[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links

• Jamie Bradburn shares photos from his neighbourhood’s East Lynn Pumpkin Parade, here.
• Sidewalk Labs is going to release details of all the data it wants to collect. The Toronto Star reports.
• NOW Toronto reports on the controversy in the NDP riding association for Parkdale-High Park over the nomination, here.
• There is a napping studio in Toronto, offering people the chance to nap for 25 minutes at $10 per nap. The National Post reports.
• CBC reports on a film about Little Jamaica, a neighbourhood along Eglinton Avenue West that might be transformed out of existence, here
• Daily Xtra looks at the legacy of the Meghan Murphy visit to Toronto.
• Spacing notes that the Toronto Reference Library has a large collection of Communist newspapers available for visitors.
• The idea of Metrolinx paying for the repair of damaged Eglinton Avenue does make a lot of intuitive sense. CBC reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Ten Toronto links

• blogTO looks at the Toronto of the 1950s, when Highway 2–Lake Shore and Kingston Road–was the way into the city.
• Jamie Bradburn takes a look at a 1950 tourist guide to Ontario, specifically focusing on its descriptions of Toronto.
• Jamie Bradburn looks at how, in the post-war era, dining at the Coxwell Kresge in-house restaurant was a thing.
• blogTO notes how many in Leslieville are unhappy with the idea of the Ontario Line being built above-ground.
• Samantha Edwards at NOW Toronto notes that there is going to be a Pride rally outside of Palmerston library where Meghan Murphy will be speaking.
• Spacing looks at the connections between Nuit Blanche and the Toronto Biennial, for Toronto as an artistic city.
• NOW Toronto shares some photos of Honest Ed’s in its dying days.
• Toronto Life tells the story of Peperonata Lane, a west-end laneway that took its name from a popular neighbourhood pepper-roasting event.
• blogTO notes a new movie being filmed in Regent Park, here.
• blogTO shares photos of the new Garrison Crossing pedestrian bridge, here.

[URBAN NOTE] Eight Toronto links

• Samantha Edwards writes at NOW Toronto about the controversy surrounding the visit of transphobe author Meghan Murphy to give a speech at the Palmerston library, with authors even threatening a boycott of the network.
• Natasha Tusikov writes at The Conversation about how Sidewalk Labs’ proposals for the Port Lands would give it great and unaccountable political power.
• blogTO looks at the 1945 proposal for a subway in Toronto, one with a west-east axis not on Bloor but further south on Queen.
• blogTO looks at Sparkles, the nightclub at the top of the CN Tower that reigned over the Toronto scene in the 1980s.
• Will the Scarborough neighbourhood of Birchcliffe-Cliffside by changed for the worse by new dense construction? The Toronto Star reports.
• People who, in illegally climbing the Scarborough Bluffs, get trapped on said feature might soon be charged with the costs of their own rescue. blogTO reports.
• The growth of popularity of specifically Toronto slang is fascinating. Global News reports.
• Jamie Bradburn shares an old article on St. John’s Norway cemetery, here.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer notes the latest news on interstellar comet 2/Borisov.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly emphasizes how every writer does need an editor.
• Centauri Dreams notes how the gas giant GJ 3512 b, half the mass of Jupiter orbiting a red dwarf star closely, is an oddly massive exoplanet.
• Gina Schouten at Crooked Timber looks at inter-generational clashes on parenting styles.
• D-Brief looks at the methods of agriculture that could conceivably sustain a populous human colony on Mars.
• Bruce Dorminey argues that we on Earth need something like Starfleet Academy, to help us advance into space.
• Colby King at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at how the socio-spatial perspective helps us understand the development of cities.
• Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res listens to the Paul McCartney album Flaming Pie.
• io9 looks at Proxima, a contemporary spaceflight film starring Eva Green.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how the intense relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia began in, and reflected, the era of Jim Crow.
• Language Hat notes a report suggesting that multilingualism helps ward off dementia.
• Language Log takes issue with the names of the mascots of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the emergence of a ninth woman complaining about being harassed by Al Franken.
• Marginal Revolution links to a new paper arguing that the Washington Consensus worked.
• The NYR Daily shares an Aubrey Nolan cartoon illustrating the evacuation of war children in the United Kingdom during the Second World War.
• At Out of Ambit, Diane Duane shares a nice collection of links for digital mapmakers.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at how the European Space Agency supports the cause of planetary defense.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews Kenyan writer Kevin Mwachiro at length.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on how a mysterious fast radio burst helped illuminate an equally mysterious galactic halo.
• Strange Company reports on the mysterious and unsolved death in 1936 of Canadian student Thomas Moss in an Oxfordshire hayrick.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps notes how Mount Etna is a surpassingly rare decipoint.
• Understanding Society considers the thought of Kojève, after Hegel, on freedom.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the falling numbers of Russians, and of state support for Russian language and culture, in independent Central Asia.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at how individual consumer responses are much less effective than concerted collective action in triggering change.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on some transgender fashion models.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait looks at the strange galaxy NGC 5866.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly looks at some of her prep work when she covers a news story.
• Centauri Dreams considers the idea of using the Earth itself for gravitational lensing.
• D-Brief notes a newly-discovered fossil parrot from New Zealand, a bird nearly one metre in size.
• Far Outliers looks at the values of cowrie shells in 19th century central Africa. What could they buy?
• Gizmodo notes the limited circumstances in which IMDb will allow transgender people to remove their birth names from their records.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the abortive American state of Franklin.
• Language Hat notes a 19th century Russian exile’s experience with the differences between Norwegian and Swedish.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes, after Epstein, the incompetence that too often characterizes American prisons.
• Marginal Revolution notes the importance of slavery in the history of Venice.
• The NYR Daily notes how W.H. Auden was decidedly unimpressed by the Apollo moon landing, and why.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the import of astronomers’ discovery of an ancient early black hole.
• Strange Maps’ Frank Jacobs shares a vertical world map from China.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little considers how competent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission actually is.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the internal divides of Russia.

[NEWS] Ten links about politics and culture and the future

• The Conversation looks at how the past religious homogeneity of Québec influences contemporary secularism.
• Scott Gilmore at MacLean’s writes, correctly, about how Canadians in different provinces are deeply disconnected from each other.
• Shannon Proudfoot writes at MacLean’s about how physicist Philippe J. Fournier ended up developing a second career as a predictor of Canadian elections.
• Are legal battles between different levels of Canadian government the new normal? CBC considers.
• The Conversation notes that most rural areas in the United States are bound to decline for structural reasons.
• This Guardian article looks at how a high-profile gang rape in Spain helped drive the growth of the far-right Vox Party via anti-feminism and misogyny.
• Jezebel looks at the foolish and shortsighted alliance between transphobic feminists and right-wing groups.
• Buzzfeed shares the story of how former alt-right activist Katie McHugh is trying to rebuild her life, and her plea to her fellows to leave before they get sucked in.
• Paul Salvatori writes at NOW Toronto about how the algorithms of major social networking platforms suck people into becoming consumers of inflammatory content.
• Maggie Hennefeld at Open Democracy considers if “clownish outsiders” are going to be the leaders of the democracies of the future.

[NEWS] Five #Indigenous links: land ownership, astronomy, Pueblo, transgender, MakadeMigize

• JSTOR Daily looks at the myth that land ownership was not present in pre-Columbian Indigenous cultures in the Americas.
• CBC takes a look at Indigenous traditions of astronomy.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how white female reformers of the early 20th century US tried to repress the sacred dances of the Pueblo peoples, and why.
• CBC had a great feature about how Cree doctor James Makokis uses Indigenous perspectives to treat his trans clientele.
• This report about MakadeMigize Clothing, a company created by a Manitoba family whose clothes are inspired by Indigenous languages. Global News covers the issue.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: Wild West, transphobia, alt-right, gay priests, books and community

• Hornet Stories looks at the queer history of the Wild West.
• Gwen Benaway writes movingly at Daily Xtra about the great harm transphobia continues to cause her, about how it continues to worsen her life and the lives of other trans people.
• This study suggesting that gay men, in political party systems like those of Europe where homophobia is not a polarizing force, often vote for bigoted right-wingers of one strand or another is not a surprise. Sadly.
• This Elizabeth Dias article at the New York Times examining the struggles and joys of gay priests of the Catholic Church, some few being out in this article, is moving.
• Joseph Osmundson writes movingly at Guernica Magazine about how, for him as a queer man growing into adulthood, the world of literature provided a much-needed knowledge of the past and his future. This resonates for me.

[ISL] Five #PEI links: Victoria-by-the-Sea, housing, PNP, Workaway, transgender licenses

• Peter Rukavina shared some images earlier this month of the PEI village of Victoria-by-the-Sea as it closes up for winter.
• CBC PEI notes that the vacancy rate for rental apartments in PEI is approaching zero, thanks to continued strong demand for housing (and, I would say, a lack of adequate building).
• Stu Neatby at The Guardian notes the continuing criticism of the Opposition parties in the PEI legislature of the ill-starred PNP immigration program.
• Millicent McKay at The Guardian writes about Ramón Velasco Alfonso, a Mexican who came to work on PEI for six months under the Workaway Program.
• PEI now offers transgender and private gender options on drivers’ licenses. The Guardian reports.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: Ontario PCs, Bohemian Rhapsody, Scott Thompson, Internet, Check Please!

• Ontario PCs have shamefully voted in favour of no longer recognizing gender identity. If this party, forming a government that has already invoked the notwithstanding clause, tries anything else against transgender people, let the fight start. Global News reports.
• The essay of Peter Knegt at CBC Arts highlighting problems of queer representation in Bohemian Rhapsody needs to be read. Why is so much of the queer content fictionally represented as negative?
• Peter Knegt at CBC Arts points out that Scott Thompson deserves to be recognized as a Canadian treasure.
• This Jon Shadel essay at them exploring how the Internet opened up new channels for communication and self-identification as a queer person speaks deeply to me.
• The Houston Chronicle explores Check Please, Ngozi Ukazu’s fantastic queer hockey webcomic.