Author Archive for jdbernard743 – Page 31

Best Rainy Day Matinee Ever…

Rainy Day Blues

I’ve never liked the weather in Seattle. I named my blog Surviving Seattle because I struggle with it most of the year. On the other hand, summers here are hard to beat, so I was especially bummed last Saturday to wake up with rain spattered windows and dripping eaves. No morning swim, no bike ride in the afternoon, no outside table for drinks at dinner. I have my routines. So, what do we do when cabin fever closes in?

Last week we went to the movies (Biggest Little Farm) to avoid the endless feedback loop of the current news cycle. Saturday, we needed to find a way to get out of the house but avoid the rain. read more

Trump’s Stages of Grievance…

Most of us are familiar with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ Five Stages of Grief– denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Kubler-Ross’ list is a handy reminder that grief and the time it takes to run its course don’t always follow a straight line.

Stages of Grief

Grief comes from the Anglo-French word gref meaning injustice or calamity and the Latin word gravis meaning heavy. The dictionary defines it as a “deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement.” Grieve, is related but comes from the Latin gravare, to burden but also gravis or heavy, and its dictionary definition is “to feel or show grief.” read more

A True Story of Fake News

Donald Trump has always been impressed with Time Magazine and is often heard bragging about how many times his picture has adorned its cover. Most of the claims are bogus. Until the election of 2016 he made it only once (January 1989), but truth has never been a guiding principle for The Donald.

Given that the magazine didn’t see fit to honor him with another cover, it was only a matter of time until he ordered his minions to create one. This is the first fake Trump Time Magazine cover, fraudulently created in order to impress those who crossing into Trumpland. Take note of its date, March 1, 2009. There was no March 1, 2009 issue of Time Magazine. Pure fake news. read more

The Biggest Little Farm Goes Head to Head with our Biggest Little Racist…

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
― John F. Kennedy 1961

That president (35) and the current occupant of the office (45) are apples and something orange, and it took just 58 years to go from “our better angels” and ‘the best of our energies and skills’ to “there were fine people on both sides” and Congresswomen of color should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” read more

My Take

By Jack Bernard

Special to The Seattle Times

Jim Johnson reads a newspaper with his morning cup of coffee at a Starbucks in downtownPortland. As of September, you can still get… (Don Ryan / The Associated Press) 

The Seattle Times recently reported that Starbucks planned to stop selling newspapers at its stores beginning in September [“Starbucks stores to stop selling newspapers in the fall, pointing to ‘changing customer behavior,’ ” July 12, Business]. I want to amplify the voices of those concerned with that decision.

Starbucks has branded itself as a “third place,” a term for a place other than home or work where community life takes place, people connect and interact. It would appear that Starbucks borrowed the branding idea from another Seattle favorite, Third Place Books, our local independent bookstore chain, but that’s beside the point. read more