[NEWS] Five JSTOR Daily links: US Buddhism, Samuel Beckett, Brexit, seals, letters

• JSTOR Daily looks at how Buddhism came to the United States, first brought by immigrants and then embraced as an alternative by the avant-garde.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the influence of the French Resistance on the playwriting of Samuel Beckett, himself a member of the underground.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the many different metaphors used to try to illuminate Brexit.
• JSTOR Daily notes that seal-watching boat expeditions need to give the seals more privacy, to avoid overstressing them and exposing them to the risks of fatigue.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how letter-writing, as a literary form, has been so strongly associated with women and the feminine.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports on Supernova 2018oh in nearby galaxy UGC 4780, a star that demonstrated a most unusual bump in its light curve. Did the explosion engulf a neighbouring star?
• Centauri Dreams reports on New Horizons as it approaches its next target, the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule.
• D-Brief notes new observations of a black hole suggesting that gas around them forms not a rigid donut shape but rather a looser fountain.
• Dead Things notes a new discovery that the icythosaur had blubber like modern cetaceans, demonstrating convergent evolution.
• Cody Delistraty writes about changing perceptions of painter Egon Schiele.
• Far Outliers notes how Japanese prisoners of war were often so surprised by good treatment that they reciprocated, by freely sharing information with interrogators.
• Hornet Stories notes that, at least on Reddit, RuPaul’s Drag Race is the most discussed show currently playing on television.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the Indian police was seeking two American evangelical Christian missionaries for aiding another to breach North Sentinel Island, both having fled the country.
• JSTOR Daily looks back to a 1963 paper on the effects of automation on society by Leon Megginson, finding that many of his predictions were correct.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that it is a sad day for Hungary that its government was able to drive the Central European University out of Budapest into exile.
• At Lingua Franca, Roger Shuy takes a look at the dreaded PhD oral exam. (I know that seeing other students taking it was one thing putting me off from academia.)
• The LRB Blog takes a look at the disastrous state of politics in Honduras, with a corrupt leader deeply compromised by (among other things) a dependency upon the United States.
• The NYR Daily takes a look at the beautiful Tibetan Buddhist religious art on display in the Ladakh settlement of Alchi.
• Window on Eurasia notes a conference in Moscow taking a look at a Eurasianism based on a Slavic-Turkic synthesis.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at Santa Barbara in some of her many dimensions.

[ISL] Six #PEI links: Buddhism and horses, Bernier and immigration, Pogey Beach, St. Peter’s Island

• The Buddhist community of Prince Edward Island, CBC PEI reports, runs a sanctuary for horses that gives dozens a chance to live out their lives in peace.
• Russell Wangersky at The Guardian notes how utterly foolish the anti-immigration policies of Maxime Bernier would be for an Atlantic Canada that desperately needs people to come.
• This CBC feature on the marine life of “Pogey Beach”, the PEI North Shore’s Tracadie Beach, is a visual delight.
• CBC PEI reports on the rescue of two people off of the south shore’s uninhabited St. Peters Island, an island I’ve seen only from above.
• From October 2016, I have a blog post sharing the photos I took of St. Peter’s Island from above in a flight that summer, gathering together some links about that place.
• This Peter Rukavina blog post looking at the merits of the two outdoor pianos of Charlottetown is a delight.

[ISL] Five PEI links: Mennonites, street grids, marriage, Charlottetown, Heatherdale

• Guardian Cities reports on how prices for land in Ontario are propelling a Mennonite migration to Prince Edward Island.
• Peter Rukavina takes a look at the regularity, or not, of the street grids of major Island communities.
• Civil wedding ceremonies on PEI are starting to outnumber religious ones. CBC reports.
• A heritage log cabin in Charlottetown, dating back to the mid-19th century, is being torn down by its owner for wanting of funding to help preserve it. CBC reports.
• Construction of the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society’s headquarters, in the eastern PEI community of Heatherdale, is being slowed down by construction and other issues. CBC reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: London, Halifax, Cerro Belmonte, Munich, Hong Kong

• CBC reports on a terrible incident of racist harassment at a London, Ontario Sobeys grocery store, where one man tried to detain someone non-white as a supposed “illegal.”
• Global News reports on a scandal in Halifax’s growing Buddhist community, of sexual improprieties by a leader, here.
• Ozy reports on how Fidel Castro helped the Madrid suburb of Cerro Belmonte fight off an expropriation bid, here.
• Citylab discusses the proposal for an aerial gondola in Munich, as part of that city’s mass transit system.
• Matthew Keegan at Guardian Cities describes how feng shui remains a central feature of design and architecture in Hong Kong.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul has an extended long interview with architect Dragoljub Bakić, talking about the innovative architecture of Tito’s Yugoslavia and his experiences abroad.
• Centauri Dreams remarks on how the new maps of Pluto can evoke the worlds of Ray Bradbury.
• The Crux answers an interesting question: What, exactly, is a blazar?
• D-Brief links to a study suggesting that conditions on Ross 128 b, the second-nearest potentially habitable planet, are potentially (very broadly) Earth-like.
• Dangerous Minds shows how John Mellencamp was, in the 1970s, once a glam rocker.
• The Finger Post shares photos from a recent visit to Naypyidaw, the very new capital of Myanmar.
• Gizmodo explains how the detection of an energetic neutrino led to the detection of a distant blazar, marking yet another step forward for multi-messenger astronomy.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the now-overlooked writer of supernatural fiction Vernon Lee.
• Language Log makes an argument that acquiring fluency in Chinese language, including Chinese writing, is difficult, so difficult perhaps as to displace other cultures. Thoughts?
• Lawyers, Guns and Money suggests that the decline of the neo-liberal world order is needed. My main concern is that neo-liberalism may well be the least bad of the potential world orders out there.
• Lingua Franca takes a look at how Hindi and Urdu, technically separate languages, actually form two poles of a Hindustani language continuum.
• The Map Room Blog links to a unique map of the London Underground that shows the elevation of each station.
• Rocky Planet notes that the continuing eruption of Kilauea is going to permanently shape the lives of the people of the Big Island of Hawai’i.
• Window on Eurasia notes that the Buddhists of Kalmykia want the Russian government to permit a visit by the Dalai Lama to their republic.
• Writing at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Livio Di Matteo notes that the Trump demand NATO governments spend 4% of their GDP on defense would involve unprecedented levels of spending in Canada.

[ISL] Five Island links: John Smith, Buddhism, Easter Monday FIlipino tour, Province House, Greens

• The death late last month of poet laureate John Smith has left the Island bereft. He was a wonderful man, and is much missed. The Guardian reports.
• 47 acres of land have been bought near Brudenell, PEI, for a Buddhist nuns’ monastery. Buddhism is getting deep roots on the Island, I see. The Guardian reports.
• The Filipino tradition of touring churches on Easter Monday has been transplanted to the Island. CBC reports.
• Kevin Yarr reports on the extensive upgrades that Charlottetown’s Province House will need, even after the current emergency repairs are finished, over at CBC.
• The Green Party is strengthening its growing roots in Atlantic Canada by appointing Island-born Jo-Ann Roberts as a deputy leader. CBC reports.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares some stunning photos of the polar regions of Jupiter, from Juno.
• Centauri Dreams notes speculation on how antimatter could be harnessed for space propulsion.
• D-Brief notes how nanotechnological design is used to create tools capable of extracting water from the air above the Atacama.
• Russell Darnley notes the continuing peat fires in Sumatra’s Riau Province.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes evidence of an ancient cultural diffusion, from Copper Age Iberia, apparently not accompanied by gene flows.
• Mark Graham links to a paper he co-authored looking at the viability of online work as an option, or not, in the Global South.
• Hornet Stories notes an upcoming documentary about Harlem fashion figure Dapper Dan.
• JSTOR Daily notes the surprising controversy around the practice of keeping crickets as pets, for entertainments including music and bloodsports.
• Language Log looks at the extent to which Xi Jinping actually has been identified as a Tibetan bodhisattva.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the extent to which Mexican society has also experienced negative effects from NAFTA, in ways perhaps not unfamiliar to Americans.
• Lingua Franca considers the usage of the term “blockbuster”.
• Neuroskeptic notes a new paper suggesting there is no neurogenesis in adult humans.
• The NYR Daily features an eyewitness description of a botched execution in Alabama. This one does indeed seem to be particularly barbaric.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer notes the rise of dictatorship worldwide.
• Roads and Kingdoms <U?considers the simple joys of chilaquiles sandwiches in Guadalajara.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the vast bumber of starless planets, rogue planets, out there in the universe.
• Worthwhile Canadian Initiative notes the fact, and the political import of the fact, that public-sector wages in Ontario are higher than private-sector ones.
• Window on Eurasia notes the continuing decline of the Russian village, not helped by recent changes in policy under Putin.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes the difference, in business, between pre- and post-funding investments.

[NEWS] Five links about vulnerability: parrots, Uighurs, indigenous peoples, fangsheng, Jones Act

• Hundreds of parrots in a Surrey sanctuary are still waiting for permanent homes. Global News reports.
• NPR reports on how many Uighurs in China find success through their racially mixed appearances, as models.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer explains the rationale behind the Jones Act, with its stiff shipping charges for Puerto Rico.
• The Chinese Buddhist fangsheng ritual, involving the release of captured animals into the wild, has issues. The Guardian reports.
• Tyson Yunkaporta’s essay takes a look at the appeal of SF/F, and post-apocalyptic fiction, for indigenous peoples.

[ISL] Three notes on Prince Edward Island, changing and otherwise

• CBC Prince Edward Island notes that, although down from its 1999 peak, PEI is still Canada’s top potato producer.
• Strong demand and limited supply means that the Island’s real estate market is tight, with rising prices. CBC Prince Edward Island reports.
• Meagan Campbell writes in MacLean’s about two of the Island’s newest migrant groups, Amish from Ontario and Buddhist monks from East Asia.