A Bit More Detail

• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes that far-orbiting body 2015 TC387 offers more indirect evidence for Planet Nine, as does D-Brief.
  
• Centauri Dreams notes that data from the Gaia astrometrics satellite finds traces of past collisions between the Milky Way Galaxy and the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy.


• The Crux takes a look at the long history of human observation of the Crab Nebula.


• Sujata Gupta at JSTOR Daily writes about the struggle of modern agriculture with the pig, balancing off concerns for animal welfare with productivity.


• Language Hat shares a defensive of an apparently legendarily awful novel, Marguerite Young's Miss Macintosh, My Darling.


• Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle, takes a look at the controversy over the name of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, going up to the recent referendum on North Macedonia.


• The LRB Blog reports on the high rate of fatal car accidents in the unrecognized republic of Abkhazia.


• Reddit's mapporn shares an interesting effort to try to determine the boundaries between different regions of Europe, stacking maps from different sources on top of each other.


• Justin Petrone at North! writes about how the northern wilderness of Estonia sits uncomfortably with his Mediterranean Catholic background.


• Peter Watts reports from a book fair he recently attended in Lviv, in the west of Ukraine.


• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog notes the new effort being put in by NASA into the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.


• Roads and Kingdoms reports on some beer in a very obscure bar in Shanghai.


• Drew Rowsome reports on the performance artist Lukas Avendano, staging a performance in Toronto inspired by the Zapotech concept of the muxe gender.


• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps examines the ocean-centric Spielhaus map projection that has recently gone viral.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers the question of whether or not the Big Rip could lead to another Big Bang.


• Window on Eurasia notes the harm that global warming will inflict on the infrastructures of northern Siberia.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell considers the ecological fallacy in connection with electoral politics. Sometimes there really are not niches for new groups.


• Arnold Zwicky takes part in the #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob meme, this time looking at images of linguists.

• The Big Picture shares photos from the eruption of Mount Sinabung in Indonesia.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly writes about the importance of colleagues for solitary writers.


• D-Brief notes the rediscovery of the Blue-Eyed Ground Dove in Brazil, once believed extinct.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes reports of the discovery of massive planets via gaps in the protoplanetary disks of HL Tauri and HD 135344B.


• The Dragon's Tales notes a paper making specific projections about the shape of the Kuiper Belt if Planet Nine was around.


• A Fistful of Euros speculates as to the severity of the United Kingdom's post-Brexit recession.


• Language Log considers writing Shanghainese.


• The LRB Blog remembers Madeleine Lebeau, last survivor of the cast of Casablanca.


• Marginal Revolution engages with Peter Thiel's funding of Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker.


• The Planetary Society Blog notes sterling work reclaiming distorted images from the Voyager probes.


• pollotenchegg reports on the origins of migrants to Kyiv.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer reports on Puerto Rico.


• Seriously Science notes that wild boar apparently wash their food before eating.


• Window on Eurasia looks at Putin's traditionalism, wonders if there might be a Russian Olympics boycott to spare the country the shame of being excluded, speculates about the North Caucasus' future within Russia, and reports Ukrainian worries of being isolated versus Russia.

• At 3 Quarks Daily, Tamuira Reid writes about the minefields associated with Romani identity, starting with the name.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes a paper suggesting terrestrial worlds may be able to form in systems with hot Jupiters.


• The Dragon's Tales suggests that Japan is starting to investigate the possibility of orbital solar power satellites.


• Eastern Approaches notes the political controversies in Poland associated with the canonization of native son John Paul II.


• Joe. My. God. and Towleroad both note that Japan's first lady Akie Abe rode in a float in Tokyo's gay pride parade.


• Geocurrents notes that long-time contributor Asya Pereltsvaig will no longer be contributing.


• The New APPS Blog continues to observe the issues surrounding the Fermi Paradox.


• Torontoist notes, with photos, a Toronto church's annual blessing of the bikes.


• Towleroad observes that a Buffalo, New York, school refused to share news of a gay alumnus' wedding.


• Window on Eurasia warns that Putin wants to regain Soviet levels of power and domination, also touching upon the Russian belief that Ukrainians and Belarusians don't have separate histories.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell recounts a book, Robert Bickers' Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai, telling the story of an English expatriate fascist turned policeman in interwar Shanghai.

I’m sure it is all too easy to be swept up by Shanghai fever. The view from the bar on the 87th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Centre – otherwise known as the “Mori building”, after the architect - is quite stunning. Around you are the soaring skyscrapers of the new Pudong district, which barely existed a decade ago. On the other side of the bend in the river is the Bund, the graceful stretch of buildings which defined pre-war Shanghai. The most famous landmark on the Bund is the old HQ of the HongKongShanghai Bank, with its graceful cupola. These days HSBC are in a new tower in Pudong – and they are about to move into an even bigger skyscraper later this year. Shanghai is in the midst of a building frenzy. The Mori building is currently the tallest in China, but will soon be eclipsed by a rival next door. The new airport – in which I am spending rather more time than I’d hoped – is vast. No fewer than eight subway lines are currently under construction, in preparation for next year’s Shanghai Expo. And the lines that are already running are clean, quick and efficient.

[. . .]

The new Mori building is splendid – but only about a third of it is said to be rented. The gyrations of the stock market are hardly reassuring. The run-up earlier this year may reflect all the excess cash sloshing around the system, after the government’s stimulus package. But it’s not clear that this will be enough to compensate for the hammer blows to export industries. That is why the report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, claiming 40m job losses since the onset of the recession, is a useful corrective to euphoria induced by a view of Shanghai from a great height, with a beer in your hand.

The weeklong Shanghai Pride 2009, the largest gay and lesbian community event on the Chinese mainland, should be hailed as a milestone and a success, despite some unexpected official interference.

Hundreds of LGBTs (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) and some curious straight folks packed the Cotton's Xinhua Road club from 2 to 10 pm on Saturday, with a series of live events culminating in four same-sex weddings when gay marriage is still illegal in the country.

The festive crowds continued their party in the Glamour Bar on the Bund until the next day. On Sunday, the LGBT crowds celebrated their last-day party with singing, badminton and swimming contests.

For many LGBTs, it was the first time they felt like coming out of the closet in the country's largest metropolis. It was their first grand party on the Chinese mainland.

[. . .]

During the week of Shanghai Pride, local government officials intervened to cancel several film screenings and the staging of a play. This is a truly shame for Shanghai, a city which claims to be open and progressive; and, a city of immigrants that is proud of its tradition of embracing different peoples and cultures.

Shanghai has embarked on an ambitious program to develop itself as an international financial and shipping hub. It is a city that is planning to host the World Expo in May 2010 when 239 countries and international organizations will showcase their technologies and unique cultures.

Yet, if Shanghai cannot even show acceptance, understanding and tolerance for LGBTs, how can it expect it to attract and respect the diverse people coming to visit the Expo and develop in future the working environment for a global financial and shipping center.

Shanghai Pride 2009 was intended to help more LGBTs to come out of the closet. Yet government meddling clearly sent a wrong signal. It is a message denying the basic civil rights of LGBTs, who are no longer illegal in this country. It's quite disturbing to see the local authorities still adopt such a hostile attitude towards LGBTs and persist in trying to confine them to the closet in such a big city.