Glenn Kubish

I remember sitting on the examining table in the doctor's office and feeling the concept of immunity sinking in a bit. The doc had taken a pen and drawn a single line on the table's thin tissue topping.  I had asked about shingles. Could I ever get it again? What could I do to prevent ever getting it again? The pain from my shingles episode a couple of years before had been at times unbearable. Those were the hours it felt like some tiny invaders under the torso splotches were slowly pulling a tiny pipe cleaner tipped with tin foil through my blood vessels. Yes, I got the vaccine, but could it ever happen again? The doctor said, yes, it could happen again, and then drew two more figures. The horizontal line was the virus. It stayed in my body. It would always be there. The downward-pointing crooked lines represented my immunity. When my immunity was lower than the strength of the virus, he explained, when it dipped below the base line, boom, welcome back shingle...

Me today at Enterprise Square, listening I have always enjoyed eavesdropping. Not the spying-on-what-you're-saying-about-me variety, but more of an academic, creative kind of espionage where I imagine listening in on authors, across time, space, genre, sometimes the grave, discussing a topic of my choice. It's a bit dangerous, this practice of combining what this writer wrote with what that speaker later said, or what this observer on this author said with what that person subsequently posted or painted. Risky, obviously, because I am hosting the debate in my own mind without direct access for clarification to the principals I imagine to be encountering each other. It can get crowded, and crowds make for not getting right what you think you are hearing. But it's a fun kind of daring. And it makes the literature review I am building for my final assignment on the meaning of the Duckett Cookie Episode (when not blogging about building a literature review for my f...

Let's start on a tight shot of a tweet posted today by CTV National producer Rosa Hwang, who is responding in words to the anger of those offended by some of the pictures and sound they see and hear in coverage of the Newtown murders. Here it is:  Rosa Hwang  ‏ @ RosaHwangCTV For those slamming media coverage of  # Newtown , most reporters are doing their best to be responsible and measured. Many are parents too. I don't know Rosa, but I enjoy her tweets and know where she is coming from. For years I worked in the conventional news media, most of that time in television, much of it helping decide if not exactly what to shoot, then what to air and what would be seen. And I have heard the anger and disbelief and sorrow of viewers who slam the media's coverage of disasters the core of which is human heartbreak. Over the years, I have been yelled at, sworn at, likened to a vulture, a ghoul, a piece of scum, and threatened with physical violence. And it never re...

There is still general harmony in the twitterverse today, at least on the question of how Bill Clinton did in his speech last night to the Democratic National Convention. It was very good. And it was very good for a lot of reasons, some of which I understand, some of which are way beyond me. Many out there agreed the speech was either or all of high rhetoric, a splendid defence-attorney closing statement,  pure music or,  you can see where this is going.... James Fallows  ‏ @ JamesFallows Secret of Bill  Clinton 's rhetorical success? He treats listeners as if they are smart.  http://bit.ly/RduqMB  by me Marc Lamont Hill  ‏ @ marclamonthill I think  Clinton 's speech was a game changer. He made a compelling and persuasive case for a second Obama term. He hit all the notes. Roland Scahill  ‏ @ rolandscahill Bill  Clinton  seduced the entire country last night. That man has got it. But, driven by the folly...

Tonight in Aurora, Colorado, U.S. President Barack Obama decided that what the community, the country, the campaign most need right now is a story. And I think that the reason stories like this have such an impact on us is because we can all understand what it would be to have somebody that we love taken from us in this fashion. Some of the stories are remarkable. There's one particular story I want to tell because this was the last visit that I had and I think it's representative of everything that I saw and heard today. And I don't think this story has been heard -- at least I hadn't read it yet -- but I wanted to share it with you.  The U.S. Commander-Of-Attention-In-Chief went on to tell the story of two friends, Allie, who was shot while trying to draw the attention of others in the theatre to the gunman's canisters, and Stephanie,  who stayed with her friend, applied pressure to her neck wound with one hand while calling 911 on her cellphone w...

It was a modern communications moment, complete with the immediate dissection. I was driving by a clever billboard near the Calgary International Airport. It was a giant ad for Chinook Centre that read something like, "We're Ready For Your Runway!" It made me smile, a reaction itself which is notable given that I was in communication with an inanimate object, so, a big check for the designer! Just as quickly, though, the giant sign was behind me, waiting for the next driver to come into its field, and another thought presented itself. It was a vague thought, more of a picture in my mind, really, and the picture or the form was of a giant, unblinking eye. And as I glanced in my rearview mirror, I felt for a brief second a bit robbed. Not in the sense that the ad took my money, or even that it took the attention I willingly gave it. But robbed in the sense that the punctuating laugh seemed to give the encounter a sense of a real bit of communication. But there the du...