Posts Tagged ‘Canada’
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”*…
As Dylan Matthews explains, 80 percent of young Americans still live within 100 miles of where they spent their teenage years…
A new paper by Harvard’s Ben Sprung-Keyser and Nathaniel Hendren, and the Census Bureau’s Sonya Porter, takes an in-depth look at young adults leaving home. The big takeaway is … they do not.
At age 26, the authors find, 30 percent of Americans live in the census tract they lived in at 16. Fifty-eight percent live less than 10 miles away;80 percent live less than 100 miles away; 90 percent live less than 500 miles away. Census tracts are tiny, hyper-local designations, with populations between 1,200 and 8,000 each; mine is only 0.2 square miles in area. The small town where I grew up has three tracts within it. Staying within your tract is an extreme level of residential stasis, but 30 percent of young adults do just that…
As the demographers and sociologists reading this are likely to point out, the finding that people mostly stay put is not new. Indeed, residential mobility inside the US has been cratering for years, and kept falling even during the pandemic, despite narratives about city residents fleeing…
How race and class play into this trend, how distant job opportunities don’t, and what might be done to change the pattern: “The great millennial migration that wasn’t,” from @dylanmatt at @voxdotcom.
* Albert Einstein
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As we get moving, we might recall that it was on this date in 1610 that explorer and navigator, Henry Hudson and his crew sailed into (what we now know as) Hudson Bay in (what we now know as) Canada. While Hudson is rightly remembered for this and his other explorations and chartings of the northern reaches of North America, it was at the time a disappointment: Hudson initially believed that he had finally found the Northwest Passage through the continent. Months of further exploration and mapping, of course, proven him wrong.
“When in doubt, go to the library”*…
Two great champions of reading for pleasure remind us that it really is an important thing to do – and that libraries create literate citizens: “Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell on why we need libraries – an essay in pictures.”
* J. K. Rowling
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As we browse in bliss, we might recall that it was on this date in 1779 that Sir Frederick Haldimand, Governor of Quebec, asked British dramatist Richard Cumberland to select books for the first subscription (public) library in Canada.
The library of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, which incorporated the collection of Haldimand’s library in the mid-19th century.
“The best blood will at some time get into a fool or a mosquito”*…
Woman dressed as a mosquito at the Russian Mosquito Festival
Nine year old Irina Ilyukhina earned the title of “tastiest girl” last month at the Russian Mosquito Festival, an annual event held in Berezniki, a town in the Ural Mountains. She and other contestants stood in shorts and vests for 20 minutes in a bug-infested wood; Irina’s winning total was 43 bites.
In 2013, the winner collected more than 100 mosquito bites; but unusually hot and dry weather in Berezniki diminished the insect population this year. Most years, attendees can participate in a mosquito hunt that rewards whomever can collect the most bugs in a glass jar; this year’s festival had to forgo the event.
More at “9-year-old wins ‘tastiest girl’ competition at annual Russian Mosquito Festival.” C.f. also, The Great Texas Mosquito Festival, held annually in Clute, Texas. (One notes that, Russia has confirmed just five cases of travel-related Zika in recent months, Texas has reported 125, and the United States as a whole, over 2,500.)
* Benito Mussolini
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As we slather on the DEET, we might spare a thought for Fredrick Kenneth Hare, CC OOnt FRSC; he died on this date in 2002. One of Canada’s leading climatologists and environmentalists, he led both academic and political efforts to measure and stem the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide, to mitigate climate change, and to prevent drought.
“In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it”*…
Magazine publishing is a dark art. But the world of niche publishing—people who create magazines for necrophiliacs or donkey hobbyists, or for those of us who like to ride really small trains—features its own requirements…
See for yourself: “Brief Interviews With Very Small Publishers.”
* Maya Angelou
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As we turn the pages, we might recall that it was on this date in 1981 that the first issue of The Record, Canada’s music industry magazine of record, was published. For two decades it provided the canonical sales charts for the Canadian music business both directly and as part of Billboard‘s “Hits of the World” section. It ceased print publication in 1999, surviving as a website for another three years before closing altogether in 2001.
The Record’s founder, David Farrell (left) announcing NewCanadianMusic.ca in 2012
“Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated”*…
Picnic season is upon us. One might wonder whither the ubiquitous design, illustrated above, adorning paper cups and plates in parks and backyards across the nation– Solo’s highest-grossing design ever… In fact, many did wonder, and took to the web to investigate. The crowd made some headway– they discovered it was created by a designer named “Gina”– but it took an intrepid reporter, Thomas Gounley of the Springfield (MO) News-Leader, to get the whole (and fascinating) story.
Read it at “The Internet is looking for who designed this cup. What does Springfield have to do with it?”
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As we have some more potato salad, we might recall that it was on this date in 1880 that O Canada, the song that would become our northern neighbor’s national anthem (de facto by 1939; officially in 1980) was first performed, in French, at the the Congrès national des Canadiens-Français. Commissioned by Lieutenant Governor of Quebec Théodore Robitaille for the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony, Calixa Lavallée composed the music, after which words were written by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. English lyrics were created in 1906; but the second English version, created in 1908 by Robert Stanley Weir, were more popular and became the official English lyrics.
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