[URBAN NOTE] Ten Montréal links

• The Map Room Blog links to some old maps of Montréal.
• Major English-language newspapers in Montréal, including the Montreal Gazette, are no longer being distributed to Québec City clients. CBC reports.
• Radio-Canada employees’ union is concerned over cost overruns in the construction of a new headquarters for the French-language chain. CTV NEws reports.
• La Presse notes how the to-be-demolished Champlain Bridge is a home for, among others, falcons.
• The Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice, after the latest delay, will have been closed for nearly two decades. La Presse reports.
• The Montreal Children’s Library is celebrating its 90th anniversary with a fundraiser. CBC reports.
• CBC Montreal looks at how, even without a stadium, legendary mayor Jean Drapeau brought major league baseball to his city.
• The anti-gentrification University of the Streets group has some interesting ideas. CBC reports.
• The city government of Montréal is looking into the issue of the high retail vacancy rates in parts of the city. CBC reports.
• At CBC Montreal, Ontario-born Jessica Brown writes about her struggles with employment in her adopted city.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: sober queer spaces, hockey, recovering history, Ed Koch, Pride

• Them writes about the importance of queer spaces like coffee shops where people can gather while being sober.
• Folio links to a fascinating study examining why professional hockey players have not come out, and what might make them do so.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the fascinating process of recovering black queer history through researching articles in sensationalist magazines.
• Hornet Stories describes the fascinating, disastrous history of closeted New York City mayor Ed Koch.
• A controversy over the headlining of Ariana Grande at 2019 Manchester Pride led to a debate to questions of queer representation on Pride stages. Global News reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: 1908, first apartments, 1930s photos, TTC stereotypes, Scarborough

• Jamie Bradburn took a look back at one weekend in 1908, as revealed in the pages of the Toronto World.
• blogTO looks at the surprising controversy surrounding the creation of the first apartment towers in Toronto, on College Street near the University of Toronto.
• blogTO shares a collection of photos examining the dynamic, suffering Toronto of the 1930s.
• Vice shares an amusing feature listing just some of the passenger stereotypes the average TTC user might encounter on the subway.
• Aparita Bhandani at The Discourse takes a look at how residents of Scarborough feel about the often unflattering stereotypes directed at their part of Toronto.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: budget, 401 Richmond, Scarborough, Torstar, Six Points

• Edward Keenan is critical of a Toronto city budget that does not have a particular clear focus, over at the Toronto Star.
• The new tax subclass for culture centres like 401 Richmond, Edward Keenan writes, is but the first step toward Toronto becoming the sort of city we might want it to be. The Toronto Star has it.
• It should be obvious, right, that people deserve to know the cost of the Scarborough subway extension before the election, particularly voters? Edward Keenan, again writes at the Toronto Star.
• The idea that Torstar needs government funding to survive–that it should receive such funding, as a purveyor of news for the masses–is sad but makes sense. Why not government support for media, to help them stay alive? The Globe and Mail shares the idea.
• The Six Points intersection in Etobicoke is going to see a partial closure for the next couple of days, Transit Toronto notes. You know, I’ve always wanted to see this place …

[NEWS] Five links about communication: Ontario Internet, Mohawk, Tatarstan, Iroquois, Catalonia

• TVO notes that slow Internet speeds cause real problems for people in rural Ontario, focusing here on the southwest.
• Kelly Boutsalis at NOW Toronto reports on new efforts to revive the Mohawk language.
• At Open Democracy, Bulat Mukhamedzhanov describes how a centralization in power in Russia away from Tatarstan threatens the future of the Tatar language in education.
• Ainslie Cruickshank reports on what seems to me to be an ill-judged controversy in a Toronto school over a folksong by Iroquois poet E. Pauline Johnson, “Land of the Silver Birch,” calling it racist, over in the Toronto Star.
• This politico.eu article examining the polarized media landscape in Catalonia, and wider Spain, is disturbing. Is everyone really talking past each other?

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Centauri Dreams notes one source suggesting red dwarf stars may produce too little ultraviolet to spark life on their planets.
• Hornet Stories notes how LGBTQ Dreamers will be hit badly by the repeal of DACA.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money approves of Frederick Crews’ critical takedown of Freud as a scientist.
• The LRB Blog looks at a new South Korean film examining the Gwangju massacre of 1980.
• The NYR Daily notes that China seems set to head into a new era of strict censorship, with calamitous results.
• The Planetary Society Blog considers the 40th anniversary of the Voyagers in the light of the Pale Blue Dot of Carl Sagan.
• The Signal reports that, for archivists’ purposes, online newspaper sites are actually very poorly organized.
• At Spacing, Adam Bunch notes how Upper Canadian governor John Simcoe’s abolition of slavery was not quite that.
• Window on Eurasia notes the continued official contortions around Circassian history in Russia.

[NEWS] Four links, on Lebanese and Lebanese food on the Island and mass media in rural areas

• At VICE, Mike Miksche writes about how being Lebanese in North America became much more complicated, after 9/11 and with Islamophobia.
• The story of how Cedar’s Eatery helped Lebanese food become entrenched on Prince Edward Island is fascinating. VICE reports.
• CBC reports on how The Globe and Mail is going to stop print distribution in the Maritimes.
• Bloomberg notes that rural areas need high-speed internet, too.

[URBAN NOTE] Five links on cities, from Vancouverites in Port Moody to swimming in Lake Ontario

• I really liked this Kerry Gold article in the Globe and Mail showing how the young, priced out of Vancouver, simply went on to remake Port Moody.
• In the Toronto Star, Edward Keenan describes how the West End Phoenix, a new model of newspaper, is set to develop.
• Also in the Star, Scott Wheeler describes how Torontonian John Vyga ended up helping take the Berlin Wall down in 1989.
• Steve Munro takes a look at what the metrics for TTC station cleanliness actually mean. We’re doing better than we think.
• Shawn Micallef wonders why so few Torontonians make a habit of swimming in Lake Ontario.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait is skeptical that the Trump-era EPA will deal well with global warming.
• Discover’s The Crux considers the challenge of developing safer explosives for fireworkers.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper considering the (real) possibility of Earth-like worlds orbiting neutron stars.
• Language Log notes an odd use of katakana in Australia.
• The LRB Blog considers the possibly overrated import of George Osborne’s move into the newspaper business.
• Marginal Revolution notes one observer’s suggestion that China could sustain high-speed growth much longer than Japan.
• The NYR Daily shares Eleanor Davis’ cartoon journal of her bike trip across America.
• Peter Rukavina does not like the odd way Prince Edward Island made its library card into a museum pass.
• Starts with a Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the odd galaxy MACS2129-1, young yet apparently no longer star-forming.
• Strange Company explores the strange death of 17th century New England woman Rebecca Cornell.
• Unicorn Booty looks at how early Playgirl tried to handle, quietly, its substantially gay readership.
• Window on Eurasia looks at one Russian proclaiming Russia needs to stop an imminent takeover by Muslims.

[NEWS] Four links about queer history, from the National Park Service to the Globe to New York City

• The National Park Service’s LGBTQ Heritage Theme Study is an amazingly thorough survey of sites and stories of note.
• In The Globe and Mail, Stephanie Chambers explores how the history of homophobia recorded in her newspaper’s old articles.
• Back2Stonewall shares rare archival footage of the 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day parade, ancestor of Pride.
• The New Yorker’s Daniel Penny tells the story of Joseph Touchette, at 93 the oldest drag queen in Greenwich Village.