[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Kingston, Montréal, Saskatoon, Washington D.C.

• Hamilton, Ontario, now has a wall open to public street art. Global News reports.
• An early immigrant to Kingston, Ontario, explains what it was like to move to this eastern Ontario hub. Global News reports.
• MTL Blog notes that Montréal mayor has cancelled the construction of a condo tower because it was not including social housing.
• A museum exhibit in Saskatoon is offering free HIV testing and blood donation services in the fight against stigma. Global News reports.
• Ellen Mauro at CBC explains to readers the movement to make Washington D.C. into the 51st American state.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven cities links: Montréal;, Québec City, Saint John, Moncton, D.C., Dallas, …

• CBC Montreal reports on how a downsizing Montréal-area convent recently put on a very large yard sale.
• Will the staged construction of a tramway in Québec City lead to the partial completion of that project? CBC examines the issue.
• The New Brunswick city of Saint John recently celebrated its Loyalist heritage. Global News reports.
• The new community garden in Moncton sounds lovely. Global News reports.
• CityLab notes the sad precedent of the privatization of an old Carnegie Library in Washington D.C. into an Apple Store.
• CityLab considers if cycling can make inroads in pro-car Dallas.
• Open Democracy examines the controversy surrounding the contested construction of an Orthodox church in Yekaterinburg.

[CAT] Five #caturday links: names, declawing, outdoors, Washington D.C., Pet Sematery

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D-Brief was the first news source I noted that explained a study demonstrating that, yes, cats did recognize their names.

Banning the declawing of cats on account of the inhumanity of that action makes perfect sense to me. CTV News reports.

CityLab is perfectly correct to note that, ferociously efficient predators they are, cats should no be let out into the wild.

This Washington Post report of a study seeking to track the location of cat populations in the wild in Washington D.C. is fascinating, and important.

Cinema Blend tells of the specialization, and sensitivity, of the eight different cats used to play the cat Church in the new movie Pet Sematery.

[URBAN NOTE] Five links on cities: urban growth, concrete, deafness, broken windows, vistas

• CBC reports on how, around the world, the construction of new cities is imagined as a kickstarter for economic growth. Is this correct?
• Guardian Cities points to suggestions as to how science fiction suggests futures for cities not involving concrete.
• CityLab considers how cities can be built for the benefit of deaf people, looking at recent work in Washington D.C.
• CityLab notes the problems of the broken windows theory that has girded much urban policing.
• Guardian Cities looks at how cities around the world try to preserve the integrity of their iconic views.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Vaughan, Kingston, Youngstown, Washington D.C, Almaty

• Urban Toronto notes the rising towers of the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, at the western end of Line 1.
• People in the city of Kingston are concerned by the implications of new Ontario government bills. Global News reports.
• This CityLab article takes look at the potential, actual and lost and potential, of immigration to save the declining Ohio city of Youngstown.
• Washington D.C, CityLab notes, is the latest city to be consumed by a debate over whether or not mass transit should be free.
• Guardian Cities reports on the remarkable discovery of long-hidden public art in the former Kazakhstan capital of Almaty.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Zoe Todd at {anthro}dendum writes about white hostility in academia, specifically directed towards her Indigenous background.
• Architectuul writes about 3650 Days, a book celebrating a architectural festival in Sarajevo.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a proposal to look for Planet Nine by examining its impact on the local microwave background, legacy of the Big Bang.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing considers the relationship between the natural and the artificial.
• This remarkable essay at Gizmodo explains how the random selection of locations on maps by cartographers can create real-world problems for people who live near these arbitrary points.
• Language Log looks at a visual pun in a recent K-Pop song.
• Conrad Landin at the LRB Blog bids farewell to HMV, a store done in perhaps as much by predatory capitalism as by the changing music business.
• Marginal Revolution notes the impact of the federal government shutdown on Washington D.C.
• James Kirchick writes at the NYR Blog about pioneering activist Frank Kameny and his fight against the idea of a cure for gayness.
• Speed River Journal’s Van Waffle shares a recipe for a quick Asian peanut soup, with photo.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why a particular lava flow has blue lava.
• Window on Eurasia notes that the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church, by virtue of its independence and sheer size, will be a major player in the Orthodox world.
• Arnold Zwicky starts one post by noting how certain long-necked kitchenware bears a striking resemblance to extinct dinosaurs.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul looks back at its work over 2018.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait reflects on an odd photo of the odd galaxy NGC 3981.
• The Crux tells the story of how the moons of Jupiter, currently enumerated at 79 and including many oddly-shaped objects in odd orbits, have been found.
• Gizmodo notes how some astronomers have begun to use the precise rotations of neutron stars to calibrate atomic clocks on Earth.
• Keiran Healy shares a literally beautiful chart depicting mortality rates in France over two centuries.
• Hornet Stories notes that, two years after his death, the estate of George Michael is still making donations to the singer’s favoured charities.
• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox celebrates the Ramones song “I Wanna Be Sedated”.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how unauthorized migrants detained by the United States are being absorbed into the captive workforces of prisons.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution approves of the Museum of the Bible, in Washington D.C., as a tourist destination.
• The NYR Daily looks at soccer (or football) in Morocco, as a badge of identity and as a vehicle for the political discussions otherwise repressed by the Moroccan state.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on the paiche, a fish that is endangered in Peru but is invasively successful in Bolivia.
• Peter Rukavina makes a good point about the joys of unexpected fun.
• The Signal reports on how the American Folklife Centre processes its audio recordings in archiving them.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel debunks some myths about black holes, notably that their gravity is any more irresistible than that of any other object of comparable mass.
• Strange Company shares the contemporary news report from 1878 of a British man who binge-drank himself across the Atlantic to the United States.
• Window on Eurasia reports on a proposal in the fast-depopulating Magadan oblast of Russia to extend to all long-term residents the subsidies extended to native peoples.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on another Switzerland-like landscape, this one the shoreline around Lake Sevan in Armenia.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Detroit, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rome

Ford Motors is redeveloping the abandoned Detroit Central Station to house workers’ offices. Global News reports.
• JSTOR Daily takes a look at how Washington D.C. evolved over generations into a major tourist destination.
• Wired suggests that Los Angeles is doing quite a good job of managing its limited water resources.
• Restaurants in San Francisco are adapting to the high costs of labour in that city, with its expensive housing, by starting a shift to self-service models. The New York Times reports.
• The city of Rome makes compelling backgrounds for the films of Italian Michelangelo Antonioni. Spacing has it.

[URBAN NOTE] Five cities links: Bay View, San Francisco, Houston, Washington D.C., Montréal. Québec

• The Guardian reports on the Michigan town of Bay View, a community that literally forbids non-Christians from holding property locally.
• Net migration from the San Francisco area seems to be accelerating, with unaffordability being commonly cited as explanation. CBS reports.
• Will rapid wage increases in Houston be enough to protect the labour market of the city if much-needed undocumented workers are forced out in significant numbers? Bloomberg reports.
• Data from smartphones is being used to simulate what might happen if Washington D.C. was subjected to a nuclear attack. VICE reports.
• The tourist agencies of Montréal and Québec City are having a cute little online exchange. Global News reports.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Charlie Stross at Antipope tells us how bizarre he finds reality, in its content and in its delivery. Certainly, it undermines for him the utility of the storytelling methods he first used.
• Centauri Dreams notes a new effort to separate superjovian planets from brown dwarfs, suggesting the dividing line between planetary and stellar formation is drawn at 10 Jupiter masses.
• Dangerous Minds praises St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, as a brilliant musician and live performer who should be seen on her most recent tour.
• Hornet Stories talks about the way out queer male pop musicians, like Casey Spooner and Frank Ocean, are becoming more out about their sexuality and their forthright self-presentation in ways traditionally limited to use by women.
• JSTOR Daily suggests that, in Indonesia, post-Suharto trade liberalization has led to a direct surge in men smoking cigarettes.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money links to an article suggesting how the 19th century American perception of China as a trade partner was driven by a romanticism.
• Washington D.C., Marginal Revolution reports, stands out as a city where economists far outnumber clerics.
• Roads and Kingdoms considers the difficulty of being a vegetarian or vegan in the Nigerian metropolis of Lagos.
• Drew Rowsome praises Liminal, the new biography by Toronto playwright and general creator Jordan Tannahill.
• At Strange Maps, Frank Jacobs shares an infographic illustrating the various investments and projects of Elon Musk.
• Towleroad links to a trailer for the new version of classic gay play Boys in the Band, starring out stars. This is going to be an interesting show, I think, especially as it is updated (and as it might not need updating).
• Window on Eurasia notes the deep hostility of some Russians to the permanent settlement of immigrants–Central Asians here, also Chinese–in rural Russia, in the iconic village. I have to saying, knowing what I know about PEI, this sounds a bit familiar.