[PHOTO] “Until all of us have made it, none of us have made it.”

This mural by Canadian artist Isabella Vella, built around a quote from Canadian politician Rosemary Brown, decorates the front of the Sistering women’s shelter in Bloorcourt.

[BLOG] Five Marginal Revolution links

• Marginal Revolution considers if the CFA franc system is dying out, here.
• Marginal Revolution shares a link to a paper quantifying the effects of the old boys club, here.
• Marginal Revolution contrasts and compares the old NAFTA and the new USMCA, here.
• Marginal Revolution notes how Germany has access to nuclear weapons, here.
• Marginal Revolution looks at the high rate of consainguineous marriage in Saudi Arabia, here.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links

• NOW Toronto reports on the long-time independent weekly’s sale to a venture capital firm, here.
• The Yonge-Eglinton Centre now hosts a venue where people can nap in peace. Toronto Life has photos, here.
• The family of North York van attack victim Anne-Marie D’Amico hopes to raise one million dollars for a women’s shelter. The National Post reports.
• Toronto Community Housing, after a terrible accident, has banned its tenants from having window air conditioners. Global News reports.
• blogTO reports on the ridiculous heights to which surge pricing took ride fares on Uber and Lyft during yesterday morning’s shutdown.
• blogTO notes that the Ontario government has provided funding to study the idea of extension of the Eglinton Crosstown west to Pearson Airport.

[NEWS] Five NYR Daily links: Colombia, slavery, churches, journalism, Shakespeare&Co (@nyr_daily)

• The NYR Daily shares a report from Colombia, about the ways in which the filling of the Hidroituango Dam interacts with Colombia’s other social and political issues, here.
• Sean Wilentz makes the compelling argument at the NYR Daily that the young United States was a critical venue for antislavery movements, here.
• The NYR Daily tells the stories of two churches, one white and one black, as they merge, here.
• The NYR Daily shares the stories of a half-dozen pioneering, but overlooked, black woman journalists in the United States, here.
• Caitlin O’Keefe tells at the NYR Daily of how Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company played a key role in the growth of feminism, here.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes a study suggesting the Milky Way Galaxy took many of its current satellite galaxies from another, smaller one.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly talks of the importance of having dreams.
• Centauri Dreams shares a study explaining how the debris polluting the atmospheres of white dwarfs reveals much about exoplanet chemistry.
• D-Brief notes that the intense radiation of Jupiter would not destroy potential traces of subsurface life on the surface of Europa.
• Dangerous Minds looks at the strange musical career of Vader Abraham, fan of the Smurfs and of the Weepuls.
• Aneesa Bodiat at JSTOR Daily writes about how the early Muslim woman of Haajar inspires her as a Muslim.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how an influx of American guns destabilizes Mexico.
• The LRB Blog looks at the American abandonment of the Kurds of Syria.
• Marginal Revolution notes how many mass protests are driven by consumer complaints.
• The NYR Daily has an interview with EU chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, on the future of sovereignty.
• Strange Company looks at the Dead Pig War between the US and the UK on San Juan Island in 1859.
• Towleroad features the defense of Frank Ocean of his PrEP+ club night and the release of his new music.
• Understanding Society looks at the sociology of norms.
• Window on Eurasia suggests Russia and Ukraine each have an interest in the Donbass being a frozen conflict.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at the weird masculinity of the pink jock.

[NEWS] Ten JSTOR Daily links: Beowulf, grain and beer, Sinclair, birds, TV, books …

• JSTOR Daily considers race as a subject for discussion in Beowulf.
• JSTOR Daily suggests the possibility that grain was domesticated not to produce bread, but rather to produce beer.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how the wild rice of North America resisted efforts at domestication.
• JSTOR Daily notes the Outer Banks Brewing Station, a North Carolina brewery powered by wind energy.
• JSTOR Daily shares a classic essay by Upton Sinclair from 1906 on the issues of the American economy.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the history of the pet bird in the 19th century United States.
• JSTOR Daily considers the ways in which streaming television might not fragment markets and nations.
• JSTOR Daily reports on how Sylvia Beach, with help, opened legendary Paris bookstore Shakespeare & Co.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the surprisingly democratic origins of the Great Books of American literature.
• JSTOR Daily reports on how the horror movies of the 1970s and 1980s captured a new female audience by having more appealing girl and woman characters.

[NEWS] Six LGBTQ links: drag kings, lesbianism, Montréal, Jim Watson, code-switching, kids

• Drag kings definitely deserve more attention. Global News reports.
• Lauren Strapagiel writes at Daily Xtra about her experiences looking at the decline of lesbian identity as a thing, under new social and political pressures.
• Gretel Kahn wrote at CBC Montreal about the pressures faced by the gay village in Montréal. (Toronto, it turns out, provides some useful models.)
• The brave coming-out of Ottawa mayor Jim Watson in the Ottawa Citizen deserves to be celebrated. His essay is here.
• Madeleine Holden writes at VICE about the code-switching that queer people have to practice.
• This Charles Dunst article at The Atlantic, on supporting queer people as children and to let them explore their identities, leaves me shaken. How might my own life have been changed, for the better?

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait shares images of Jupiter, imaged in infrared by ALMA.
• Centauri Dreams looks at ocean upwelling on one class of super-habitable exoplanet.
• D-Brief looks at how the Komodo dragon survived the threat of extinction.
• Far Outliers reports on a mid-19th century slave raid in the Sahel.
• Gizmodo notes that the secret US Air Force spaceplane, the X-37B, has spent two years in orbit. (Doing what?)
• JSTOR Daily looks at the economic underpinnings of medieval convents.
• Dave Brockington writes at Lawyers, Guns and Money about the continuing meltdown of the British political system in the era of Brexit, perhaps even of British democracy.
• The LRB Blog looks at the impact of Brexit on the Common Travel Area.
• Marginal Revolution reports on how Poland has tried to deter emigration by removing income taxes on young workers.
• Carole Naggar writes at the NYR Daily about the photography of women photographers working for LIFE, sharing examples of their work.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why time has to be a dimension of the universe, alongside the three of space.
• Frank Jacobs of Strange Maps shares NASA images of the forest fires of Amazonia.
• Window on Eurasia notes that many Russophones of Ukraine are actually strongly opposed to Russia, contrary Russian stereotypes of language determining politics.

[URBAN NOTE] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers the possibility that our model for the evolution of galaxies might be partially disproven by Big Data.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly reports how she did her latest article for the New York Times.
• Centauri Dreams notes the beginning of a search for habitable-zone planets around Alpha Centauri A and B.
• The Crux looks at how the skull trophies of the ancient Maya help explain civilizational collapse.
• D-Brief notes new evidence suggesting that our humble, seemingly stable Sun can produce superflares.
• Dead Things reports on the latest informed speculation about the sense of smell of Tyrannosaurus Rex.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares the NASA report on its progress towards the Lunar Gateway station.
• Gizmodo looks at the growing number of China’s beautiful, deadly, blooms of bioluminescent algae.
• io9 reports that Stjepan Sejic has a new series with DC, exploring the inner life of Harley Quinn.
• JSTOR Daily looks at an example of a feminist musical, the Chantal Akerman The Eighties.
• Language Hat links to a review of a dystopian novel by Yoko Tawada, The Emissary, imagining a future Japan where the learning of foreign languages is banned.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money reiterates that history, and the writing of history, is an actual profession with skills and procedures writers in the field need to know.
• Liam Shaw writes at the LRB Blog about how people in London, late in the Second World War, coped with the terrifying attacks of V2 rockets.
• The Map Room Blog links to a new book, Wayfinding, about the neuroscience of navigation.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution reviews a Robert Zubrin book advocating the colonization of space and finds himself unconvinced.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the ancient comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko explored by the ESA Rosetta probe.
• Roads and Kingdoms provides tips for visitors to the Paraguay capital of Asuncion.
• Peter Rukavina reports that, on the day the new PEI legislature came in, 105% of Island electricity came from windpower.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel argues that, in searching for life, we should not look for exoplanets very like Earth.
• Strange Company shares another weekend collection of diverse links.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little shares the views of Margaret Gilbert on social facts.
• Window on Eurasia suggests Kadyrov might dream of a broad Greater Chechnya, achieved at the expense of neighbouring republics.
• Arnold Zwicky considers some superhero identity crises, of Superman and of others.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomy Phil Plait notes that the location of the Apollo 12 Ascent Module on the Moon may have been found.
• Kieran Healy writes about how he uses scripts to produce animated graphics illustrating charging patterns of baby names over the 20th century in the United States.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Japan has been cleaning up Tohoku after the Fukushima disaster.
• Language Hat looks at an upcoming book project taking a look at how different languages written in the Arabic script interact with each other.
• Abigail Nussbaum at Lawyers, Guns and Money, looking at “The Bells”, makes the case that this episode’s solution to the issues of Daenerys was probably the best one that could be devised within Game of Thrones’ self-imposed limitations.
• The NYR Daily looks at the trial in Israeli military courts of Palestinian activist Issa Amro.
• Jason C. Davis notes at the Planetary Society Blog that the Lightsail 2 spacecraft is scheduled for a June launch.
• Peter Rukavina reacts, with eventual cool printings, to the Fluxus movement in mid-20th century art.
• Strange Company shares the story of pioneering Edwardian parachustist Dolly Shepherd.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society shares his 1970s proposal for a Marxist philosophy of the social sciences.
• Window on Eurasia notes that the GULAG system was a net loss for the Soviet economy, costly and employing workers at low productivity levels. (Bringing it back would be a mistake, then.)
• Arnold Zwicky shares some wonderful photos of some remarkable lilies.