[NEWS] Five politics links: Québec and Brexit, EU and Brexit, Macedonia, Angola, China

• Chantal Hébert at the Toronto Star notes how the chaos and uncertainty around Brexit is doing much to deter support for (what I think is a better-planned) separatism in Québec.
• Ronan McCrea at Euronews suggests that, without a shift in British public opinion on Europe, there might well be many in the EU who would not welcome an end to Brexit.
• This Ekathimeri opinion piece makes the point that a final settlement of the Macedonia name dispute will allow people in Greece, North Macedonia, and elsewhere to enjoy normality across borders, hopefully within the EU.
• Atlas Obscura notes the case for making a new national park in the interior of eastern Angola, and the background of human suffering that made the park possible.
• David Fickling writing at Bloomberg suggests that some of the autarkic policies favoured for China by Xi Jinping might keep China from escaping the feared middle-income trap.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, New York City, Espíritu Pampa, London, Skopje

• People around Beaudry station in Montréal, in the middle of the Village gay, are preparing for that station’s protracted shutdown. Global News reports.
• I, for one, approve entirely of the idea of a squirrel census in New York City’s Central Park. Global News reports.
• This report in the Guardian on the lost Inca city of Espíritu Pampa, famed for its resistance to the conquistadors and only recently uncovered, tells an amazing story.
• CityLab notes how non-Londoner British often feel shut out by the high cost of living and lack of affordable housing in London.
• This CityLab article takes a look at the modernist architecture in the North Macedonian capital of Skopje, largely rebuilt after a devastating 1960s earthquake.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes that far-orbiting body 2015 TC387 offers more indirect evidence for Planet Nine, as does D-Brief.
• Centauri Dreams notes that data from the Gaia astrometrics satellite finds traces of past collisions between the Milky Way Galaxy and the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy.
• The Crux takes a look at the long history of human observation of the Crab Nebula.
• Sujata Gupta at JSTOR Daily writes about the struggle of modern agriculture with the pig, balancing off concerns for animal welfare with productivity.
• Language Hat shares a defensive of an apparently legendarily awful novel, Marguerite Young’s Miss Macintosh, My Darling.
• Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle, takes a look at the controversy over the name of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, going up to the recent referendum on North Macedonia.
• The LRB Blog reports on the high rate of fatal car accidents in the unrecognized republic of Abkhazia.
• Reddit’s mapporn shares an interesting effort to try to determine the boundaries between different regions of Europe, stacking maps from different sources on top of each other.
• Justin Petrone at North! writes about how the northern wilderness of Estonia sits uncomfortably with his Mediterranean Catholic background.
• Peter Watts reports from a book fair he recently attended in Lviv, in the west of Ukraine.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog notes the new effort being put in by NASA into the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on some beer in a very obscure bar in Shanghai.
• Drew Rowsome reports on the performance artist Lukas Avendano, staging a performance in Toronto inspired by the Zapotech concept of the muxe gender.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps examines the ocean-centric Spielhaus map projection that has recently gone viral.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the question of whether or not the Big Rip could lead to another Big Bang.
• Window on Eurasia notes the harm that global warming will inflict on the infrastructures of northern Siberia.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell considers the ecological fallacy in connection with electoral politics. Sometimes there really are not niches for new groups.
• Arnold Zwicky takes part in the #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob meme, this time looking at images of linguists.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes a new image showing the sheer density of events in the core of our galaxy.
• Centauri Dreams notes the discovery of 2MASS 0249 c, a planet-like object that distantly orbits a pair of low-mass brown dwarfs.
• D-Brief notes the discovery of many new moons of Jupiter, bringing the total up to 79.
• Far Outliers looks at the appeasement practiced by the Times of London in the 1930s.
• The Frailest Thing’s L.M. Sacasas contrasts roots with anchors.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the controversy surrounding surviving honours paid to Franco in Spain.
• The LRB Blog looks at how the question of Macedonia continues to be a threatening issue in the politics of Greece.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer suggests the new Mexican president is trying to create a new political machine, one that can only echo the more far-reaching and unrestrained one of PRI.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps looks at the shifting alliances of different Asian countries with China and the United States.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the Russian reactions to a recent Politico Europe report describing Estonia’s strategies for resisting a Russian invasion in depth.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

Many things accumulated after a pause of a couple of months. Here are some of the best links to come about in this time.

• Anthrodendum considers the issue of the security, or not, of cloud data storage used by anthropologists.
• Architectuul takes a look at the very complex history of urban planning and architecture in the city of Skopje, linked to issues of disaster and identity.
• Centauri Dreams features an essay by Ioannis Kokkidinis, examining the nature of the lunar settlement of Artemis in Andy Weir’s novel of the same. What is it?
• Crux notes the possibility that human organs for transplant might one day soon be grown to order.
• D-Brief notes evidence that extrasolar visitor ‘Oumuamua is actually more like a comet than an asteroid.
• Bruce Dorminey makes the sensible argument that plans for colonizing Mars have to wait until we save Earth. (I myself have always thought the sort of environmental engineering necessary for Mars would be developed from techniques used on Earth.)
• The Everyday Sociology Blog took an interesting look at the relationship between hobbies and work.
• Far Outliers looks at how, in the belle époque, different European empires took different attitudes towards the emigration of their subjects depending on their ethnicity. (Russia was happy to be rid of Jews, while Hungary encouraged non-Magyars to leave.)
• The Finger Post shares some photos taken by the author on a trip to the city of Granada, in Nicaragua.
• The Frailest Thing’s L.M. Sacasas makes an interesting argument as to the extent to which modern technology creates a new sense of self-consciousness in individuals.
• Inkfish suggests that the bowhead whale has a more impressive repertoire of music–of song, at least–than the fabled humpback.
• Information is Beautiful has a wonderful illustration of the Drake Equation.
• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the American women who tried to prevent the Trail of Tears.
• Language Hat takes a look at the diversity of Slovene dialects, this diversity perhaps reflecting the stability of the Slovene-inhabited territories over centuries.
• Language Log considers the future of the Cantonese language in Hong Kong, faced with pressure from China.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how negatively disruptive a withdrawal of American forces from Germany would be for the United States and its position in the world.
• Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle, notes the usefulness of the term “Latinx”.
• The LRB Blog reports on the restoration of a late 19th century Japanese-style garden in Britain.
• The New APPS Blog considers the ways in which Facebook, through the power of big data, can help commodify personal likes.
• Neuroskeptic reports on the use of ayahusasca as an anti-depressant. Can it work?
• Justin Petrone, attending a Nordic scientific conference in Iceland to which Estonia was invited, talks about the frontiers of Nordic identity.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw writes about what it is to be a literary historian.
• Drew Rowsome praises Dylan Jones’ new biographical collection of interviews with the intimates of David Bowie.
• Peter Rukavina shares an old Guardian article from 1993, describing and showing the first webserver on Prince Edward Island.
• Seriously Science notes the potential contagiousness of parrot laughter.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little t.com/2018/06/shakespeare-on-tyranny.htmltakes a look at the new Stephen Greenblatt book, Shakespeare on Power, about Shakespeare’s perspectives on tyranny.
• Window on Eurasia shares speculation as to what might happen if relations between Russia and Kazakhstan broke down.
• Worthwhile Canadian Initiative noticed, before the election, the serious fiscal challenges facing Ontario.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell points out that creating a national ID database in the UK without issuing actual cards would be a nightmare.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on a strand of his Swiss family’s history found in a Paris building.

[NEWS] Five language links: Macedonian, Inuktitut, Afrikaans, Slavic languages, Catalan

• The Conversation takes a look at the fierce repression faced by the Macedonian language in early 20th century Greece.
• Creating an Inuktitut word for marijuana is a surprisingly controversial task. The Toronto Star reports.
• The representation of non-whites in the Afrikaans language community–the majority population of Afrikaans speakers, actually, despite racism–is a continuing issue. The Christian Science Monitor reports.
• Far Outliers considers the question of just how many different Slavic languages there actually are. Where are boundaries drawn?
• The Catalan language remains widely spoken by ten million people in Europe, but outside of Catalonia proper–especially in French Roussillon–usage is declining.

[NEWS] Three links from eastern Europe: Bulgaria and Macedonia, Moldova, Georgia and Abkhazia

• Bulgaria and Macedonia have at last signed a treaty trying to put their contentious past behind them. Greece next?
• The legacies of Stalinist deportations in Moldova continue to trouble this poor country.
• The plight of the ethnic Georgians apparently permanently displaced from Georgia has been only muted by time.

[PHOTO] Six photos of the Alexander the Great Parkette on the Danforth

The Alexander the Great Parkette, located on the Danforth in the heart of Greektown, is a wonderfully landscaped parkette occupying a corner next to some restaurants. On a warm summer evening, it’s a very nice place to hang out, one of the nice things to come of the heating up of the Macedonia naming dispute in the first half of the 1990s. (Most of the individual statues date from this time.)

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper examining a potential relationship between stars’ magnetic fields and exoplanets.
• Hornet Stories links to the Instagram account of Tom Bianchi, still taking photos of Fire Island.
• Language Hat notes the death of Ognen Cemerski, a Macedonian who went to heroic lengths to translate Moby Dick into his language.
• Language Log notes an unusual hybrid Sino-Tibetan sign for a restaurant.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money is appropriately savage with Hillbilly Elegy (at least of uncritical readings of said).
• Marginal Revolutions links to a paper noting French cities, unlike British ones, are much more tightly tied to old Roman settlements, away from the sea.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw calls for the return of the Australian $2 bill.
• Roads and Kingdoms looks at the aftermath of rampant electoral fraud in Angola. What will come next?
• Drew Rowsome takes a stand against, particularly in the context of Stephen King’s It, the now-common fear of clowns.
• Understanding Society takes a look at Erik Olin Wright’s thinking on possible utopias.
• Window on Eurasia notes potential contributions of Russophone Belarusians and Ukrainians to the Russophone world, and notes some controversy in Moscow re: widely-observed Muslim holidays at start of the school year.

[LINK] “From pro-American to pro-Russian? Nikola Gruevski as a political chameleon”

Open Democracy’s Vassilis Petsinis looks at how Macedonia’s embattled president has managed to slip from pro-Western to pro-Russian camps because of his very neoconservative slipperiness.

Following the unrest in Kumanovo and the massive anti-government protests, FYR Macedonia has captivated the interest of the international press. The most recent mobilization has been the peak of a wave of discontent that commenced with the countrywide student protests some weeks ago. In the domestic front, opposition circles have issued a series of charges against the government led by the conservative VMRO-DPMNE such as: promotion of nepotism, unwillingness to combat corruption, illegitimate surveillance of political opponents and, on top of all, growing authoritarianism.

Meanwhile, political analysts have detected a certain rift in the relations between Skopje and the West which has resulted in the Macedonian government’s more decisive reorientation towards Moscow. Russia has pledged its political support to Nikola Gruevski’s and the two sides have extended their cooperation in energy issues and other areas of economic concern. Without neglecting the crucial impact of shifting geopolitics, this brief piece mostly concentrates on VMRO-DPMNE’s, predominantly, neoconservative agenda under the leadership of Nikola Gruevski. It also sets in a comparative context how this neoconservative platform has remained intact despite the gradual readjustment of the state’s foreign policy from Euro-Atlantic institutions towards Moscow’s orbit of influence.

In 2003, Nikola Gruevski succeeded Ljubčo Georgievski in the party’s leadership. An ambitious young politician back then, Gruevski’s main ambition was to centralize decision-making within VMRO-DPMNE and modernize the party’s structures.

The latter objective was achieved via the recruitment of a younger pool of cadres. Following a widespread trend all over Southeast Europe (e.g. Albania’s Edi Rama and Serbia’s Vuk Jeremić), the party’s central committee and later the Cabinet of Ministers consisted of young, aspiring and, often, Western-educated individuals (e.g. the Foreign Minister between 2006 and 2011, Antonio Milošoski). Moreover, Gruevski maintained the central aspects of Georgievski’s strategy of rapprochement vis-à-vis the ethnic Albanian community.

Despite this, Gruevski’s term in office has been marked by the emphatic endorsement of Neo-Macedonism to the detriment of the modernist narratives over the Macedonian ethno-genesis in the nineteenth century. The adoption of Neo-Macedonism became further institutionalized through the endorsement of grandiose architectural projects, largely inspired by classical antiquity, which commenced in 2010.