[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links

• Google has apologized for the negative shade its image search cast on Scarborough with a Twitter thread. Global News reports.
• The National Post looks at the story of the architecturally remarkable Integral House, on sale for $C 21.5 million.
• South Indian Dosa Mahal, a beloved Bloordale restaurant apparently displaced by landlords, has found a new home. blogTO reports.
• The infamous Parkdale McDonald, at King and Dufferin, has officially been closed down, relocated. blogTO reports.
• The Ontario Cannabis Store is experimenting with a same-day delivery program. NOW Toronto reports.
• Lia Grainger writes at NOW Toronto about how poor city planning has resulted in multiple dangerous intersections. (I know of two in my broader neighbourhood.)

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Anthrodendum features a guest post from editors introducing a series on fieldwork and trauma.
• Crooked Timber’s John Quiggin takes a stab at trying to define neoliberalism as an ideology, not just a catch-all phrase.
• The Crux looks at desalination, a difficult process that we may need to use regardless of its difficulty.
• D-Brief notes that narcissism is linked to lower levels of stress and depression.
• Jezebel notes the return and legacy of Bratz dolls.
• Joe. My. God. shares the Sam Smith cover of the Donna Summer classic “I Feel Love”, along with other versions of that song.
• JSTOR Daily considers if graphene will ever become commercially usable.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money links to an analysis warning about commercial debt. Another 2008?
• Marginal Revolution points to some papers suggesting that cannabis usage does not harm cognition, that the relationship is if anything reversed.
• Daphne Merkin at the NYR Daily looks back at her literary life, noting people now gone.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the new Daniel MacIvor play Let’s Run Away.
• The Volokh Conspiracy looks at how the Trump Administration lost two cases against sanctuary cities.
• Window on Eurasia considers, briefly, the idea of Gorbachev giving to Germany Kaliningrad, last remnant of East Prussia.
• Worthwhile Canadian Initiative looks at the rises in health spending directed towards young people. Is this a warning sign of poor health?
• Arnold Zwicky looks at Gaysper, and then at other queer ghosts.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: wealth, east-end, marijuana, 1930, ride-hailing

• blogTO notes that Toronto is getting richer even as the rest of Canada is getting poorer, though growth in Toronto is driven by debt.
• Steve Munro looks at the ongoing reconstruction of the intersection of Kingston Road and Queen.
• blogTO looks at the reopening of an illegal cannabis store.
• Jamie Bradburn looks at the different ways mass media in 1930 Toronto shared election results.
• Nicholas Sanderson writes at Spacing about what other cities can learn from the experience of Toronto with ride-hailing apps.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• The Buzz shares a TIFF reading list, here.
• Centauri Dreams notes the growing sensitivity of radial velocity techniques in finding weird exoplanet HR 5183 b, here.
• The Crux reports on circumgalactic gas and the death of galaxies.
• Dead Things notes the import of the discovery of the oldest known Australopithecine skull.
• Dangerous Minds reports on pioneering 1930s queer artist Hannah Gluckstein, also known as Gluck.
• Gizmodo notes that, for an unnamed reason, DARPA needs a large secure underground testing facility for tomorrow.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Jim Crow laws affected Mexican immigrants in the early 20th century US.
• Language Hat looks at a new project to study Irish texts and language over centuries.
• Language Log shares some Chinglish signs from a top university in China.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money shares an interview with Jeffrey Melnick suggesting Charles Manson was substantially a convenient boogeyman.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper suggesting marijuana legalization is linked to declining crime rates.
• Susan Neiman at the NYR Daily tells how she began her life as a white woman in Atlanta and is ending it as a Jewish woman in Berlin.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at Hayabusa2 at Ryugu.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel celebrated the 230th anniversary of Enceladus, the Saturn moon that might harbour life.
• Window on Eurasia notes how global warming is harming the rivers of Siberia, causing many to run short.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: raccoons, High Park sakura, dog parks, marijuana, Queen Video

• Jamie Bradburn looks back at vintage coverage in the Toronto press from 1952 about some fortunate raccoons.
• blogTO notes that this weekend will seek peak bloom in the cherry blossoms of High Park.
• Edward Brown at Spacing writes about the decades-long struggle to get dog parks accepted in Toronto.
• CBC Toronto notes controversy in Etobicoke surrounding a local brewery’s decision to process medical marijuana on site.
• This National Post article by Sadaf Ahsan looks at how now-defunct Queen Video contributed hugely to pop culture in Toronto.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Park Wyatt, Hunny Pot, Queens Quay, Yonge survey, Stackt

• blogTO shows what the Park Wyatt, at Bloor and Avenue Road, will look like after renovations.
• Toronto Life takes a look inside the Hunny Pot, the first legal marijuana shop in Toronto.
• blogTO notes preliminary plans for a new community centre on the waterfront at Queens Quay.
• Transit Toronto notes that geophysical surveying will be ongoing for the Yonge Line extension.
• Samantha Edwards writes at NOW Toronto about Stackt, an innovative new market made of shipping containers at Fort York and Bathurst.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Blacks Harbour, New York City, Byron Bay, Luxembourg

• Police in Hamilton explain why unauthorized marijuana shops are not easy to shut down. Theirs is a city of laws. Global News reports.
• The small Nova Scotia community of Blacks Harbour has lost its only grocery store, presaging perhaps a future of decline. Global News reports.
• New York City is getting congestions pricing for traffic setting a precedent for other cities. VICE reports.
• Roads and Kingdoms is providing some tips to the Australian surfing resort of Byron Bay.
• Bloomberg notes the plight of British immigrant workers in Luxembourg faced with Brexit.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Kingston, Montréal, Wichita, Vancouver, New York City

• After years of renovations, the Kingston Frontenac Public Library is set to reopen to the public this weekend. Global News reports.
• McGill is taking care of the tens of thousands of ants in a colony displaced from the Insectarium in Montréal during renovations there. CBC reports.
• Russell Arben Fox writes about the politics and economics of funding a new baseball stadium in the Kansas city of Wichita.
• Where will the 4/20 marijuana celebration be held in Vancouver in 2020? Global News reports.
• This article at Slate explains how lower Manhattan can only be protected from rising sea levels by land reclamation.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: HMV dispensary, U of T suicide, GoT, real estate, Scarborough

• r/toronto notes, via blogTO, that the old HMV at Yonge and Dundas is set to become a cannabis dispensary.
• The University of Toronto is being criticized by students for its handling of recent suicides and its mental health policies generally. CBC reports.
• blogTO notes that the Ralph Thornton Community Centre in Riverside will be throwing a Game of Thrones-themed festival in May.
• New changes to the regulation of secondary suites may make things easier in the Toronto rental market. CBC reports.
• Urban Toronto reports on two ambitious plans to densify Scarborough Centre.

[NEWS] Seven politics links: childcare, China in Canada, drugs, Venezuela, Brexit, Finland

• CBC reports on childcare costs across Canada, noting how exceptionally low and affordable they are in Québec.
• If China withdraws its students studying in Canadian universities from the country in the way Saudi Arabia did its students, the financial impact on many centres of higher education would be significant. Global News reports.
• NOW Toronto notes how Doug Ford, surprisingly, has managed to make a mess of the nascent legal cannabis sector of retail.
• VICE explains how Europe has largely managed to avoid a fentanyl crisis–Europe’s drug dealers have much more of a vested interest in the survival of their clients.
• This Open Democracy essay notes how, in the light of the breakdown of Venezuela, this central alliance of China in Latin America is looking increasingly problematic.
• This essay at Open Democracy by an anonymous anti-Brexit activist from northern England notes that, in the end, an already vulnerable North is going to have to take responsibility for the Brexit it voted for when catastrophe hits.
• DW reports the results of Finland’s guaranteed minimum income experiment: Although well-being was improved, recipients did not increase their participation in the labour market.