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I grow old… I grow old…

I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled

~ T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Hmmm, will I fare well in the judgment of that water drop moment?

When I grow old and wear the bottom of my trousers rolled and look back upon the landscape of my life, I will be obligated to examine how I acted in those unexpected, paradigm-changing periods that shifted the axis of life.

I would never have expected that the entire world would be taken hostage for two years, almost brought to a standstill, by a virus that had existed for 50 years and will continue to exist for 50 years or more into the future.

In the light of final reflection, I will ponder that conundrum and wonder how much the trajectory of mankind was diverted by the pandemic and whether it needed to be so.

I would never have expected that a man who inherited wealth and yet declared bankruptcy six times for his businesses, promised to build a wall across the U.S. / Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it, would become the 45^th President (and possibly the 47^th) of the United States.

In the light of final reflection, I will ponder that conundrum and wonder what it says about the restlessness and discontent of the nation in which it happened.

I would never have expected that we would arrive at a time when 10% of the world’s population controls 90% of wealth, when the net worth of the world’s richest person would be over $250 billion while growing numbers of people are destitute and homeless.

In the light of final reflection, I will ponder that conundrum and wonder how control of the purse strings fell into the hands of so few.

I would never have expected that the Internet of Things would create a parallel, alternative world in a virtual landscape and that an intelligence tug of war would evolve between the human mind and the artificial brain.

In the light of final reflection, I will ponder that conundrum and wonder if there was a threshold in that journey that should never have been crossed.

I would never have expected that mankind would turn a blind eye to the health of our planet for the sake of greedy consumption and keep moving steadily down that road even when the dire consequences were clear. 

In the light of final reflection, I will ponder that conundrum and wonder if my generation is the one that witnessed the beginning of the end.

When I grow old and wear my trousers rolled, I will have to ask if there were forks in the road where we as a species chose wrong. Equally important, I will have to gaze into my image in a waterdrop and ask if I did enough in my small sphere of influence to try and tip the scales for the better.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · T.S. Eliot · The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock · water dropNo Comments.

Hmmm, do they pause to pray before they capture and consume their prey?

I recall vividly the first time I saw a Mantid (or Mantis, as they are now commonly called) when I was a child. I found one on our front porch and thought it was just about the most fascinating creature I had ever seen or could ever hope to see. Flash forward a half century later and I still find this startlingly large inset spellbinding.

What is so special about Mantids?

A Mantid can remain motionless for long periods of time or sway gently back and forth with its head raised and front legs stretched out in what looks to be a position of supplication – hence its nickname Praying Mantis. The ancient Greeks gave it the name Mantis because they believed it had supernatural powers. Its current scientific name Mantid, or soothsayer, also reflects this belief.

What do Mantids look like?

Mantids are spear-shaped with long, gangly jointed legs and an alien-looking, triangular face. They may be bright green or brown which forms an effective camouflage against vegetation. They can grow to fully four inches (10 cm) giving them a fearsome appearance.

How long do they live and where?

Mantids are always found in vegetation – long grass or weeds – where they lay in wait to ambush their prey. They live for six to twelve months. Female Mantids often kill and eat their partner after mating providing nutrition for their offspring! This is known as sexual cannibalism and still puzzles scientists.

Where do they fit in the quilt of nature?

Mantids serve as an effective natural form of insect control feeding on small insects like spiders, mosquitos, crickets and grasshoppers. Although I find it hard to fathom, they can on apparently subdue and consume larger prey such as frogs and hummingbirds.

In turn, they are a food source for larger creatures such as birds, bats and even fish if they happen to fall into the water. Mantids are distributed worldwide in both tropical and temperate climates. There are over 2,400 species of Mantids of which two are found in Ontario.

One more  fascinating patch in the quilt of nature stitched together by threads of interdependence and natural balance.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Tags:   Chinese Mantis · European Mantis · Mantid · Mantis · metaphor · Michae Robert Dyet · Nature · Praying MantisNo Comments.

Hmmm… Missing: One moral compass. If found, return to Queens Park, Office of the Premier.

Once again Ontario Premier Doug Ford is making headlines spewing controversial and insensitive remarks every time he steps in front of the camera. No one likes publicity more than Ford. Think he is just telling like it is for the general good of all? Think again.

Ford has taken aim at the homeless in Ontario with remarks so insensitive they are staggering. He told reporters that those who are homeless and are healthy, should “get off your ass and start working like everyone else is.” He has suggested that people living in encampments “just need to get a job to lift themselves out of poverty.”

Doug, listen and listen well. No one chooses to be out of work and broke. No one chooses to be homeless. No one chooses to live in an encampment. People find themselves in this predicament because society has left them behind. Some of them have disabilities or special needs that cripple them.

Shame on you for trying to get political mileage out of the disadvantaged.

Ford has also taken aim at immigrants. Recently, after a shooting at Toronto Jewish girls school, he accused people of bringing problems from everywhere else in the world to the province. Adding: “…don’t come to Canada if you’re going to start terrorizing neighbourhoods like this.”

If that remark sounds disturbingly familiar, it is because it echoes the orange-faced guy south of the border who is trying to get elected president a second time by promising mass deportation of immigrants some of whom he accuses of eating cats and dogs in Springfield.

Ford has also targeted environmentalists. He wants to fast-track the environmental impact assessment standing in the way of his promise to build Highway 413 across the top of the GTA connecting Halton, Peel and York regions. His remarks on this front:

“There’s hundreds of thousands of people stuck in their cars, backed up from here to Timbuktu, and you’re worried about a grasshopper jumping across the highway.” That is a gross oversimplification of the issue. The proposed highway could have devastating impacts on Ontario’s protected Greenbelt as well as on rivers, farms and many endangered species.

Doug, listen and listen well. Many of us care about grasshoppers and the habitats that support them. If you took the time to educate yourself, you would learn that there is a direct link between human health and wellbeing – and in fact the sustainability of humans as a species – and the health of natural ecosystems.

Why is Ford sounding off so indiscriminately now? It is all about prepping for an election. The next federal government election will happen no later than October 2025. The Trudeau Liberals are on their way out and the Poilievre Conservatives are poised to take over.

Ford knows that the province of Ontario does not like to have the same party in power provincially and federally. So he is seeding the ground for an early provincial election to get ahead of the political swing that will be happening at the federal level… not to mention getting ahead of the outcome of the RCMP criminal investigation into his Greenbelt scandal.

Politics is by nature a self-serving organism. The primary purpose of any government is to get itself re-elected. But there is a dividing line between political opportunism and plain old lust for power. A political leader must have a moral compass to prevent him or her from crossing that line. Ford lost his moral compass some time ago. Sadly, once it is lost, is rarely ever recovered.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   Doug Ford · metaphor · moral compassNo Comments.

It is the glistening autumnal side of summer. I feel a cool vein in the breeze, which braces my thought, and I pass with pleasure over sheltered and sunny portions of the sand where the summer’s heat is undiminished, and I realize what a friend I am losing.

Henry David Thoreau – American Naturalist, Essayist, Poet and Philosopher

Hmmm, do we have to let go of summer all at once?

As I put up this post, we are about to turn the page from the lazy river of summer to the leaves-underfoot pathways of autumn. The official date for the turning of the seasons is of course rather arbitrary. I like to think that it is more of a slow, graceful retiring, than a date on a calendar, as Thoreau so elegantly states it at the head of this post.

The transition always inspires in me a reflective mindset and a desire to cast a look back at the faces the summer that is ending has taken. For me that means recalling the highlights – the lifers – naturalist terminology for a species sighted for the first time – from my summer excursions into the heart of nature.

Pipevine Swallowtails do not usually make it across the Great Lakes into Ontario. But this summer some made the crossing. This specimen did not make it easy on me. I had to shoot through a gap in the foliage to capture the bright orange splotches and white-fringed borders that stand out so boldly against the blue-black wings.

Fortune smiled upon me when I caught sight of this Emergent Mayfly. It posed perfectly as it clung to a palm-shaped leaf – arching its slender body, extending its front legs and flaring its black-checkered wings as though soaking up the heat of the July day.

Horse flies are among the world’s largest flies and impossible to overlook. This Furrowed Horse Fly greeted me on a woodland path on a steamy August day. Its large, glistening compound eyes seemed to me to be taking in the full spendour of the day and inviting me to do so as well.

 I had to wait until early September to set eyes upon this Arrrow Clubtail which is classified as “imperiled in Canada”. It is a startlingly large dragonfly with emerald green eyes, broad yellow thorax stripes and the clubbed tail that gives this family of dragonflies its name. Fortunately for me, it was very patient and gave me several minutes to admire it.

And so, with this retrospective, the lazy river of summer is drawing to a close. But the ending is not a firm date on a calendar. Thoreau says it best so I will give the final word to him.

Summer passes into autumn in some unimaginable point in time, like the turning of a leaf.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   Arrow Clubtail · Emergent Mayfly · Furrowed Horse Fly · Henry David Thoreau · last day of summer · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Pipevine SwallowtailNo Comments.

Hmmm, oh to be a fly on the wall listening in on the conversation.

Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams launched from Cape Canaveral Space Station on June 5 for what was supposed to be an eight day mission. The purpose of the mission: Evaluate the capabilities of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft before NASA certified it for regular International Space Station (ISS) astronaut rotation missions.

It is safe to say that Starliner failed the test. Three months later the two astronauts are still residing in the ISS after Starliner suffered multiple helium leaks and reaction control system thruster failures. NASA has opted to return Starliner to Earth empty. Wilmore and Williams now have to wait until February 2025 for a ride home on SpaceX’s four-seat Dragon Freedom.

I could not resist imagining being a fly on the wall and overhearing the conversations that have taken place between the astronauts and NASA. I think they might have been along these lines.

PRIOR TO LIFT-OFF

Butch Wilmore: NASA, that helium leak that was detected in testing will not be a problem, right?

NASA: Affirmative, we are confident Starliner is mission-worthy.

Butch Wilmore: You bloody well better be right about that!

AFTER LIFT-OFF

Suni Williams: NASA, we are reading helium leaks. Can you confirm?

NASA: Affirmative. We are also reading reaction control system thruster failures.

Suni Williams: Well that’s not good! Should we ditch?

NASA: Negative, we believe Starliner remains mission-worthy.

Suni Williams: Yeah, you said that before. FYI: Your credibility is becoming suspect.

AT DOCKING ATTEMPT

Butch Wilmore: NASA, we are reading additional thruster system problems. Can you confirm?

NASA: Umm… Affirmative. We are reading five thruster failures.

Butch Wilmore: Five failures! Well, shit! You said that was not going to be an issue!

NASA: We’re working the problem. You will need to switch to manual control for now.

Butch Wilmore: Really? Work faster! Switching to manual control.

AFTER SUCCESSFUL DOCKING

NASA: We will need to conduct some tests and gather data regarding Starliner’s performance. We may need to extend your mission.

Suni Williams: Exactly how long are we talking?

NASA: Ummm… That is unclear at this time.

Suni Williams: Not the answer we were looking for!

NASA: Sorry about that. Don’t worry, we’ve got our best engineers working the problem.

AUGUST 24

NASA: We have determined there is too much uncertainty regarding how the thrusters will behave. You will not be able to use Starliner for the return trip.

Butch Wilmore: Well, f___! What does that mean?

NASA: Your mission is being extended to… February 2025.

Butch Wilmore: Are you shitting me? This was supposed to be an eight day mission. Now it is going to be eight months? How the hell are you going to get us home?

NASA: We have arranged for you to return on the… SpaceX Dragon Freedom.

Suni Williams: SpaceX? The company owned by that nut-bag Elon Musk? You can’t be serious!

NASA: We realize this is not ideal.

Suni Williams: Ya think! Somebody is going to get a shit-kicking if we do get home in one piece!

NASA: We appreciate your patience.

Butch Wilmore: Well, we don’t have much damn choice in the matter, do we? We’d better be getting a bloody big bonus for all the time we had to stay up here.

NASA: Ummm… We’ll look into that… NASA out.

The fly on the wall is anticipating future animated discussions. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s already inflated ego just doubled in size.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   Barru Wilmore · Boeing Starliner · Elon Musk · International Space Station · metaphor · Michae Robert Dyet · NASA · SpaceX · Suni WilliamsComments Off on Stranded on the ISS: Elon Musk to the Rescue

Hmmm, will you gaze into these lenses and open your mind for a moment?

Excuse me, please. Over here, over there and all around you. Do you see me?

My name is Father Forest Ecosystem. I see you but all too often you do not see me as I am. You see the individual parts but not how these parts fit together, an intricate puzzle to form the whole, and how your presence can disturb the balance. So I have donned these eyeglasses to draw your attention. Creating a portal of sorts between your existence and mine.

What am I? I am a distinct bubble of life made up of plants, animals and other organisms as well as weather and landscape. I contain biotic (living) as well as abiotic (nonliving) parts. All are equally important and indivisible.

I am a very intricate and complex place. Every living and nonliving thing within me provides a resource that helps the survival of something else. Think of me as a chain where every plant and animal, large and small, is an essential link.

I am incredibly dynamic. I change constantly as I adapt to what happens within me and around me. I work unrelentingly to protect the balance that underlies my existence. I am resilient but there are limits to my power to adapt.

I must tell you that you – human beings – are my biggest challenge often without knowing it. Your footprint has the potential to impact me for better or for worse – all too often for the worse in these point-of-no-return times in which we find ourselves.

I need you to look back through these lenses appearing unexpectedly in front of you. Look long and look hard at the many parts that make up and define me. I have several layers.

Look up and see my canopy where the tall trees compete for sunlight. My canopy provides shade and creates a microclimate that influences temperature and humidity. Creatures live here that you may never see.

Look at eye level and see my understory – shrubs, small trees, vines and saplings of the canopy trees. Creatures live here that you may or may not see depending upon how perceptive you are.

Look down and see my floor made up of organic residues – leaves, branches, bark, stems – in various stages of decomposition feeding that which lies above it. Small creatures eke out a living here too.

I welcome you into my realm for your pleasure. But I must reiterate that I need you to look back through these lenses in front of you. I need you to see the complexity of my being and the delicate interdependence that defines me. I need you to understand that I provide resources you cannot live without.

I cannot exist without your respect and reverence. Nor can you exist without what I give back to you. But alarm bells are ringing. I implore you to hear and pay heed to them while there is still time. We are in this thing called life together. Tread lightly and respectfully within me. The welfare of both of us hangs in the balance.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Tags:   ecosystem · environment · forest canopy · forest floor · forest understory · interdependence · metaphorComments Off on Father Forest Ecosystem

Hmmm, could the inventor of the telephone have imagined the invasive species his invention would become?

Canadian Alexander Graham Bell is credited with the invention of the telephone back in the 1870’s. (There were earlier pioneers in the field but Bell was the first to file a patent.) I wonder if he had any notion of the metamorphosis his invention would undergo over the years.

The cause of my musing is the steps the Ontario government is taking to battle the distractions cell phones represent to students. Back in April, the province announced that students up to grade six , must put their cellphones away for the entire school day. Kids from grades 7-12 are only be able to use their phone in between classes or during lunch – not during class time.

A brief foray into cell phone history for context on how we arrived at this dilemma:

In April 1973, Martin Cooper of Motorola made the first ever cellphone call on the streets of New York. His invention was a brick-sized device weighing over four pounds!

In 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x, the first commercially available handheld mobile phone was released. Some sources now report that there are more cell phones than people in the world.

On July 1, 1985, in Toronto’s Nathan Philips Square, mayor Art Eggleton made the first cellular call across the Cantel system to Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau. It was the first cellular call in Canada.

Back to the issue at hand. School boards are now grappling with how to put the province’s new directives into action. As is always the case with guidelines, translating them into effective and defensible actions is no easy task. Students are not likely to be cooperative given that their cell phones give them access to social media which is a mainstay of their lives.

I do not envy educators who must now instruct students to put the devices out of sight. Students who fail to comply, and to turn over their cell phone to the teacher, get sent to the principal’s office who in turn has to consider a range of options to address the student’s behavior. It is a significant new burden for educators at all levels.

My how the times have changed in one generation. Back in my secondary schools days, the technological advancement principals were dealing with was the availability of pocket calculators. They were allowed in schools but could not be used during exams. I bought one, with money earned at a part-time job, simply because it was a cool thing to have.

Quite frankly, the bigger issue for school principals, from a distraction viewpoint, was the miniskirt fashion trend. Girls were sometimes sent home from school because their skirt was too short. They were admittedly a significant source of distraction for adolescent boys!

Bell’s invention and the doors it opened is the technological equivalent of the caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis. Over the years, Bell’s caterpillar has morphed many times over into a WiFi butterfly – an invasive species that gives educators nightmares as they try to keep students focused on their learning.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   Alexander Graham Bell · metaphor · Michae Robert Dyet · School cell phone banComments Off on Cell Phones in Schools: WiFi Butterflies

Hmmm, what has five eyes, lives only a week and escapes your notice unless you look for it?

This post is the first in a series I will be developing over time. The metaphorical theme is nature as a quilt – an intricate tapestry of ecosystems interwoven like patches in a quilt and dependent upon one another.

I am launching this series with Ichneumonid Wasps because they fascinate me – and because they can be quite striking like the Genus Cratichneumon sample at the head of this post.

What is so special about Ichneumonid Wasps?

They are notable for their sheer number. There are roughly 26,000 species identified to date. But experts estimate that there are at least 60,000 species worldwide while some believe there may be as many as 100,000. There are 2,500 Ichneumonid Wasps in Canada. I have laid eyes on 37 of them so I have lots yet to find.

What do they look like?

They superficially resemble other wasps with a slender waist, two pairs of wings, a pair of large compound eyes on the side of the head and three simple yes on top of the head. You have to watch closely to spot them as they are small – ranging from a few millimetres to a few centimetres in length.

How long do they live and where?

Live is very short if you are an Ichneumonid Wasp – 7 to 10 days only as adults. They overwinter in cocoons as mature larvae. Larvae hatch from eggs inserted into tunnels in tree bark and live as parasites inside caterpillars and other insects.

Revisions (2)

Where do they fit in the quilt?

The parasitism pressure exerted by Ichneumonid Wasps helps to regulate many invertebrate populations. In turn, they are a food source for birds, dragonflies, robber flies, frogs, spiders and mantises.

Ichneumonid Wasps are found in all continents except Antarctica and in virtually all terrestrial habitats. One more fascinating patch in the quilt of nature stitched together by threads of interdependence and natural balance.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Tags:   Ichneumonid Wasp · metaphor · Michae Robert Dyet · Nature · nature as a quiltComments Off on Nature as a Quilt: Inchneunomid Wasps

Hmmm, does David really stand a chance against the online platform Goliaths in the digital advertising war?

Another casualty of the digital advertising war occurred this week as 900 CHML in Hamilton went off the air. The news came abruptly via a somber, on-air announcement at precisely noon on Wednesday. But the writing was on the wall as commercial advertising breaks on Wednesday morning were ominous dead air.

My father routinely listened to the talk radio shows on 900 CHML so he feels the loss keenly as do many others in the city in which the station has been a mainstay for nearly a century.

Owner Corus Entertainment attributed the decision to “shift of advertising revenues to unregulated foreign platforms combined with the difficult regulatory and competitive landscape”. Foreign refers to tech giants like Meta who are the Goliath in the ongoing David and Goliath arm wrestle for advertising dollars.

The demise of 900 CHML is unfortunately just the latest toll in the ongoing death knell for Canadian media. Bell Media announced earlier this year that it was ending multiple television newscasts and making other programming cuts after its parent company put 45 of its 103 regional radio stations up for sale.

Both Corus Entertainment and Bell Media have blamed the federal government for being too slow with regulatory supports that they maintain are necessary to level the playing field. The feds have put in place two pieces of legislation:

Bill C-18: The Online News Act, meant to force tech giants to compensate Canadian news outlets for their content. The feds are in a standoff with Meta over Bill C-18. Meta continues to block Canadian news links on its platform.

Note: Ottawa capped the amount of money broadcast media can get from Google’s $100 million annual payments at $30 million with the remainder to go to print and digital news outlets.

Bill C-11: An update to the Broadcasting Act requiring digital platforms such as Netflix, YouTube and Tiktok to contribute and promote Canadian content.

All of these developments are part of the digital transformation tsunami that is sweeping across the media world. Corus Entertainment has indicated they are “applying new workflows and ways of working, using the latest server-based technology that will enable us to pave the way forward”. I will leave you to interpret that technical jargon on your own.

My layman’s take on the matter is that the battle is already lost. The notion of protecting borders and keeping advertising revenue at home is pretty much a non sequitur in the new environment.

Government regulations amount to a sling shot and stone aimed at the tech giants. It worked for David in the biblical battle of David and Goliath. But the Goliaths of the digital world brush aside the regulatory stones with disdain and carry on as they please.

And so we bid a fond farewell to 900 CHML – another casuality in the digital advertising war.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   900 CHML · Corus Entertainment · Meta · metaphor · Michael Robert DyetComments Off on Farewell CHML: A War Casuality

Hmmm, how do we navigate the not-so brave new world of fake news?

Chances are you have one of these reactions several times a week if you spend time on a social media platform like Facebook. You scan your feed for something relevant, your eye stops on a particular post and you think: That can’t be true. I don’t believe it. OR Oh my God, how can that happen! Hopefully it is the first of those two reactions.

Welcome to the era of fake news. There is a whole industry driving the development. Multiple on-line tools, many of them free, enable you to plug in a fake news story, a fake image and a fake author and even get a fake URL. All that remains is to share the story on the internet.

Deep fake technology is an enabler of this insidious practice. A deep fake is media that is digitally altered to replace a person’s face or body with that of another. I can guarantee that you see at least one deep fake image every time you log on to a social media platform. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are a must-have resource in the tool kit of those who practice this art.

The creators of fake news often do it to make money by running ads. Outrageous stories and distorted images make great clickbait and generate profits because many people cannot resist sharing the weird news. But fake news can be more than a nuisance.

There was no small amount of fake news generated during the 2017 U.S. election. Some of it was apparently tracked back to teenagers in Macedonia. The teenagers determined that the more hyper-partisan the news they created, the more people clicked on and circulated it, and the more money they made. It is believed that this fake news may have influenced people’s opinions on the candidates.

Regulating fake news is well nigh impossible. In the U.S., under the Communications Decency Act, social media sites that host political information including deepfakes are legally immune from prosecution. What is required of them is limited to statements in their terms of use.

There have been calls to hold AI platforms legally responsible for disinformation which may result in guardrails on creating it. But that would amount to little more than putting a band-aid on the problem. Big Tech, such as Microsoft and Intel, have introduced deep fake detection tools. How effective these tools will be remains to be seen.

So what can we do to avoid being taken in by fake news? It comes down to the same strategies we employ to prevent falling victim to the endless scams that operate today.

Consider the source. It is a known and reputable entity? If not, and even it seems to be, cross-check the information on multiple reliable sources to see if it holds water. And, of course, exercise a healthy degree of skepticism. It if sounds too good or too bad or too ridiculous to be true, it most probably is not true.

Fake news arguably falls under the infodemic metaphor that references fast, wide-spreading false information. That term came to be associated with false information about the coronavirus pandemic. But these days it can be expanded to include the explosion of fake news in all forms and the harmful effects of it. Reader beware is the new catchphrase of our times.

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~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

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Tags:   clickbait · deep fake · fake news · infodemic · metaphor · Michae Robert DyetComments Off on The Fake News Infodemic: Reader Beware