[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Chinatown, neigthbourhoods, Port Lands, TTC maps, TTC open house

• Downtown Pets and Aquarium has reopened, just south of its old Chinatown location. blogTO reports.
• John Lorinc at Spacing writes about what Toronto should do as it moves towards an intensification of development in its neighbourhoods.
• Blayne Haggart writes at The Conversation about how the Sidewalk Labs plan for the Port Lands in Toronto really should become an election issue.
• Sean Marshall takes issue with some of the maps used by the TTC to advertise its different and varied routes.
• Robert Mackenzie at the Transit Toronto blog notes that, on Saturday the 21st, the TTC will be hosting open houses at the Leslie Barns and Greenwood Yard.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Toronto Coach Terminal, food banks, dogs, TTC, parties

• Tanya Mok at blogTO shares a vintage short film from 1970 at the Toronto Coach Terminal, “Depot.”
• The shortages of food in Toronto food banks are terrible. CBC Toronto reports.
• Dogs will be free to swim in select City of Toronto swimming pools this weekend. CBC Toronto reports.
• I will have to look for these TTC floor stickers installed at St. George station. blogTO reports.
• Richard Trapunski leads a roundtable discussion at NOW Toronto about the challenges facing party promoters in a gentrifying Toronto.

[CAT] Five #caturday links: Toronto, Australia, cat breeders, Taylor Swift, writers

• This blogTO video of a condo-dweller venturing onto a ledge to rescue his cat is still fresh one week later.
• Australia seeking to remove millions of feral cats for the benefit of its indigenous ecosystem makes sense, sadly. The New York Daily News reports.
• I agree entirely with the call in Wales to regulate cat breeders. BBC reports/u>.
• I am very pleased to learn that Taylor Swift is a cat person, featuring them in her videos, even. E Online reports.
• This essay by Tim Weed at Lithub examining the relationship between writers and cats is a gem.

[ISL] Five #PEI links: pets, diaspora, tourism, UPEI, Lawrence MacAulay

• A highly-publicized campaign to get Islanders to return to PEI failed to produce significant results, many arguing the government did nothing to create conditions for a return. CBC PEI reports.
• Tourism numbers have continued to grow on the Island, with 1.58 million recorded visits estimated by the end of this year. CBC PEI reports.
• Overall enrollment has continued to grow at UPEI, with particularly large spikes in international student enrollment. CBC PEI reports.
• Landlords on PEI can keep tenants from bringing their pets with them, sadly. (The contrast with other provinces is noteworthy.) CBC PEI reports.
• CBC PEI notes the political career of long-time Liberal MP Lawrence MacAulay, who has served for three decades.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Detroit, Metropolis, Seattle, Foster City, Kigali

• If ever I make it to Detroit, the John K King bookstore would surely be a must-visit. Atlas Obscura reports.
• Metropolis, Illinois, is celebrating Superman. Where better to do so? Wired reports.
• Seattle, like so many cities around North America, is apparently facing a gentrification that makes it increasingly uncomfortable for too many. Crosscut has it.
• The San Francisco Bay area community of Foster City faces imminent danger from rising sea levels. CBC reports.
• Decades after the horrors of the mid-1990s, dogs in the Rwandan capital of Kigali are starting to be treated as potential pets again. National Geographic reports.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Anthropology.net’s Kambiz Kamrani looks at the classical Mayan trade in pets, dogs and cats particularly.
• Dangerous Minds shares some vintage cheesecake ads for video and arcade games from 1980s Japan.
• Dead Things considers an examination of the thesis that the fabulous horns of some dinosaurs were used as sexual signals.
• Hornet Stories nominates some queer people to get stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• JSTOR Daily tells the story of Bobbi Gibb, the woman who in 1966 crashed the Boston Marathon.
• Language Hattells of Toty Samed, an Angolan musician who writes songs not in the now-dominant Portuguese but in his ancestral Kimbundu.
• Steven Attewell at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the ways in which the metaphor of mutants has been used by Marvel Comics to explore themes of racism and marginalization.
• At the LRB Blog, Matthew Porges notes how European Union opposition to the annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco is counterbalanced by the need to keep Morocco as a partner.
• r/mapporn shared a beautiful map of the Great Lakes, Nayanno-Nibiimaang Gichigamiin or “The Five Freshwater Seas”, from the Ojibwe perspective.
• The Map Room Blog shares Christian Tate’s transit-style map of Middle Earth.
• Marginal Revolution links to an essay arguing against the United States’ dropping the penny and the nickel, on the grounds that these expensive coins are loss-leaders for currency generally.
• The NYR Daily takes a look at early 20th century Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyan, a man whose influence is visible in the Putin era.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the eye-catching male photography of Ekaterina Zakharova.
• David Post’s analysis at the Volokh Conspiracy of the contract between Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump is a must-read.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the Russian government has failed to cultivate soft power, or wider influence, in the West.

[NEWS] Some Tuesday links

• Bloomberg notes how an economic boom will let Sweden postpone hard decisions, looks at the popularity of the Korean Wave in China, suggests that subsidies are going to be a big issue for cash-short Arab governments, looks at the investigation in Bulgaria of groups which arrest refugees, and looks at the long-term problems of the Russian economy.
• CBC reports on a Saskatchewan woman who has a refuge for pet rats.
• Global News illustrates the dire social conditions in the Ontario North, hitting particularly strongly First Nations groups.
• The Guardian reports on speculation that Neanderthals may have died in significant numbers from African diseases brought by human migrants.
• MacLean’s notes a study of handwriting styles in ancient Israel which suggest that literacy was reasonably common.
• The Mississauga News reports on a new PFLAG support group for South Asians in Peel.
• National Geographic notes the strong pressures on island birds towards flightlessness.
• Science Mag notes subtle genetic incompatibilities between human women and male Neanderthals which would have hindered reproduction.
• The USA Today network has a story examining the recent HIV outbreak in Indiana.
• Vice reports on the huge cleavages within the NDP, something also examined at the CBC.