Archive for January 2018
[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Skandaraj Navaratnam, Yonge Street, K-Pop, King Street, Kazenelson
- This Fatima Syed interview with Navaseelan Navaratnam, brother of suspected McArthur victim Skandaraj Navaratnam missing since 2010, is terribly sad. The Toronto Star has it.
- While it may be too late for Eliot’s Bookshop, I do hope that Toronto City Council can arrange some kind of functional tax arrangement for the businesses which survive on Yonge. The Toronto Star reports.
- blogTO notes how a stray tweet from Toronto Hits 93 started an Internet flamewar between fans of two different K-Pop boy bands.
- Ben Spurr notes how some transit advocates have decided to help out King Street by eating at area restaurants, over</u at the Toronto Star.
- Global News reports on how the Ontario Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of Vadim Kazenelson on charges of criminal negligence stemming from an incident where four workers he was supervising died in a scaffolding collapse.
[PHOTO] Track level, Borough Hall, Brooklyn
The Borough Hall/Court Street station in downtown Brooklyn was my first real introduction to the borough of Brooklyn, and to the maze of subway passages in New York City. The TTC has nothing on the MTA!
[NEWS] Five poltiics links: Doug Ford and Ontario, Tijuana-San Diego, Brexit, EU-Mercosur, Scotland
- CBC looks at how the Doug Ford bid for Ontario PC leadership is potentially transformative of the race, potentially destabilizing the party at a time when it is vulnerable.
- The tightly-integrated and hugely-profitable economy uniting San Diego with Tijuana, across the US-Mexican border, continues despite Trump. Bloomberg View reports.
- A French minister has warned a Japanese audience that the United Kingdom is not going to be part of Europe any more. (France, he notes, remains open to business.) Bloomberg has it.
- Efforts are redoubling to sign a trade deal between the EU and South American bloc Mercosur. Bloomberg reports.
- Gerry Hassan is critical of the SNP and Scottish separatism, partly because of its lack of successful radicalism in power. The essay is at Open Democracy.
[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Metrolinx stops, Dean Lisowick, Toronto vigil, barbering, sales tax
- Transit Toronto notes that Metrolinx is actively soliciting ideas for stop names on the two light rail lines, Finch West in Toronto and Hurontario in Brampton and Missisauga.
- This look at the life of Dean Lisowick, an apparent victim whose life revolved around the Scott Mission, is terribly informative and terribly sad. The Toronto Star has it.
- The CBC reports on a Toronto vigil on the one-year anniversary of the Québec City mosque shooting.
- CBC reports on barber Dwight Murray’s argument that the Ontario requirement for barbers to learn hairdressing styles not directly relevant to their craft should be changed.
- At the Toronto Star, Christopher Hume makes an argument for a Toronto sales tax. (I would make it a GTA sales tax, myself.)
[BLOG] Some Tuesday links
- Bruce Dorminey notes that a Brazilian startup hopes to send a Brazilian probe to lunar orbit, for astrobiological research.
- Far Outliers notes the scale of the Western aid funneled to the Soviet Union through Murmansk in the Second World War.
- Hornet Stories notes that Tarell Alvin McCraney, author of the play adapted into the stunning Moonlight, now has a new play set to premier on Brodway for the 2018-2019 season, Choir Boy.
- JSTOR Daily notes the conspiracy behind the sabotage that led to the destruction in 1916 of a munitions stockpile on Black Tom Island, of German spies with Irish and Indian nationalists.
- Lawyers, Guns and Money is critical of the false equivalence in journalism that, in 2016, placed Trump on a level with Hillary.
- The Map Room Blog notes that fitness app Strava can be used to detect the movements of soldiers (and others) around classified installations.
- Marginal Revolution links to a New York Times profile of World Bank president Jim Young Kim.
- Roads and Kingdoms talks about the joys of stuffed bread, paan, in Sri Lanka.
- Towleroad notes that a Russian gay couple whose marriage in Denmark was briefly recognized in Russia are now being persecuted.
- At Whatever, John Scalzi tells the story of his favourite teacher, Keith Johnson, and a man who happened to be gay. Would that all students could have been as lucky as Scalzi.
- Window on Eurasia notes that the pronatalist policies of the Putin regime, which have basically cash subsidies to parents, have not reversed underlying trends towards population decline.