Glenn Kubish

Aaron Brown wasn't sure who was in his ear. "We have, um, one of our producers on the phone, and I didn't get the name, so, why don't we just go ahead," said Brown as he anchored live coverage of the World Trade Center attacks. "Are you there?" Brown's ear had in it what in the television news game is called an IFB. IFB stands for interruptible foldback. It's a kind of earpiece that delivers a one-way audio feed into the head of the TV reporter. It is a medium used to deliver cues and information to the reporter from the TV control room. If you've ever seen a live reporter touch or motion to her or his ear to get a better handle on the incoming information, you have seen an IFB at work. That second, Brown, as one of the Twin Towers still stood behind him like giant chimney emitting smoke from hell, was in silent contact via IFB with the CNN control room. Someone, the director, a producer, maybe, was telling him that another produ...

Hello, doctor, our best friend You've come to talk with us again To share your mission for our safekeeping In an Internet public health meeting Your prescription that gets planted in our brains Must remain To confound the COVID virus We clean our hands, we scrub our phones In it together, though alone Every afternoon at 3:30 We watch you show us coolly and calmly A way ahead that's lit by the flash of scientific light Facts in black and white To confound the COVID virus  In a happy dream I saw Groups of 15, but no more People walking while they're distancing People hearing 'cause they're home working People walking dogs, people jogging up the stairs Sixfeetapart, and aware Of how best to disturb the COVID virus The fools are those who will not know Who bellow "up is down" and "yes is no" The schools are now closed but we learn from you How logic can still be our best guide through How reasoned words have the powe...

My inbox immunity is low. Still, the message from the Winspear Centre hit home. Soon after Alberta Health Services recommended on Thursday that large gatherings of more than 250 people be cancelled, the Winspear scratched its March concerts. Helping to flatten the curve means instruments down. "The health and well-being of our patrons, staff and musicians are of the utmost importance," the email said. So, for now, the music dies. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that live orchestral music should be maintained in a pandemic. I'm just saying I remember what C.S. Lewis wrote in 1948 in a piece called On Living in an Atomic Age. This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let the bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our fr...