It seems that the only thing we can count on U.S. President Trump to do is the wrong thing. Some people accuse his supporters of believing what he tells them. Yet the only thing they seem to believe is that he will annoy everybody else. It is something like taking
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: One man’s tweak.
Maybe we can just tweak this situation while discussing the twits who Twitter. And why does Donald Trump’s White House menagerie remind us of that awful daytime TV serial, The Young and the Restless? Quickly though, before the next episode in this ongoing saga, did you cotton on to Donald
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: More fallout from voting reform.
This subject would have been ignored if another commentary on it had not run in the Washington Post. The writer accused the Canadian prime minister of looking “both incompetent and cynical in abandoning the promise of (voting) reform.” It would have become an international incident but we have reason to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Where are Ontario politics headed?
There have been some political polls in Ontario recently that have caused a buzz in the news media. If the media had just checked back to before the last provincial election, they would have seen a similar pattern in the public preferences a year before that election. It certainly supports
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Wasted hours in Washington.
Did you think President Trump was going to slice and dice our prime minister for lunch the other day? First of all, Donald Trump seemed to like Justin Trudeau. He would think of Trudeau as a younger version of himself. This young guy was manor born. It is all so
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Pride Falls.
Torontonians of all stripes and types have always been proud of their Pride Parade. Originating in 1981, the parade has cheerfully acknowledged the growing acceptance of diversity in a polyglot city. Today it is one of the largest events of its kind in the world and brings more than a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A cri de coeur for Canada’s Conservatives.
For the benefit of M.P. Kelly Leitch and that O’Leary person we should translate: a ‘cri de coeur’ is an impassioned plea from the heart. And that is what this is. Sometime in the next month, Babel-on-the-Bay will publish its morning line on the current Conservative Party of Canada leadership
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Docs are rabblerousing with Patrick Brown.
Conservative Leader Patrick Brown will do anything to get himself elected premier in the next Ontario election. Making blatant use of Ontario’s doctors is just another sleazy tactic for an unprincipled political manipulator. And he is appealing to their greed. Truth and honesty be damned. Brown wants to use a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We all need editors.
Wandering through the web site called Progressive Bloggers the other day, we found a writer who inadvertently referred to a clique as a ‘click.’ That is one way to get noticed! It happens to all of us though as we keyboard our frustrations without the aid of that second look.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Hand-wringing in academia.
You would have thought that Edward Greenspon had covered the subject. He released his Public Policy Forum report on Canada’s news media recently and we thought that was it. We all hung some crepe for a dying industry, maybe shed a tear and the report was consigned to the recycle
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Donald Trump is not funny anymore.
The presidential oath of office in the United States needs to borrow a clause from the Hippocratic Oath of doctors: to do no harm. Come the time for an accounting, let us hope that the damn fool who told Trump about presidential directives gets his or her deserts. Trump is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: For whom the Tolls Toll.
The premier’s office at Queen’s Park in Toronto has many roles. One of those is as a woodshed wherein one disciplines recalcitrant municipal minions who fail to realize that the provincial party in power makes all the rules. There was an awkward bit on a news clip last week of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Waiting for Mr. Trump.
The reporters and pundits are causing unnecessary concerns. Does anyone really believe that Justin Trudeau cannot handle a meeting with Donald Trump? What is to worry about? Trudeau meets Trump; each takes a couple selfies; they ask about the respective families; tell each other, we’ve got to get together for
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A better role for NDP’s Nate Cullen.
Frankly, it has been disappointing. Nate Cullen MP from British Columbia has been so busy bitching and whining, he is missing the real opportunity. He has the right to complain about what seemed like a wasted summer of 2016 studying vote reform. It was no waste of time; it was
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Weep not for vote reform.
Among each successive generation there are those who seek to change how we elect our representatives to run our cities, our provinces and our country. Good for them. It is important that we think about it. We need to be sure we have the best system possible. And we do.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The more things change…
There has been a reluctance here to comment on the current leadership race for the Alberta Conservatives. It is not as though the outcome does not seem obvious but our best insight into Alberta Conservatism died last year and she is irreplaceable. It has left a serious sinkhole in our
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: One person can spoil your whole day.
No, this is not about the poor, sick misfit who is charged with murdering six Canadians in a Quebec City mosque. It is about the guilt we all share for bigotry world-wide. We share the guilt because we let it happen. Sure, you can pile the guilt on the pathetic
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Which truth matters?
Yet another report has been written on the train wreck of Canadian news media. Frankly, the Library of Parliament is already overloaded with such studies. There is always lots of hand-wringing and consoling for each new version but this new one can be guaranteed to gather dust as the many
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The fix in foreign affairs.
When Stéphane Dion was so unceremoniously dumped from foreign affairs by Prime Minister Trudeau, all most people could say was they hoped it worked. How would you feel if you were the new foreign affairs minister and the PM kept casting about for the advice needed to handle the situation
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: May comes; May goes.
Did you see that lovely picture of British Prime Minister Theresa May and President Donald Trump holding hands outside the West Wing? It was all the lady came to Washington to get. And it was all she wanted. You really do not think anything substantive was agreed to, did you?
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