JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Posted by jdbernard743

· July 25, 2018

Chess Anyone?

The Great American Chess Match is underway – President Donald J. Trump vs. Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. I’d like to believe the majority of Americans are as curious about this riveting duel as I am, but recent reporting tells us that most Americans are more concerned with how their two income households can make the rent, find or keep a good job, or help their children get to college than they are with Russian interference in the 2016 election or collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

I’m not surprised but I find it alarming, because the Great American Chess Match may very well determine how American families will have to deal with their primary concerns in the future.

Chess is a game of strategy and tactics, and while Trump and Mueller are both cagey strategists their tactics are dramatically different. Trump distracts us from his end game (whatever that is) by turning over the board and scattering the pieces. Mueller quietly picks them up, resets the board, and methodically moves them as he closes in on the king.

America is in the midst of a dynamic reset with the pendulum swinging wildly between the structures the “founding fathers” carefully designed to protect the republic and the current global swerve toward populist driven autocratic governance. How else do we make sense of Charlottesville, the North Korean summit, the abusive treatment of traditional allies, Trump’s servile, bootlicking bromance with Putin in Helsinki, and his inconceivable decision to invite Putin to the White House for a state visit this fall?

For months I was in denial as Trump and his posse went about dismantling government institutions, ignoring traditions, repealing regulations and upsetting protocol. Look at what’s happened at the Department of Justice, State Department, Treasury, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, EPA, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Education, and most brutally by Homeland Security’s separation of migrant parents from their children.

I believed our system of checks and balances would counteract Trump’s one-man rule autocratic impulses and Republican leaders would see and react to the damage this ignorant, arrogant pretender was doing to their institutions and the lives of ordinary Americans.

I was wrong; tax cuts for the rich haven’t trickled down to wage earners, draconian border enforcement hasn’t kept asylum seekers from looking to America for a safe haven, racist xenophobic travel bans haven’t kept us safe from foreign intrusion, and cozying up to autocrats like Putin, Orban, Duterte, and Erdogan hasn’t enhanced our standing in the world order.

Protectionist tariffs are hurting American farmers and manufacturers like Harley-Davidson and Boeing. In March, 45 American trade associations representing some of the largest companies in the country warned in a letter to the White House that such tariffs would raise prices on consumer goods, kill jobs and drive down financial markets. But the beat goes on…

My childhood friend Bob Lucas (above), won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in macroeconomics predicting outcomes based on “rational expectations.” Like Bob, I’m a fan of rational expectations and I suppose it’s the reason I was in a state of denial for so long. Trump’s outrageous violations of normative behavior are crazy, vulgar, and undemocratic, and my “rational expectation” was that one of the traditional forces – the Senate, the House, the Department of Justice, or the Supreme Court would step in and end the carnage. It hasn’t happened.

Like many Americans I haven’t always supported the policies and decisions of those traditional forces but until the election of 2016 I believed that they and our presidents acted on the belief that what they were doing was best for the country and most Americans.

I was wrong. Rational expectations are out the window with this president and his spineless Republican Congress. I can’t wrap my head around it. I thought Congress would resist an assault on our democracy. I thought the American electorate would rebel too. I thought the rule of law would prevail. Not so. During his first year in office, his support hovered around a base of roughly 30%, but today his numbers are alarming. A recent poll shows that 88% of Republican voters approve of him and his actions. That’s not a majority of the population but it’s his base and it’s growing and coalescing in support of his policies. To me it’s scary to think he has that kind of support.

There is no way to explain the phenomenon in terms of rational expectations. We would normally expect Republicans to support limited government, free trade, individual liberty, lower taxes, balanced budgets, reduced deficits, and moral leadership. Strike those expectations. Trump has hijacked the party and today’s Republicans are redistributing wealth upward, increasing the national debt by more than a trillion dollars, imposing tariffs that restrict trade, and building useless walls while their president personally profits from his elected position and pays porn stars and Playboy models to keep them quiet about his depravity. What’s up with that?

Today, I’m pissed and we all should be. Even if you’re dyed in the wool “Live Free or Die” conservative you should be pissed. Donald Trump is an imposter who’s hijacked your government. Don’t let him get away with it. Find a righteous candidate who believes in democratic ideals and support the hell out of him or her.

When the Great American Chess Match is over I’m counting on Mr. Mueller to show us that the Emperor’s new clothes are the real Fake News and we can once again resume the test of the greatest political experiment in history… 240 years and counting. Today, our future is in the hands of a clear-eyed, clear-thinking, Princeton and Harvard educated ex-Marine bolstered by a free and independent press. Let’s hope the system is up to the test.

Semper Fidelis

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Categories : Personal/Family, Politics, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· July 13, 2018

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Who’s Going to Save America?

This is our coffee table last week just before we left for Boston. Messy, but it gives you an idea of how I’m coping with the present and thinking about the future.

It’s taken me 18 months to begin to come to terms with the election of 2016. I wasn’t a fan of Hillary’s, though I knew I could live with her policy decisions. She wasn’t the person I’d have chosen to lead the country but I voted for her because she was the safer choice and thought she would make reasonable decisions in the national interest until someone more visionary came along.

Instead, I got Donald Trump.

I’m not going to beat up on The Donald. Better writers are doing that and I’d only be piling on. Instead, I’m trying to make peace with a bad situation by staying informed and working for change. My take away from 2016 is that Trump has slapped us upside the head and created a come-to-Jesus moment in government.

The past year and a half has been real roller coaster ride. At times, I thought America was on its way down the rabbit hole with fragile democracies like Poland, Hungary, Turkey, and the Philippines, countries who have allowed strong men and autocracy to creep in and take over. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, these countries have fallen under the spell of bullies determined to limit democratic freedoms. Democracy is messy. One-man rule is simple and efficient. That’s why The Donald loves the “my way or the highway” approach, but as you can see from my coffee table I’m counting on his enemy – a free and independent press – to turn things around. Yes, it’s the Fourth Estate, the investigative journalists who dig for facts, the men and women who produce and publish what he fears and calls Fake News, who are going to save our bacon.

For 18 months I ranted, raved, raged, cried, and drank a little too much, but lately I’ve begun to see the Trump-era as that come-to-Jesus moment for America. It may take years to repair the damage this administration has caused but I have faith that investigative journalism is leading us back to a more centrist democratic platform.

Lately, we’ve been victimized by a rogues gallery of bad guys, bad girls and bad decisions including the gutting of environmental laws (EPA under Scott Pruitt), repeal of Dodd-Frank banking rules (Treasury under Steven Mnuchin), elimination of consumer fraud protections (Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau under Mick Mulvaney), scaling back wilderness and opening protected areas to oil and coal exploration (Interior under Ryan Zinke), turning college student education grants into loans that require payback (Education under Betsy DeVos), unqualified judges confirmed to the Federal judiciary and border ports of entry blocked for migrants seeking asylum (Justice under Jeff Sessions), and last but not least the cruel and inhumane treatment of immigrant children (Homeland Security under Kristjen Nielsen). But… those are repair jobs and we can make those repairs when we get a functional government. My faith is grounded in the public’s outrage and the diligence and perseverance of our free press.

I didn’t imagine that the Trump presidency would give rise to a Golden Age of journalism, but because our Founders knew the dangers of unscrupulous leaders and government by fiat they incorporated freedom of the press in the first of the ten amendments that make up our Bill of Rights.

241 years later, the free press is still alive and well. Journalists are prowling the halls of the Congress, the White House, Capitol Hill, and courtrooms across the country investigating and reporting on what our government is doing. They are providing a window on government. The thing about a free press is that every stripe and color of news is there to choose from. A free press allows us to weigh the evidence and make our own decisions about elected officials and the type of government we want.

We can choose conservatives, liberals, radicals, or fascists to lead us, but our choice is not dictated by the government. The election of Donald Trump happened because 49% of eligible voters failed to exercise their voting franchise. That’s criminal neglect. We have the right to choose but that doesn’t mean we can abdicate our responsibility. It is incumbent on each of us to investigate and interrogate the candidates. I think the Founders had that in mind when they gave us that freedom. To be good citizens we need to be discerning curious readers who evaluate sources and listen to all sides.

So… my coffee table is covered with the work of the Fourth Estate – the New York Times, Seattle Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, New York Magazine, Poets and Writers, Seattle Magazine, Sunset Magazine, Vanity Fair, Conde Nast Traveler, Jon Meacham’s biographies of Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson, James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty, a history of tequila, and my friend Delia Cabe’s delightful The Storied Bars of New York.

There is such a thing as truth. In spite of proclamations to the contrary, we do not live in a post-truth society where “alternative” facts are as valid as those that can be proven. So, chase down the truth. Fill your coffee table with newspapers, books, magazines – and books on tequila. If you do, you’ll arrive at your own informed truth. It’s not always easy. Autocracy and dictatorship are “easy.” The government makes decisions for you. Democracy, led by a free press, is harder. You have to find the truth for yourself… and your country. Good luck.

This is a rose from a friend’s garden. Also in our living room. Enjoy!

Categories : Art, Books, Fashion/Lifestyle, Friendship, Politics, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· June 14, 2018

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Where Are Our Better Angels?

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Emma Lazarus’ words, engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, are a reminder that the United States is a land of immigrants. We shouldn’t need a reminder that our nation was founded by immigrants escaping political and religious persecution. Those immigrants, like the ones crossing our borders today, were looking for safety and opportunity. Our founding documents enunciate the principle that “all men are created equal.” So, how did we arrive at the cruel, sinister, and inhumane immigration policy known as “zero tolerance?”

On April 6, 2018, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions announced that, without exception, all persons illegally crossing the Southwest Border of the United States would be subject to criminal prosecution. The policy applies to ALL persons, including those seeking political asylum, and includes a provision that mandates the separation of parents and children. Adults are immediately jailed pending criminal prosecution and their children are removed and placed in detention pending assignment to foster care or “whatever.”

Attorney General Sessions explained that the separation policy is intended as a deterrant message to others planning to cross the border illegally.

On hearing the story, I was reminded of the plight of Romanian orphans under the murderous and abusive Communist regime of Nicolai Ceausescu. Of course, that situation was different from the one now facing America, but the effect on children separated from their parents is destined to be the same if it is not reversed. Children separated, isolated, and warehoused are destined to be damaged whether it’s Romania or America. Infants and toddlers suffer from sensory deprivation and older children have attachment and abandonment anxiety issues. Those Americans with a memory of what happened in Romania will recall how outraged we Americans were and how generous we were in arranging adoptions of these defenseless orphans.

“Zero tolerance” is so cruel, inhumane, and racist it’s hard to imagine it’s the official immigration policy of the American government. How would Attorney General Sessions react if his children or grandchildren were forcibly taken away from the family? What are Christian conservatives or conservative Christians thinking? Whatever happened to the Golden Rule? There is surely a humane way to deal with immigration, even illegal immigration, that does not involve separating families and imprisoning parents.

Two weeks ago, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), attempted to visit a child detention facility in Brownsville, TX to educate himself on the policy. Merkley’s staff had asked permission to visit the facility earlier in the week, but their request was unanswered. Border Patrol agents turned him away from the child detention center when he requested entry.

The senator’s best guess was that roughly 1000 children are being detained at the former Walmart store in Brownsville but he was denied entry and not given information regarding the detainees.

Yesterday (June 13), in an unusual instance of candor, the Department of Health and Human Services released a video of the the interior of the Brownsville facility while reporting that 1500 children being held at the euphemistically named Casa Padre. Nevertheless, Casa Padre is only one of 100 similar detention facilities scattered around the US. It is estimated that 11,200 children are being held in such facilities, although, to be clear, only a small portion of those are children recently taken from their parents at the border.

Locally, Washington Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal visited a Bureau of Prisons facility near Sea-Tac airport where she met with 174 immigrant women being held there. Most were fleeing drug cartels, gang violence, or domestic abuse. Two days ago, overturning a precedent set during the Obama administration, Sessions announced that victims of domestic abuse and gang violence would not be considered for asylum. These are endangered human beings living in dangerous lawless countries. Where is our compassion?

Many of the women Jayapal spoke with had their children taken away when they asked for asylum. The first step in making a case for asylum is a “credible fear” hearing to determine if the applicant qualifies for asylum status. The hearing is to be held as soon as possible after apprehension, but several of the women had been in prison for over a month without such a hearing.

Of the 174 women Jayapal talked with, roughly 40% had children forcibly taken from them at the border and still knew nothing about their children’s whereabouts. It’s not clear how many of these children are in detention facilities or have been placed in foster care, but in 2017 the government acknowledged that they were unable to account for 1475 migrant children it had placed with sponsors.

I haven’t read it, but historian Jon Meacham has a new book called The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. As an admirer of Meacham’s it sounds uplifting, and I can use a little uplift these days. Maybe he can clarify how the soul of America condones and justifies OUR government taking children from parents. This is cruel, inhumane, un-American, and dead wrong. It brings back thoughts of Abu-Gharaib – another despicable American tragedy. Our better angels need to get to work. I have zero tolerance for the zero-tolerance policy.

Categories : Art, Books, Personal/Family, Politics, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· May 30, 2018

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Love is Just a Four-Letter Word…

Bob Dylan wrote a song about it. Joan Baez sang it for us, and Robert Indiana turned it into art. Love is Just a Four-Letter Word.

But, as they say, it’s complicated, and no more so than in British writer Ian McEwan’s 2007 novel, On Chesil Beach. Set in 1962, the novel is now a film starring Oscar winner Saoirse Ronan and newcomer Billy Howle as the young couple who hold us spellbound as they attempt to be intimate for the first time on their wedding night.

Theirs is a complicated stew of young love, repression, class differences, dysfunctional family and almost Victorian modesty, and it will break your heart. It’s hard to believe today that love and sex could have been that different in 1962 but it was. The world had not yet reached the tipping point that launched the sexual revolution. The Beatles didn’t arrive on the Brit music scene until following year, the San Francisco Summer of Love was five-years in the future, and the birth-control pill wasn’t yet in wide usage.

For those of us who came of age at that time, the novel is a reminder of our own coming of age, of our first serious sexual experiences and of how lucky we are to have moved beyond the repression and strictures of that time. Younger viewers may feel for the characters but it’s doubtful they will ever be drawn into the story in the same way we are.

On Chesil Beach is the story of Florence and Edward, two recent university graduates, on their wedding day at a hotel on the English coast. Early in the film we watch their idyllic courtship unfold, full of hope and family drama. She is an accomplished violinist with a chamber group, he a history major with plans to write a series of books. We cheer them as they fall in love and move toward marriage, but they are both inexperienced and fearful. There are obvious stress lines. Following the wedding they travel to a seaside hotel for a short honeymoon where the crux of the novel plays out. There is a climactic scene at the hotel and a long attempt at resolution on the beach, but it doesn’t end well.

On a personal level, I identified uncomfortably with the characters. Their situation was similar in some ways to my own honeymoon. I was married on New Year’s Eve in 1958, 10 days after my 21^stbirthday. We only had three days before the start of my wife’s winter quarter at school, so we drove to the Oregon Coast and an almost empty seaside hotel where it was cold and lonely, not romantic. We walked on a windy desolate winter beach, swam in a cavernous indoor pool, and ate alone in the hotel’s large dining room. We also spent a lot of time in bed, but it was not the passionate, joyful experience we had expected and hoped for. We were not as clueless as Florence and Edward, but we too were inexperienced and didn’t know how to talk to each other, especially about sex. There were uncomfortable silences and differences that we ignored. We lasted longer than Florence and Edward, but in the end the things we didn’t know caught up with us. We loved each other and our son, Brent, was the gift born of that love, but ultimately we didn’t have the skills to keep the ship from sinking.

The novel, On Chesil Beach, is dense, and the film is slow and painful to watch, but both are worth the effort. I often find fault with movies based on novels, and this one is no exception, even though Ian McEwan wrote the screenplay for his own novel. I preferred the book’s ending but understand that film is a different medium and needed something more for dramatic effect.

It’s a love story until it turns to tragedy in the pivotal scene. Florence and Edward are soul mates who overcome class and family obstacles but can’t get out of their own way to overcome the fear, ignorance, and insecurity that is holding them back. They are tragic in the Shakespearean sense—their fate could have been avoided but ego and pride prevent them from finding a solution.

Toward the end of the book Edward realizes that their failure was avoidable. “At last he could admit to himself that he had never met anyone he loved as much, that he had never found anyone, man or woman, who matched her seriousness.”

“When he thought of her it rather amazed him, that he had let that girl with the violin go. Now, of course, he saw that her self-effacing proposal was irrelevant. All she had needed was the certainty of his love and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them. Love and patience—if only he had them both at once—would surely have seen them both through.”

The lyrics of Love is Just a Four-Letter Word help us think differently about love, but the conclusion of On Chesil Beach reminds me of another Joan Baez song that resonates with its tragedy. This is Diamonds and Rust https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MSwBM_CbyY

Categories : Art, Books, Film/Television, Friendship, Music, Personal/Family, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather

Posted by jdbernard743

· May 15, 2018

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Yankeedom Meets El Norte…

In the midst of today’s political turmoil it’s natural to cast about for reasons. How did we get here? In a post-truth environment have we seen the last of civil discourse, reasoned debate, and bipartisan compromise? Are American values outdated? Partisan politics has created dueling parties where tribal nationalism is at war with liberal globalism. Can our constitutional infrastructure withstand the pressure of a president’s autocratic impulses? Is America too big and too diverse to be governed democratically? Do we have an underlying unifying principle?

One of the most provocative books of recent years is Colin Woodard’s American Nations, because of its approach to the American experience. Woodard divides the country into eleven regional cultures in an effort to help us understand local differences – characteristics, attitudes, and preferences. Originally published in 2011, it wasn’t a blockbuster but I’ve found myself referring to it on a regular basis in order to explain origins, political leanings, work ethics, altruism, racial attitudes and Donald Trump’s victory in 2016.

I’m won’t wade into the Trump swamp, but Woodard’s book was very much in my thoughts as we rolled along on our Grand Tour of Texas last month.

Marilynn and I hail from Woodard’s Left Coast while our traveling companions, Gar and Mollie Lasater, have deep roots in El Norte (Texas et. al). We, like most left-coasters, are carpetbaggers compared to our fifth-generation friends from Texas, and though it’s rare to agree with an historian’s neatly crafted categories, I was astonished at the relevance of Woodard’s.

With the exception of indigenous people, everyone in America comes from somewhere else. Texans are no exception. The family dynasties of Texas all migrated from elsewhere – some from Yankeedom, some through Greater Appalachia, and many directly from Europe, most notably a large German migration in the mid-1800s.

To begin with, though our friends were born and raised in South Texas, both went East to Yankeedom (another one of Woodard’s eleven “nations”) for college – she to Vassar, he to Princeton – and the legacy continues with their children and grandchildren. According to Woodard, Yankeedom values education and the common good more than the other nations, while El Norte puts a premium on hard work and self-sufficiency. I see a blending of both in our friends’ family values.

Writers often refer to “old money” when they write about family dynasties of the Northeast like the Morgans, Vanderbilts, and Carnegies. Surprisingly, many of the South Texas dynasties predated the “old money” of the Northeast and are just as generous with their wealth. The original Texas fortunes were based on land and cattle (oil came later) rather than steel, shipping, banking or railroads, but like their northeastern peers the great families of South Texas developed their own culture, a unique blend of frontier grit and mannered gentility.

Our friends, Gar and Mollie, are no exception. Their families, the Lasaters and the Lupes (Mollie’s family), are genuine Texas aristocracy. Over time, through marriages and business ventures their ancestors created an immense spider web of blended families, business interests, and combined wealth in South Texas.

These families began with ranch holdings linking back to an earlier Spanish land grant legacy. Mollie is descended from the Bennett and Armstrong clans, two of the oldest South Texas pioneer families. Her great-grandfather, John B. Armstrong III was the Texas Ranger who arrested the notorious outlaw John Wesley Harding (remember the Bob Dylan album?) and used the $4000 reward to purchase the 50,000 acre plot that became the Armstrong Ranch (the same ranch where Dick Cheney shot his hunting companion in 2006). During the same mid-19th and 20th century period, Garland’s family was on a mercurial boom-bust-boom ride that saw their holdings go from 350,000-acres with the world’s largest herd of Jersey milk cows, through a bankruptcy that took all but a 200-acre homestead that served as home to their world-famous Falfurrias Creamery, and back again under Garland’s father to a 50,000 acre spread. You’ve got to give it to them, Texans are risk takers who think big.

Garland and I met as young Marine Corps fighter pilots, and in those days we were more interested in raising hell at the Sandpiper Lounge in Laguna Beach than building a better world. Today, after successful careers in law, business and public service, Gar and Mollie are doing their part to build that better world.

It’s true that their ancestry is an asset in Texas, but the Lasaters are a hands on couple when it comes to building a better world, and ancestry will only be part of their legacy. When I visited them in Fort Worth 25 years ago, Mollie had just retired as Board President of the Fort Worth Independent School District and was assuming a leadership role in the Fort Worth chapter of the I Have A Dream Foundation. IHAD’s mission is to empower children (“Dreamers”) in low-income communities to attend college by equipping them with the skills and knowledge to succeed in postsecondary school and removing financial barriers. She managed that program for 14 years and helped hundreds of students from low income families achieve their college dreams.

Not satisfied that they were making a big enough difference, the Lasaters embarked on an even more personal project in 2007. Their close affiliation with Phillips Academy Andover (where Gar went to boarding school and Mollie served on the board) acquainted them with a program called (MS)2, Math and Science for Minority Students or MS Squared for short. The Andover program gives scholarships to low income students who exhibit an aptitude for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), disciplines often under-emphasized in these communities.

Using (MS)2 as their model and relying on Mollie’s experience with IHAD, they designed a new program called (HS)2 (High School High Scholar). They recruited faculty and used the facilities of the Colorado Rocky Mountain School (CRMS) in Carbondale, Colorado, as their campus. Students selected for (HS)2, from low income communities across the country, spend three summers at the school immersed in STEM studies with personal counseling to prepare them for the college experience. Many are the first in their family to attend college. To date (HS)2 has enrolled 210 students from low income communities, including 75 currently in the program, and 135 graduates, all of whom have gone on to college–74% of them STEM majors or graduates.

I love my friends’ wide-ranging interests and civic involvement. In addition to (HS)2 the Lasaters are involved with a number of other programs. Garland’s interest in astronomy led him to partner with the McDonald Observatory, a West Texas research facility and home to the world’s 3^rdlargest telescope where they underwrote the science exhibit in the main hall of the McDonald Visitors Center.

And closer to home, Mollie serves on the board of the Fort Worth Symphony, the Museum of Modern Art (where another modest plaque celebrates their generosity), and The Cliburn, a non-profit that honors Fort Worth’s most famous citizen, pianist Van Cliburn.

Since reading Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, I’ve been intrigued by families and new research underlying the Nature vs. Nurture debate. Pinker argues for evolutionary psychological adaptation. The data is not conclusive but whether it’s nature or nurture my friends in Fort Worth combine the best of both worlds with a nod to Yankeedom’s emphasis on education and the common good and El Norte’s brand of hard work and self-sufficiency. At a time when the political environment seemed gridlocked it was a treat to hear reasoned opinions on everything from Tex-Mex to Trump from friends with such a different heritage.

We loved traveling with the Lasaters – arguing politics, discussing books, looking at the stars, and listening to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata #1 – we’re lucky to have such good friends. Good in every sense.