JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Posted by jdbernard743

· February 20, 2020

Weather and Creativity…

This is the bus I take from home to my downtown “office” on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Marilynn comes with me every Thursday. She hates the bus but loves me, so she bites the bullet and rides along. I love both her and the bus… in that order.

Over the years I’ve made a number of friends on my bus commute – all women. I got to know two of them well enough to have an occasional lunch with them. One, Mary Lou, lost her husband Bob unexpectedly and her confusion and grief were palpable. Not long after Bob’s death she moved away and we no longer share the bus ride. I often wonder how she’s doing? The younger one, Linda, has two children in Middle School. She’s married to Mark, a former airline pilot. He flew for Aloha and commuted to Honolulu. It was the job he’d always dreamed of but after two furloughs he gave it up. Now he drives a bus for King County Metro just like the one I ride to work. It pays well and he has a stable life with Linda and their kids. No more white scarf and leather flight jacket glamor but a healthy family life.

I find the bus commute endlessly interesting. Sometimes I listen to an Audible book. Last week it was James Taylor’s autobiography “Break Shot” about his first 21 years. Fascinating. If you read this blog often you know how much I like James and his songs. On other days, I check out the riders or hunker down as the rain splatters the windows. Usually I count the number of passengers who are staring at their phones and calculate the percentage of phone addicts. Today, of the 11 passengers I could see, 9 were staring at their phones. There was a time…

I finished Break Shot over the weekend, so this morning I started a new novel by Jenny Offill. Weather is short and oddly aphoristic. Vignettes. Musings. Jump cuts. I don’t really have time to read another novel; I’m in the middle of two other books but Weather was very seductive. Two weeks ago it was reviewed on the cover of the New York Times Book Review and again in the New York Times Magazine. I’d never seen that much positive attention devoted to a new novel by a mostly unknown writer. Granted, American Dirt, the story of a Mexican immigrant family by a half-Puerto Rican woman novelist, has been sucking all the politically correct air out of the book reviewing business, but Weather is not in the news because it’s controversial. It’s just good creative literature.

I’m not quite halfway through but I’m awestruck by how simple and complicated it is at the same time. The paragraphs are short little chunks of a bigger story about Lizzie, a grad school dropout, her son, Eli, and her grad school professor/mentor, Sylvia. In less than 200 pages the author takes us on a sweeping journey from Eli’s preschool to global climate change, alt-Right and leftwing politics, a peek inside Lizzie’s head, and back to the Help Desk at the university library where she works.

Good writing is always about the story. It might be told monumentally, as in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, or in short curt passages like Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. It might be a graphic novel about mental health like Marbles or a children’s book like Goodnight Moon. A good story is a good story, but as a writer I especially admire those who bring something new to the craft.

I was married to a visual artist who maintained she could teach anyone to draw. I disagreed but wasn’t willing to test her belief. On the other hand, I understood her point; a skilled draftsman is not necessarily a creative artist. Visit any art fair and you will see drawings and paintings that catch your eye for their realistic depiction of a scene, but the creative process is something more. Whether it’s a painting or a novel, the creative artist delivers his or her material in a different consciousness raising way.

We live in perilous times. Science tells us we are destroying the planet and may soon pass the point of no return. Both sides of the political spectrum are weighing in – and testing extreme positions while those of us in the middle struggle to find a reasonable way to address the Doomsday scenario. Weather addresses these issues in fiction. Many of us have little Eli’s in our family and wonder what the planet will look like when they are our age. Here are two of mine in the Paris catacombs.

We can’t let them down. We have to act; to affirm the science, combat atmospheric emissions, keep the busses running, cultivate friendships, keep writers writing, painters painting, and work to assure our kids’ futures. Thank Jenny Offill for reminding us.

Q: What is the philosophy of late capitalism?

A: Two hikers see a hungry bear on the trail ahead of them. One of them takes out his running shoes and puts them on. You can’t outrun a bear, the other whispers. I just have to outrun you, he says. (Weather, p.44)

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Categories : Art, Books, Ethics, Friendship, Music, Personal/Family, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· February 19, 2020

· 4 Comments

The Legacy of Icons…

It’s easy in the later stages of life to look back at memorable events, performances, and personalities encountered on our journey and lament the loss of those who still seem very much alive because of the way they and their art affected us.

Last week M and I spent an evening with Sam Shepard at the Seattle Rep and he was very much alive during a performance of True West, his rollicking roller coaster ride of a play where the audience is pulled into the action as two very different brothers trash each other and their mother’s home on the stage in front of them.

My first memory of Sam Shepard is Shepard the actor and his portrayal of Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983). I only knew him as a playwright then, but he nailed Yeager and soon after that he was everywhere. Over the years I watched him play a series of laconic film heroes and saw several of his 44 plays, including Fool for Love, True West and the Pulitzer-winning Buried Child.

I always admired Sam Shepard the movie-star hero and even more the creative director, screenwriter and award-winning playwright who was sharing a life with the equally private and talented Jessica Lange on a small ranch somewhere between Mill Valley and the ocean in Marin County.

Shepard died, as he lived, very privately at his Kentucky home on August 1, 2017. The cause of death was complications from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a diagnosis he kept from all but his closest friends and family, but in a passage from The One Inside, a novel written before his condition was known, his character explains his condition,

“Something in his body refuses to get up. The appendages don’t seem connected to the motor — whatever that is — driving this thing. They won’t take direction — won’t be dictated to — the arms, legs, feet, hands. Nothing moves. Nothing even wants to. The brain isn’t sending signals.”

My good friend, Hugh, was diagnosed with ALS in 2018. He might describe his own condition exactly that way. When M and I visited him recently, he told her that every morning he’s a little weaker but looks forward to every day. Shepard continued to work daily despite his illness, and, with Patti Smith’s help, published Spy of the First Person posthumously.

Getting old is cruel enough without the humiliation of a neurological breakdown. So far, M and I are doing OK. Parts are wearing out but not entirely giving up. Last year the Social Security Life Expectancy Calculator estimated that I had 8 years and 7 months left. Today it told me I have 7 years and 6 months. Time flies but I’m still right on schedule. We all like to imagine ourselves unbound by the laws of nature, but, as we approach the end, normal starts to look like a good deal.

When I started working for Pan Am I was hungry to see and do everything, and on every layover I looked for something special to see or do. In the late 60s I had a trip to Amsterdam and Jacqueline Du Pre, the prodigiously talented young cellist, was performing that night with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. I don’t remember what she played but I was swept away and fell hard for her and her cello.

Then sadly, by 1973 as fast as it had begun, her career was over and in 1987 at the age of 42 she was dead, a victim of MS (multiple sclerosis). I don’t have her recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto, but I think of her whenever I listen to the Yo Yo Ma version. She made it famous and Iike to think I’m listening to her when I hear it.

Both Shepard and Du Pre will live on in the artistic record they left behind. We’ll be able to see the Shepard plays and movies and listen to the Du Pre recordings, but this morning I heard that Cathy Marston is bringing Du Pre back to life in The Cellist, a new mainstage commission for London’s Royal Ballet.

In Marston’s imaginative retelling of the Du Pre story, she is played by a ballerina while a male dancer performs the role of her cello. The audience is transfixed as the two lean into each other as the music merges with their movements.

It’s hard to imagine a more fitting tribute to the talent of an artist than the creation of new work based on his or her legacy. We can see a Shepard revival or hear a Du Pre recording but there is something special about a new work. Kudos to Cathy Marston and the Royal Ballet. I have my fingers crossed that Pacific Northwest Ballet will bring her celebration of Ms. Du Pre to Seattle.

There is something particularly poignant about vital, energetic artists like Sam Shepard and Jacqueline Du Pre being brought down by nasty debilitating diseases. My heart goes out to my relatives and friends who are dealing with MS and ALS, all of whom maintain positive attitudes and gratitude for the lives they’ve lived and are living.

Memory is tricky… We tend to remember the highlights. I remember seeing the strings of Issac Stern’s bow flying wildly during the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, and hearing Janis Joplin’s Southern Comfort laced voice with Big Brother and the Holding Company at a bar in Huntington Beach. I love movies, but there is nothing like a live performance – music and/or theater. Great art and artists live beyond their work, and we remember them through it. Today, I’m grateful for my time with Sam Shepard and Jacqueline Du Pre in the past but look forward to my next encounter with greatness in a live setting. I feel lucky to be alive and able to experience the legacy of iconic artists – living and dead.

Categories : Art, Books, Film/Television, Friendship, Music, Theater, Travel, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· February 14, 2020

· 1 Comment

The Way of the Dodo?

Here’s what’s happening in the world – natural and unnatural.

Planet earth is losing flora and fauna species at an alarming rate. Extinction is a phenomenon that occurs naturally, but the main cause of the current extinctions is the destruction of natural habitats by human activities, such as cutting down forests and converting land into fields for farming.
Scientists estimate we are currently losing species 1,000-10,000 times faster than normal attrition, which means that literally tens of species are vanishing from the face of the Earth every day. (worldanimalfoundation.com)
Across Africa, the U.N. estimates that 23.6 million people are facing food shortages due to the worst locust infestation in 70 years followed by torrential rains. (WSJ, Jan 31, 2020)
Australia is, after a month of wildfires that burned 12.35 million acres and killed as many as one billion animals, experiencing unprecedented rains and floods – 15.4” in 4 days. (AP)
Worldwide, 65.6 million individuals have been forcibly displaced because of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations, per the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR 2017).
Arctic and Antarctic ice caps are melting at an astonishing rate. On June 13, 2019 Greenland lost more than two billion tons of ice in one day. (nationalgeographic.com)
In Brazil, between 15 and 17 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been lost, and if the amount of cleared forest land reaches 25 percent, there won’t be enough trees cycling moisture through the rainforest. (vox.com)

Why? Well, it’s complicated…but at its root it’s because we, as humans, haven’t been good stewards of each other’s welfare or the planet’s. It’s clear now; we have hard evidence that if we are to survive – if the planet is to survive – we need to make an urgent course correction. Instead, America has gone tribal, ignoring the evidence and doubling down on fossil fuels, extractive industries, unsustainable agribusiness, military industrial power, and isolationism.

Elizabeth Kolbert describes the crisis in her bestseller, The Sixth Extinction. She explains that the five prior extinction events, such as the extinction of the dinosaurs, were the result of extreme natural events like an asteroid striking the earth or massive volcanic eruptions but that human behavior is on the verge of causing another mass-extinction—the sixth in the history of the planet.

I’ve always thought of myself as a short-term pessimist and long-term optimist, but it’s hard to see any silver lining as we hurtle toward our own extinction. As Nathaniel Rich pointed out in a series of articles in the New York Times in 2018.

“Nearly everything we understand about global warming was understood in 1979. By that year, data collected since 1957 confirmed what had been known since before the turn of the 20^th century: Human beings have altered Earth’s atmosphere through the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels. The main scientific questions were settled beyond debate, and as the 1980s began, attention turned from diagnosis of the problem to refinement of the predicted consequences. Compared with string theory and genetic engineering, the “greenhouse effect: – a metaphor dating to the early 1900s – was ancient history, described in any Introduction to Biology textbook. Nor was the basic science especially complicated. It could be reduced to a simple axiom: The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the warmer the planet. And every year, by burning coal, oil and gas, humankind belched increasingly obscene quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”

There is a part of me that would like to blame the current White House for the whole thing. After all, of the 175 signatories the United States is the only one to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords. We may only have been nibbling around the edges, but in the last three years this president has rolled back whatever gains we made in recent years. There’s an echo of Nero fiddling while Rome burns in almost everything Trump does, but we’re all complicit. We’re burning up the planet.

I want to believe in evolution. Silly me. I should have known when we began designing nuclear bombs that evolution was a hoax. But, Iike my climate denier friends, I kept thinking this and other human foibles were anomalies–until a set of recessive genes took over the White House and showed us how wrong we were.

Still, there must be a soupçon of hope in human DNA that keeps the dream alive. I know we can do better. I want to die believing my children and grandchildren will be part of a grand turn-around. “Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large.” (Wikipedia)

Count me in for the positive outcome, but first we need to rid ourselves of The Denier-in-Chief and his 40 Thieves. They’re driving the bus that’s hurtling us toward the Sixth Extinction, so let’s take the steering wheel back and turn this thing around. We may be beyond the point of no return environmentally, but let’s leave a positive note for the next iteration of human life so they won’t judge us too harshly.

Isn’t it a lovely ride?
Sliding down
Gliding down
Try not to try too hard
It’s just a lovely ride
Now the thing about time is that time
Isn’t really real
It’s just your point of view

The Secret of Life – James Taylor

Remember him? Are we next?

Categories : Art, Books, Ethics, Friendship, News and Media, Personal/Family, Politics, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· February 6, 2020

· No Comments

Gaming the System…

The foundation of the American system of criminal justice is the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial and the best defense available… but justice is not always blind. Race, wealth, age, prior history, and the integrity of the lawyers can all skew those principles and affect the outcome.

Standard 4-1.2 of the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Standards for the Defense Function, paragraph (b) states:

Defense counsel have the difficult task of serving both as officers of the court and as loyal and zealous advocates for their clients. The primary duties that defense counsel owe to their clients, to the administration of justice, and as officers of the court, are to serve as their clients’ counselor and advocate with courage and devotion; to ensure that constitutional and other legal rights of their clients are protected; and to render effective, high-quality legal representation with integrity.

Last week, the United States Senate sat as a jury to hear House managers present the case for Donald John Trump’s impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Yesterday he was acquitted by a narrow 52 – 48 margin.

To defend himself, Mr. Trump had assembled a made-for-TV legal defense team. None were established criminal defense standouts but two were TV courtroom veterans. The first, Kenneth Starr, was Special Counsel and prosecutor in the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton and the second, Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard Law professor famous for representing such unsavory characters as OJ Simpson, Claus von Bulow, and Jeffrey Epstein.

Starr, it would seem, was window dressing at the impeachment trial, there to pronounce that “we are living in the age of impeachment”and to ask, “How did we get here, with presidential impeachment invoked frequently in its inherently destabilizing as well as acrimonious way?” As Vanity Fair noted, “For those of you who synthesize information best through historical antecedents, this is like Jeffrey Dahmer lecturing his peers for eating people. Or Adolf Hitler asking, “How did we get into this predicament where people don’t care for the Jews?” His Starr-turn was disingenuous, and he was quickly replaced in the lineup by the much more nefarious spin-ster, Mr. Dershowitz.

It was performance art on a grand scale. First, he introduced himself not as friend of the president, but as a Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton–appearing for the president only to clarify the constitutional imperatives in question. But, if he’s a Democrat who voted for Mrs. Clinton, isn’t it odd he was invited to Christmas Eve dinner at Mar-a-Lago by a president famous for his hatred of Crooked Hillary?

Regardless, the Dershowitz spin went like this: “A president cannot be impeached unless he has committed a crime and no crime is alleged in Impeachment Article #1” and “If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

Incongurously, during the 1999 Clinton impeachment both Starr and Dershowitz argued that it was not necessary to allege or prove a crime. What’s different? Well, this time it’s not a cringe-worthy sexual act in the White House–it’s the president requesting a foreign government to interfere in our 2020 presidential election. Big difference.

The chutzpah is astonishing and legal scholars, including Lawrence Tribe, the Harvard Law School professor and foremost constitutional law scholar in America, were quick to point out that almost no one accepts the Dershowitz argument. As a lawyer, I read the testimony several times and couldn’t understand the circular, Byzantine reasoning or how he arrived at his conclusions. But I’m not alone; when real scholars challenged him he walked it back by claiming his remarks were misrepresented and throwing up a barrage of legal chaff based on “motives”, “mixed motives,” “matters of degree,” “preposterous examples,” and “complex issues the framers did not intend for impeachment.”

It was dazzling judicial theater, intended to conflate and confuse rather than convince, and I was reminded me of an article by Molly Roberts of the Washington Post written just after Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and jailed in 2019. What Alan Dershowitz Taught Me About Morality is her retelling of an experience as a Harvard student in a Dershowitz seminar in which he asked her the question “Where does your morality come from?”

Dershowitz has made a name for himself as an “intellectual provocateur.” In her article Ms. Roberts suggests that he has lost sight of the principles he originally championed, i.e. safeguarding civil liberties. Rather, he has made a name for himself gaming the system.

As Ms. Roberts points out, “Principles are important, but they can also be a distancing mechanism that permits us to maintain an aura of rectitude even as we go around behaving in ways that aren’t right at all. They can allow us to absolve ourselves for our actions by claiming they’re in service ot some metaphysical lodestar that supersedes any effect on real people in real life. Sometimes, we’re simply wrong—not just constitutionally, or legally, but ethically, too.”

Yes, every defendant is entitled to the best defense available, but as the professional standards state “Defense counsel have the difficult task of serving both as officers of the court and as loyal and zealous advocates for their clients…with integrity.” Given Mr. Dershowitz’s history, particularly his recent history as an advocate for Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, it is arguable that principles have been sidelined and, like President Trump, gaming the system to win no matter the consequences is now his “lodestar.” Dershowitz once told The New York Times he regretted taking the Epstein case but told Ms. Roberts “I would do it again.”

Harking back to her seminar at Harvard, the Roberts Op-Ed ends with the following sentence, “There’s an answer to the question none of us students could reach all those years ago: Your morality comes from what you do.

Categories : Ethics, Film/Television, News and Media, Politics, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· February 1, 2020

· 3 Comments

We’re All Human…

My friend, Roger, lives in Calabasas, California a mile and half from where Kobe Bryant and eight others died in a helicopter crash last Sunday. There’s a trail there, on the ocean side of the Santa Monica mountains, that we have hiked together.

Helicopter Debris Field

The world continues in a state of shock at the loss of Kobe, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and two other families with girls that were members of Gianna’s youth basketball team. At Staples Center, often referred to as “the house that Kobe built” the mourners outside numbered more than the crowd inside at Sunday night’s Grammy Awards – but all were subdued and grieving the loss of their larger than life 41-year-old basketball hero.

The NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) is investigating but in the opinion of most aviation experts Kobe’s helicopter was flown into the ground or in the words of investigators “controlled flight into terrain.” There is little doubt that the accident was due to a combination of weather and pilot error (poor judgment and disorientation). I’m not helicopter rated nor am I a certified investigator, but as a former military and commercial pilot I have an informed opinion about what happened and feel heartsick about an accident I think could have been prevented. We won’t know the details for some time. The NTSB does a thorough job, and despite the fact that the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter had neither voice nor flight recorder (required on all commercial aircraft) it won’t be hard to determine the causes.

On Sunday morning, weather in the LA Basin included low clouds and limited visibility. Conditions were sufficiently compromised that all LA Police and LA County Sheriff helicopters were grounded. Nevertheless, operating under VFR (Visual Flight Rules), Kobe’s pilot took off from Long Beach Airport where the helicopter was kept and flew to Orange County Airport where his passengers were waiting. Flying VFR, he used visual references and remained clear of all clouds. All normal and acceptable.

This was where judgment came into the equation. Kobe was a strong charismatic personality, used to getting what he wanted or needed. He owned or leased the helicopter and frequently used it to commute to Staples Center and other locations in the LA Basin. The youth basketball game Gianna’s team was scheduled to play was in Thousand Oaks 82 miles from his home in Newport Beach (2hrs and 45 min by car according to Google Maps), but normally less than an hour by helicopter.

It’s difficult to reconstruct the conversations and decisions that took place when Ara Zobayan, the pilot, and Kobe conferred on the tarmac at Orange County Airport, but several possibilities present themselves:

Captain Zobayan could have briefed Kobe on the weather and advised him to cancel the trip. (safest alternative)
He could have suggested they takeoff and make a decision enroute, hoping the weather would clear before they had to turn back. This could be risky, because they might get boxed in if the clouds and fog remained and turning around in mountainous terrain and low visibility is dangerous. (but still a legitimate alternative)
He might have suggested they file an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flight plan but in this instance, even though the helicopter was instrument capable and the pilot instrument qualified – the FAA had not certified this company to fly its helicopters IFR. (FAA violation)
He could have assured Kobe that this weather was not unusual in the LA Basin and they should proceed normally (overconfident)
Captain Zobayan, an employee, probably felt pressure to do what the boss wanted. (normal)
Kobe might have told his pilot that his daughter and her friends would be disappointed if they had to cancel and couldn’t play. (emotional)
Kobe might have pointed out that the team would have to cancel without the three girls. (guilty)
Kobe might have felt responsible for getting the other families to the game. After all, he had invited them to fly with him. (responsible)
Kobe might have consulted with the other families about proceeding and asked them to help with the decision. (possible)

We don’t know what the interactions were between Kobe and his pilot, but I know what pressure feels like under similar circumstances. As a Pan Am co-pilot, I remember a cargo flight from Guam to San Francisco where the preflight paperwork showed the aircraft weight and balance outside of normal limits. The other three cockpit crew members were anxious to get home. They were willing to take the aircraft despite the calculations. I objected and the flight was rerouted through Honolulu which meant we had to layover in HNL and our return to SFO would be delayed by a day. On the flight to HNL I was shunned by the other three who refused to talk to me – in spite of the fact that there had been three fatal pilot error accidents by SFO crews in recent years. Decisions are sometimes made for personal reasons that conflict with good judgment. Often there is no harm, but in this case nine lives were lost.

Kobe’s helicopter had dual controls and could accommodate a second pilot. Under the circumstances a second pilot might have prevented the accident. Four eyes are better than two, but though a second set of eyes might have helped, flying IFR violated the company’s certification. This S-76 was not approved for instrument flight. The pilot was required to fly only in visual flight conditions… but of course we know he didn’t. He got boxed in by a lowering ceiling and hills he tried to climb over.

I’m touched by the loss of Kobe, his daughter and their friends. The accident was preventable. It shouldn’t have happened but sometimes, in the moment, because we are human we act emotionally. As a pilot I was guilty of bad judgment at times – but without serious consequences. We know Kobe was very involved with and proud of his daughter who was following his footsteps and carrying on his basketball legacy. We know he wouldn’t have done anything to harm her or their friends. But, we are all human… with needs and desires that often cloud our judgment. The same holds true for the pilot. I’m sure he was capable in ordinary circumstances and most likely capable in difficult conditions, but like my own Guam to San Francisco flight there were other considerations clouding his judgment.

Kobe was just beginning a new phase in his remarkable life. We can only hope that his family and friends will carry on his good works and legacy.