[PHOTO] Panama on my screen in Toronto

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the dusty spiral of galaxy M81, here.
• Crooked Timber reacts positively to the Astra Taylor short film What Is Democracy?
• D-Brief notes that, in the South Atlantic, one humpback whale population has grown from 440 individuals to 25 thousand, nearly completing its recovery from whaling-era lows.
• Dangerous Minds looks at The Iguanas, first band of Iggy Pop.
• The Dragon’s Tales looks at consideration in South Korea at building an aircraft carrier.
• Todd Schoepflin at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the division of labour within his family.
• Far Outliers looks at 17th century clashes between England and Barbary Pirates.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how antibiotics are getting everywhere, contaminating food chains worldwide.
• Victor Mair at Language Log looks at the evidence not only for an ancient Greek presence in Central Asia, but for these Greeks’ contact with China.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that the attempt by Trump to get Ukraine to spy on his enemies was driven by what Russia and Hungary alleged about corruption in Ukraine.
• The LRB Blog looks at the transnational criminal network of the Hernandez brothers in Honduras, a source of a refugee diaspora.
• Marginal Revolution shares an argument suggesting that marriage is useful for, among other things, encouraging integration between genders.
• Sean Marshall looks at how the death of the Shoppers World in Brampton heralds a new urbanist push in that city.
• At the NYR Daily, Helen Joyce talks of her therapeutic experiences with psychedelic drugs.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the Toronto play The Particulars.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers if inflation came before, or after, the Big Bang.
• John Scalzi at Whatever has a short discussion about Marvel films that concludes they are perfectly valid.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that central Ukraine has emerged as a political force in post-1914 Ukraine.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the Indian pickle.

[AH] Five alternate history maps from r/imaginarymaps (#alternatehistory)

Reddit’s imaginarymaps forum has a lot of great alternate history maps.

• This r/imaginarymaps map depicts a Dutch Formosa crica 1900.
• This creation imagines a joint German-Polish invasion of the Soviet Union.
• this map imagines a different Cold War, with a largely Communist Germany opposed by a Franco-British Union.
• This map of an alternate Cold War circa 1960 that actually made it into a history book as our timeline
• This map shows the remarkably fragmented Central America of Marvel Comics’s famous Earth-616.

[DM] Some links from the blogosphere

I’ve a post up at Demography Matters. As a prelude to more substantial posting, I thought I would share with readers some demographics-related links from my readings in the blogosphere.

• The blog Far Outliers, concentrating on the author’s readings, has been looking at China in recent weeks. Migrations have featured prominently, whether in exploring the history of Russian migration to the Chinese northeast, looking at the Korean enclave of Yanbian that is now a source and destination for migrants, and looking at how Tai-speakers in Yunnan maintain links with Southeast Asia through religion. The history of Chinese migration within China also needs to be understood.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money was quite right to argue that much of the responsibility for Central Americans’ migration to the United States has to be laid at the foot of an American foreign policy that has caused great harm to Central America. Aaron Bastani at the London Review of Books’ Blog makes similar arguments regarding emigration from Iran under sanctions.
• Marginal Revolution has touched on demographics, looking at the possibility for further fertility decline in the United States and noting how the very variable definitions of urbanization in different states of India as well as nationally can understate urbanization badly.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Mississauga, Montréal, New York City, Winnipeg, Tijuana

• After consultation with indigenous groups, Mississauga is removing all Indigenous symbols from sports teams and facilities. blogTO reports.
• This Huffington Post Québec article, in French, notes that Montréal can make a very good case for again supporting a major league baseball team. The Expos may return.
• VICE notes that the idea of legalizing marijuana sales in New York State, and of devoting the funds raised from marijuana taxation to rebuilding the New York City subway station, is becoming popular.
• The latest redrawing of provincial electoral boundaries in Manitoba leaves the growing metropolis of Winnipeg with one seat more and rural Manitoba with one seat less. Global News reports.
• Laura Agustín reports on the experiences of a volunteer lawyer working with the Central American migrant caravan in Tijuana, here.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, New York City, Mexico City, Tijuana, Mosul

• Montréal mayor Valérie Plante outlines how, in the face of provincial government cuts to immigration in Québec, her city will continue to welcome immigrants and promote their integration, over at CTV.
• Gothamist shares the argument of new MTA transit head Andy Byford to New York City’s city council there that the city simply must spend $US 40 billion to keep the MTA running.</li.
• CityLab looks at how access to water is a major political issue in Mexico City, one that local community groups are acting upon.
• The Central American refugees in Tijuana, CityLab reports, are facing an increasing number of issues, including deteriorating conditions and local hostility.
• A VICE interview suggests that the city of Mosul, eighteen months after ISIS, is in such a poor state of repair that a resurgence of the Islamic State is possible.

[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.

[NEWS] Five migration notes: Syrians, Iranians, Ukrainians, Central Americans, Americans

• Transitions Online reports on how Syrian refugees are increasingly finding new homes in Turkey.
• Iranian families divided by the Trump visa ban now meet in a library on the Québec-Vermont border. Reuters reports.
• Poland, this Le Devoir report observes, now attracts more immigrants in absolute numbers–many more in relative terms–than Germany.
• What, this Open Democracy essay asks, will the Honduran refugees in Tijuana do next?
• This Reihan Salam suggestion at The Atlantic that Mexico should start to encourage American retirees to settle, with the hope of diminishing the political weight of Latin American migration to the United States, actually makes a lot of sense.

[NEWS] Five indigenous links: Frank Lloyd Wright, Ulama, Arielle Twist, Mahpee Wampanoag, Manitoulin

• Karim Doumar at CityLab looks at how artist Clarissa Tossin used video and dance to engage with the Frank Lloyd Wright Hollyhock House, inspired by Mayan models.
• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the historical background of the Mesoamerican ball game Ulama, currently undergoing a revival.
• Trans Cree writer Arielle Twist talks about the dangers of love over at CBC Arts.
• VICE reports on how the Mashpee Wampanoag, the tribe that welcomed the Pilgrims to New England, is at risk of losing what remains of their land.
• Jennifer Yang writes at the Toronto Star about vicious anti-native rumours on Ontario’s Manitoulin Island that pitted white students against indigenous ones.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Markham, Seattle, Tijuana, New York City, Hong Kong and Shenzhen

• A new neighbourhood in Markham is going to make use of geothermal energy to heat hundreds of homes. CBC reports.
• CityLab reports on how a census of the giant Pacific octopus in the waters of Seattle is going to be conducted.
• Some residents of Tijuana are protesting against the thousands of Central American refugees now sheltering in their city. Global News reports.
• A new exhibit at the 9/11 Museum in New York City tells of the contribution of Mohawk steelworkers to the construction of the megalopolis’ skyline. CBC Indigenous reports.
• Officials in Hong Kong and Shenzhen are having problems drawing a boundary through a garden plot on their mutual border. The SCMP reports.