[NEWS] Five cultural links: Hitler, Internet, Nova Scotia roads, BC gangs, Pontic Greek

• The BBC takes a look at Pontic Greek, a Greek dialect that survives precariously in exile from its homeland in Anatolia.
• Klaus Meyer writes at The Conversation about how Hitler, in his rise to power, became a German citizen.
• Low-income families in the Toronto area face serious challenges in getting affordable Internet access. CBC reports.
• Jeremy Keefe at Global News takes a look at Steve Skafte, an explorer of abandoned roads in Nova Scotia.
• In some communities in British Columbia, middle-class people have joined criminal gangs for social reasons. CBC reports.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait takes a look at an evocative corner of the Pelican Nebula.
• Centauri Dreams considers if a supernova might have kickstarted hominid evolution by triggering wildfires.
• D-Brief looks at how scientists examined binary asteroid 1999 KW4 during its flyby on May 25th.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the development of the radical abolitionism of William Blake.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at centrism as not neutrality but rather as an ideology of its own.
• Marginal Revolution suggests that legal emigration is more common from right-wing dictatorships than from left-wing ones. Is this actually the case?
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that an image passed off as a hole in the universe a billion light-years wide is actually a photo of nebula Barnard 68.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that Ukraine, rather than trying to position itself as a bridge between West and East, should simply try to join the West without equivocations.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a Zippy cartoon and moves on to explore the wider world from it.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Koreans, Italians, Irish, Albino Carreira, #threetorontos

• This 2013 Toronto Guardian article explains how the Korean community in Toronto can trace its origins to early 20th century missionaries from Canada.
• At Spacing, Daniel Panneton writes about the rise of fascism in Italian Toronto and the very different reactions to this ideology’s rise.
• CBC Toronto reports on the popular new app Irish App-roved, aimed at helping new immigrants from Ireland get oriented in Toronto.
• Jacob Lorinc at the Toronto Star tells the story of Albino Carreira, a Portuguese-Canadian construction worker disabled by a construction incident in the 1990s who went on to whimsically decorate his Clinton Street home and his bug-covered van.
• The growing racialization of poverty in Toronto is a huge ongoing concern. The Toronto Star reports.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams notes a strange corridor of ice beneath the surface of Titan, a possible legacy of an active cryovolcanic past.
• D-Brief notes one study suggesting that, properly designed, air conditioners could convert carbon dioxide in the air into carbon fuels.
• Dead Things reports on the discovery of an unusual human skull three hundred thousand years old in China, at Hualongdong in the southeast.
• Gizmodo notes the identification of a jawbone 160 thousand years old, found in Tibet, with the Denisovans. That neatly explains why the Denisovans were adapted to Tibet-like environments.
• JSTOR Daily examines Ruth Page, a ballerina who integrated dance with poetry.
• Language Hat shares a critique of a John McWhorter comment about kidspeak.
• Victor Mair at Language Log shares a well-researched video on the Mongolian language of Genghis Khan.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how Donald Trump, in his defiance of investigative findings, is worse than Richard Nixon.
• James Butler at the LRB Blog writes about the bombing of London gay bar Admiral Duncan two decades ago, relating it movingly to wider alt-right movements and to his own early coming out.
• Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen notes a recent review article making the case for open borders, disproving many of the claims made by opponents.
• Paul Mason at the NYR Daily explains why the critique by Hannah Arendt of totalitarianism and fascism can fall short, not least in explaining our times.
• Corey S. Powell at Out There explains how, and why, the Moon is starting to get serious attention as a place for long-term settlement, even.
• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog explores the fund that she had in helping design a set of scientifically-accurate building blocks inspired by the worlds of our solar system.
• Drew Rowsome reports on the new restaging of the classic queer drama Lilies at Buddies in Bad Times by Walter Borden, this one with a new racially sensitive casting.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the massive boom of diversity at the time of the Cambrian Explosion.
• Towleroad features the remarkable front cover of the new issue of Time, featuring Pete Buttigieg together with his husband Chasten.
• Window on Eurasia considers if the new Russian policy of handing out passports to residents of the Donbas republics is related to a policy of trying to bolster the population of Russia, whether fictively or actually.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the various flowers of May Day.

[NEWS] Five politics links: MAGA, Ontario, Venezuela, John MacCallum, Brexit

• Andray Domise at MacLean’s makes the obvious point that wearing a MAGA hat is a conscious choice to wear a symbol of hate.
• The cancellation of Ontario’s guaranteed minimum income project is now up before the supreme court, which seems unconvinced that the province did not make a legal commitment three years long to provide the funding needed. The Toronto Star reports.
• Don Pittis at CBC makes the point that the economic problems of Venezuela, much too dependent on oil, are far too severe to be overcome by the end of the Maduro regime.
• The appointment of long-time Liberal politician John MacCallum as the ambassador of China to Canada has turned out to have been a historic mistake. CBC reports.
• Ian Dunt at Politics.co.uk, looking at the consequences of a hard Brexit on the food supply alone, exposes what a catastrophe this would be at every level.

[ISL] Five #islands links: Kurils, Chincoteague, Crete, St. Helena, Fisher Island

• Quartz notes that Japan this year is hoping to regain two of the Kuril Islands from Russia.
• This sad report looks at how the wild horses of Chincoteague island, off the coast of Virginia, are endangered by an infectious fungus.
• Guardian Cities notes how an energetic resistance in Heraklion, chief city of the island of Crete, helped drive out Golden Dawn.
• Conservative Home shares an article noting that hopes for a tourism boom in the isolated South Atlantic island of St. Helena have come to naught because weather makes regular flights prohibitive.
• Bloomberg reported last April that Fisher Island, off Miami, zip code 33109, is the richest zip code in the United States.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Kristyn Wong-Tam, #topoli, police racism, Toronto Sun, Bombardier

• At NOW Toronto, city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam writes about her frightening experiences being targeted in campaigns by the alt-right.
• Sean Marshall mapped the municipal election results in Parkdale-High Park and Davenport.
• Alok Mukherjee at NOW Toronto notes how the Toronto police manage to evade engaging with its history of anti-black racism and violence.
• The National Observer notes the criticism of the Ontario Press Council of the Toronto Sun for its false report of refugees in a Scarborough hotel slaughtering goats.
• Perhaps unsurprisingly, Metrolinx is still awaiting delivery of the first Eglinton Crosstown vehicle from Bombardier. The Toronto Star reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: new subway stations, bike routes, land transfer, rent, Faith Goldy

• Although the York University station on the York extension of the subway line is heavily used, two of the newest ones are among the least used. The Toronto Star reports.
• Philip Gordon Mackintosh at The Conversation notes how, in Toronto and in other cities, traffic of whatever kind including bikes follows the routes laid out by planners.
• Spacing shares a proposal by Zack Taylor to transfer income generated by the land transfer tax from the operating budget to the capital budget, the better to husband this wealth.
• Prospective tenants in Toronto are using social media photos to try to find new homes. The Toronto Star reports.
• Former mayoral candidate Faith Goldy has been ordered to pay Bell more than forty thousand dollars, to compensate them for the costs of her lawsuit against them for not airing her ad. CityNews reports.

[NEWS] Five politics links: Weimar violence, Nazi bios, Russia, US military, Ontario under Ford

• Open Democracy notes how the unrestrained and unpunished violence of the far right helped doom the Weimar Republic.
• VICE reports on a remarkable project, wherein an American in the 1930s solicited and received explanations from Germans as to why they became Nazis. (The letters’ language echoes.)
• This Adnan Khan interview at MacLean’s with Russian expert Bobo Lo puts forth the origins and prospects of the Russian challenge to the world order.
• Given the growing problems of the United States, the fact that American military power versus China or Russia cannot be guaranteed is something Canada needs to take into account. CBC reports.
• Stephen Maher at MacLean’s makes the point that, with the casual corruption of the Doug Ford government, it is as if Ontario is living a Dukes of Hazzard episode.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the black hole-powered “cooling flows” of galaxy cluster Abell 2597.
• D-Brief notes that astronomers have, at last, measured the total number of photos emitted by stars in the universe. (Roughly.)
• Dead Things notes the discovery of a tool and butchery site of ancient hominids in Algeria, at Ain Boucherit, dating back 2.4 million years.
• Far Outliers looks at a Japanese-American’s interrogation of old Okinawan classmates.
• JSTOR Daily looks at 19th century woman astronomers like Elizabeth Campbell who played a critical role in supporting their husbands’ astronomy but were overlooked.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the victims of voter fraud, the members of stigmatized minorities.
• Marginal Revolution takes a look at the doctrine of double effect as shown in the TV series Daredevil.
• The NYR Daily notes how the language of Trump reflects and fuels the fascist right.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel states the obvious: Science is not fake news.
• Window on Eurasia notes five reasons why the Russian’s military-industrial complex cannot easily catch up to the United States’.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the history of Swiss Tasmania, a region in the center of the island including the Swiss-themed town of Grindelwald.