A Bit More Detail

• Jamie Bradburn took a look back at one weekend in 1908, as revealed in the pages of the Toronto World.


• blogTO looks at the surprising controversy surrounding the creation of the first apartment towers in Toronto, on College Street near the University of Toronto.


• blogTO shares a collection of photos examining the dynamic, suffering Toronto of the 1930s.


• Vice shares an amusing feature listing just some of the passenger stereotypes the average TTC user might encounter on the subway.


• Aparita Bhandani at The Discourse takes a look at how residents of Scarborough feel about the often unflattering stereotypes directed at their part of Toronto.

• TVO notes that slow Internet speeds cause real problems for people in rural Ontario, focusing here on the southwest.


• Kelly Boutsalis at NOW Toronto reports on new efforts to revive the Mohawk language.


• At Open Democracy, Bulat Mukhamedzhanov describes how a centralization in power in Russia away from Tatarstan threatens the future of the Tatar language in education.


• Ainslie Cruickshank reports on what seems to me to be an ill-judged controversy in a Toronto school over a folksong by Iroquois poet E. Pauline Johnson, "Land of the Silver Birch," calling it racist, over in the Toronto Star.


• This politico.eu article examining the polarized media landscape in Catalonia, and wider Spain, is disturbing. Is everyone really talking past each other?

• At VICE, Mike Miksche writes about how being Lebanese in North America became much more complicated, after 9/11 and with Islamophobia.


• The story of how Cedar's Eatery helped Lebanese food become entrenched on Prince Edward Island is fascinating. VICE reports.


• CBC reports on how The Globe and Mail is going to stop print distribution in the Maritimes.


• Bloomberg notes that rural ideas need high-speed internet, too.

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait is skeptical that the Trump-era EPA will deal well with global warming.


• Discover's The Crux considers the challenge of developing safer explosives for fireworkers.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper considering the (real) possibility of Earth-like worlds orbiting neutron stars.


• Language Log notes an odd use of katakana in Australia.


• The LRB Blog considers the possibly overrated import of George Osborne's move into the newspaper business.


• Marginal Revolution notes one observer's suggestion that China could sustain high-speed growth much longer than Japan.


• The NYR Daily shares Eleanor Davis' cartoon journal of her bike trip across America.


• Peter Rukavina does not like the odd way Prince Edward Island made its library card into a museum pass.


• Starts with a Bang's Ethan Siegel notes the odd galaxy MACS2129-1, young yet apparently no longer star-forming.


• Strange Company explores the strange death of 17th century New England woman Rebecca Cornell.


• Unicorn Booty looks at how early Playgirl tried to handle, quietly, its substantially gay readership.


• Window on Eurasia looks at one Russian proclaiming Russia needs to stop an imminent takeover by Muslims.

• City News shares a Canadian Press article sharing the warning issued by Sears Canada itself, another historic colossus of retail, that it may well be coming to its end.


• The Columbia Review of Journalism warns that Canada's Postmedia chain is failing, and could take all our newspapers with it.


• Tess Kalinowski at the Toronto Star observes that the number of Greater Toronto Area home sales has continued to decline.

In a response to a reader question on Twitter earlier this week provoked by Toronto Sun columnist Tarek Fatah’s comments on the Quebec City mosque shooting, Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale described the Sun as publishing, beyond a decent sports section and solid tabloid-style news coverage, “the country’s worst opinion writers.” While readers can debate Dale’s use of “worst,” the current crop of Sun columnists continues a long tradition of deliberately provocative writing that has shaped the paper since its inception in 1971.

It’s a tradition that hasn’t always landed on the right side of history. To be fair, flipping through the back pages of any newspaper exhumes opinions which would be questionable today. Skeletons among the Toronto press range from George Brown’s attacks on Irish immigrants during the early days of the Globe to unflattering descriptions of minorities in the Star which matched the prejudices of the day.

But the Sun has always stood out for its unapologetic view of the world, which grew from cockiness as the new kid on the block and its ability to connect with its conservative readership. It played upon fears of outsiders, and earned its stripes as a dedicated Cold Warrior by labeling opponents as evil Communists/Marxists/socialists/bleeding hearts/etc.

During the 1970s and 1980s the Sun’s biases regarding anyone who wasn’t white provoked consternation among minority groups, which nearly caused the City to pull its advertising from the paper. An extensive report by the Urban Alliance on Race Relations published in 1987 pulled few punches in its analysis of the paper’s stances: “The sheer volume of racial stereotypes, racism, scapegoating, and the presence of statements that may elicit fear and hatred against racial minorities can leave little doubt that there is considerable prejudice and racism directed toward non-whites and ethnic minorities within the pages of the paper.”

Let’s be blunt: the Sun was intolerant toward homosexuals during the 1970s and 1980s. From cartoonist Andy Donato’s frequent limp-wristed depictions of gays to editor Peter Worthington’s threat following the 1981 Bathhouse Raids to expose names of anyone rounded up in subsequent police scoops, there was no sympathy to anyone who wasn’t heterosexual.

Perhaps the most homophobic of the lot was Queen’s Park columnist Claire Hoy. In piece after piece, Hoy depicted homosexuals as sad, pathetic creatures. He was convinced that there was an agenda by homosexuals to gain access to classrooms to convert innocent children to their perverted lifestyle. “It is not true that homosexuals want simply to be left alone to do whatever it is they do to each other,” he wrote in January 1978. When a “Gaydays” celebration was held later that year, he wondered why “more Torontonians don’t let them know they’re not welcome here” and when people would “wake up and realize the danger of keeping silent in the face of this creeping, crawling sickness in our society?”

Canada’s largest newspaper has agreed to an independent review of its newsroom culture in the aftermath of the suicide of a prominent reporter, its chairman and editor said Wednesday.

The newspaper had earlier rejected a union call for an outside probe of the circumstances around the suicide of Raveena Aulakh, saying it would have been too bureaucratic.

In a memo to newsroom staff, the senior executives say a seasoned professional will facilitate the review and come up with recommendations.

“The union has publicly called for an ‘independent investigation’ of the newsroom’s ‘poisonous workplace’ where ‘ harassment’ and ‘bullying’ are rife,” Torstar Chaiman John Honderich and Star Editor Michael Cook say in their memo.

“The union’s assessment is not our view.”

• Bad Astronomy shows a photo of an ancient X-ray jet amplified by photos from the Big Bang.


• Centauri Dreams considers fast radio bursts.


• The Great Grey Bridge's Philip Turner notes that the Republican Party establishment is finally responding to Trump.


• Joe. My. God. and Towleroad note the ridiculousness of Caitlyn Jenner's desire to be a trans ambassador to Ted Cruz.


• Language Hat notes medieval naming patterns, with many religious names and many of these shared.


• Language Log notes controversy over a Chinese newspaper headline.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at American conservatives who think that the failure of people in distant countries to hear of minor figures in their movement proves a conspiracy.


• The LRB Blog argues the Swedish model is a viable alternative.


• The Map Room Blog maps the distribution of Syrian refugees across Canada.


• Marginal Revolution notes the low crime rate in many Muslim societies.


• The New APPS Blog argues Donald Trump is the perfect expression of contemporary capitalism.


• The Planetary Society Blog pays tribute to astronaut Scott Kelly.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer considers how Mexico can go on the offensive against a Trump administration.


• The Russian Demographics Blog looks at statistics on religious affiliation in Belarus.


• Transit Toronto notes the various subway disruptions this weekend.


• Whatever's John Scalzi admits the possibility of being wrong, while still keeping to his criticisms and predictions re: BernieBros.

• blogTO notes some interesting-looking apartment complexes scheduled to be built in Toronto.


• Dangerous Minds notes that, in the late 1970s, Debbie Harry wanted to remake Alphaville with Robert Fripp.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes that the Hubble telescope directly imaged gas giant 2M1207b, determining its rotation about its brown dwarf primary.


• The Dragon's Tales looks at continuing developments in stealth technology.


• Far Outliers notes some grim Soviet jokes from the 1930s about famines.


• At The Great Grey Bridge, Philip Turner wonders if President Gore could have avoided 9/11.


• The Map Room Blog notes "Null Island", at 0 degrees of longitude and latitude.


• North's Justin Petrone grimly contrasts Estonian newspaper headlines before and after the 1940 Soviet annexation.


• The Understanding Society Blog considers ways of using schematics to understand society.


• Window on Eurasia shares an unconvincing argument that many minority languages in Russia are endangered.


• The Financial Times' The World blog considers the political impact of allegation Lech Walesa was a spy for the Polish government in the 1970s.

• On Livejournal, bitterlawngnome shares some remarkable vintage print ads from the early 20th century.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes that robots installed the mirrors for the James Webb Space Telescope.


• The Dragon's Tales notes the abundant water ice on the surface of Pluto.


• Joe. My. God. and Towleroad note the imprisonment of Philadelphia gaybasher Kathryn Knott.


• Language Hat explores college girl fiction.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes Marco Rubio's encounter with a gay man in New Hampshire.


• Marginal Revolution notes the global market for super-butlers.


• Steve Munro considers how Smarttrack and GO will co-exist.


• Otto Pohl compares nation-building in Central Asia with that in the Middle East.


• The Russian Demographics Blog notes a conference held in Moscow on Muslims and their space in that city.