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  • Anthropology.net notes a remarkably thorough genetic analysis of a piece of chewing gum 5700 years old that reveals volumes of data about the girl who chew it.

  • 'Nathan Burgoine at Apostrophen writes an amazing review of Cats that actually does make me want to see it.

  • Bad Astronomy reports on galaxy NGC 6240, a galaxy produced by a collision with three supermassive black holes.

  • Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog writes about the mechanics of journalism.

  • Centauri Dreams argues that the question of whether humans will walk on exoplanets is ultimately distracting to the study of these worlds.

  • Crooked Timber shares a Sunday morning photo of Bristol.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes that India has a launch date of December 2021 for its first mission in its Gaganyaan crewed space program.

  • Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at the Saturn C-1 rocket.

  • Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers if the vogue for minimalism meets the criteria to be considered a social movement.

  • Far Outliers ?notes how, in the War of 1812, some in New England considered the possibility of seceding from the Union.

  • Gizmodo looks at evidence of the last populations known of Homo erectus, on Java just over a hundred thousand years ago.

  • Mark Graham links to a new paper co-authored by him looking at how African workers deal with the gig economy.

  • io9 announces that the Michael Chabon novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, is set to become a television series.

  • Joe. My. God. shares a report that Putin gave Trump anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories.

  • JSTOR Daily considers what a world with an economy no longer structured around oil could look like.

  • Language Hat takes issue with the latest talk of the Icelandic language facing extinction.

  • Language Log shares a multilingual sign photographed in Philadelphia's Chinatown.

  • Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the document release revealing the futility of the war in Afghanistan.

  • The LRB Blog looks at class identity and mass movements and social democracy.

  • Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution suggests that, even if the economy of China is larger than the United States, Chinese per capita poverty means China does not have the leading economy.

  • Diane Duane at Out of Ambit writes about how she is writing a gay sex scene.

  • Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections reflects on "OK Boomer".

  • Roads and Kingdoms interviews Mexican chef Ruffo Ibarra.

  • Peter Rukavina shares his list of levees for New Year's Day 2020 on PEI.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares a map indicating fertility rates in the different regions of the European Union.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains how quantum physics are responsible for vast cosmic structures.

  • Charles Soule at Whatever explains his reasoning behind his new body-swap novel.

  • Window on Eurasia notes how the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Paris show the lack of meaningful pro-Russian sentiment there.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell talks about his lessons from working in the recent British election.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at a syncretic, Jewish-Jedi, holiday poster.

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  • Adam Fish at anthro{dendum} compares different sorts of public bathing around the world, from Native America to Norden to Japan.

  • Charlie Stross at Antipope is unimpressed by the person writing the script for our timeline.

  • Architectuul reports on an architectural conference in Lisbon.

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares stunning photos of the eruption of the Raikoke volcano in Kamchatka.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at what the Voyager spacecraft have returned about the edge of the solar system.

  • John Quiggin at Crooked Timber takes issue with the idea of bipartisanship if it means compromising on reality, allegorically.

  • The Crux counts the number of people who have died in outer space.

  • D-Brief notes that the Andromeda Galaxy has swallowed up multiple dwarf galaxies over the eons.

  • Dead Things notes the identification of the first raptor species from Southeast Asia, Siamraptor suwati.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes a paper tracing the origins of interstellar comet 2/Borisov from the general area of Kruger 60.

  • Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about the privilege allowing people access to affordable dental care.

  • Gizmodo tells how Alexei Leonov survived the first spacewalk.

  • io9 looks at the remarkable new status quo for the X-Men created by Jonathan Hickman.

  • Selma Franssen at the Island Review writes about the threats facing the seabirds of the Shetlands.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at what led Richard Nixon to make so many breaks from the American consensus on China in the Cold War.

  • Language Log notes an undergraduate course at Yale using the Voynich Manuscript as an aid in the study of language.

  • Abigail Nussbaum at Lawyers, Guns and Money explains her recent experience of the socialized health care system of Israel for Americans.

  • The LRB Blog looks at how badly the Fukuyama prediction of an end to history has aged.

  • The Map Room Blog shares a few maps of the new Ottawa LRT route.

  • Marginal Revolution notes a paper establishing a link between Chinese industries undermining their counterparts in Mexico and Mexican social ills including crime.

  • Sean Marshall reports from Ottawa about what the Confederation Line looks like.

  • Adam Shatz at the NYR Daily looks at the power of improvisation in music.

  • Roads and Kingdoms looks at South Williamsburg Jewish deli Gottlieb's.

  • Drew Rowsome reviews the new Patti Smith book, Year of the Monkey.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper looking as the factors leading into transnational movements.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers the question of the direction(s) in which order in the universe was generated.

  • Window on Eurasia shares a report noting the very minor flows of migration from China to Russia.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at the politics in the British riding of Keighley.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at some penguin socks.

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  • The Buzz shares a TIFF reading list, here.

  • Centauri Dreams notes the growing sensitivity of radial velocity techniques in finding weird exoplanet HR 5183 b, here.

  • The Crux reports on circumgalactic gas and the death of galaxies.

  • Dead Things notes the import of the discovery of the oldest known Australopithecine skull.

  • Dangerous Minds reports on pioneering 1930s queer artist Hannah Gluckstein, also known as Gluck.

  • Gizmodo notes that, for an unnamed reason, DARPA needs a large secure underground testing facility for tomorrow.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how Jim Crow laws affected Mexican immigrants in the early 20th century US.

  • Language Hat looks at a new project to study Irish texts and language over centuries.

  • Language Log shares some Chinglish signs from a top university in China.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money shares an interview with Jeffrey Melnick suggesting Charles Manson was substantially a convenient boogeyman.

  • Marginal Revolution shares a paper suggesting marijuana legalization is linked to declining crime rates.

  • Susan Neiman at the NYR Daily tells how she began her life as a white woman in Atlanta and is ending it as a Jewish woman in Berlin.

  • The Planetary Society Blog looks at Hayabusa2 at Ryugu.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel celebrated the 230th anniversary of Enceladus, the Saturn moon that might harbour life.

  • Window on Eurasia notes how global warming is harming the rivers of Siberia, causing many to run short.

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Another links post is up over at Demography Matters!


  • Skepticism about immigration in many traditional receiving countries appeared. Frances Woolley at the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative took issue with the argument of Andray Domise after an EKOS poll, that Canadians would not know much about the nature of migration flows. The Conversation observed how the rise of Vox in Spain means that country’s language on immigration is set to change towards greater skepticism. Elsewhere, the SCMP called on South Korea, facing pronounced population aging and workforce shrinkages, to become more open to immigrants and minorities.

  • Cities facing challenges were a recurring theme. This Irish Examiner article, part of a series, considers how the Republic of Ireland’s second city of Cork can best break free from the dominance of Dublin to develop its own potential. Also on Ireland, the NYR Daily looked at how Brexit and a hardened border will hit the Northern Ireland city of Derry, with its Catholic majority and its location neighbouring the Republic. CityLab reported on black migration patterns in different American cities, noting gains in the South, is fascinating. As for the threat of Donald Trump to send undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities in the United States has widely noted., at least one observer noted that sending undocumented immigrants to cities where they could connect with fellow diasporids and build secure lives might actually be a good solution.

  • Declining rural settlements featured, too. The Guardian reported from the Castilian town of Sayatón, a disappearing town that has become a symbol of depopulating rural Spain. Global News, similarly, noted that the loss by the small Nova Scotia community of Blacks Harbour of its only grocery store presaged perhaps a future of decline. VICE, meanwhile, reported on the very relevant story about how resettled refugees helped revive the Italian town of Sutera, on the island of Sicily. (The Guardian, to its credit, mentioned how immigration played a role in keeping up numbers in Sayatón, though the second generation did not stay.)

  • The position of Francophone minorities in Canada, meanwhile, also popped up at me.
  • This TVO article about the forces facing the École secondaire Confédération in the southern Ontario city of Welland is a fascinating study of minority dynamics. A brief article touches on efforts in the Franco-Manitoban community of Winnipeg to provide temporary shelter for new Francophone immigrants. CBC reported, meanwhile, that Francophones in New Brunswick continue to face pressure, with their numbers despite overall population growth and with Francophones being much more likely to be bilingual than Anglophones. This last fact is a particularly notable issue inasmuch as New Brunswick's Francophones constitute the second-largest Francophone community outside of Québec, and have traditionally been more resistant to language shift and assimilation than the more numerous Franco-Ontarians.

  • The Eurasia-focused links blog Window on Eurasia pointed to some issues. It considered 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. (I'm skeptical there will be much change, myself: There has already been quite a lot of emigration from the Donbas republics to various destinations, and I suspect that more would see the sort of wholesale migration of entire families, even communities, that would add to Russian numbers but not necessarily alter population pyramids.) Migration within Russia was also touched upon, whether on in an attempt to explain the sharp drop in the ethnic Russian population of Tuva in the 1990s or in the argument of one Muslim community leader in the northern boomtown of Norilsk that a quarter of that city's population is of Muslim background.

  • Eurasian concerns also featured. The Russian Demographics Blog observed, correctly, that one reason why Ukrainians are more prone to emigration to Europe and points beyond than Russians is that Ukraine has long been included, in whole or in part, in various European states. As well, Marginal Revolution linked to a paper that examines the positions of Jews in the economies of eastern Europe as a “rural service minority”, and observed the substantial demographic shifts occurring in Kazakhstan since independence, with Kazakh majorities appearing throughout the country.
  • JSTOR Daily considered if, between the drop in fertility that developing China was likely to undergo anyway and the continuing resentments of the Chinese, the one-child policy was worth it. I'm inclined to say no, based not least on the evidence of the rapid fall in East Asian fertility outside of China.

  • What will Britons living in the EU-27 do, faced with Brexit? Bloomberg noted the challenge of British immigrant workers in Luxembourg faced with Brexit, as Politico Europe did their counterparts living in Brussels.

  • Finally, at the Inter Press Service, A.D. Mackenzie wrote about an interesting exhibit at the Musée de l’histoire de l’immigration in Paris on the contributions made by immigrants to popular music in Britain and France from the 1960s to the 1980s.

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  • JSTOR Daily notes how early doctors used to party with drugs as a matter of course.

  • JSTOR Daily notes the experiences of horses and donkeys in the US Civil War.

  • JSTOR Daily notes how the disaster of the Bay of Pigs changed the decision-making of JFK.

  • JSTOR Daily notes how early 19th century American Jews made use of raisin wine in Passover, and how this changed.

  • JSTOR Daily <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/when-language-started-a-political-revolution/><U>notes</u></a> how the revival of the Irish language, connecting Ireland to the rest of Europe, played a key role in leading to independence for Ireland.</li> </ul>
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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait argues that the new American plan to put people on the Moon in 2024 is unlikely to succeed in that timeframe.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly considers whether or not women should travel alone, for safety reasons. (That choice is one I've not had to make myself, thanks to my male privilege; I'm very sorry others have to consider this.)

  • Centauri Dreams shares the thinking of Gregory Benford on Lurkers, self-replicating probes produced by another civilization not signaling their existence to Earth.

  • Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber argues that policy-making these days is often fundamentally ill-conceived, closing off possibilities for the future.

  • The Crux notes the remarkable powers of beet juice, as a tonic for athletes for instance.

  • D-Brief looks at the slot canyons of Titan, bearing similarities in structure and perhaps origin to like structures in Utah.

  • Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina, celebrating five years of blogging, links to his ten most popular posts.

  • Gizmodo notes the creation for a list of nearly two thousand nearby stars that the TESS planet-hunter might target for a search for Earth-like worlds.

  • Joe. My. God. notes that the Austrian president has confirmed the New Zealand shooter has made a financial donation to a far-right group in Austria.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at Inge Lehmann, the scientist who determined the nature of the inner core of the Earth.

  • Language Hat reports on a new scholarly publication, hundreds of pages long, gathering together the curses and profanities of the Middle East and North Africa.

  • Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money does not seem impressed by the argument of Mike Lee that pronatalism is a good response to global warming.

  • The Map Room Blog notes the impressive maps of Priscilla Spencer, created for fantasy books.

  • Marginal Revolution links to a paper that examines the positions of Jews in the economies of eastern Europe, as a "rural service minority".

  • The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper noting the ways in which increased human development has, and has not, led to convergence in family structures around the world.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains how, despite the expanding universe, we can still see very distant points.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps reports on the recent mistakes made by Google Maps in Japan.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alexander Harrowell explains why the United Kingdom, after Brexit, does not automatically become a member of the European Economic Area.

  • Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the different factors, often unrecognized, going onto the formation of nonsense names, like those of the characters from Lilo and Stitch.

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  • The Conversation hosts an article looking at the evolution of Jewish identity in Canada from something religious to something cultural.

  • The state of the American mafia, so thoroughly Americanized, is remarkable in a lot of ways. VICE reports.

  • There is definitely something to be said for the idea that Star Trek's Chief Miles O'Brien is one of the best representations of someone Irish and of Irish culture in popular culture. entertainment.ie has it.

  • This Wired article takes a look at the online interactions, positive and malign both, that have complicated so many fandoms like that of Harry Potter.

  • Monopoly, this article reminds us at The Conversation, was a board game invented to remind people about the pitfalls of capitalism.

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  • The people of Wolfe Island are upset at cutbacks in ferry trips to and from their island. Global News reports.

  • The Cape Breton Post shares a fascinating report about the history of the Jewish community of industrial Cape Breton.

  • Sable Island, in the Atlantic off of the Nova Scotia coast, is going to enjoy a clean-up. Global News reports.

  • The Inter Press Service notes how global warming-accelerated erosion threatens to split the Caribbean island of Mayreau into two.

  • The Malta Independent examined some months ago how strong growth in the labour supply and tourism, along with capital inflows, have driven up property prices in Malta.

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  • I am not quite sure I buy the argument of Nick Cave at Vice's Motherboard that artificial intelligence will never be able to write a great song.

  • Roads and Kingdoms shares a soundtrack of Lisbon pop songs, in a variety of genres.

  • CBC reports on the remarkable recovery of a collection of Yiddish-language songs from the Second World War that led to a Grammy nomination.

  • Rolling Stone reports< on the work that went into the last, and final, album of the Cranberries following the untimely death last year of Dolores O'Riordan.

  • At Global News, Alan Cross writes about the psychological and even therapeutic effects of different sorts of music.

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  • CBC Indigenous reports on how Kahnawake Mohawks celebrate Christmas with a Mohawk-language radio program.

  • Craig Desson at CBC reports on how the Québec cheese-making Orthodox monastery, Virgin Mary the Consolatory, was preparing to meet Christmas.

  • Jason Vermes at CBC's Cross-County Checkup has a report taking a look at the importance of chosen family for queer people at Christmas time, featuring the experiences of (among others) author Nathan Burgoine.

  • Samantha Allan at The Daily Beast reports on how LGBT bars in the United States often remain open on Christmas, to provide community and family for queer people excluded from said.

  • Carrie Jenkins, writing at Global News, notes how difficult it can be for people in polyamorous relationships to have both (or all) their partners recognized in holiday celebrations.

  • Adam Wallis at Global News reports on some unexpected holiday albums, starting with the Star Wars Christmas album and going through drag and metal, for starters.

  • Adam Gaffney at Jacobin Magazine makes the case for seeing Santa Claus as a hero of the left, doing his best to work wonders within a structurally unequal capitalism.

  • Stephen Maher at MacLean's makes the case for "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues being the best Christmas song, ever.

  • Noisey makes the case for the Darlene Love original of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" being the best Christmas song.

  • A Jamie Lauren Keiles interview at Vox with Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut explains how, exactly, American Jews came to make eating at Chinese restaurants a marker of their Christmas day events.

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  • Peter Rukavina shares a photo of Province House in Charlottetown now hidden by its exoskeleton for much-needed repairs.

  • CBC PEI reports on the bid of the PEI Film Society to take over City Cinema, the only independent cinema in Charlottetown.

  • CBC PEI reports on the work of Joseph Glass to document the Jewish history of Prince Edward Island.

  • Skinners Pond is among the locations being studied for new wind energy plants, CBC notes.

  • Will the Confederation Bridge fabrication yards at Borden-Carleton be turned into a solar farm, as the PCs propose? CBC goes into detail.

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  • Architectuul talks about the remarkable and distinctive housing estates of south London, like Alexandra Road, currently under pressure from developers and unsympathetic governments.

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait takes a look at Bennu, set to be visited by the OSIRIS-REx probe.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly talks about meeting people you've met online via social networks, making friends even. Myself, I've done this all the time: Why not use these networks to their fullest in a fragmented vast world?

  • Centauri Dreams celebrates the now-completed mission of the exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope.

  • D-Brief looks at the distinctive seasons of Triton, and the still-open questions surrounding Neptune's largest moon.

  • At JSTOR Daily, Nancy Bilyeau writes about the import of the famous Gunpowder Plot of 1605, something often underplayed despite its potential for huge change and its connection to wider conflicts.

  • Language Hat notes the name of God in the Hebrew tradition, Yahweh. Where did it come from?

  • Language Log shares an interesting idea for helping to preserve marginalized languages: Why not throw a language party celebrating the language?

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the question of what historical general or military leader would do best leading the armies of the living dead.

  • The NYR Daily looks at the problems with Erdogan's big investments in public infrastructure in Turkey, starting with the new Istanbul airport.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers the possibility of life in the very early universe. Earth-like life could have started within a billion years of the Big Bang; Earth life might even have begun earlier, for that matter.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shows a map of Europe identifying which countries are the more chauvinistic in the continent.

  • Window on Eurasia notes the strength of the relatively recent division between Tatars and Bashkirs, two closely related people with separate identities grown strong in the Soviet era.

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  • Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber praises Candice Delmas' new book on the duty of resistance to injustice.

  • D-Brief looks at how the designers of robots took lessons from wasps in designing a new robotic swarm that can pull relatively massive objects in flight.

  • Dead Things notes new evidence that the now-extinct elephant birds of Madagascar were nocturnal.

  • Far Outliers notes how the reeducation of Japanese prisoners of war by Chinese Communists helped influence American policy towards Japan, imagining a Japan that could be reformed away from imperialism.

  • At the Island Review, Alex Ingram profiles--with photos--some of the many different people who are the lone guardians of different small isolated islands removed from the British mainland.

  • JSTOR Daily notes how asteroids can preserve records of the distant past of the solar system.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money has contempt for Pence's use of Messianic Jews to stand in for the wider, non-Christian, Jewish community.

  • At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen considers the consequence that a decline of art galleries might have on the wider field of modern art.

  • The NYR Daily considers the lessons that Thucydides, writing about Athens, might have for the United States now.

  • Anjali Kumar at Roads and Kingdoms writes about a meal of technically illegal craft beer served with raw shrimp in Bangkok.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel illustrates the six different ways a star can end up in a supernova.

  • Window on Eurasia notes that official Russian efforts to reach out to the Russian diaspora do not extend to non-Russian minorities' own diasporas, like that of the Circassians of the North Caucasus.

  • Arnold Zwicky, starting by noting the passing of Dorcas, she who invented green bean casserole, looks at different pre-prepared foodstuffs.

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  • David Price at {anthro}dendum considers, going through archival material from the 1950s, the number of radical anthropologists in the US as yet little known or unknown who were marginalized by the Red Scare.

  • Centauri Dreams ruminates on a paper examining 'Oumuamua that considers radiation pressure as a factor in its speed. Might it work as--indeed, be?--a lightsail?

  • D-Brief notes the various reasons why the Chinese proposal for an artificial moon of sorts, to illuminate cities at night, would not work very well at all.

  • The Dragon's Tales touches on the perhaps hypocritical anger of Russia at the United States' departure from the INF treaty.

  • Far Outliers notes the sharp divides among Nazi prisoners of war in a camp in Texas, notably between pro- and anti-Nazi prisoners.

  • L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing revisits the original sin of the Internet culture, its imagining of a split between an individual's virtual life and the remainder of their life.

  • The Island Review welcomes, and interviews, its new editor C.C. O'Hanlon.

  • JSTOR Daily explores the reasons for considering climate change to be a national security issue.
  • Language Hat is enthused by the recent publication of a new dictionary of the extinct Anatolian languages of the Indo-European family.

  • Language Log examines the existence of a distinctive, even mocked, southern French accent spoken in and around (among other cities) Toulouse.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the rise of fascism in Brazil with Bolsonaro.

  • Roger Shuy at Lingua Franca writes about the power of correspondence, of written letters, to help language learners. (I concur.)

  • At the LRB Blog, Jeremy Bernstein writes about anti-Semitism in the United States, in the 1930s and now.

  • The NYR Daily examines the life of writer, and long-time exile from her native Portugal, Maria Gabriela Llansol.

  • Haley Gray at Roads and Kingdoms reports on the life and work of Mark Maryboy, a Navajo land rights activist in Utah.

  • Window on Eurasia looks at the Russian urban myth of blonde Baltic snipers from the Baltic States who had been enlisted into wars against Russia like that of Chechnya in the 1990s.

  • Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the classic red phone booths of the United Kingdom, now almost all removed from the streets of the country and sent to a graveyard in a part of rural Yorkshire that has other claims to fame.

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  • This r/unresolvedmysteries thread asks the question of where the Armenian language, a unique Indo-European language, came from.

  • This Ragnar Jónasson article in The Guardian asks the question of how long the Icelandic language, with relatively few speakers and facing a tidal wave of influence from English, can outlast this competition.

  • The Irish Times notes that the Irish language was heard in the British House of Commons for the first time in a century, spoken by a Plaid Cymru MP asking why this language has so little institutional support in Northern Ireland.

  • Over at the BBC, Susanna Zaraysky takes a look at the Ladino language--a Spanish variant--traditionally used by the Sephardic Jews of Bosnia, and how this language is declining here as elsewhere among the Sephardim.

  • Atlas Obscura takes a look at the Scots language, a distinctive Germanic language that was never quite broken away from English, and how this language persists despite everything.

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  • Eszter Hargittai at Crooked Timber shares a painting from an exhibit of Star Wars-themed art near the Swiss city of Lausanne.

  • D-Brief notes that scientists claim to have detected the gamma-ray signature from SS 433, a microquasar in our galaxy 15000 light-years away, as the black hole at its heart was eating a star.

  • Language Hat takes a look again at the history of Chinook Jargon, the creole that in the 19th century was a major language in northwestern North America.

  • Marginal Revolution notes that, in contemporary Scotland, a castle can be less expensive than a bottle of good single malt whiskey. What societies value varies over time.

  • At the NYR Daily, Molly Crabapple tells a personal story of the history of the Bund, the Jewish socialist and nationalist union once a power in central and eastern Europe but now gone.

  • Drew Rowsome praises the Paul Tremblay horror novel Disappearance at Devil's Rock.

  • Towleroad shares a great new song from Charli XCX featuring Troye Sivan, the nostalgic "1999".

  • Window on Eurasia notes that some question whether the 1944 annexation of Siberian Tannu Tuva into the Soviet Union, thence Russia, was legal or not.

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  • CBC notes the underrepresentation of politicians of visible minority background in the city councils of Mississauga and Brampton.

  • MTL Blog reports on the different plans of the different political parties in the Québec election for mass transit plans. (I really like the Québec Solidaire plan's ambition.)

  • Catherine Tse at the SCMP takes a look at the different sorts of businesses run by young wealthy people, often socialites, of Asian immigrant background in Vancouver.

  • Henry Grabar at Slate writes about a paper examining the tactics adopted by different groups in New York City--Hasidic Jews, Chinese, and Bangladeshis--faced with high real estate prices, from intensification to diffusion to underground housing.

  • Christian Portilla at VICE writes about how gentrification is undermining the basis for the Miami neighbourhood of Little Haiti, driving out long-time residents.

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  • This Ryan Diduck article at CultMTL taking a look at the MUTEK electronic music festival and Never Apart, evoking what I suppose might be called midtown Montréal, is wonderfully evocative.

  • The mayor of Québec City wants to increase immigration to his metropolis, the better to deal with labour shortages. CBC reports.

  • Guardian Cities takes a look at the famously Italianate 1930s capital of Eritrea, Asmara. What future does it face as the country opens up?

  • Guardian Cities reports on how lethal being a graffiti artist can be in São Paulo.

  • This Dara Bramson article at Protocols sharing a first-hand perspective on the revival of Jewish life in Krakow is beautiful.

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  • Anthrodendum recommends design researcher Jan Chipchase's Field Study Handbook for anthropologists interested in field practice.

  • Architectuul investigates strange similarities between buildings built in far-removed parts of the world.

  • Centauri Dreams takes a look at TESS, the next generation of exoplanet-hunting satellite.

  • Crooked Timber investigates the connections between the spiritualism of the 19th century and the fiction of the uncanny.

  • D-Brief notes the many names, often delightful, that newly-discovered locations on Mercury and Charon have received.

  • Cody Delistraty investigates two exhibitions of French satirists, including Charlie Hedo's Georges Wolinski, to examine the nature of satire.

  • The Dragon's Tales considers the possibility of cryomagna leaving marks on the surface of Europa.

  • Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the strangely alien skies of TRAPPIST-1e. What would its sun look like? How would the other planets appear?

  • The Everyday Sociology Blog takes a look at the new prominence of multigenerational households in the United States. While a response to economic strains, it also looks back to past traditions.

  • Hornet Stories notes how, on RuPaul's Drag Race, Monet X Change gave a decent explanation behind the surprisingly recent birth of the modern British accent.

  • Imageo notes how a massive blob of warm water is rising to the surface of the Pacific.

  • At In A State of Migration, Lyman Stone explores the unique population history of Maine, to my eyes easily the most Atlantic Canadian of the fifty American states.

  • JSTOR Daily links to a paper exploring why modern video games can produce such rewarding experiences for players. (We can get meaning from many places.)

  • Language Log takes a look at the complexity of Chinese language classifications with a song by Yishi Band. What exactly is Yibin Sichuanese?

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money takes a look at an interesting question: When did Jews in the United States become white?

  • The LRB Blog takes a look at the baffling reasons behind the poisoning of the Skribins with Novichok, and the science behind it.

  • Marginal Revolution notes that this year, GDP per capita measured at PPP in Spain is higher than in Italy. (This probably says more about the disarray in Italy.)

  • The NYR Daily shares an interesting interview with cartoonist Art Spiegelman.

  • Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw tells of his experiences on a trip to the small Australian city of Armidale, in the region of New England.

  • Justin Petrone reflects on the tidy and clean, minimalist even, rural landscape of Estonia.

  • Progressive Download's John Farrell notes brain scans that provide evidence of consciousness even in very young infants.

  • Drew Rowsome praises the Toronto production of the musical Fun Home, based on the Alison Bechdel graphic novel. I, for one, can't wait to see it.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that, although Proxima Centauri is far too active a star for Proxima Centauri b to be Earth-like, that world could still plausibly host life-supporting environments.

  • Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy suggests a recent deal at the federal level in the US between Trump and Cory Gardner has created space for states to legalize marijuana without fear of federal intervention.

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  • I entirely agree with the argument of Aluki Kotierk, writing at MacLean's, who thinks the Inuit of Nunavut have been entirely too passive, too nice, in letting Inuktitut get marginalized. Making it a central feature in education is the least that can be done. (Québec-style language policies work.)

  • Although ostensibly a thriving language in many domains of life, the marginalization of the Icelandic language in the online world could be an existential threat. The Guardian reports.

  • As part of a bid to keep alive Ladino, traditional language of the Sephardic Jews, Spain has extended to the language official status including support and funding. Ha'aretz reports.

  • A new set of policies of Spain aiming at promoting the Spanish language have been criticized by some in Hispanic American states, who call the Spanish moves excessively unilateral. El Pais reports.

  • isiXhosa, the language of the Xhosa people of South Africa, is getting huge international attention thanks to its inclusion in Black Panther. The Toronto Star reports.

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