A Bit More Detail

• NOW Toronto looks at the Pickering nuclear plant and its role in providing fuel for space travel.


• In some places like California, traffic is so bad that airlines actually play a role for high-end commuters. CBC reports.


• Goldfish released into the wild are a major issue for the environment in Québec, too. CTV News reports.


• China's investments in Jamaica have good sides and bad sides. CBC reports.


• A potato museum in Peru might help solve world hunger. The Guardian reports.


• Is the Alberta-Saskatchewan alliance going to be a lasting one? Maclean's considers.


• Is the fossil fuel industry collapsing? The Tyee makes the case.


• Should Japan and Europe co-finance a EUrasia trade initiative to rival China's? Bloomberg argues.


• Should websites receive protection as historically significant? VICE reports.


• Food tourism in the Maritimes is a very good idea. Global News reports.


• Atlantic Canada lobster exports to China thrive as New England gets hit by the trade war. CBC reports.


• The Bloc Québécois experienced its revival by drawing on the same demographics as the provincial CAQ. Maclean's reports.


• Population density is a factor that, in Canada, determines political issues, splitting urban and rural voters. The National Observer observes.


• US border policies aimed against migration from Mexico have been harming businesses on the border with Canada. The National Post reports.


• The warming of the ocean is changing the relationship of coastal communities with their seas. The Conversation looks.


• Archival research in the digital age differs from what occurred in previous eras. The Conversation explains.


• The Persian-language Wikipedia is an actively contested space. Open Democracy reports.


• Vox notes how the US labour shortage has been driven partly by workers quitting the labour force, here.


• Laurie Penny at WIRED has a stirring essay about hope, about the belief in some sort of future.

• Matt Elliott at CBC Toronto asks what, exactly, the City of Toronto is doing to prepare for the increasingly erratic and dangerous weather hitting the city.


• NOW Toronto reports on how Jodie Emery plans to start expanding her marijuana empire, and her wider influence, after opening a new café in Kensington Market.


• This NOW Toronto article reporting on some of the restaurants of Little Jamaica, along Eglinton Avenue West, is informative.
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• I honestly have to say that I have taken note of Three Points Make Two Lines, down at Vaughan Road and St. Clair Avenue West. I will. Murray Whyte at the Toronto Star makes the case.


• Suresh Doss describes the Mnandi pies sold by Evis Chirowamhangu at Wychwood Barns.

• Torontoist takes on Galen Weston and the $15 minimum wage and poverty in Toronto (and Loblaw's contribution to said).


• At the Toronto Star, Shawn Micallef describes how high property values in Toronto discourage open-air parking lots.


• Noor Javed looks, in Toronto Star, at the question of who authorized the cathedral elevated cow statue in Cathedraltown, in Markham.


• The Star's Fatima Syed shares some old memories of Torontonians of the Centreville carousel, soon to be sold off.


• At The Globe and Mail, Dakshana Bascaramurty takes a look at Jamaican patois, Toronto black English, and the many complex ways in which this language is received.

I was in Kingston’s spooky Hunts Bay Cemetery, located in a shantytown near the Red Stripe brewery, tramping through high grass with a dozen fellow travelers. We passed a herd of cattle that was being pecked by white egrets before finding what we were looking for: seven tombstones engraved with Hebrew benedictions and skull and crossbones insignia.

Centuries ago, the coffins buried here were ferried across Cagway Bay from Port Royal, once known as “the wickedest city in the world” and an inspiration for the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise and amusement park ride. This was once the domain of the little-known Jewish pirates who once sailed the waters of Jamaica. Their history captures a somewhat different side of the island than its recently adopted tourism slogan: “Jamaica—Get All Right.”

Jews have been a recognized part of Jamaican cultural life since 1655, when Britain took power from Spain and welcomed Jewish immigration, though some date their presence here to Columbus’s second voyage to the Americas. Many were successful gold traders and sugar merchants. Some, like Moses Cohen Henriques, a crony of Captain Henry Morgan who once plundered the modern day equivalent of almost $1 billion from a Spanish galleon, were marauding buccaneers. Though today’s Jamaican Jewish population is fewer than 200, there are at least 21 Jewish burial grounds across the island.

Since 2007, Caribbean Volunteer Expeditions (CVE), a nonprofit focused on cultural preservation throughout the Caribbean, has been leading groups like mine in an effort to document this largly forgotten history by transcribing epitaphs and compiling an inventory of grave sites. With trips spearheaded by Rachel Frankel, a New York-based architect, it hopes to promote conservation of Jewish cemeteries and raise public awareness of them. In the 18th century, the French Enlightenment writer Guillaume-Thomas Raynal advocated that Jews adopt Jamaica as a homeland in the Caribbean, since it had already become a locus of Semitic commerce. With Kingston just a four-hour flight from New York, the island could still become a vital part of Jewish life, if this part of its history were better known.

On a very dry November 2013, Jamaica’s Meteorological Service made its first official drought forecast when the newly developed Climate Predictability Tool (CPT) was used to predict a high probability of below average rainfall in the coming three months.

By February, the agency had officially declared a drought in the eastern and central parishes of the island based on the forecasts. July’s predictions indicated that drought conditions would continue until at least September.

Said to be the island’s worst in 30 years, the 2014 drought saw Jamaica’s eastern parishes averaging rainfall of between 2 and 12 per cent, well below normal levels. Agricultural data for the period shows that production fell by more than 30 per cent over 2013 and estimates are that losses due to crop failures and wild fires amounted to one billion dollars.

Jamaica’s agricultural sector accounts for roughly seven per cent of the island’s gross domestic product (GDP) and employs about 20 per cent of its workforce.

The Met Service’s, Glenroy Brown told IPS, “The CPT was the main tool used by our Minister (of Water, Land, Environment & Climate Change) Robert Pickersgill throughout 2015 to advise the nation on the status of drought across the island .”

• Claus Vistesen of Alpha Sources notes that though the stock market might be peaking, we don't know when.


• blogTO warns that Toronto might consider a bid for the 2024 Olympics.


• James Bow thinks about Ex Machina.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly looks forward to her impending visit to Maine.


• Centauri Dreams features an essay by Michael A.G. Michaud looking at modern SETI.


• Crooked Timber finds that even the style of the New York intellectuals of the mid-20th century is lacking.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes that a search for superjovians around two nearby brown dwarfs has failed.


• The Dragon's Tales considers the flowing nitrogen ice of Pluto.


• Geocurrents compares Chile's Aysén region to the Pacific Northwest.


• Joe. My. God. shares the new Janet Jackson single, "No Sleeep".


• Language Log looks at misleading similarities between Chinese and Japanese words as written.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money argues that the low-wage southern economy dates back to slavery.


• Marginal Revolution is critical of rent control in Stockholm and observes the negative long-term consequences of serfdom in the former Russian Empire.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes how Jamaica is tearing down illegal electrical connections.


• Savage Minds considers death in the era of Facebook.


• Towleroad looks at how the Taipei city government is petitioning the Taiwanese high court to institute same-sex marriage.


• The Volokh Conspiracy argues restrictive zoning hurts the poor.


• Window on Eurasia looks at how Tatarstan bargains with Moscow, looks at Crimean deprivation and quiet resistance, considers Kazakh immigration to Kazakhstan, and argues Russian nationalist radicals might undermine Russia itself.

Work is set to begin in March, but some in the tourist town continue to resist the planned construction of two breakwaters, which experts say is one of a series of actions aimed at protecting the beach and slowing persistent erosion. Those opposing the plan say the structures will do more damage than good.

The construction of the two breakwaters 1.2 kilometres offshore follows on previous work to strengthen the natural ecosystem protection of the coastal communities by replanting sea grass beds and mangroves in several vulnerable communities, including Negril.

“Building breakwaters is not what stakeholders here want. These hard structures cause more erosion than they prevent,” Couples Resort’s Mary Veira told IPS.

There is fear, Veira explained, that the structures will hinder the natural regeneration of the beach that currently occurs after each extreme weather event.

Government targeted the ‘Seven Mile’ stretch of Negril’s coast as its climate change adaptation project after several studies indicated that more than 55 metres of beach had been eroded in the last 40 plus years. The tourist Mecca is said to account for 25 per cent of the earnings of an industry that is responsible for about half of Jamaica’s GDP.

• Antipope Charlie Stross describes why he's shifting from science fiction to fantasy: the latter better fits the black-box technological zeitgeist.


• blogTO recommends thinks to do in Kensington Market and Chinatown.


• Centauri Dreams looks at some proposals for interstellar drives.


• The Dragon's Tales notes Indonesia's participation in a South Korean fighter plane project.


• Joe. My. God. notes a Jamaican newspaper poll that has found 91% want to keep laws against gay sex on the books.


• Language Hat notes the conflict between traditional and vernacular registers of the Japanese language in the 19th century.


• Languages of the World's Asya Pereltvsaig notes the depopulation of the Russian Far Eastern region of Magadan after 1989.


• pollotenchegg maps out the divisions of Luhansk and Donetsk between government and separatist regimes.


• Steve Munro writes about how the TTC should keep statistics about travel more readily available.


• Towleroad notes Morrissey's statement that he is being treated for cancer.


• The Volokh Conspiracy lists more reasons to strike down same-sex marriage bans based on the recent Supreme Court ruling in the US.


• Why I Love Toronto recommends a charming-sounding late-night antique crawl down on Queen Street West.

Mayor Rob Ford admits he was drinking alcohol Monday night just two months after he swore he had a "come to Jesus" moment and given up booze.

Ford's confession came after a new video surfaced online that showed him slurring his words, swearing and complaining about Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair at Steak Queen restaurant in Etobicoke. Just two months earlier, Ford publicly stated he had sworn off drinking after he admitted to smoking crack cocaine while in a "drunken stupor." The mayor's sobriety pledge came after police confirmed they had obtained the video showing Ford smoking crack cocaine.

The mayor arrived at City Hall around 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday and left just after 4:30 p.m. - admitting he was drinking the night before as he left his office.

"Yes, I was," Ford said at City Hall when asked if he was drinking on Monday night. "A little bit, yeah."

"I was with some friends. What I do in my personal life and my personal friends, that's up to me. It has nothing to do with you guys. It's on my own time."

Ford said no repeatedly when he was asked if he did any drugs on Monday night or drove to the restaurant.

"I was there, I met some friends … that's how I speak with some of my friends," he said. "I don't think it was discriminative at all."

He ignored questions about his promise to quit drinking or when he started drinking again.

"That's it," Ford said as he got on the elevator to go to the City Hall parking garage.

Throughout much of the minute-long video, titled "New Video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Drunk, Swearing in Jamaican Patois," Ford attempts to use Jamaican slang, using the word "bumbaclot" — profanity in patois — at least four times.

The mayor admitted he was drinking alcohol. "A little bit, yeah," he told reporters. He had pledged numerous times he does not drink anymore, after revelations in 2013 of his crack use while in office.

When asked if his Jamaican accent was offensive, he said no. "I met some friends. If I speak that way, that's how I speak with some of my friends and no, i don't think it's discriminative at all," he said. "It's my own time."

Ford would not say who drove him to the Steak Queen.

"They're chasing me around five months. They're counter surveillance me. He's hiding here. He's hiding here. F--k off," said Ford in the video, apparently talking about the police surveillance on him and his friend and driver Alexander (Sandro) Lisi in the summer of 2013.

Toward the end of the clip a bystander says, "This guy deserves to be better than Stephen Harper." Ford replies, "I am a straight-up guy. Who goes to TCH, Jane town, and Jane and Finch?"

The video ends with Ford getting takeout food, saying "I'm a straight-up guy," while staff compare him to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

At the sound of the pistol, eyes glowing with intensity, Ben Johnson exploded out of the starting blocks in a frenetic blur of massive arms and powerful legs. By 50 metres, his lead was insurmountable. “I have never seen anyone run the way Ben Johnson ran that day,” sportswriter Charles P. Pierce recalled in Esquire (February 1999). “He was molten. He covered the distance in 9.79 seconds, and he had time at the end to look back at [his rival Carl] Lewis, whom he had beaten.” Although he obliterated his own world record time, Johnson later claimed that, had he not raised his arm in victory in the last few strides of the 100 metre sprint, he could’ve finished in 9.72 seconds.

The 100-metre sprint was the dramatic climax of the 1988 Summer Olympics. It was seen live, on the bright afternoon of September 24, by 100,000 at the stadium in Seoul, South Korea. Millions more watched on television around the world—including five million in Canada, though it aired at 11:30 at night Eastern Time—as Johnson jogged around the stadium waving the maple leaf.

With the gold medal fresh around his neck, Johnson proclaimed to gathered journalists that his world record would “last 50 years, maybe 100.” There was only one thing more important than the record, he said: “A gold medal—that’s something no one can take away from you.”

With four of the eight finalists breaking the 10-second mark—including Lewis, Linford Christie, and Calvin Smith—journalists dubbed the event “The Race of the Century.” But, as Johnson tested positive for anabolic steroids in the hours to come, it devolved into what another journalist called “the greatest scandal in the history of the Games” and, perhaps, the most tainted race in history. Six finalists, it would later emerge, tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs over the course of their track careers, calling into question their lifetime achievements. But in late September 1988, it was Johnson who was found out, stripped of his medal in disgrace, and permanently seared into the Canadian consciousness.

[. . .]

Johnson’s 9.79 second dash touched off exuberant celebration in Canada and Jamaica. Immediately after the race, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney telephoned with congratulations: “You were just marvelous. We’re all very proud of you.” In Toronto, Metro Chairman Dennis Flynn mused about hosting another huge parade; and kids across the city sprinted through playgrounds, imitating their role model’s racing style.

But in the middle of the night after Johnson’s historic run, Canadian Olympic officials learned that Johnson had tested positive for stanozolol, a banned steroid. The officials’ appeal, which focused on flaws in the testing procedures (including unauthorized individuals milling around the secure area where medalists provided their urine samples), was rejected. The International Olympic Committee’s review of Johnson’s endocrine profile—a test no other athlete was subjected to at Seoul—showed that natural testosterone levels were 15 times lower than normal. It was evidence of long-term steroid use.

Less than 70 hours after being awarded the gold, Johnson handed the medal back. “I’m innocent and I welcome the opportunity of proving it,” an emotional Johnson said as he was hustled out of Seoul. “I’m proud to be a Canadian and I would never do anything to hurt the people who support me.”