Glenn Kubish

The idea with the Three Things podcast is to isolate three things from my little life that delivered some happiness or gratitude each week. Here is episode 64:                                              1. Help from above It was a memorable week for going off script, to say the least. In a speech to NATO allies, The U.S. President said, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” of the Russian dictator Putin. White House staff tried to walk back that shot across the bow. During the Academy Awards broadcast, the actor Will Smith assaulted the comedian Chris Rock with a shot across the brow. The Oscars decided not to walk Smith out the back. Then there was the bit of ad lib provided by the University of Arkansas cheerleading team and the backboard during the men’s game between the Razorbacks and the Duke Blue Devils. Let me draw this up. March Madness is the year-end...

It's the end of another week of staggering carnage in the greater world and of small happinesses and gratitudes in my little one. Here's the Three Things podcast, episode 63 . 1. Eyes and ears March madness is on bloody and terrifying display in Ukraine. In that arena are two colleagues, doing work for good. I admire them both. Tim, who is a videographer, is on professional assignment for the national news. Jerry, who was a reporter, is on a personal mission. Both are doing what journalists do, which is to use the least private of the human senses—sight and sound—to convey something that is out there, an objective world. “This is such an important story to tell,” Tim said in a message. “So important to hear the voices from the people here. It’s heartbreaking.” For his part, Jerry booked three weeks off work and headed 8,000 km for the Ukraine border. “I’m really here just to grow and learn as a person in no official capacity,” he said, adding that that has meant “carrying lugga...

  It's the end of the week as we know it, friends. Here is this week's Three Things podcast. 1. Jars Apparently, I am also from Chortkiv in western Ukraine, and not just Delwood in northeast Edmonton. Thanks to my mother’s record-keeping, I can trace my family back four generations on her side to the small city of 30,000 people, which is where my great-great grandparents Maria and Dmytro lived and where their son Yosyp was born. It’s close, 100 kilometres or so, from a recent Russian missile strike. I don’t know if I still have relatives there. I have never visited or done an ancestry search. For me, the old country is St. Basil’s Ukrainian Cultural Centre on 109th Street. The siege on Ukraine has brought back flashes from my youth. Ukrainian dancing ribbons for my sisters’ hair. Perogies and cabbage rolls pronounced “pedaheh” and “holopchi.” Borscht made deluxe with spare ribs. The sweet smell of hot wax for Easter pysanky. A blue-covered book on conversational Ukrainian by Y...

It feels difficult and wrong and even obscene to fiddle around with three little things when such big things are going wrong, and when ordinary people are forced onto the unarmed road of flight. But I am grateful for my little life. I hope it can stay this way. It is heartbreaking to see everyday lives clawed apart by the powerful. Against the historic backdrop of our dark times, I offer this week's Three Things подкаст . 1. Reappearing act   The doorbell rang. Our friends Lori and Murray were on the front step, carrying a gift from the beyond. Back in the 2000-2001 minor hockey season Murray coached the KC Annunciation Rink Rats novice team on which our son Alex played. Coach Murray had things under control, including the most important thing for a coach to have under control: himself. He was calm and knowledgeable and made the season fun for the eight- and nine-year-olds and their fans. He was in it for the team. (The mistakes I would go on to make as a hockey coach I wouldn’t h...