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The Citizen, 2016-12-08, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2016. PAGE 5. Other Views Liking this world of likes /don't do Facebook, but if I did, I would definitely like `like'. The word, I mean. I consider `like' to be one of the doughty little Clydesdales of the English language. I `like' you. I `like' pistachio gelato. I even `like' people `like' you and flavours of gelato that are pistachio -'like'. Likewise it's likely I can find likeable characteristics in things that are alike or bear a likeness which I can liken to other likelinesses — or the like. Like is, like, versatile, man. It can go to work dressed as a verb, a noun, an adjective, an adverb, a preposition, a suffix or a conjunction. The word has been soldering the English language together ever since we swiped it from the Norman invaders back in the Middle Ages. Right up until it was mortally wounded; first by Winston and then by Maynard G. Krebs. You remember Winston? You do if you were around a television set in the 1950s. Winston was a major TV star back then. As in "Winston tastes good like a (RAP, RAP) cigarette should..." That was the kicker line to one of the most "4Arthur Black frequently heard (and maddening) commercials that aired during the early days of television advertising. It sold a lot of cigarettes — and it had an incendiary effect on grammarians. The guardians of linguistic purity sniffed that the commercial should have said "...tastes good AS a cigarette should..." — but Madison Avenue snickered. Nobody else really cared. Then along came Maynard G. Krebs. He was a stereotypical beatnik character on a TV show called The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis. He had a goatee and talked in faux -hipster jargon which involved randomly lobbing the word `like' around ("I'm like, lost, man..."). Maynard turned `like' into the equivalent of a linguistic burp. The word no longer needed to signify anything. It became an alternative to 'um', 'er' and other verbal Band-Aids like `basically', `arguably' and 'you know'. Today, speakers (especially speakers who are too lazy to articulate an actual thought) simply throw in a `like' whenever they run into a knothole or a speedbump in their narrative. Which eventually leads to conversations such as the one I overheard in a coffee shop yesterday. As I recall, it went: "So I was, like, `Really?' And he goes like, `Yeah, really.' So I'm like, 'OK, fine'. And he's like, `Later, dude.'" There may be an actual message entombed in that monologue, but for me it got drowned in the backwash of `likes'. But far be it from a Canadian to cast the first stone when it comes to language fillers. After all, we have a Prime Minister who slathers his pronouncements with more `ahs' than a satyr in heat. ("This, ah, government is, ah, committed to, ah, ensure....") Then too, Canadians are the culprits who infected spoken English with the verbal tic `eh?' Like, yer welcome, eh? Parenthood: the social media debate Recently my wife Ashleigh and I got into a bit of a debate about the role social media would play with in the life of our just -over -three-month old daughter, Mary Jane. When I say role, I mean what boundaries we're going to set as far as how much we share about her especially when it comes to photographs. This may sound odd given that most people who meet me in the communities we cover see me carrying a camera, but I don't take a lot of personal pictures. That practice has kind of spread to my daughter. I do take some photos and I keep them saved on a hard drive at home awaiting the day that I turn them into a nice photo album for our coffee table. There are some quick shots of my wife, some pictures from our honeymoon and a growing collection of photos of Mary Jane. For the most part, when it comes to memories, I would rather have them locked away in my head and not chance missing them when I try to get my camera set up and ready. So when it came time, months ago, to decide what we were going to do with photos we took of Mary Jane, we came to a bit of a compromise. Where Ashleigh did want to take pictures and put them on Facebook, I felt that Mary Jane should get to choose, for the most part, what her digital life includes. I didn't put my foot down and say, "No photos on social media at all," because that would be silly and impossible to enforce. What we did agree on was that we would severely limit what we posted and we wouldn't hound our friends and family to not post photos, but make our wishes known and let them decide whether to respect our wishes or... well... disrespect us. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I think that photos for family and friends are fine while the rest of the world should stay out of my home. Social media doesn't follow any such boundaries, however, especially when it isn't Ashleigh or I posting the photos. Sure, we can limit who can see our photos when we post it but when other people take them, share them and allow other people to share them, in turn, we have very little control over that. Like I said, maybe I'm just being a curmudgeonly old man when it comes to the Denny Scott Denny's Den internet but, as I discussed with a municipal representative recently, once something is on the internet, it's there forever and for people to reuse however they like. While I don't think anyone has hijacked any photos of my daughter yet (though who could blame them? She is, as a matter of fact, the cutest baby girl ever to grace the globe), I have experience of people misappropriating my photos through my work with The Citizen. I'm not going to point fingers, but I know for a fact that, recently, photos were taken from The Citizen's website and used for purposes for which we did not grant permission. Like I said, I've got no intention of outing anyone for taking our photos, but it's hard proof that people will take things they find online and use them however they like. Need more proof? Search for people who found themselves in advertisements on Facebook. Not that long ago, Facebook would use photos that people uploaded for the purposes of advertising. There are some funny and/or scary stories out there — people's photos being used for embarrassing diseases or used to promote services that actually help infidelity happen and numerous other situations of someone's photo showing up somewhere that they certainly didn't say it could. There are some arguments that have been made against my stance but so far I haven't stumbled on a single one that has made me rethink my firm belief that Mary Jane has no place on Facebook. For example, some people have said that not sharing the news or photos is selfish and that I'm letting my own hang-ups about what might happen to the photos rob people of the chance to see Mary Jane. I say to those folks the same thing I say to my family when they complain they haven't seen me — if I want you to be a part of my life, you know where I live and how to get in touch with me. Until Mary Jane is old enough to make these decisions for herself, you can come by the house and get your fix of cute. Another argument is that everyone else is posting pictures of their children. To that I say I just don't care. Let them decide for their children when and where they can be on social media. We're not talking about vaccinations here, which should not be up for debate, we're talking about putting the image of a three- month -old on the internet to be there forever. I guess my own experiences have led to my stance on social media. There aren't any photos out there of me doing anything particularly heinous, but there are photos I wish I hadn't allowed to be taken. That's the thing though, I had allowed them to be taken and, in some cases, posed for them. Mary Jane has been born into a world where people might, in the privacy of our home or someone else's home, take a picture of her and put it online without ever asking her, Ashleigh or myself if it's all right and that bugs me. She'll never get to decide whether those photos should be online or not. They're there and will forever be there. Like I said, this isn't a full embargo on photos on social media because, as many people can tell you, I have photos up there. There's a photo of me holding Mary Jane for (one of) the first times as my profile picture on Facebook. The photos are limited, however. I mean, imagine, dear readers, if every single photo your parents took of you when you were young, especially during those phases when you thought clothes were optional, somehow ended up online for everyone to always see. It's not like stumbling across them in a photo album together with a friend or family member. The photo is there and can be seen, used and modified by anyone with accesss to a computer. That's why I want to limit the online presence my daughter has until she's able to make these decisions for herself. If that makes me old fashioned, then that's a moniker I wear with pride. Like I said, photos do exist and if you want to see them, feel free to ask. They're on my phone, my computer background and, someday soon, there will be albums on the coffee table of Mary Jane's smiling face. After all, just because I don't want her to be embarrassed of photos online someday, doesn't mean I don't want embarrassing photos of her to look at with her friends and family. Shawn Loughlin Shawn's Sense Dream it, live it Jess and I, as well as her parents Lynne and Steve, were in London on Sunday to take in the London Knights' eventual 6-2 victory over the Flint Firebirds in Ontario Hockey League action. It was a great game with a lot to see, but it served as a likely reminder that dreams can come true. It may have just been a coincidence that the Knights were playing Flint, but either way, nearly my entire section was comprised of folks from Blyth and Brussels, because the tickets in that section were sold as part of a Blyth Brussels Minor Hockey Association fundraiser. So we drove all the way to London to sit amongst those with last names familiar to many in these parts, including Townsend, Josling, Seili, Pawitch, Ansley and Kerr, among others. As much as I like all of those people, it wasn't sitting with them that ticked the "dreams can come true" box that I mentioned earlier. Instead it was the dozens and dozens of Blyth and Brussels minor hockey players who just happened to be in attendance while one of their alumni played on the Budweiser Gardens ice. Alex Peters, the captain of the Firebirds, is a native of Blyth and a product of the local hockey system. And there he was serving as the captain of one of the country's biggest minor hockey teams right in front of their very eyes. Jess and I thought it was neat, as we're neighbours of the Peters family, but it was Jess who first pointed out that it must be pretty amazing for kids to see one of their own who has made it. Every year, all over Canada, millions of children play various sports with dreams of playing professionally. Whether it's hockey, soccer or baseball, when a young boy laces up his skates or a young girl pulls on her soccer jersey, it's not because they think it might build character, keep them fit or teach them teamwork (all those things adults hope sports will accomplish), it's in the hopes of playing a sport for a living one day. Peters is living that dream right now, as are his brothers, and on Sunday he served as a living, breathing (and skating) example of what can be accomplished if you work hard and stay committed to a sport. Kids are not new to stories about other young players making it. They've all seen those commercials about Sidney Crosby and his dryer in the basement or Wayne Gretzky training with his father Walter. But those stories are always about another kid from another town. Going to a hockey game with your parents, wearing your Blyth Brussels Crusaders jacket and watching someone from your hometown play hockey professionally is just the shot in the arm some young hockey players may need to take their game to the next level. So while the ticket sales likely raised a lot of money for the Blyth Brussels Minor Hockey Association and everyone would have left with smiles on their faces with a big Knights win (except maybe for Alex, his teammates and his parents) and the annual charity teddy bear toss collected nearly 10,000 bears for families in need, perhaps the best take -away from that game will be a local player being inspired by the whole experience. Every town across Ontario holds on to its success stories. From Pickering, it was former New York Rangers player Sean Avery (not the best role model, I know). But in Blyth, kids are lucky they have the Peters brothers to look up to and take inspiration from.