photos heavy metal cowboys of Botswana must be seen.


• The Atlantic Cities has noted Facebook's utility in tracking global migration trends.


• Shanghaist observes that the Shanghai metro system is offering announcements in Shanghainese as well as in standard Chinese.


• The conclusion of a National Post columnist that Thor bests Superman--perhaps, by extension, Marvel besting DC--by virtue of having fun relatable characters is difficult to escape.


• Also in The Globe and Mail, the evolution of a bar in Bloordale--Bloor West and Lansdowne, just to my west--from a neighbourhood joint to something ore hipsterish is interesting.


• Should the abundance of vintage cars in Cuba, a guest writer at The Guardian writes, be seen merely as cute or rather as symptom of corrosive totalitarianism? (I say yes.)