Watching Global television news from Toronto the other day brought on a profound dismay with what many people consider as news. There are people who never read a newspaper or news magazine. They have never learned to discern opinion from news. And it appears that neither has Global Television. In
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Is the bell tolling for the Hair?
When 17th Century English churchman and poet John Donne wrote ‘No man is an island’ he had obviously never met Stephen Harper. For the Prime Minister is the Hair and he defies the tolling of the bell. Does it not toll for him? Yeh, though he walks through the barnyards
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Do we really want all the latest election toys?
Targeted marketing is not just for your drug store. It is also in play for the upcoming federal election. Not that it is going to be as open and simple as sending you to the wrong place to vote. Canada’s political parties have massive databases of information about you. They
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Candidate: To communicate and motivate.
Part 6 of our series for Canada’s federal candidates. Do you want a guarantee of how to lose an election? It is so terribly easy. It is to fail to communicate frequently and enthusiastically with supporters. We are talking here about your party members in your riding, the people you
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Knowing how Ches Crosby feels.
The one thing people in Newfoundland can count on is politicians who rattle the cage. From the late Premier Joey Smallwood and others since, we have always expected controversy and salty comments from Island politicians. Ches Crosbie, a St. John’s lawyer, has been in the news lately for being refused
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: First lessons in the environment.
It hardly matters at what age young men have their first camping experience. The most common first lesson is to never pee into the campfire. Not only is that a part of your body that should never get singed but urine on an open fire smells terrible. This lesson occurred
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The problem with problem gambling.
Usually in diatribes against the sin of gambling, you get disjointed, uninformed and confused information based on bible studies, imagination and urban legends. It was interesting the other day to read an objection from someone with a surfeit of supposedly scientific information. A gentleman named Rob Simpson signed the article.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A final act of vengeance by Conservatives.
The last bill of the Conservative government passed the Senate and received Royal Assent last week. It was Bill C-377, MP Russ Hiebert’s controversial private member’s Union Transparency bill that will now become law in 2016. This is without question the most vindictive bill passed by the Harper government. It
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Outsiders need not apply.
If there was ever a closed shop in Ontario, it is that bunch of bozos ruling the roost down at the Ontario Legislature today. As an insider in all of this, you have to be embarrassed by it. While we might have fallen a bit out of favour over the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Consider a kinder Canada.
Canada Day this year marks the start of the serious political barbecue season leading up to the October federal election. There are promises to be made, hopes to be raised and disillusionments to come. It is so easy to promise nirvana and so damn hard to deliver. Bitter reality could
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is Mulcair peaking too soon?
Gosh, reading and listening to some political pundits, you would think that the coming federal election is already decided. It is all over but the shouting. It is one of those times when you wish you could take all those bets from the suckers. Frankly, this political apparatchik would not
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Quebec’s edge of the wedge.
You have got to watch those guys! There is nobody slipperier than a Quebec provincial politician. If they cannot get you coming, they get you going. They have the God complex. They are so sure of themselves. They even think they can control the Internet. They already know they can
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: They also vote who don’t.
Reading another editorial the other day by a writer who did not understand the subject tends to lower one’s opinion of editorial writers. We might be better off if we just stop reading those fillers. Imagine if you will an editor shouting out to a writer who he thinks has
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Toronto Star doesn’t know diddley.
Got up a bit late the other morning and found the wife grumbling over her coffee and the Toronto Star. She had read an editorial that annoyed her. Her complaint—on which she was quite voluble—was about the Star’s new stand on a casino at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto. Since she
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Pedal fast, pedal hard, death lurks.
As a youngster, exploring the City of Toronto by bicycle on bright summer days was a wonderful option and a great learning experience. Those were gentler times and traffic was not too congested in a city of less than a million people. Add another one and a half million people
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The media feel the excitement.
Just about four months to the federal election and the news media can barely contain their excitement. Not since John Diefenbaker came out of the West like an avenging angel has an election been so fraught with possibilities. They have so many scenarios to write about. Change is in the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: One of Justin Trudeau’s better moves.
It makes sense to make nice with the United States. It is surprising for many Canadians when that becomes necessary. Not since Prime Minister John Diefenbaker pissed off President John Kennedy have relations with the Americans been more in the dumpster. Not only has Prime Minister Stephen Harper been a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: NDP changing times, changing directions.
The CCF—the party of Tommy Douglas—represented the working man, the farmer and the socially conscious in an era of rapid growth and acquisition after the Second World War. We had little time for CCF concerns or socialism in those exciting years but the party was respected as a political conscience.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Working bigotry with Stephen Harper.
You have to wonder at what is coming out of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) these days. It might be desperation but defying the Supreme Court with the same foolishness as has already been put down is just a waste of our time and credulity. And having the Harper Cabinet’s
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: First reform the parties, then voting.
It is great to see the Liberals and New Democrats beating the drum on a similar issue. It is because both parties have recognized that the harder they fight each other, the harder Stephen Harper laughs. As long as they go after each other, the easier it is for the
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