[PHOTO] Young lilac, Havelock Street

[PHOTO] Lilacs in bloom, St. Clair Avenue West

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul profiles the construction of the Modern Berlin Temple built to a design by Mies van der Rohe in 1968.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the beauty of galaxy M61.
• D-Brief notes new evidence that Mars sustained rivers on its surface at a surprising late date.
• Gizmodo notes a theory that the oddly shaped ring moons of Saturn might be product of a collision.
• Hornet Stories suggests/u> that recent raids on gay bars in New Orleans might be driven by internecine politics within the LGBTQ community.
• Joe. My. God. notes that a court in the Cayman Islands has recently legalized same-sex marriage there.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the origins of the Chipko activists of 1960s and 1970s India, whose tree-hugging helped save forests there.
• Language Log notes the story of Beau Jessep, who got rich off of a business creating English names for Chinese children.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money, looking at the introduction of public healthcare in Saskatchewan and wider Canada, notes the great institutional differences that do not make that a close model for public healthcare in the US now.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining the close relationship over time between population growth and economic and technological change.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews documentary filmmaker Nadir Bouhmouch about a Amazigh community’s resistance to an intrusive mine on their territory.
• The Russian Demographics Blog notes, correctly, that one reason why Ukrainians are more prone to emigration to Europe and points beyond than Russians is that Ukraine has long been included, in whole or in part, in European states.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that we still do not know why antimatter does not dominate in our universe.
• Understanding Society features a guest post from Indian sociologist V.K. Ramachandran talking about two visits four decades apart to one of his subjects.
• Vintage Space makes a compelling case for people not to be afraid of nuclear rockets in space, like the vintage never-deployed NERVA.
• Window on Eurasia takes issue with the bilingual radio programs aired in Russian republics, which subtly undermine local non-Russian languages.
• Arnold Zwicky starts with lilacs, which include hybrids tolerant of the California climate, and goes on to explore lavender in all of its glories, queer and otherwise.

[PHOTO] Lilacs in bloom, Riverside Drive

On this wet, rainy morning, I thought I’d share a photo I took on my Riverside Drive expedition to L.M. Montgomery’s territory, of some lilac flowers in bloom under the warm sun.