There is always hope. Filed under: Culture, Politics Tagged: American Politics, Hope, Noam Chomsky, Struggle
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Politics Canada: America, can you not tell your president is ill?
Donald J Trump is a sick man. He is suffering, tortured, obsessed and day by day drifting farther and farther from reality and sanity.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Does anyone trust Trump?
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 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: 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: 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 readingSong of the Watermelon: An Open Letter to Justin Trudeau on Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban
Dear Prime Minister Trudeau, In the wake of Sunday’s horrendous terrorist attack on Quebec’s Muslim community, I am writing to ask that you forcefully condemn not just the shooting itself, but the rising tide of Islamophobia that appears to have prompted it. On January 27, US President Donald Trump signed
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?
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Orwell Observed.
There must be a dearth of honest work for lawyers these days. It seems more and more of them are devoting billable hours to being published. It must be part of their contract to get their firm noticed and to attract real lawyering work. One such example of this phenomenon
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We needed to hug Trump’s ‘Deplorables.’
In the heat of last fall’s U.S. election, Hillary Clinton foolishly claimed that half of Donald Trump’s supporters belonged in a “basket of deplorables.” These were the obvious Trump supporters who were vocally responding to his speeches that pandered to racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic or Islamophobic mind sets. Instead of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: As the world wearies of Trump.
This is a bad sign. A world becoming wearied of President Trump already? It signifies an acceptance of something abnormal and dangerous. When the king seats his fool on the throne, is the fool now king? And if you accept the largess of the fool while the fool sits on
Continue readingScripturient: Auden, Trump and poetry
There’s a poem by W. H. Auden (1907-73) going the internet rounds these days with suggestions of Auden’s prescience towards the latest American president and contemporary politics. It’s a powerful piece, but the bad news for conspiracy theorists is that Auden was a poet, not a prophet. A good poet,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In debate with a demagogue.
The signs around the White House should read: Danger, Demagogue in power. And yes, there is no denying that President Donald Trump is a classical demagogue. Rational debate is now passé. It is a time of alternative facts. Facts as only President Trump perceives them. And Prime Minister Trudeau and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: On Bastille Day in America.
Watching the self-indulgent speech by President Donald Trump at his inauguration, it was as though he believed that his promises to the people of America were unique in world history. He was wrong. The same speech could have been made as the Bastille fell in Paris in 1789. But the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Let’s have a truce for Mr. Trump’s day.
It all becomes real today. That person will become President of the United States of America and there is nothing we can do about it. We can share our shock with the rest of the world. We can ridicule the corrupted system that allowed it to happen. Finding fault is
Continue readingTrashy's World: Show up. Dive in. Persevere.
Last night, President Obama eloquently expressed one of the wonderful things about being in a democracy (or at least as close to a democracy as we will achieve). We are free to engage. We are free to participate. Yes, by all means, if something rankles you or angers you, or you think that you can
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Let’s march to our own drummer.
It was hardly a surprise when the Prime Minister’s Office said he was not attending Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington next week. Frankly, the Canadian prime minister would just be in the way. It was more of a surprise that he would not be attending the concurrent world economic conference
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The adults are leaving the White House.
We were never as concerned with George W. Bush as President of the United States. Everyone seemed to understand that ‘W’ is as dumb as a Texas hitching post, but we were probably wrong to assume there were some checks and balances on him. People thought they had more reason
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Roman God Janus is smiling.
Looking both back and forward is a trick of a God such as Janus. Humans find it easiest to look ahead as we enter a new year. We have already written off the year behind us as a bad dream. And we have much excitement to look forward to in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Petticoats and pantsuits: The politics of gender.
There is a double standard in writing about the politics of gender. A man has to be oh-so careful not to offend while female writers can tramp so carelessly on men. And today, we are supposed to commiserate with the female politicos still drowning their sorrows in gin fizzes over
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