A Bit More Detail

• Bad Astronomer notes the latest news on interstellar comet 2/Borisov.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly emphasizes how every writer does need an editor.


• Centauri Dreams notes how the gas giant GJ 3512 b, half the mass of Jupiter orbiting a red dwarf star closely, is an oddly massive exoplanet.


• Gina Schouten at Crooked Timber looks at inter-generational clashes on parenting styles.


• D-Brief looks at the methods of agriculture that could conceivably sustain a populous human colony on Mars.


• Bruce Dorminey argues that we on Earth need something like Starfleet Academy, to help us advance into space.


• Colby King at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at how the socio-spatial perspective helps us understand the development of cities.

Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res listens to the Paul McCartney album Flaming Pie.

• io9 looks at Proxima, a contemporary spaceflight film starring Eva Green.


• JSTOR Daily looks at how the intense relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia began in, and reflected, the era of Jim Crow.


• Language Hat notes a report suggesting that multilingualism helps ward off dementia.


• Language Log takes issue with the names of the mascots of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the emergence of a ninth woman complaining about being harassed by Al Franken.


• Marginal Revolution links to a new paper arguing that the Washington Consensus worked.


• The NYR Daily shares an Aubrey Nolan cartoon illustrating the evacuation of war children in the United Kingdom during the Second World War.


• At Out of Ambit, Diane Duane shares a nice collection of links for digital mapmakers.


• The Planetary Society Blog looks at how the European Space Agency supports the cause of planetary defense.


• Roads and Kingdoms interviews Kenyan writer Kevin Mwachiro at length.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel reports on how a mysterious fast radio burst helped illuminate an equally mysterious galactic halo.


• Strange Company reports on the mysterious and unsolved death in 1936 of Canadian student Thomas Moss in an Oxfordshire hayrick.


• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps notes how Mount Etna is a surpassingly rare decipoint.


• Understanding Society considers the thought of Kojève, after Hegel, on freedom.


• Window on Eurasia looks at the falling numbers of Russians, and of state support for Russian language and culture, in independent Central Asia.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at how individual consumer responses are much less effective than concerted collective action in triggering change.


• Arnold Zwicky reports on some transgender fashion models.

• At Anthro{dendum}, Daniel Miller writes about how some of the food he cooks evokes his history in Cuba-influenced Tampa.


• Bad Astronomer notes an astonishingly high-resolution image of protoplanet Vesta taken from the Earth.


• The Big Picture shares photos of the Kakuma refugee camp, in Kenya.


• Centauri Dreams notes one proposal to help extend the life of a Type III civilization in the Milky Way Galaxy by importing stars from outside of the local group.


• Crooked Timber's Corey Robin talks about changing minds in politics, inspired by the success of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.


• Dangerous Minds shares the 1978 BBC documentary on surrealism, Europe After the Rain.


• Far Outliers shares the third part of a summary of an article on African and Japanese mercenaries in Asia.


• Hornet Stories reports on the regret of Buffy showrunner Marti Noxon that her show killed off Tara. (I agree: I liked her.)


• At In Medias Res, Russell Arben Fox wonders what American farmers--by extension, perhaps, other farmers in other high-income societies--want. With their entire culture being undermine, what can they hope for?


• Joe. My. God. notes how far-right groups in Europe are increasingly welcoming lesbian, gay, and bisexual members. (Not so much trans people, it seems.)


• JSTOR Daily reports on the obvious utility of the humble beaver (in its North American homelands, at least).


• Language Log considers the politics of the national language policy of China.


• This Language Hat articlereporting on a conference on xenolinguistics, and the discussion in the comments, is fascinating. What can we hope to learn about non-human language? What will it have, and have not, in common?


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer considers the slow corruption of independent institutions in Mexico that may occur under the presidency of AMLO.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that, while we have not found life on Enceladus, we have found indicators of a world that could support life.


• Window on Eurasia wonders if Russia is increasingly at risk of being displaced in Central Asia by a dynamic Kazakhstan.

• Anthropology.net notes evidence that injured Neanderthals were cared for by their kin.


• James Bow shares a photo of Ottawa at night and considers the growing city with its greenbelt.


• Centauri Dreams reacts to the immense discoveries surrounding GW170817.


• Crooked Timber considers the vexed nature of the phrase "Judeo-Christian."


• Bruce Dorminey notes an American government study suggesting a North Korean EMP attack could cause collapse.


• Hornet Stories reports that Russian pop singer Zelimkhan Bakaev has been murdered in Chechnya as part of the anti-gay purges.


• Language Hat looks at lunfardo, the Italian-inflicted argot of Buenos Aires.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that, with Trump undermining the US, the prospects of China's rise to define the new world order are looking good.


• The NYR Daily looks at reports of significant electoral fraud in Kenya.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw looks at the continuing Australian reaction to China's Belt and Road project.


• Roads and Kingdoms reports from Sichuan's peppercorn fields at harvest time.


• Drew Rowsome responds to Andrew Pyper's new novel, The Only Child.


• Strange Company looks at the mysterious 1900 murder of New Yorker Kathryn Scharn.


• Strange Maps looks at an ingenious, if flawed, map of the Berlin metro dating from the 1920s.


• Peter Watts considers the question of individual identity over time. What changes, what stays the same?


• Window on Eurasia notes that a shift from their native languages to Russian will not end minority ethnic identities.

• blogTO notes that the Canadian government has prevented Conrad Black from selling his Forest Hill mansion on account of taxes.


• Dangerous Minds shares a beautiful 1981 live performance by The Church.


• Language Log notes the inclusion of Singaporean and Hong Kong English words into the OED.


• The Map Room Blog notes the four Italian nuns who helped the Vatican map prt of the sky.


• Marginal Revolution notes the increasing concentration of the Quakers in Kenya, and by extension other Christian denominations in Africa.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer looks at the success of solar energy in Mexico.


• Strange Maps notes the history of Middle Eastern migration into Europe.


• Torontoist looks at a Kensington Market project displaying graffiti from around the world.


• Towleroad notes Donald Trump's refusal to reveal his tax returns.


• Window on Eurasia looks at the role played by Vladimir Zhirinovsky in Russian politics.


• Zero Geography links to a paper co-authored by the blogger looking at the online representation of Jerusalem.

• Bloomberg notes California's dependence on oil imports, looks at how Libya's internal divisions limit oil exports, observes the devastation of Fort McMurray, reports on EU-Turkish disputes on visa-free travel, observes the problems of Belarus' banks, and reports on Kenya's closure of Somali refugee camps.


• Bloomberg View talks about how the Venezuelan military should be kept out of business.


• Daily Xtra notes the internal struggle in the Conservative Party to accept same-sex marriage.


• The National Post notes an arson attack against Canada's only sex reassignment clinic.


• New Scientist reports on a suggestion that life might have begun on Earth at a very early date.


• The New York Times notes the impact that the marriage of the American consul-general in Shanghai to a Taiwanese man has had on China.


• Open Democracy describes the worsening situation in Turkish Kurdistan.


• Wired notes that Huawei was too eager to copy everything about the iPhone, even screws which aren't very good.

• CBC has a heartwarming story about a cat, Sherry, who made it to Canada alongside his owners.


• The Inter Press Service reports on how development pressures are threatening the last of Bangladesh's tigers.


• National Geographic notes the short life expectancy of lions which leave their Kenyan reserves and come into contact with human beings.

This market centre in the arid Lake Magadi region, Kajiado of Southern Kenya is with no grid electricity. The area is inhabited by the pastoralist Maasai community. With climate change affecting their pastoral way of life, the community is increasingly adopting a more sedentary life but without amenities.

The centre is hot and dusty. Much as the area enjoys bright sunshine during the day, the situation changes to pitch dark after sunset. But in the last two years, the market centre is witnessing a transformation. It is becoming a beehive of activity.

This is courtesy of Solar Kiosk Kenya Ltd. that installed a retail kiosk, called the SOLARKIOSK E-HUBB. The E-HUBB, designed by GRAFT (partners and co-founders of SOLARKIOSK AG, the Berlin-based mother company), is a modular solar-powered structure that can be easily implemented in remote communities.

The E-HUBB outlet enables and empowers local entrepreneurship and the sustainable development of Base-of-the-Pyramid (BOP) communities by selling essential food ingredients, vital energy services, solar and clean energy products and connectivity solutions. By the end of 2015, SOLARKIOSK will have implemented over 100 E-HUBBs on three continents.

A SOLARKIOSK E-HUBB is a solar-powered autonomous business hub. It uses solar power to generate electricity for rural off-grid communities for various uses. It is a decentralised, easy to maintain source of energy. Kiosk operators are able to use the power during the day and continue operating late into the night.

• Al Jazeera captures the mood of Tunisia on the eve of elections, looks at the sufferings of ISIS' sex slaves, reports on Kenya's harsh response to American criticism of anti-terrorism legislation, and notes that Florida surpasses New York as the United States' third most populous state.


• Bloomberg reports on the absence of well-heeled Russian customers visiting Dubai, North Korea having been found guilty of the kidnapping of a Korean-American pastor, describes a European Union response on Ukraine's financial needs, examines the entanglement of BP with Russia's sanctions-hit oil and gas industry, outlines Chinese interest in helping Russia for a price, describes geopolitical rivalries of companies bidding for a South African nuclear program, notes Lithuanian interest in the Euro as a way to protect that Baltic state from Russia, shares listings of wonderful Detroit homes on sale at low prices, suggests the low price of oil means economic retrenchment in the Gulf states, and describes how a globalized Filipino village came to specialize in child porn.


• Bloomberg View suggests Russia's economic future is parlous despite the recent stabilization of the ruble, criticizes Russian military aircraft confrontations with civilian aircraft, suggests Russia wants a deal, argues the collapse of Vermont's single-payer healthcare program shows the path-dependency of America's medical industry, argues Japan should surpass China as a lender to the US, and describes North Korea's high price for its apparent Sony hack.


• The Inter Press Service notes a high dropout rate from school for Afghan refugees, suggests political turmoil in Spain might lead to a moral regeneration, describes the negative impact of falling oil prices on fragile African economies, comments on Pakistan's renewed use of the death penalty, and argues Cuban-American detente will help stabilize the Americas.


• MacLean's wonders why the National Archives are being made inaccessible to visitors, describes the toxic CBC environment that enabled Jian Ghomeshi, and visits Yazidis returning to liberated territories to find mass graves of their people.


• Open Democracy looks at Russian support of Central Asian governments which kidnap their dissidents on Russian territory, examines official misogyny in Chechnya, looks at constitutional turmoil in the United Kingdom, and studies the nature of Russian support for European far-right groups.


• Universe Today describes how a newly-discovered dwarf galaxy satellite of the Milky Way can help explain the universe, looks at evidence for a subsurface reservoir of water on Mars, and examines the idea of airship-borne exploration of Venus.


• Wired thinks the withdrawal of Google News from Spain will do nothing to change the underlying dynamics of the mass media industry, and examines the fascinating dynamics of volcanism in history on Mars.

• Al Jazeera notes Syrian refugee resettlement in Germany, the cultural importance of jewelry design to the Navajo, the complicated ethics of separatism in South Yemen, concerns over the Islamic State in the Arab Gulf and in the North Caucasus, a massacre of Christians by Somali militias in northern Kenya, the localization of Google in Irish, and a surprise visit by Crimea's leader to India as part of a Russian delegation.


• Bloomberg notes Ukrainian corruption, Polish hostility to a British bid to limit EU migration, the interest of English councils in getting some of the powers Scotland will acquire, and the surge of immigrants to Germany.


• Bloomberg View notes that a post-Putin Russia could be even worse.


• Open Democracy looks at the declining importance of Israel as an enemy to the Arab world, questions the extent of Russian support for the European far right, notes the insertion of Orthodox Christianity into public teaching in Russia, and notes the failures of political Islam in Tunisia.

Binyavanga Wainaina has a hangover. Last night friends gathered for his birthday party, which turned into a coming out party, because Wainaina, one of Africa’s most powerful modern literary voices, had just published an article entitled, “I am a homosexual, Mum.”

On a continent where secrecy defines the gay experience and where a majority of countries outlaw homosexuality, coming out is a rare step for a public figure. Wainana’s piece, first published on Saturday, is being shared widely across social networks. “My dear @BinyavangaW writes a piece that springs open the prison doors of the heart,” tweeted Nigerian-born writer Teju Cole.

[. . .]

Last year Wainaina — perhaps best known abroad as the author of the satirical essay "How to Write About Africa" — returned home to live in Kenya after a prolonged period of international nomadism and began to feel “a certain falsity in the way I lived my life,” he said.

Wainaina struggled with the relative ease of being clandestinely gay while surrounded by his artist friends in cosmopolitan Nairobi, while elsewhere in Africa homosexuals faced increasing oppression.

[. . .]

Openly declaring his sexual orientation is both brave and potentially powerful, given Wainana’s reach. He has taught at Bard College in New York State, was awarded the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing, and won acclaim for his brilliant "How To Write About Africa.” His smart brevity has earned Wainaina a growing Twitter following, and last year Foreign Policy included him in its annual Twitterati 100.

Wainana believes his honesty will be embraced in his home and in other African countries. “People who live in societies where you are being lied to a lot value truth,” he said.

Wainaina is set to become a still-louder voice for gay rights, a struggle that he sees as part of a wider defiance, an effort to break apart “the very, very hardwired restrictions that were imposed in 1885” by colonialists and which “are very alive in every facet of African life.”

“I want to be part of a generation of people in Kenya and Africa who change [Africa] to be accountable to itself,” he said.