Glenn Kubish

I can't shake the feeling that whatever play we thought we were in before isn't the play we're in now. The old set has been blown away...we have different lines...about obligation to each other. We're not so familiar with that script.  There's no shortage of lines. There are the basic messages. Distance, wash your hands, wear a mask, avoid social gatherings. There are the lines written by the humorists. Maintain physical distance, or 1 Joey Ramone. There's the threatening voice of authority. If we don't turn this around now, there will be tighter controls ahead. Clever wordplay, too. Spread the word, not the virus. Bend the curve, not the rules. Wearing a mask? Best time to get braces. The big picture: we are in this together, apart. The appeal to the heart: protect your loved ones.  Versions of the last line about protecting loved ones are curious. It's long been thought that protecting loved ones goes without saying. The human impulse to protect loved ...

Trees give back. Including giving up the wood to build the boxes that protect the trees from construction sites composed of wood where people who photograph but do not photosynthesize and who find it unbearable to live without trees will live. Trees have also gifted me the pencil in my right hand and the paper notebook that first accepted the thoughts that branched from heart to hand.

I sometimes but not often enough and not deeply enough think about what to do next when bad and strange and heartbreaking things happen. This is the residue of a work life spent in newsrooms monetized in part by bad and strange and heartbreaking things happening. In a newsroom, you have to know what to do, and quickly, when disaster reveals its face. I am thinking now about the recent massacre in Las Vegas where a sniper transformed a tower from an illuminated landmark into a bristling gun nest. He killed 59 people on the Strip below. They had been listening to music. In a TV newsroom there is no time to stare and wonder. Facts have to be chased, rumours abandoned, tweets tweeted, video reviewed for suitability, anchors called in, production lineups built, stories debated, angles checked off. Find a way to localize the story, bring it home. Were there any Canadians there? Albertans? Edmontonians? Among the dead, the same questions. Think about breaking into regular programmi...