[NEWS] Seven Christmas links: Bowie and Bing, horror, ghosts, holidays, xenophobia, Elf on the Shelf

• Dangerous Minds shares the story of the remarkable duet between Bing Crosby and David Bowie.
• Dangerous Minds looks at the 1980 horror film To All A Goodnight.
• Strange Company shares a strange story, of a ghostly choir reportedly heard in 1944, here.
• Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog writes about why she and her husband each take Christmas seriously.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the xenophobia behind the idea of a War on Christmas, going back to the anti-Semitism of Henry Ford.
• JSTOR Daily carries suggestions that the idea of the Grinch, from Dr. Seuss, has anti-Semitic origins.
• VICE makes the case for the creepiness of the Elf on the Shelf in the context of a surveillance society, here.

[NEWS] Twenty news links

• NOW Toronto looks at the Pickering nuclear plant and its role in providing fuel for space travel.
• In some places like California, traffic is so bad that airlines actually play a role for high-end commuters. CBC reports.
• Goldfish released into the wild are a major issue for the environment in Québec, too. CTV News reports.
• China’s investments in Jamaica have good sides and bad sides. CBC reports.
• A potato museum in Peru might help solve world hunger. The Guardian reports.
• Is the Alberta-Saskatchewan alliance going to be a lasting one? Maclean’s considers.
• Is the fossil fuel industry collapsing? The Tyee makes the case.
• Should Japan and Europe co-finance a EUrasia trade initiative to rival China’s? Bloomberg argues.
• Should websites receive protection as historically significant? VICE reports.
• Food tourism in the Maritimes is a very good idea. Global News reports.
• Atlantic Canada lobster exports to China thrive as New England gets hit by the trade war. CBC reports.
• The Bloc Québécois experienced its revival by drawing on the same demographics as the provincial CAQ. Maclean’s reports.
• Population density is a factor that, in Canada, determines political issues, splitting urban and rural voters. The National Observer observes.
• US border policies aimed against migration from Mexico have been harming businesses on the border with Canada. The National Post reports.
• The warming of the ocean is changing the relationship of coastal communities with their seas. The Conversation looks.
• Archival research in the digital age differs from what occurred in previous eras. The Conversation explains.
• The Persian-language Wikipedia is an actively contested space. Open Democracy reports.
• Vox notes how the US labour shortage has been driven partly by workers quitting the labour force, here.
• Laurie Penny at WIRED has a stirring essay about hope, about the belief in some sort of future.

[NEWS] Fourteen links

• By at least one metric, New Brunswick now lags economically behind a more dynamic Prince Edward Island. CBC reports.
• NOW Toronto looks at toxic fandoms. (“Stanning” sounds really creepy to me.)
• This CityLab article looks at how the particular characteristics of Japan, including its high population density, helps keep alive there retail chains that have failed in the US.
• MacLean’s looks at Kent Monkman, enjoying a new level of success with his diptych Mistikôsiwak at the Met in NYC.
• Can there be something that can be said for the idea of an Internet more strongly pillarized? Wired argues.
• I reject utterly the idea of meaningful similarities between Drake and Leonard Cohen. CBC did it.
• Toronto Life looks at the life of a Hamilton woman hurt badly by the cancellation of the basic income pilot, here.
• Inspired by the death of Gord Downie, Ontario now has the office of poet-laureate. CBC reports.
• Is Canada at risk, like Ireland, of experiencing two-tier health care? CBC considers.
• A French immigrant couple has brought the art of artisanal vinegar to ile d’Orléans. CBC reports.
• Shore erosion is complicating the lives of people along Lake Erie. CBC reports.
• MacLean’s notes how Via Rail making it difficult for people without credit cards to buy anything on their trains, hurting many.
• Michelle Legro notes at Gen that the 2010s is the decade where conspiracy culture became mainstream.
• This essay by Robert Greene at his blog talking about what history, and historians, can do in our era is thought-provoking.

[URBAN NOTE] Ten JSTOR Daily links (@jstor_daily)

• JSTOR Daily considers whether koalas are actually going extinct, here.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the life and accomplishments of Alexander Von Humboldt, here.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how a move to California doomed the Oneida Community, here.
• JSTOR Daily considers how the genetically diverse wild relatives of current crops could help our agriculture, here.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the devastating flood of Florence in 1966, here.
• JSTOR Daily points out there is no template for emotional intelligence, here.
• JSTOR Daily explores some remarkable lumpy pearls, here.
• JSTOR Daily notes an 1870 scare over the future of men, here.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the staging of war scenes for the 1945 documentary The Battle of San Pietro, here.
• JSTOR Daily considers the bioethics of growing human brains in a petri dish, here.

[NEWS] Seven links about politics in Canada and around the world

• The immigration fiasco in Québec shows the tension between different strains of local nationalism. The Conversation reports.
• The Québec labour market, Le Devoir notes, actually bears up well to a comparison with Ontario. Gaps in employment have been closed, and then some.
• Barry Saxifrage at the National Observer notes how, in terms of climate pollution, Alberta and Saskatchewan are heading in the opposite direction from the rest of Canada.
• Many Canadians, displaced by the collapse of the oil economy, have gone south to Texas. Global News reports.
• Will the divisions in the United States only get deeper? How bad will it get? MacLean’s considers.
• The chaos in Iran, and the terrible death toll, deserve to be noted. Is the Islamic Republic nearing, if not its end, some other transition? Open Democracy theorizes.
• Terry Glavin at MacLean’s notes how governments around the world are facing crises of legitimacy, here.

[CAT] Seven #caturday links: Lil Bub, Pallas cats, Smudge, adoptions, expressions

• This Wired obituary for Lil Bub, arguing that the time for the Internet to be a place fo whimsy is over, does make me sad.
• Norwegian forest cats look amazing! The Dockyards has photos.
• The Pallas cats newly in the Calgary Zoo are, rightfully, becoming big hits. Cottage Life has more.
• Ottawa cat Smudge, already a meme hit, has become a celebrity. CBC Ottawa has more.
• Unsurprisingly, cats bond with their owners in the same sort of way as dogs and even human infants. More here.
• Happily, record numbers of cats are being adopted from shelters, given new homes. Global News reports.
• Some few people are apparently good are deciphering the expressions of cats, 15% of the total in one study sample. VICE reports.

[NEWS] Six cetacean links

• Apparently upwards of 95% of dolphins are right-handed. Global News reports.
• A dead sperm whale has been found in Scotland, choked on a hundred kilograms of plastic waste. CBC reports.
• Tracking the heart rate of a blue whale is something that we can do. CBC reports.
• Nearly a hundred cetaceans held in a Russian facility seem to be doing well after being released to their ocean home. CBC reports.
• The policies of Elizabeth Warren could, if she was elected, impact the seafood industry of Atlantic Canada. (As, I think, they should.) CBC reports.
• Whale populations can, if we treat them well, help save the climate from catastrophe. VICE makes the case.

[NEWS] Seven science links

• Climate change is playing a major role in the wildfires of California. Are we now in the Fire Age? Global News considers.
• The new normal of the Arctic Ocean is to be ice-free. Global News reports.
• Plants first reached land through unexpected horizontal gene transfers. CBC reports.
• Zebra mussels have made it to the Lake of the Woods. Global News reports.
• An artificial leaf that turns carbon dioxide into usable fuel is a remarkable technology. Universe Today reports.
• Earth once hosted nine human species; now it has one. What happened? National Pot considers.
• Thanks to better medical care and preventative measures, people have longer healthy lifespans than ever before. Global News reports.

[NEWS] Five Window on Eurasia links: Estonia, eugenics, empire, demographics, Old Believers

• Window on Eurasia notes how Russia continues to oppose the recognition of the 1920 Treaty of Tartu as the basis for Russia-Estonia relations, here.
• Window on Eurasia reports on how, and why, Stalin cracked down on eugenics as a permissible theory in the Soviet Union, here.
• Window on Eurasia reports on polling suggesting Russians are more interested in their country acting as a great power than as an empire, here.
• Window on Eurasia notes how, in the space of the former Soviet Union, population growth in the six Muslim-majority republics more than compensates in absolute numbers for declines elsewhere.
• Window on Eurasia notes the resettlement of a couple hundred Old Believers, part of a diaspora of perhaps seven thousand, in the Far East of Russia.

[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.