Category: Uncategorized

To be honest, this little story is more about burps than farts. Farts are more amusing. It is about the ability of both milk and beef cattle to produce large quantities of methane gas. It has something to do with their complex stomachs that can digest things that a human stomach cannot. It causes them to burp and fart a lot. And since the State of Wisconsin in the United States claims to have more cows than all of Canada, we will point the finger at the Americans. They have got to do something about those burping, farting, methane producing creatures.

It is absolutely serious when you consider that, world-wide, milk and beef cattle are responsible for about ten per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions. I suppose most of us will indulge the environmentalists by eventually switching to electric automobiles but I will be damned if I am going to give up on good steaks and hamburgers. I have already given up drinking milk with lactose, in hopes of lessening my own production of methane.

I hear the Australians have found that feeding their cows some special seaweed can help solve the problem. I am waiting to hear about the milk from cows fed a diet with seaweed. My own experiences with seaweeds have been to label them as inedible. No doubt scientists will eventually find the magic ingredient in the seaweed and put the magic ingredient in small capsules. Seniors everywhere will certainly thank them. Whether cows can swallow capsules is another matter.

The problem is though that the world’s taste for beef has also been growing. It is reported that in the world-wide increase in greenhouse gases, cattle are responsible for nine per cent of the of the increase in gases, at a time when we are trying to reduce the problem.

I guess Babel-on-the-Bay will have to follow up further on all this free-form farting at another time.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

It is outrageous to hear that there are increased incidences of racial hatred in our Canada. It is, admittedly, a time of serious stresses on our society, but I can imagine no rationale for a deterioration in race relations.

From where I grew up in Toronto, the worst fault you could find of your neighbour was that he or she might vote conservative. The colour of their skin or their ethnic origin was as complex as our country and we learned from it.

Did you know that Canada has been welcoming Sikhs as immigrants since the late 1800s when some government official thought it was important to start to count the Singhs and Kaurs coming to our ocean ports.

Many black Canadians had ancestors here before Canada’s confederation. And it was the hard work of many Chinese who helped build our first trans-Canada railroad.

You might think this is all good pickings for a bigot but I think a true bigot would be tired by the end of a day in this country. Because we are the sum of our peoples.

And if you want to be a bigot, do not do it in front of me. A bigot is basically a coward. They fear what they do not understand. And there is much they do not seem to understand.

Bigotry often appears to be built on a misguided religious background. The former president of the United States, Donald Trump set the scene. He blamed the Chinese for the pandemic and Muslims for the strife in the Middle East. He tried to build a border wall against Mexico and Central America. He was your classic bigot. And his piety was as phony as a three-dollar bill.

What worries me is that much of the bigotry is rooted in the born-again Christians. These people who find religion late in life seem more receptive of the bigotry du jour. They seem to need a steering mechanism in their life and make some very bad choices.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

The other day, this commentator lauded Pope Francis for his visit to Tehran. He spoke frankly with the Iranian ayatollahs. He brought a message of peace and hope. And today, we learned of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith turning thumbs down on the approval of blessings for same-sex marriage. That is a ‘win one, lose one’ for the Roman Church.

You would hope that a well-intentioned person such as Pope Francis could drag the Vatican out of the depths of the 17^th Century. It should not matter to an atheist such as I, but it does. There are still a sizeable number of Roman adherents in the world. And many of them listen to the narrow-minded dictates from the Vatican.

It was like during the Trump interregnum in the United States. Trump was there in plain sight but his supporters were the puzzle we needed to understand. He gave them targets for their bitterness. He endorsed their bigotry. He spilled bile a plenty to please them. He is a bitter man.

What is happening in our society is caused by the lack of positive leaders. In a liberal society, how can we stomach the folly of conservativism. In a society demanding progress and enlightenment, we are beset by the meanness and stinginess of the right wing of politics and churches and our neighbours.

And yet, we have the proof of the liberalism, generosity and charity of our society. We know that people care, despite the demands and crushing depression of the pandemic. We also saw that it was the church leaders who complained about being separated from their parishioners. We did what we could to support the small business owners crushed under the ups and downs of lock-downs. The churches will probably survive.

But if churches want to attract or even just keep the parishioners, they now have, they need to show leadership. They need to look forward, not back. Whether you think you speak for Allah, for a God, or a Guru, you have to recognize the needs of people before you preach your sermon. You need to build a strong connection.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

There seems to be nothing more tiring in politics than media people who say there have to be more women in politics. They seem to have a funny idea that women would bring less partisanship and a more collegial atmosphere to government. I think that before reporters are allowed to write that BS, their editors should send them to watch women in politics at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. It has never been my experience in politics that women are less partisan.

And I date back to the era of Judy LaMarsh. There might be a fund for women candidates administered in her name by the liberal party but Judy was one of the toughest (and smartest) sergeants in the Women’s Army Corps in the last half of the Second World War. She ended up learning to speak Japanese and working in Intelligence. I am sure she deeply regretted not seeing the CBC microphones when she accidently ended her remarkable political career at the liberal convention that chose Pierre Trudeau.

Municipal politics attracts many women and two of my favourites in Ontario over the years were True Davidson of East York (now part of Toronto) and then Hazel McCallion of Mississauga. They were both friends and allies of mine at different times.

But I have worked for both male and female candidates at all levels. There have been winners and losers. It is tougher to lose with a female candidate. I think I tried harder for them.

One of the interesting differences between campaigns was that women tended to accept more of a policy-based campaign while men more often wanted their ego burnished. In today’s highly personalized campaigning techniques, there is a better opportunity for women.

Just give me five minutes each at the door with enough householders and I will have enough information for five weeks of policy-based ads and e-mails to weaken any of those households’ intent to vote for a different party. You can hardly win them all but you might be surprised how few households you need to shift sometimes.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

In a world of stupid ideas, you are going to love this one. The investors who bought Torstar, publisher of the Toronto Star, want to expand their newspaper empire into on-line Internet betting. We knew these guys were not newspaper people. Nor are they computer experts. Nor do they seem to know much about casinos. It appears that they are saying they want something to print money for them so they can play at being newspaper people.

They have already assembled the team that will tell them how to get a license from the government to compete with the government’s own on-line casino as well the established off-shore casinos, advise them on the design of a computer casino and design a winning casino for them. Frankly, it sounds like this team only needs Torstar to fund their design work and give the casino some credibility, first with the government and second with the public.

What worries me is that an unsuccessful on-line casino might be a bad investment that could hurry the demise of Torstar. Even worse, think of a successful on-line casino that ends up calling the shots for the newspaper business. Bear in mind that in any multi-facetted enterprise, it is the profitable division that ends up calling the shots.

More out of curiosity, I would like to know how closely the newspaper end of the business is going to follow the sports betting end of the business. The ethics of that would worry me.

This reminds me of the hearings in 2007 about the Bell takeover of CTV. I was in the room for the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) presentation by the head honcho for the television network. Listening to that plea for completion of the deal, I got the impression that this guy knew something about the future that he had neglected to tell the hotshots from Bell Canada.

Well, Bell bought a pig in a poke, thinking there was a future in network television. Little did they know that the future was in streaming video over the Internet and the networks were all up ‘Schitt’s Creek’ along with the CBC.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

As a fan of the Mound of Sound, who writes a progressive blog as the disaffected liberal, I have been slow in congratulating him on the excellent update of his blog. It is a delightfully clean, attractive and well-organized website. And, as usual, written in a knowledgeable, crisp and erudite manner.

Frankly, it embarrasses me. I have been thinking on and off of updating Babel after the adventures of more than ten years of its evolving nature. While I have had some time off lately to think about its future, there is something about its present formula that works.

I think what scares me is the time the Mound of Sound obviously spends discussing his postings with a collection of very knowledgeable commentators. I always have a problem determining what to do with comments that are longer than my original posting.

Over the years, I have knowingly cut down most of my daily (and only one per day) articles to between 300 and 400 words. I find that I get the most readers with the shorter versions. I seem to recall an apology some ancient writer made in a letter saying he did not have the time to make his letter shorter.

Another thing is that my readers seem to know what to expect from me. I try to stay within the political parameters of the subject. I have spent 60 years involved in politics and enjoyed it. My only excuse for writing as much about Trump over the past five years was the ease of showing how bad he was at the political scene. I was afraid he would leave incoming president Joe Biden with nothing but scorched earth.

This is a very disappointing time in Canadian politics. From what I read in progressive bloggers.ca, there is not much positive to say about any political party. Our submissions are a collection of daily whines—many of them at the point where you know their attitude and are needless to read. One exception is our disaffected liberal, who brings clarity to complex matters. He writes good!

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be temporarily sent to  [email protected]

Happy New Year to you! We spend Christmas and New Years hunkered around the television binge-watching The Crown on Netflix.  Nobody got our seasons greetings because just when I was about to send them, my computer died. Between Amazon, Best Buy and Costco, I found I could not buy a computer on-line because my e-mail was not working. Without being able to respond to e-mails, I could not prove who I was.

Luckily, I have a wonderful extended family spread over North America and my problems with computers became a cause celeb. It was like being on the receiving end of a ‘go-fund-me’ effort. Cheques have been arriving from the next generation to more than pay for the computer and software I am now using. I could not be more pleased. I feel they are now complicit in encouraging me to keep writing my scurrilous commentaries.

And speaking of that, please do not get the wrong idea because I have been watching Netflix’s opus about the British crown. I am still vehemently opposed to the idea of Canada having a sovereign.

While I must admit that Peter Morgan and the other writers did an excellent job of putting some intelligent words into the mouths of their callow characters, the royals still came across to me as vain, shallow, self-indulgent people. Let’s face it, there are those who already believed the Queen Mother was a lush, Margaret a slut, Phillip a philanderer, Charles a self-obsessed whiner, Anne a bitch, Andrew a pompous ass and Edward a poof. And they consider themselves our betters?

And if you think the Brit royals are a disappointment, you should meet some of their counterparts on the continent. You have to admit that Queen Victoria did nobody any favours repopulating the royal houses of Europe.

The only thing I think the writers got wrong was some of the details of the Falklands War. It was not exactly the ideal legacy for prime minister Margaret Thatcher. There were some very amusing aspects of that war, as well as the heartless and needless deaths, that the writers could have mentioned.

But we appreciate the gift of Netflix from a niece and her husband to help us get through the lockdown. It is a difficult time for everybody. Let’s get vaccinated against Covid-19 as soon as possible and get back to enjoying a full life in this wonderful country.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be temporarily sent to  [email protected]

I know, I promised you something scintillating about Trump yesterday. I lied. I just had more important things to do. I promised myself that I would start anew today, but this day started by pissing me off. My Toronto Star did it by informing me of the new prices for getting the Star delivered every day as well as full access to the electronic version.

I guess I have been waiting for it. You can hardly expect three guys named Rivett, Peterson and Bitove to fully understand the Atkinson Legacy that dates from the 1890s. Welcome to the working-man’s newspaper you schmucks.

They told us this morning that there was going to be a slight increase in the price of daily delivery. You know you are getting shafted when they refer to the new price of just being thirteen cents a day. I hardly needed pencil and paper to compute that one. That strikes me as about a 13 per cent increase.

If the Star had not been sneaking in an increase here and an increase there every once in a while, I would have some sympathy for the new owners. Instead, I would rather tell them to get stuffed.

And if I was only going to pay for just an electronic version, I would start with the Economist or the New York Times. I would have to fill in with some of the more reliable newsletters from Ottawa and the provincial capitals but I could survive without my 70 years or so of reading the Toronto Star. Even when I worked for the Globe and Mail and wrote for the long defunct Toronto Telegram, I also read the Star every day.

What I will miss is spilling my coffee on the more annoying of the Star columnists. I even found a guy down the hall who actually wants to read the sports pages and I was happy to let him have my sports section.

What those three amigos in the executive office have not figured out yet is that the Toronto Star is not a profit centre, it is a trust.

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Note: This has been revised. Never do mental arithmetic when you are annoyed.

Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]