The image at the top of this page shows one of my favourite paintings. It’s called “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus,” and is believed to have either been painted by Peter Bruegel the elder, or to be a copy of an older lost work of his. (The painting turned up in 1912, and another almost identical version in 1935, leading to the speculation that these are copies of an original.)
Daedalus, in Greek myth, was a brilliant inventor. He built the labyrinth for King Minos, to imprison the bull-headed Minotaur. Having completed the task to Minos’s satisfaction, Minos then imprisoned both Daedalus and his son, Icarus (either in the labyrinth, or in a high tower; there are different versions).
Over time, Daedalus collected wings from fallen birds, joined them together with wax, an…
The image at the top of this page shows one of my favourite paintings. It’s called “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus,” and is believed to have either been painted by Peter Bruegel the elder, or to be a copy of an older lost work of his. (The painting turned up in 1912, and another almost identical version in 1935, leading to the speculation that these are copies of an original.)
Daedalus, in Greek myth, was a brilliant inventor. He built the labyrinth for King Minos, to imprison the bull-headed Minotaur. Having completed the task to Minos’s satisfaction, Minos then imprisoned both Daedalus and his son, Icarus (either in the labyrinth, or in a high tower; there are different versions).
Over time, Daedalus collected wings from fallen birds, joined them together with wax, and fashioned wings for himself and Icarus. The two escaped, flying away from Crete. Daedalus warned Icarus to not fly too low, for risk of falling into the sea, or too high. But Icarus was swept up in the flight, flying higher and higher until the heat of the sun grew too intense, melting the wax, and causing him to plunge to his death in what is now called the Icarian Sea, in the eastern Aegean.
Many Greek myths are variations on this theme: Don’t overdo it, don’t get too full of yourself, don’t think you’re immortal (with an exception for myths about the gods who are immortal; those have different themes).
What I love about “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus” is how it changes our perspective. Icarus is, obviously, at the centre of the Icarus story. It’s his hubris that does him in, and the story is his tragedy. But if you look at the painting, Icarus isn’t even immediately obviously visible. There’s a farmer plowing a field, a shepherd looking up in the sky (the other version of the painting has Daedalus there), and someone down by the water. Ships are going by. And there a couple of legs, about to sink under the surface — a very minor part of the whole composition, and unnoticed for the most part by those going about their daily lives.
It’s possible to put a heroic spin on Icarus — that flying too close to the sun is an expression of his ambitions, and that he died pushing the limits of what was possible.
I’ve been thinking lately about the gutting of the humanities programs at universities, as though learning about, well, some of the essential things that make us human, is a lesser pursuit than, I don’t know, learning how to prompt Anthropic’s Claude or Open AI’s ChatGPT. And I’ve also been thinking about how some of our tech overlords could do with learning a few Greek myths and their lessons. (They could probably do with learning myths from other cultures as well, but the Greek myths are what I grew up with and am most familiar with; my Greek mother would liberally refer to mythological stories.)
I imagine that the tech bros think of themselves in some ways as Greek mythological heroes: Heracles performing incredible feats; Prometheus bringing fire from the gods to humanity; the heroic Icarus, pushing the limits of what is possible.
Of course, these are people so notoriously bad at reading the meanings of texts that it’s spawned the “torment nexus” trope, originally expressed in a tweet by writer Alex Blechman:
Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale.
Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from the classic Sci-Fi novel Don’t Create the Torment Nexus.
Elon Musk recently wrote that the lesson of The Lord of the Rings is that the hobbits are only able to live their peaceful lives in the shire “because they were protected by the hard men of Gondor.” Somehow, he failed to notice that the hobbits are the heroes of the whole saga.
Tithonus
Tithonus was a mortal lover of Eos, the goddess of the dawn. Eos repeatedly fell in love with mortals, and was then bereft when they died. She asked her father Zeus to grant Tithonus immortality, which he did. But Eos had not asked for eternal youth, so Tithonus grew older and older and was finally reduced to babbling meaninglessly, while unable to move. Eventually, Eos shut him up in his room. Writing in the Times Literary Supplement, Martin West discusses a poem of Sappho’s, in which she touches on aging and refers to the myth of Tithonus:
She tells herself that growing old is part of the human condition and there is nothing to be done about it…
Tithonus lived on, growing ever more grey and frail, while his consort remained young and beautiful — just as Sappho grows old before a cohort of protegees who… are always young.
Every time I see a story about Bryan Johnson (the first words you see when you go to his website are “Don’t die — We are a decentralized community united in defeating death and building prosperity”) I think about Tithonus.
Midas
Everything he touched turned to gold. Amazing, right? He literally had the golden touch, which he was granted by a satyr he had treated kindly, and who had offered him one wish. Of course, you can’t eat gold, so Midas got into trouble trying to nourish himself when his souvlaki would turn into gold as soon as he touched the pita. (I jest. Souvlaki did not come along until much later.)
Heracles
Big strong man! Clever too. Very heroic. He ascends into the pantheon of the Gods after death, having sacked Troy prior to the Trojan War, he killed the eagle that was tormenting Prometheus (more on him later), cleaned the shit of 3,000 cattle out of a stable in one day, and killed the Nemean lion and took its hide as a cloak.
Honestly, cleaning the stables is probably the most important and useful of these labours, but I suspect it is not as celebrated as some of the others.
Cover of a third grade Greek history textbook, showing Heracles. Credit: Philip Moscovitch
My mother would arrange to get Greek schoolbooks sent to us in Canada. This is my grade three “history” text. I put history in quotation marks, because it consists entirely of mythology, and a note to students at the back, saying that these stories have been called myth but that recent archaeological excavations prove we should not call these stories mythical. The note encourages students to visit these archaeological sites: “You will feel awe and pride for your forefathers.”
But back to Heracles.
His death, as recounted in this book, always haunted me. Heracles shoots a centaur making off with his wife, Deianira, and in his dying moments, the centaur, Nessus, gives her his blood-stained shirt and tells her that if Heracles ever strays from her, she should give it to him to wear and it will bring her back. The shirt is poisoned, and when Heracles wears it he is tormented to the point where he builds his own funeral pyre, lies on it, and insists that a friend light it.
Honestly, the lesson for tech bros here seemed more clear to me last night when I was planning this Morning File. But I think it’s that no matter how big, important, or hard you think you are, you can be brought low.
Narcissus
There isn’t really much to say about this one, is there? Guy falls in love with his own reflection is about as on point as you can get for our tech overlords.
Prometheus
The tech bros love Prometheus. One of them even wants to build a 140-metre statue of him on Alcatraz Island. The guy behind this is crypto entrepreneur Ross Calvin, who has created the American Colossus Foundation (really) to oversee this thing. Shades of Mother Canada. The Art Newspaper writes:
The structure on Alcatraz would have to be built in compliance with the Bay Area’s stringent seismic building codes and be able to withstand the Bay’s harsh marine weather, making its construction technically complex and costly. Even if privately funded, the Prometheus project would likely face years of environmental review, legal challenges and public debate before construction could begin…
For now, The Great Colossus of Prometheus exists only as rhetoric and renderings—dozens of them, some seemingly generated by artificial intelligence, posted across the foundation’s social media pages, sometimes overlaid with phrases including “Manifest Destiny” and “Man Also Rises”.
You are probably familiar with the myth of Prometheus — how he steals fire from the gods to give it to humans, and how, as punishment, Zeus condemns him to being tormented by an eagle who plucks out his liver every day. (It regrows at night.)
James Folta has a great piece in Literary Hub called “What the Fascist Tech Bros Get Wrong About Prometheus.” He quotes from the American Colossus manifesto, which no longer appears to be on the website, which casts Prometheus as being opposed to wokeness and social justice. Uh, OK. From Folta’s article:
In the project’s “manifesto,” Prometheus is “the first freedom fighter,” launching into a long, Randian ramble about the supremacy of will, intention, and forethought. Elsewhere, Prometheus is described as the embodiment of a narrowly defined “Spirit of the West”: “He does not ask permission. He acts. He builds. He suffers for it, yes—but he never apologizes.” Prometheus is the unshackled man who shouldn’t worry about consent or consequence, the very vision of the self-justifying right-wing idiot.
Anyway, Folta says these folks tend to ignore the hubris part of the myth:
The story starts because Prometheus tries to con Zeus by offering the head god a choice of two sacrifices: gross entrails hiding prime cuts of beef or appetizing fat hiding bones. Zeus goes for the more pleasing wrapping and ends up with inedible bones. This trick really pisses Zeus off, and he takes fire away from not just Prometheus, but all of humanity.
This is a lesson I wish the right and tech would think more about: making decisions for the rest of us can have disastrous outcomes. Thinking for yourself is ruinously selfish. This part of the tale feels American in other ways, too: our fondness for advertising and confidence men, our unwillingness to share, and our love of getting one over on the boss.
Prometheus later steals fire back from the gods to right his wrong, but Zeus retaliates again by unleashing Pandora and her trouble-filled jar, making Prometheus indirectly responsible for the opening of Pandora’s box.
Folta says, “The tech industry could stand to think more long term and imagine worse case outcomes.” That and maybe read some more Greek myths.
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NOTICED
1. Atlantic Economic Panel flaw
Cathy Bennett, co-founder of Sandpiper Ventures and one of the members of the new Atlantic Economic Panel. Photo: Sandpiper Ventures
This item was written by Sam Arnold with Sustainable Energy Group in Woodstock, N.B.
On Nov. 25, 2025, Brunswick News published a news story announcing the launching of the Atlantic Economic Panel.
It featured the seven panelists selected from the private sector. Panel members include Don Mills as chair, co-founder of Halifax-based polling firm Narrative Research; Scott McCain, chairman of McCain Foods; Pabineau First Nation Chief Terry Richardson; Mike Cassidy, CEO of the Cassidy Group that owns Coach Atlantic; Cathy Bennett, co-founder of Sandpiper Ventures in Newfoundland and Labrador; Joyce Carter, president and CEO of Halifax International Airport Authority; Anne Whelan, lead director of the Bank of Canada.
The panel will be hindered by a significant oversight. The news story makes no mention of how the economy can flourish without considering needed climate action to support the natural world, which the economy is reliant on for success.
A sustainable economy today requires the following key considerations.
• The International Court of Justice in the Hague issued its Advisory Opinion July 23, 2025. The UN’s principal judicial body ruled that States have an obligation to protect the environment from greenhouse gas emissions and to act with due diligence and cooperation to fulfill this obligation. This includes the obligation under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change signed by Canada to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which now has been reached. The Court grounded part of this legal obligation in the international treaties on human rights that recognize the right to a healthy environment as a human right. Consequently, no new greenhouse gas-emitting plants can be built to prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5º Celsius.
• Prime Minister Mark Carney’s desire to fast-track ‘nation building projects’ increases project risk if they fail to include their impact on the climate and environment. It also violates the rights of Indigenous people to free, prior, and informed consent under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that Canada signed into law in 2021.
• The public is becoming increasingly alarmed by the growing number of news reports of wildfires that produce hazardous smoke, of floods, extreme weather events, and sea-level rise. Climate induced disasters impact the well-being of the public, and the hoped-for economic prosperity.
• The Atlantic Economic Panel was granted “a clear mandate to provide a one-time report, focused on practical steps to grow jobs, raise productivity, support small and medium-sized businesses, and strengthen communities.” However, this and other mandates by the Carney government lack the essential advice from climate experts who can save developers valuable time and expense by planning holistically for a viable business future. This oversight needs to be corrected.
The panel is lacking an environmental expert. To create a safe and sustainable future for humans, and for nature, business and environmental experts need to collaborate.
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2. The North Dartmouth Echo modestly asks for support
From the North Dartmouth Echo community newspaper. Credit: North Dartmouth Echo
You may know Suzanne Rent as a reporter for the Halifax Examiner, but she is also editor of the North Dartmouth Echo community newspaper, which publishes five or six times a year.
I have a real fondness for community papers. They serve an important role that social media cannot replicate. In the current issue of the Echo, Rent has an editorial called “Put the Echo on your nice list this season.” She writes:
This past year has been a tough one for our little good-news community newspaper. Like many other community newspapers, the Echo has felt the impact of many factors that have affected other print media, including declining ad revenue and more people looking to the internet and social media for their news.
We’ve kept it quiet for a long time, but we’re struggling a bit to keep the paper running. Not in terms of people running the paper behind the scenes and certainly not in terms of community support. But rather the money is short.
While the Echo is free to read, it’s not free to produce. There are bills for printing, graphic design, and editing. And there are other bills, too, including postage and our phone bill. It doesn’t require much to keep the paper going but a little means a lot.
Rent encourages readers to take out an ad or make a small donation. It’s the most low-key appeal for money I have ever read, and I like it.
The Echo will also be holding a bingo fundraiser on Jan. 31, 2026, at the Dartmouth Seniors Service Centre, 45 Ochterloney St., from 6:30pm to 9:00pm. 25 bucks gets you entry and 10 bingo cards.
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3. Parks Canada and Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq sign deal to co-manage national parks in the province
Peskowesk Lake, in the Kejimkujik National Park backcountry, in July 2025. Credit: Sara Lamb
National Parks in Nova Scotia will now be co-managed by Parks Canada and the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia.
From a Parks Canada release:
The Toqi’maliaptmu’k Arrangement, which means “we will look after it together,” expresses a new way for the Mi’kmaq and Parks Canada to move forward in partnership and honour Mi’kmaw ancestors. Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn, on behalf of the Assembly [of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs] has worked with Parks Canada to create this Arrangement in the spirit of our Treaty relationship.
Similar agreements are in place at other parks, including P.E.I. National Park.
A backgrounder from Parks Canada notes that national parks were often established with no Indigenous consultation, and that Parks Canada and the Mi’kmaq have been working together informally on co-management for a number of years.
The Parks Canada web page for the agreement says that its objectives are to strengthen treaty rights, make collaborative decisions, protect Mi’kmaw cultural heritage, protect nature using Indigenous knowledge, and create new economic opportunities.
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RECENTLY IN THE HALIFAX EXAMINER:
**1. **Energy Board to investigate overbilling concerns related to Nova Scotia Power
Two smart meters installed by Nova Scotia Power. Credit: Contributed
Jennifer Henderson reports:
The Nova Scotia Energy Board has agreed to investigate concerns around the fairness and legality of bills received by thousands of ratepayers in the province since a cyberattack in March disrupted its automated billing systems.
Customers have been complaining about estimated power bills that are wildly out of line with their previous consumption. Premier Tim Houston last week called on the regulator to investigate, and yesterday the board agreed.
Henderson writes:
Your letter noted that, since the cyber-attack at NS Power over eight months ago, the utility has relied on estimated billing and that customers have faced inflated bills, consecutive charges within short time frames and a lack of clear communication about adjustments. You asked the Board to launch a formal investigation into:
- The fairness and legality of NS Power’s estimated billing methodology.
- The adequacy of consumer protections and communications during this period.
- The timeline and contingency planning for restoring accurate billing systems.
- Whether NS Power should provide financial relief, credits, or bill smoothing options to affect the customers.
- Whether NS Power is subject to financial penalties; and if so, the maximum amount that can be levied.
The Board will investigate these issues.
Click or tap here to read, “Energy Board to investigate overbilling concerns related to Nova Scotia Power.”
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2. N.S. premier responds to criticism from Mi’kmaq over cannabis crackdown
Premier Tim Houston at Province House, Dec. 10 2025. Credit: Jennifer Henderson
Jennifer Henderson reports that Premier Tim Houston has “doubled-down on the government’s position that the dispensaries are illegal, could have “ties to organized crime,” and represent a potential risk to public health.”
Sipekne’katik Chief Michelle Glasgow has banned Houston, Attorney General Scott Armstrong, and L’nu Affairs Minister Leah Martin from Sipekne’katik band lands, calling them “undesirables” and threatening them with a $50,000 fine if they contravene the order.
Henderson writes:
Reporters asked Houston for his response to a letter posted on social media yesterday by Sipekne’katik Chief Michelle Glasgow and band councillors. The letter states the province not only failed to consult with First Nations leaders about how cannabis would be sold when it was first legalized, but that the Houston government has overstepped its authority by interfering with what they may sell on reserve lands.
“I think the courts have been very clear on the legal status of cannabis. It is illegal for a reason, and the court cases have also spoken and said that it is not a treaty right,” Houston said.
Henderson also hears from retired law professor Wayne MacKay, who says the issue of cannabis sales on Indigenous lands is “generally regarded as an unresolved legal issue at this time.”
Click or tap here to read “N.S. premier responds to criticism from Mi’kmaq over cannabis crackdown”.
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Government
City
Regional Council Special Meeting (Thursday, 1pm, City Hall) — agenda
Province
No meetings
On campus
Dalhousie
Thursday
Group Read – Reclaiming Power + Place: The Final Report (Thursday, 12pm, hybrid) — to April 30, 2026
Friday
PhD Defence: Process Engineering & Applied Science (PEAS) (Friday, 1pm, online) — Rashad Kahwagi will defend “Advanced Scalable Deposition of Polydimethylsiloxane for Both High and Low Energy Generation Applications”
Literary Events
No events
In the harbour
Halifax 05:30: Zim China, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Valencia, Spain 09:00: Volga Maersk, container ship, moves from Pier 42 to Pier 31 10:00: Atlantic Star, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Liverpool, England 10:45: Miraculous Ace, car carrier, arrives at Autoport from Baltimore 11:30: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, moves from Autoport to anchorage 21:30: Atlantic Star sails for sea Cape Breton 12:00: Algoma Value, bulker, arrives at Coal Pier (Point Tupper) from Sydney 15:30: Elandra Swallow, oil tanker, sails from EverWind for sea 16:00: Blair McKeil, cargo ship, sails from Mulgrave for sea
Footnotes
From Peter Bruegel to Iron Maiden, the flight of Icarus has inspired a lot of great art.