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- The BBC takes a look at Pontic Greek, a Greek dialect that survives precariously in exile from its homeland in Anatolia.
- Klaus Meyer writes at The Conversation about how Hitler, in his rise to power, became a German citizen.
- Low-income families in the Toronto area face serious challenges in getting affordable Internet access. CBC reports.
- Jeremy Keefe at Global News takes a look at Steve Skafte, an explorer of abandoned roads in Nova Scotia.
- In some communities in British Columbia, middle-class people have joined criminal gangs for social reasons. CBC reports.
- This 2013 Toronto Guardian article explains how the Korean community in Toronto can trace its origins to early 20th century missionaries from Canada.
- At Spacing, Daniel Panneton writes about the rise of fascism in Italian Toronto and the very different reactions to this ideology's rise.
- CBC Toronto reports on the popular new app Irish App-roved, aimed at helping new immigrants from Ireland get oriented in Toronto.
- Jacob Lorinc at the Toronto Star tells the story of Albino Carreira, a Portuguese-Canadian construction worker disabled by a construction incident in the 1990s who went on to whimsically decorate his Clinton Street home and his bug-covered van.
- The growing racialization of poverty in Toronto is a huge ongoing concern. The Toronto Star reports.
[BLOG] Some Thursday links
May. 2nd, 2019 03:16 pm- 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.
Tags:
- astronomy,
- blogs,
- borders,
- china,
- clash of ideologies,
- crime,
- demographics,
- earth,
- economics,
- energy,
- environment,
- evolution,
- fascism,
- flowers,
- glbt issues,
- global warming,
- history,
- human beings,
- in memoriam,
- journalism,
- language,
- links,
- london,
- mass media,
- migration,
- mongolia,
- moon,
- oddities,
- politics,
- popular culture,
- russia,
- saturn,
- space colonies,
- space science,
- terrorism,
- theatre,
- tibet,
- titan,
- toronto,
- ukraine,
- united kingdom,
- united states,
- war
- Andray Domise at MacLean's makes the obvious point that wearing a MAGA hat is a conscious choice to wear a symbol of hate.
- The cancellation of Ontario's guaranteed minimum income project is now up before the supreme court, which seems unconvinced that the province did not make a legal commitment three years long to provide the funding needed. The Toronto Star reports.
- Don Pittis at CBC makes the point that the economic problems of Venezuela, much too dependent on oil, are far too severe to be overcome by the end of the Maduro regime.
- The appointment of long-time Liberal politician John MacCallum as the ambassador of China to Canada has turned out to have been a historic mistake. CBC reports.
- Ian Dunt at Politics.co.uk, looking at the consequences of a hard Brexit on the food supply alone, exposes what a catastrophe this would be at every level.
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- Quartz notes that Japan this year is hoping to regain two of the Kuril Islands from Russia.
- This sad report looks at how the wild horses of Chincoteague island, off the coast of Virginia, are endangered by an infectious fungus.
- Guardian Cities notes how an energetic resistance in Heraklion, chief city of the island of Crete, helped drive out Golden Dawn.
- Conservative Home shares an article noting that hopes for a tourism boom in the isolated South Atlantic island of St. Helena have come to naught because weather makes regular flights prohibitive.
- Bloomberg reported last April that Fisher Island, off Miami, zip code 33109, is the richest zip code in the United States.
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- At NOW Toronto, city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam writes about her frightening experiences being targeted in campaigns by the alt-right.
- Sean Marshall mapped the municipal election results in Parkdale-High Park and Davenport.
- Alok Mukherjee at NOW Toronto notes how the Toronto police manage to evade engaging with its history of anti-black racism and violence.
- The National Observer notes the criticism of the Ontario Press Council of the Toronto Sun for its false report of refugees in a Scarborough hotel slaughtering goats.
- Perhaps unsurprisingly, Metrolinx is still awaiting delivery of the first Eglinton Crosstown vehicle from Bombardier. The Toronto Star reports.
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- Although the York University station on the York extension of the subway line is heavily used, two of the newest ones are among the least used. The Toronto Star reports.
- Philip Gordon Mackintosh at The Conversation notes how, in Toronto and in other cities, traffic of whatever kind including bikes follows the routes laid out by planners.
- Spacing shares a proposal by Zack Taylor to transfer income generated by the land transfer tax from the operating budget to the capital budget, the better to husband this wealth.
- Prospective tenants in Toronto are using social media photos to try to find new homes. The Toronto Star reports.
- Former mayoral candidate Faith Goldy has been ordered to pay Bell more than forty thousand dollars, to compensate them for the costs of her lawsuit against them for not airing her ad. CityNews reports.
- Open Democracy notes how the unrestrained and unpunished violence of the far right helped doom the Weimar Republic.
- VICE reports on a remarkable project, wherein an American in the 1930s solicited and received explanations from Germans as to why they became Nazis. (The letters' language echoes.)
- This Adnan Khan interview at MacLean's with Russian expert Bobo Lo puts forth the origins and prospects of the Russian challenge to the world order.
- Given the growing problems of the United States, the fact that American military power versus China or Russia cannot be guaranteed is something Canada needs to take into account. CBC reports.
- Stephen Maher at MacLean's makes the point that, with the casual corruption of the Doug Ford government, it is as if Ontario is living a Dukes of Hazzard episode.
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[BLOG] Some Friday links
Nov. 30th, 2018 02:03 pm- Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the black hole-powered "cooling flows" of galaxy cluster Abell 2597.
- D-Brief notes that astronomers have, at last, measured the total number of photos emitted by stars in the universe. (Roughly.)
- Dead Things notes the discovery of a tool and butchery site of ancient hominids in Algeria, at Ain Boucherit, dating back 2.4 million years.
- Far Outliers looks at a Japanese-American's interrogation of old Okinawan classmates.
- JSTOR Daily looks at 19th century woman astronomers like Elizabeth Campbell who played a critical role in supporting their husbands' astronomy but were overlooked.
- Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the victims of voter fraud, the members of stigmatized minorities.
- Marginal Revolution takes a look at the doctrine of double effect as shown in the TV series Daredevil.
- The NYR Daily notes how the language of Trump reflects and fuels the fascist right.
- Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel states the obvious: Science is not fake news.
- Window on Eurasia notes five reasons why the Russian's military-industrial complex cannot easily catch up to the United States'.
- Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the history of Swiss Tasmania, a region in the center of the island including the Swiss-themed town of Grindelwald.
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- MacLean's a href="https://www.macleans.ca/multimedia/the-memory-remains-capturing-the-echoes-of-the-first-world-war/">highlights the photos of Peter MacDiarmid, literally blending archival photos of locations of note to Canada in the First World War with contemporary photos of those same areas now.
- Patrick Chovanec at the NYR Daily talks about what he learned of the First World War, its contingencies and its uncertainties, through following a day-by-day Twitter account of the war.
- Robert France at The Conversation writes movingly about the utter waste of the First World War, something made worse by the inability of some of us now to understand its lessons against war.
- David Elstein at Open Democracy looks at failings in the BBC coverage of the First World War, particularly in its representations of other countries' actions.
- Craig Gibson at NOW Toronto remembers the life of his grandfather William Gibson, maimed and shortened by the First World War.
- J.L. Granatstein writes in MacLean's about the many changes imposed on Canada by the First World War, everything from industrialization to ethnic conflict to a new place in the world.
- France Inter writes about the 140 thousand Chinese workers who came to western Europe during the First World War to relieve shortages of labour, even to the trenches.
- Wawmeesh Hamilton writes at The Discourse about the many Indigenous veterans and victims of war, including the First World War. Were--are--their sacrifices honoured by other Canadians?
- George M. Johnson at The Conversation writes about how, for many British writers, their work helped them and their society start to heal from the losses of the First World War.
- Window on Eurasia shares the warning of Russian historian Leonid Mlechin that the world seems to have learned nothing from the negative lessons of the nationalist fanaticism, the desire for revenge, engendered by the First World War.
[BLOG] Some Saturday links
Nov. 3rd, 2018 02:37 pm- Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares photos of a dust storm over Greenland.
- The Crux looks at the hypervelocity stars of the MIlky Way Galaxy, stars flung out towards intergalactic space by close encounters with the galactic core.
- D-Brief notes a study suggesting that the gut bacteria of immigrants to the United States tends to Americanize over time, becoming less diverse.
- Joe. My. God. notes yet another homophobe--this time, an ex-gay "therapist"--who has been outed as actively seeking gay sex.
- JSTOR Daily notes that bears preparing to build up their fat stores for hibernation really have to work hard at this task.
- Language Hat notes, after Elias Canetti, a benefit of being multilingual: You can find out if people near you are planning to kill you.
- Lawyers, Guns and Money recounts an anecdote from the 1980s revealing the great racism on the part of Donald Trump.
- Sadakat Kadri at the LRB Blog notes a gloomy celebration in Prague of the centenary of the 1918 foundation of Czechoslovakia, gloomy not just because of the weather but because of the rhetoric of Czechia's president.
- The Map Room Blog notes a new book examining the political and military import of mapmaking in Scotland.
- Cheryl Thompson at Spacing writes about the long history of blackface in Canadian popular culture, looking at the representations it made and the tensions that it hid.
- Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at how new technologies are allowing astronomers to overcome the distorting effects of the atmosphere.
- Frances Woolley at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, looking at female employment in Canada, finds the greatest potential for further growth in older women. (Issues, including the question of how to include these women and how to fight discrimination, need to be dealt with first.)
Tags:
- astronomy,
- blogs,
- canada,
- central europe,
- clash of ideologies,
- communism,
- czech republic,
- czechoslovakia,
- demographics,
- economics,
- fascism,
- feminism,
- gender,
- glbt issues,
- greenland,
- health,
- human beings,
- islands,
- language,
- links,
- multilingualism,
- photos,
- politics,
- racism,
- science,
- scotland,
- space science,
- theatre,
- united states,
- west norden
- Brian Budd at The Conversation argues that the strong showing of Faith Goldy shows not only her particular threat, but that her expertise in social media and mobilizing support is something other alt-right people can learn from.
- Michael Coren at NOW Toronto argues that the attempt of Conrad Black to soft-pedal the racism and fascism of Faith Goldy is part of a broader effort by some people on the right to make Goldy and her views more acceptable.
- Anastasia Pitcher at The Varsity takes a look at Faith Goldy from her perspective of a U of T student, someone sharing in the traditions that Goldy has taken for her own in her alt-right career.
- Rob Salerno at Daily Xtra suggests that the confusion about progressives in Toronto about the sort of city they want, about the material ways they would make the lives of Torotonians better, will contribute to their continued defeats.
- Could rookie members on Toronto City Council hold the balance of power? The Toronto Star reports.
- CBC reports on how the New Brunswick village of Shipman briefly gave an official sanction to the so-called "straight pride" flag. What can I say but that rural decline in the Maritimes does not have its good points?
- Mike Miksche at NewNowNext takes a look at flagging, something that is at once nightclubbing activity, performance art, and a uniquely queer sport.
- Hornet Stories notes that "tongzhi," the Chinese word for comrade appropriated by queer men, is no longer used by the Communist Party of China in light of this appropriation.
- CBC takes a look at the new explicitly queer opera by Rufus Wainwright, Hadrian.
- Asia Times notes the disappointing slow progress of LGBTQ rights, including marriage equality, in Taiwan.
- Atlas Obscura takes a look at the history of Florent, the all-night diner in Manhattan's Meatpacking District that watched over a whole generation of LGBTQ history and community.
- S. Bear Bergman writes at the Forward about how the introduction of the Trump administration's anti-trans laws are a Nuremberg Laws moment. Resistance is needed.
- Queerty reports on the news, recently found by scientists, that the genes linked to non-heterosexual orientations are also linked to straight possessors of those genes having more sex. (You're welcome.)
- This sad SCMP article takes a look at the struggles of North Korean defectors on arriving in South Korea, a competitive society with its own values alien to them.
- This Open Democracy book review asks what went wrong in eastern Europe, that illiberalism became so popular. (Of note, I think, is the suggestion that Western definitions have changed substantially since the 1990s.)
- The rise, in the person of Bolsonario, of fascism in Brazil is the subject of this stirring Open Democracy feature.
- This New York Times opinion piece by an Irish woman living in England touches upon the ways in which Brexiteers' blithe dismissal of Ireland and Irish needs are starting to make many 21st century Irish angry with their eastern neighbour, again.
- MacLean's notes how the legalization of marijuana in Canada came about as a consequence of the recognition by Justin Trudeau of the unfairness of the old regime.
- This Charlie Stross essay from August looking at the complicated, occasionally malign, influence of Heinlein by much later writers (at least, Heinlein as he is often misunderstood), merits reading.
- This Twin Cities Geek essay by Bryan Thao Worra examining the question of how people of colour can be Lovecraft fans despite his well-documented racism is worth reading.
- This io9 essay about queer representation in the current iteration of Voltron resonates with me, perhaps because I remember the show as it originally aired.
- This Wired essay takes a look at the trope of the academy in fantasy literature, noting how it is dealt with creatively in R.F. Kuang's The Poppy War. (I cannot wait for the sequel!)
- Michelle Villanueva at Syfy looks at the iconography of fascism in anime, even of latent sympathy. I disagree with some of her examples--Fullmetal Alchemist is a slow unbundling of these myths ad images--but there is something to be concerned about here.
[BLOG] Some Wednesday links
Oct. 17th, 2018 11:46 am- Centauri Dreams notes, taking a look past more than a century of images of the famous star J1407 including its planet with massive ring system, the power of big data to reveal important things about the universe.
- D-Brief takes a look at the discoveries of the Hayabusa2 probe at asteroid Ryugu.
- Gizmodo notes that the planned landing of the Hayabusa2 probe on Ryugu has been postponed until 2019 in order to find a safe landing point on the rocky asteroid's surface.
- Livia Gershon at JSTOR Daily takes a look at how modern Hallowe'en derives from the Celtic day of Samhain.
- Joe. My. God. reports on a Gavin McInnes speech to the Young Republicans Club of New York City in which he says, despite his Proud Boys' crudity and violence, the two groups have much in common, that they need the Proud Boys even.
- Anne Curzon at Lingua Franca takes a look at the changing definition of "fun" in recent decades.
- The LRB Blog takes a look at the storied destruction by fire of the Soviet steamship Pobeda in the Black Sea in 1948.
- Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution suggests
- Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw sees the alt-right being fed by the radicalism of the far left.
- Brittney Cooper at the Planetary Society Blog shares some images of heiligenschein from throughout the solar system.
- Drew Rowsome looks at a recent horror novel by Douglas Clegg, The Infinite.
- Window on Eurasia argues the ethnic distinction confirmed by Stalin between Tatars and Bashkirs has weakened both groups versus wider Russia.
- Arnold Zwicky plays with the idea of the piñata, at multiple levels.
Tags:
- africa,
- asteroids,
- astronomy,
- blogs,
- book reviews,
- clash of ideologies,
- disasters,
- economics,
- english language,
- ethnic conflict,
- fascism,
- former soviet union,
- history,
- holidays,
- humour,
- links,
- national identity,
- new york,
- new york city,
- photos,
- politics,
- popular literature,
- russia,
- solar system,
- space science,
- space travel,
- tatarstan,
- united states
[BLOG] Some Wednesday links
Jul. 18th, 2018 01:34 pm- Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes a new image showing the sheer density of events in the core of our galaxy.
- Centauri Dreams notes the discovery of 2MASS 0249 c, a planet-like object that distantly orbits a pair of low-mass brown dwarfs.
- D-Brief notes the discovery of many new moons of Jupiter, bringing the total up to 79.
- Far Outliers looks at the appeasement practiced by the Times of London in the 1930s.
- The Frailest Thing's L.M. Sacasas contrasts roots with anchors.
- Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the controversy surrounding surviving honours paid to Franco in Spain.
- The LRB Blog looks at how the question of Macedonia continues to be a threatening issue in the politics of Greece.
- The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer suggests the new Mexican president is trying to create a new political machine, one that can only echo the more far-reaching and unrestrained one of PRI.
- Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps looks at the shifting alliances of different Asian countries with China and the United States.
- Window on Eurasia reports on the Russian reactions to a recent Politico Europe report describing Estonia's strategies for resisting a Russian invasion in depth.
Tags:
- astronomy,
- baltic states,
- blogs,
- china,
- clash of ideologies,
- democracy,
- east asia,
- elections,
- estonia,
- fascism,
- former soviet union,
- geopolitics,
- greece,
- in memoriam,
- journalism,
- jupiter,
- latin america,
- links,
- macedonia,
- mass media,
- mexico,
- military,
- politics,
- russia,
- second world war,
- sociology,
- solar system,
- south asia,
- southeast asia,
- space science,
- spain,
- united kingdom,
- united states
- Arshy Mann at Daily Xtra notes that the fall of moderate Patrick Brown might embolden social conservatives in the Ontario Progressive Conservatives.
- CBC notes the belated clarification of the NDP that its opposition to federal government requirements for NGOs offering summer jobs does not mean it is reneging on support for abortion rights.
- The Nisenan tribe of California had recognition of their native status stripped by the federal government in the 1960s, and they want it back. VICE reports.
- The dead of the Spanish Civil War are at last being extricated from their graves in Catalonia. This is a cause for political controversy. CBC reports.
- Rapid economic growth in the new, post-Communist, member-states of the European Union is starting to translate into growing political heft, Politico Europe notes.
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- blogTO notes that some would like a single fare for transit in Toronto.
- News of the internal Metrolinx report concluding a one-stop Scarborough subway extension would not be viable should not be controversial. But then, that's Toronto transit. The Toronto Star reports.
- Chris Selley hopes that the approval of permanent bike lanes along Bloor means that the cyclist/driver war will come to an end, over at the National Post.
- Torontoist reports on the identities of some of the white supremacists putting up alt-right posters around Toronto, with photos.
- Toronto Life notes that someone in the Junction has put up an unfinished basement apartment for $500 a month. (The tenant would be expected to finish the job.)
- Steve Munro evaluates the next plans for Metrolinx for regional transit.
- Evan Balgord at Torontoist looks back at the anti-Nazi Christie Pits riots of 1933.
- Cheryl Thompson at Spacing looks at the extent to which gun violence in Scarborough is a symptom of deepening poverty.
- Nikhil Sharma at Torontoist notes that private parkettes are an imperfect substitute for public parks.
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