JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Posted by jdbernard743

· March 10, 2015

Where Do We Go From Here?

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the day Sheriff Jim Clark and his posse beat MLK and 600 non-violent marchers mercilessly in Selma Alabama. Dr. King and his followers were attempting to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their way to Montgomery to protest voting rights abuses. The carnage of that day was horrific, but yesterday’s celebration was both joyous and solemn – a reminder of how far we’ve come. MLK was absent but his powerful presence energized President Obama and 70,000 fellow Americans who marched across the bridge to honor his legacy.

Representative John Lewis, a veteran of the original march was quoted as saying, “If you had told me then that one day I would be back in Selma to introduce the first African-American President I would have said you were crazy.” But… he was back and he wasn’t crazy.

Yesterday was a benchmark occasion and though we have come a long way since Sheriff Clark refused to call ambulances and left wounded marchers lying in the street we still are struggling with racial issues that should be far behind us.

Racism is racism. We’ve made progress in voting rights and education but the racial divide continues in other areas. Recent instances of white police officers shooting black citizens, not just in Ferguson but in LA, Madison, Cleveland, and New York have highlighted the continuing divide. Why now? What’s going on? Why is this happening? What happened to the “community policing” strategies of the 1970’s and ‘80’s? Why are predominantly white officers patrolling predominantly black areas of these cities? For that matter, why are there still predominantly black areas in these cities? Why aren’t police departments teaching officers how to defuse these volatile situations instead of using lethal force to end them?

There are clearly two sides to these stories. I feel sympathy for the white officers caught in this nightmare as well as for the black victims? A St. Louis grand jury refused to bring charges against Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. That in turn prompted a Department of Justice review and a similar conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to support an indictment of the officer. I don’t know all the facts, but I have seen the video of Mr. Brown robbing a convenience store and assaulting the owner shortly before his physical confrontation with Officer Wilson. No one deserves to die for stealing a package of cigarillos, but I have a real problem with the media and Mr. Brown’s thuggish behavior. The media referred to him only as “an unarmed teenager.” This characterization is provocative. What about Mr. Brown’s provocations? Why is the media willing to give all the benefit of the doubt to Brown and none to Officer Wilson? We need to choose our martyrs very carefully.

Last weekend another black teenager was shot and killed in Madison WI. Anthony Robinson’s death was reported in the same way – “unarmed black teenager” killed by white police officer.” Again, I don’t know all the facts but the 19 year-old victim was killed when police responded to a 911 call and a confrontation ensued that ended in the teen’s death. Reports indicate that Robinson, who was convicted of armed robbery in 2014, fought back when the officer confronted him and now, like Michael Brown, is being referred to in the press only as an “unarmed teenager.” What’s going on? Who’s doing what to whom? Are the police being provoked or are they just trigger happy? Why, in these non-lethal confrontations, do kids have to die? Aren’t there non-lethal means to subdue belligerents?

I’m not black but I think I understand the frustration, fear, and anxiety felt in communities of color when there is such an overwhelming disparity between the way these communities suffer the indignities of profiling and heavy handed enforcement at the hands of the police. I know we and they can all do better than we’re doing.

We have a black President who symbolizes the progress we have made in race relations. Whenever I have doubts about the progress America has made since the first Selma march I think of President Obama. He stands tall in my mind as an American hero. He stands with my heroes from an earlier time – Arthur Ashe and Jackie Robinson—as a model for how things can be and how we should treat each other. Ashe and Robinson died in their early 50’s of diseases that are treatable today. What would these two iconic African-American heroes think about what’s happening in America now? Both spoke eloquently about civil rights with their words and deeds when they were alive.

Arthur Ashe is still my favorite citizen-athlete. He reminds me that I can be better – that we can all be better. He also reminds me that life is fragile and not always fair. It wasn’t war or PTSD or racial violence that killed him; it was an AIDS infected blood transfusion. We have a solution to that problem now. I believe there are solutions available on the racial front too? I think Arthur would agree.

He gave us his road map; maybe we should just follow his instructions: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” It’s great advice and I believe Dr. King would agree.

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Posted by jdbernard743

· February 26, 2015

· 1 Comment

I’m A Little Edgy…

Can I write about aging and relevance without sounding defensive? Maybe not, but I want to give it a try because I think we older Americans are stereotyped, marginalized, neutered, and disenfranchised by the media simply because of our age. It’s a kind of profiling and I bristle when I’m lumped together with a group that has lost its connection to mainstream America. It pisses me off and it should piss you off too.

Except for age, we’re no different from the rest of you. We care about what’s happening in the world. We try to stay as current, productive, concerned, fashionable, and athletic as any other segment of the population. We think it’s important to stay engaged with a cross-section of different ages, issues, and cultures to keep us relevant. My friends are not on the sidelines; they are busy working on cures for Alzheimer’s and cancer, trying to bring sanity to the gun debate, delivering clean water to polluted areas in Africa and Asia, improving services to veterans, helping the poor find jobs, making art or writing about complex issues. That’s what we’ve always done and what we continue to do.

Yes, there are old farts in plaid pants who drink too much and worry about their golf handicaps, just as there are young men hanging out on street corners with their pants around their knees. Neither group represents the whole spectrum of the American demographic. Most of us are working hard to stay in the game and make a difference. We tweet, text, email, stream, Facebook, Instagram and show up to work just like everybody else. So cool it with the jokes and backhanded compliments about old people.

We think it’s demeaning when older couples are called “cute. It implies they have desiccated, sexless partnerships. What’s more we don’t want to be “inspiring” if that means you’re surprised when we weigh-in on complex issues, run marathons or ski.

Most of my life I’ve lived close to the edge. Now, at 82, I’m even closer to the edge – of eternity – and lucky to have lived a full span. My friends who died when they were young were denied the pleasure of seeing the changes that time brings to the world and their families. They missed out on so much… I don’t want to miss out on anything as long as I have the ability to stay in the game. That’s why this seems important and why I’m digging in for the homestretch.

Asian cultures honor and venerate their elders. Elders are looked upon as repositories of wisdom and guidance. I’m not expecting it, but we could use a little more of that here. Age can be a positive attribute, but it shouldn’t be the defining one. Let’s focus on relevance. I want to be smart, relevant, and still live on the edge. It sharpens the focus

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Posted by jdbernard743

· February 20, 2015

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A Single Shot and a Fat Hen

This is not a riddle – and a Single Shot is not intended to bring down The Fat Hen.

Single Shot and The Fat Hen are two new Seattle restaurants, both in out-of-the-way pocket neighborhoods you wouldn’t discover just cruising the streets. It’s a risky bet for both restaurants.You have to know that they’re there and make an effort to find them, but it’s always exciting and satisfying to discover a new restaurant, especially when it seems like a secret. In this case there are two of them hiding in semi-secret micro-neighborhoods.

This is the interior of Single Shot. It opened recently in a small four-shop retail strip on the northwest side of Capitol Hill below the Harvard Exit. You can’t beat the combo of shops – Top Pot Donuts, Sun Liquor (distillery) and Toscana Pizzeria. Wow!!! Hard to find and difficult to park but worth the effort.

Single Shot’s Chef/Bartendar owners come with quality resume’s that include turns at Crush, Zoe, Re:public, and Altura. Everything we had on Tuesday night was sensational but the star attraction without a doubt was the pork chop served in tranches on a plank with spaghetti squash, brussel sprouts, with a pomegranate glaze. My goat mac and cheese was full of flavor and worth going back for, but the pork chop shouldn’t be missed.

On the other side of town, two blocks east of 15^th NW on a residential street in a pocket patch on the edge of old Ballard is the tiny 25-seat breakfast and lunch Fat Hen café. The Hen caters to the dressed-down-stay-at-home Moms whose husbands likely work in the South Lake Union matrix or Ballard’s Adobe complex. It’s trendy but not at all showy – lots of knit caps and strollers – but on the weekend you’ll likely have to sit outside on one of the two benches while you wait for a seat.

The offerings run from pantry items like avocado toast, granola, and homemade pastries to several Benedicts and three different Egg Bakes, along with sandwiches, salads, and daily chalkboard specials. My “in carrozza” egg bake with two eggs on country ham and smoked mozzarella was a match for Le Pichet’s oeufs, jambon et fromage, but everything we ordered was just as delicious.

An extra bonus for guests at the Fat Hen is Honore’ Artisan Bakery, an authentic French boulangerie directly across the street. Honore’ is so cool that there is no signage on the building other that a tasteful lettered sign on the door window. Now that’s stealth marketing.

Honore’ is not new but it has solidified its status along with other artisan bakeries like Columbia City Bakery and Besalu. In 2011 the Seattle Times enlisted the help of three well known Francophile authors to root out the best, most authentic, croissant in Seattle and Honore’ took the honor (no pun intended).

Surviving Seattle is all about uncovering interesting attractions, innovative food and drink, books, films, music and theater. This week was a good one – two hidden restaurant finds, a top notch artisan bakery, and Whiplash, one of the sleeper Oscar films that’s well worth seeing.

Bonne Chance to all of them.

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Tags : Seattle restaurants

Posted by jdbernard743

· February 13, 2015

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When Life Gives You Lemons… in Portlandia

Ah… Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood buried in snow. It’s so majestic and beautiful – unfortunately, it’s not happening this year. Today, the 12^th of February 2015, snow levels at the base and summit are 28” and 39” respectively. The Summit at Snoqualmie near Seattle, which normally has snow well over my head, has 15” and is currently closed. Unbelievable. It’s the worst snow year in my 66 years of skiing.

Last week, honoring reservations we made in December, four of us checked into the Lodge at Timberline on Super Bowl Sunday. As Samuel Johnson said (about second marriages) our ski vacation was a “triumph of hope over experience.” It was raining as we checked in and continued for two days while we watched children playing on the glazed snow through the Lodge’s rain soaked windows.

But, we hung in there. The old WPA-built lodge is magnificent and we had plenty of time to learn about its history and the amazing craftsmanship that went into its construction. It was built in 1937 in the depths of the Great Depression. Everything was made on site by local residents – from the giant rock and log construction to the ironwork handrails, hand woven bedspreads and curtains, carved wooden panels, and the social realism paintings that were the style of the period. The workers, mostly untrained, were paid 90 cents an hour and glad to have the jobs. I was there as a busboy one winter during college and it was interesting for me to go back and see it again.

With two rainy days behind us, on the morning of Day Three we awoke to 4” of fresh snow and an outside temperature of 34°. It still looked dicey but we decided to give it a go before checking out early and heading for Portland. There was nothing to lose. After all, age has its advantages and I ski for free these days at Timberline. We suited up, I squeezed my size 10 feet into my new $700 Lange boots and we were off. For an hour we had decent conditions – untracked snow, and the mountain to ourselves. It was really pretty good – and then it turned to mashed potatoes and we turned our attention to Portland.

Portland is one of the most livable small cities in America but Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, the former Saturday Night Live regulars, have given Portland a whole new persona called Portlandia. Like the Daily Show or Colbert there is truth underlying their TV series spoof of the artisanal, handcrafted self-absorbed lifestyle of the Rose City. So… since we were in Portlandia we made lemonade with Meyer lemons (provenance Marin County), Fiji water, ginger sugar and a sprig of fresh mint. So special.

Having turned the Timberline experience into lemonade, we arrived in Portland itself and headed straight for Kenny and Zuke’s Delicatessen where we tucked into its justly famous corned beef sandwiches, sides of potato salad, and washed it all down with local craft beer. Perfect. Then it was off to Powell’s Books, one of America’s great independent bookstores, where we dropped into a reading by author Alexandra Fuller whose most memorable line, for me, was “Shouldn’t there be a Statute of Limitations on how long children can hate their parents?”

After soaking up the vibe at Powell’s we walked down to Living Room Theaters where the five Oscar-nominated short films of 2015 were showing. Very Portlandia, complete with draft beer and snacks to take into the screening room. BTW: the short films from Israel, UK, Iran, Northern Ireland, and China are sensational. Each one can stand-alone. It will be interesting to see who wins.

A good night’s sleep at Portland’s venerable Benson Hotel, still a jewel in Portland’s crown, gave us energy to attack Portlandia another day. It was back to Kenny and Zuke’s for a breakfast of bagels and lox and a latte assist from Stumptown Coffee Roasters next door. All of the sites so far, the Benson, Powell’s, K and Z’s, and Living Room Theaters are within 4 blocks of each other, but we needed the car for the next adventure, Portland’s Japanese Garden.

Seattle’s Japanese Garden is unified and artful but Portland’s 5.5-acre park is composed of five distinct and distinctive garden styles from the rock and sand garden above to the strolling pond garden, the teahouse garden, the flat garden and the natural garden. All are stunning and integrated in a seamless display of Japanese garden art from the giant evergreens to the smallest water feature.

From the Japanese Garden we drove to the Pittock Mansion, the former home of The Oregonian newspaper founder Henry Pittock. The French-Renaissance style home was purchased by the City of Portland in 1964 and totally renovated. Although it seems like the 17^th and 18^th century mansions of Europe it was built in the early 20^th century. Today it is furnished, not with the original furniture, but with authentic pieces from several different periods that show off the architecture in a dramatic way.

Portland is justly famous for its food scene its super hot restaurant of the moment is Pok Pok, where Chef/owner Andy Ricker serves up spicy northern Thai street food. When we told people in Seattle we were going to Portland three of our friends told us about Pok Pok before we had time to tell them that we already had reservations there. It did not disappoint and it was definitely different, from the flavored vinegar drinks to the caramelized skin on the house-specialty chicken wings. It was all good – and spicy.

Sated by our meal at Pok Pok we staggered across the street to Salt and Straw, an ice cream shop that was so crowded at 10pm on a Thursday night in February we had to stand in line for 10 minutes. I passed on the balsamic blueberry and had a double salted caramel with candied orange peel. Now that is Portlandia at its best. See what I mean?

Our new Portland friends, Deborah Mandell and Roy Pulvers, put us up that night at their house high on a hill overlooking Beaverton. Deborah served up more bagels and lox in the morning, and with a short maintenance stop to buy more books at Powell’s and a refueling stop at Peet’s Coffee we set off for home with full stomachs, new friends, a pile of books and a great appreciation for the Rose City.

It was all Portlandia. lemonade and all. Thanks our friends, old and new, who made it memorable.

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Tags : Portlandia, Timberline Lodge

Posted by jdbernard743

· February 2, 2015

· 1 Comment

Selma: Revisionist History, Art, and Racism

Appearances can be deceiving – so can revisionist history and films “based on” true stories. This photograph is beautiful, but the beautiful bridge in the photograph was the site of one of the ugliest and most pivotal racial confrontations in American history. This is the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Route 80 where it crosses the Alabama River in Selma.

It is also the primary landscape for Selma, the new film by Ava DuVerney. In 1964 Congress passed the Civil Rights Act banning discrimination in public accommodations and voter registration, but in order to ensure passage it was weak on enforcement and implementation. Meanwhile, the civil rights movement was building a coalition of organizations to bring pressure on Congress to pass a voting rights bill with teeth to enforce those rights. Lyndon Johnson agreed with the movement’s leadership on the need for such a bill, but was concerned that moving that legislation forward would galvanize the Southern Bloc in the Senate and endanger his larger War on Poverty agenda. This is the historical setting for DuVerney’s film as well as two plays by Seattle playwright, Robert Schenkkan, All The Way and The Great Society.

It is not clear to me why filmmakers and playwrights feel compelled to revise history in the telling of their stories. The conventional wisdom behind this artistic license is that a strict retelling of historical facts lacks drama and a little tweak here and there serves to enhance the tension and elevate the art. I disagree.

Tony Kushner and Stephen Spielberg changed the facts in the film Lincoln when they showed two Connecticut congressmen voting against the 13^th Amendment when, in fact, the Connecticut delegation voted unanimously for passage. And DuVerney does it when she sets up LBJ as the foil for Martin Luther King’s march from Selma to Montgomery. Wasn’t there enough tension in the air – and the country – to tell the story factually? Doesn’t LBJ’s caution about the physical danger and the threats to enacting successful voting rights legislation add enough weight to MLK’s decision to proceed in spite of the warning? The LBJ/MLK relationship was complex to say the least, but LBJ was not opposed, he just thought the action and the timing were incendiary. Several reviewers have called out the director.

There is an interesting discussion in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/selma-vs-selma in which the writer lays out the history of the screenplay itself. The original, by Paul Webb, written nine years ago showed a much different LBJ, but DuVernay apparently felt that Webb’s original fell into the category she calls the “white savior movies” where the oppressed black hero is saved by the white man, citing To Kill a Mocking Bird and Mississippi Burning as examples of the genre. Historians Robert Caro and Richard Dallek both support the view that LBJ was a strong supporter of MLK and the push for voting rights. If white savior movies are to be questioned, what about films that mischaracterize the white character to elevate the black protagonist?

I liked the film, but I was bothered by its portrayal of LBJ and the unseen but unabashed greed of MLK’s family. It seems that when the director approached the family for permission to use his own words in the film they put an exorbitant price on the rights and demanded creative control of his image. To Ms. DuVernay’s credit she declined. She wasn’t ready to allow a whitewash of Dr. King’s flaws, since they were also part of the story.Instead, speeches were written that echoed his tone but were not his actual words.

Notwithstanding the film’s flaws it did capture the time and feeling of the era. Robert Schenkkan’s plays tell the other side of the story by showing us the character of LBJ dealing with the same set of historical facts. His two plays show us a tragic character caught in between the opposing groundswells of trouble at home and trouble abroad. Civil rights vs. Vietnam.

The first play, All The Way, debuted on Broadway with Brian Cranston, fresh off the final installment of Breaking Bad, playing LBJ. It was a big hit on Broadway, and Schenkkan, a Seattle playwright, brought it and it’s companion piece, The Great Society, to Seattle in December. They were very good, fast paced, profanity laced theater pieces, and both the film and the plays were timely in view of the racial unrest in Ferguson, MO and New York. We’ve come a long way since 1965, but when the surfaces are scratched the underlying stress and distrust between black and white rise quickly to the surface.

Do you remember LBJ, MLK, Hubert Humphrey, RFK, Stokely Carmichael, Ralph Abernathy, J Edgar Hoover, Everett Dirksen, and Strom Thurmond? If you do you might have been disturbed by the casting of both the play and movie, as I was. Those of us of a certain age have indelible impressions of the faces and voices of these players, and when they are represented we want to see reasonable facsimiles of the originals. Both the film and the play failed us in the casting. Hubert Humphrey was the “happy warrior” but he wasn’t slight or wimpy. J Edgar Hoover was jowly, chunky and evil not small, taciturn, and evil. At least they got the evil part, if not the uptight, closeted, queer part. Stokely Carmichael was very handsome as was Andrew Young while Dirksen was mannered and stately. Some of the actors were better than others. The LBJ and MLK actors were not perfect representations but they were good at their portrayals. Critics are getting some mileage out of the fact that the two leading characters in the film are played by English actors – David Oyelowo and Tom Wilkinson. Aren’t there American actors that would have been as good?

There is always something uncanny about the timing of films that mirror the contemporary scene and remind us that change is slow and difficult. Themes are recurring; 50 years after Brown vs. Board of Education and the Selma march there are racially charged demonstrations over the shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson and 75 years after the Holocaust there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in France, Belgium and Germany. Hollywood does provide a service by reminding us that bigotry, intolerance, and inequality are not far beneath the surface. I think it is legitimate to question why history has to be revised in order to be artful, but I applaud the motives of the filmmakers – to remind us of our history and our aspirations.

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Tags : Ava DuVerney, Edmund Pettus Bridge, LBJ, Robert Schenkkan