JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

MI-5 is the British domestic intelligence agency. It is also the American title of an immensely popular British TV series (Spooks) that ran for ten seasons from 2002 through 2011. The series gives the viewer an inside look at the Brit agency and is likely the inspiration for two American series – Homeland and Scandal. Both American series have women in the leading roles. Homeland’s bipolar Carrie Mathison takes us on harrowing adventures as an international CIA’s operative and Scandal’s Olivia Pope, is the Washington “fixer” and conflicted daughter of Command, the leader of a fictional, shadowy agency (B613) charged with the clandestine protection of “the Republic.” All three series give us putative looks at the intrigue within the various spy agencies. Charged with our protection from nefarious external agents, they often reveal the inherent temptations of using evil to fight evil.

This year the three TV dramas were upstaged by the tense real life melodrama of Edward Snowden and his revelations of America’s worldwide surveillance apparatus as well as his Bourne-like escape from Hawaii to Hong Kong and eventually to sanctuary in Russia.

Citizenfour is Laura Poitras’ feature length film documenting Snowden’s journey, intellectual and physical, from relatively minor technical analyst at the CIA to his elevation as a lead technologist for the National Security Administration’s information sharing office, his subsequent disillusionment and decision to leak information on the surveillance and his belief that the agency’s program exceeded its legal authority and was therefore unconstitutional.

I’ve struggled to decide whether Snowden is a traitor or a hero, but there is no question that he is a genius. He outwitted, out maneuvered, and out played the CIA, NSA, and FBI in executing his plan to collect and disseminate information on the overreaching extent of NSA spying on US and world citizens while managing to escape detection and capture – or death – at the hands of the agencies involved.

Citizenfour claims that Snowden tried to alert co-workers and superiors to the dangers and violations of the NSA programs but was discouraged from pursuing it and warned about the danger to himself if he did. I agree that he would have been in mortal danger if he had gone further. Had he been regarded as a threat to the programs or agencies involved he would likely have met with lethal consequences. In fact, he was so meticulous and secretive in the planning and in selecting Poitras and Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian as his conduits they had no idea who he was until they met in a Hong Kong hotel room. Had the CIA discovered him prior to that actual moment no one would have known his identity or intention and I am sure he would have met with a fatal accident. The Marine officer in me regards his leaks and revelations as traitorous, but the Berkeley-trained lawyer admires his courage and perseverance as an example of selfless citizenship.

The jury is still out on this question, but watching the film it is hard not to admire Snowden. He willingly sacrificed his own comfort and future to bring this information to the world. I don’t see an upside for him. He was clear, as it was unfolding, that he did not want the story to get derailed and become about him. It was about the information he was sharing through his chosen journalists that was of primary importance.

Even his escape from Hong Kong was a masterpiece of spycraft. With the world focused on him and his revelations he managed to escape detection, spend over a month in Hong Kong, set up a diversionary ticket to South America, negotiate some sort of safe passage arrangement, and slip out of town on a commercial flight to Moscow – all after the US had canceled his passport.

It’s difficult to imagine that life as an exile, in Russia, is what Mr. Snowden wants. He is only 31 years old and though his longtime girlfriend, Lindsey Mills, has joined him there (the film shows them through the window of their hideaway) it must be stifling to be Putin’s pawn and prisoner with no plausible escape lanes. I have a lot of admiration for Snowden, not the least of which is because he was able to use Julian Assange to move his exile status forward without becoming an instrument of Assanges’ media machine.

MI-5 is my favorite TV series of all time. It is tense, compelling, believable, and well acted. Snowden’s story would have fit perfectly within its outline. MI-5’s TV run is over, but Snowden’s journey is not. I for one will be watching and hoping that he does not meet with an untimely accident as a result of his actions.

Citizenfour is a must see look at the Snowden affair. Protecting the country from terrorists is tricky business. It requires constant vigilance and sometimes it’s difficult to tell the good guys from the bad, but the constitution protects us as well.  Citizenfour offers one perspective on Edward Snowden.  Hero or traitor? Maybe he’s both. See the film and come to your own conclusion.

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Poor Don Jose’. What a sap. Steady job in the army. Steady girlfriend. Mother who loves him (maybe a little too much?). What’s up? Why would he chuck it all: desert the army, desert the girlfriend, leave his mother and run away with a slutty little gypsy named Carmen who works in a cigarette factory, runs with a bunch of crooks, and spreads her legs for anyone who might be useful? But then again… It’s not that uncommon is it?

The little tramp wasn’t even good looking – at least that was true yesterday. Yesterday’s Carmen (HD performance from the Metropolitan Opera) was a chubby, unattractive Georgian temptless who seduces a schlubby wooden Latvian Don Jose’. I’m not alone in this opinion. The New York Times’ Zachery Woolfe had the same complaint.

I may not be an opera critic but I know that in addition to Bizet’s music, Carmen’s immense popularity is due to the spitfire beauty of its title character and her gullible handsome Don Jose’. The music is so well known that even ordinary people can hum the score – so the two main characters need to make us believe in the story.

Opera purists probably wouldn’t agree with me but my favorite Carmen is Francesco Rosi’s 1984 film with Julia Migenes as Carmen, Placido Domingo as Don Jose’ and Lorin Maazel conducting. It’s outdoor settings are a little distracting, but she is riveting and he is quite believable as the chump who gives up everything to follow her into the mountains.

I don’t want to be a scold; it’s always a treat to see a Met production and yesterday was no exception. HD in a theater, with close ups and backstage interviews is a different experience than sitting in an opera house. Seeing sweat run down the tenor’s cheek doesn’t do much for me, but the HD close ups do draw the audience into the action in a way that Row ZZ in the second balcony doesn’t. It’s a little like watching a baseball game – it’s really better on TV.

There’s a lot to love about living in the information age. Yesterday M and I came home to check out Carmen on YouTube and were able to listen to several versions of the Habanera aria – including one by Maria Callas although Callas never actually performed the role on the stage. They are all different and interesting. It’s such a treat to be able to see more than one.

It’s also amazing to have the Internet to revisit experiences. The most fun M and I ever had at a Carmen performance was when we sat on a hill at the Boston Common on a summer night in 2002 and listened to the Boston Lyric Opera perform outdoors. We sat on our blanket looking alternately at the stars, the stage, and the jumbo screen behind it.

I always find Opera exhausting, so yesterday, on the way home, we stopped at the market and bought the makings for some relaxing chocolate chunk cookies. Yummmmm… I went straight to the kitchen with eggs, flour, baking soda, vanilla extract, brown sugar, white sugar, two sticks of butter, a cup of walnuts and a bag of Nestle’s chocolate chunks, and 30 minutes later I had a Kitchen Aid bowl full of cookie dough.

Yes, indeed, cookie dough. I love it. I love it more than the finished cookies themselves. So, while the oven was pre-heating to 350°,  I ate about 1/3 of the dough and washed it down with a big glass of milk. There is nothing better than a bowl full of freshly made chocolate chunk cookie dough. Once in Berlin I ate so much of the batter that I only had enough left to make two pans of 6 cookies.

Fortunately, I don’t cave in to the urge often, but there is something very satisfying in eating all you want of a favorite food. I’m sated now. It doesn’t even sound good but I know it will again. Next time I’ll probably do the oatmeal chocolate chip variety. It’s a bit chewier. Probably healthier too. Don’t you think?

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She was ready to leave long before she did…

My mother was 92 when she died in January 1998, a case of perfect retirement planning. She died in her sleep the month her bank account went to zero. It was the kind of death we talk about wanting for ourselves, but for almost a year she had asked me why she couldn’t just die now. The mystery of life and death. She wasn’t unhappy; she was just ready to go.

The night after she died I was having dinner alone at Oasis, a vegetarian restaurant in Salt Lake City. I was seated at a window looking into the interior courtyard of the small shopping center where the restaurant was located. Across the courtyard, in the window of a New Age bookstore, I saw this Buddhist scroll.

When I finished dinner I walked over to the bookstore and asked about it. I learned that it was an ink work on silk by a Chinese monk named Zhi Yuan. It was offered for sale, on consignment, by the Chinese owners who had brought it with them when they left China.

The description accompanying the scroll read, “Many years ago, there was a high ranking Buddhist monk living in China named Zhi Yuan (In Great Expectation). Every day after worshipping Buddha he would practice his calligraphy, year after year until his death. Not surprisingly, what Zhi Yuan most often practiced was the character ‘Buddha,’ a written picture, which depicts a figure like Buddha sitting with his legs crossed, and his arms folded. It is the Chinese character ‘Buddha’ written with one stroke of Zhi Yuan’s gifted brush in the late, devout period of his life. If you soften your gaze, you will discover the Buddha image implied in this magnificent piece.”

The family was offering the scroll for $2500, the exact amount I learned that morning that I would receive from my mother’s only life insurance policy – a policy my Dad had taken out 60 years earlier when I was born. It seemed like an omen. I asked the store if they would accept $2500 exactly. With tax the $2500 purchase would have been roughly $2750, but I wanted to test the karmic quality of the discovery. I figured that if they were willing to accept my offer of $2500 it was because of my mother’s good karma and meant to be. If they said no, I would move on and find another legacy gift to remember her. In the end they agreed to the price and every day the Buddha scroll hangs in our entranceway as a tangible reminder of my mother.

I recently read this poem by WS Merwin that seems appropriate:

To the Way Back

If you can be said

to remember

and by that I mean

if you

can be said to remember

anything

if you

can be

said to be

anything

remember how

you came to be

how you came

to pass

remember who it was

in whose feet

you took the first steps

that was me

not watching

to see whether

you were there

not waiting for you

don’t’ forget

the way back my

mother said

not forgetting you

forgetting you

in the dark of the shoes

in the sounds of the stairs

in the opening door

now that you

have not been there

for so long

do you remember

where you were

before I turned

to look for you

More tomorrow…

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At 9 o’clock last night with the World Series tied at two games each, Kansas City and San Francisco tied at 4 – 4 in the bottom of the fifth inning, our lights began to flicker. When we turned on the outside light the trees in the park next door looked like something out of a Van Gogh painting – thrashing and leaning in a frenzied turbulent wind. By 9:30, in the bottom of the sixth with the Giants up 6 – 4 the lights went out.

Shit! Pitch black. Wind howling. Stumble around hunting down the flashlights (thank God, I mean Steve, for the iPhone), and trying to figure out what to do next.

It should be said that we’re not a rabid baseball fans, but we grew up loving it. But over the years of living in rural Idaho and Berlin I lost contact and my enthusiasm faded. These days, back in Seattle, I enjoy going to Safeco Field once or twice a summer to participate in the very American ceremony at a manicured ballpark with the archaic ritualized behaviors and the hotdogs.

There must be some imprinting from leftover from my childhood that draws my attention when the playoffs come around. In recent years it’s been things like wanting to watch the great Yankee – Red Sox rivalry play out or to see the Sox overcome the Babe Ruth Curse, or watch Mariano Rivera execute another perfect save. This year it’s the Kansas City No-Stars. Small ball, speed and the best outfield in baseball that has me hooked.

So… the lights are out. The Giants are ahead by 2 with 3 innings left. At 9:40 M and I are out the door on our way to Duke’s Greenlake for a 20 oz. Mac and Jack’s African Amber, a 9 oz. Pinot Grigio, and a big screen TV.  Alas, by the time we got to Duke’s the Royals were down 7 – 4  and the rest is history (11 – 4). Back home, the flashlights lead us to bed.. Pitch black. No streetlights. No nothing. Just wind

BUT WAIT…

Now it’s 9:00 Sunday morning and the power is still off. The Seahawks – Carolina game is on at 10. No TV. No coffee. Not even hot water. So, it’s off to Caffe Ladro for lattes and then to the gym to sit on stationary bikes to watch the Hawks.

It’s an effort to keep calm. This year’s Hawks are a high anxiety team. They’re good but ragged and every game is a nail biter. Today’s was no exception and it wasn’t until 47 seconds from the end that Russell Wilson drilled a 23-yard pass to Luke Willson in the end zone and a 13 – 9 win. Go Hawks!

By the time we got home from the gym the power was back on and the sky was blue. We’re hoping it stays that way for tonight’s Game 5. Last night these guys in McCovey Cove struck out too. Rain for a portion of the game and no home run balls to dive for. Good luck tonight guys.

Go Kansas City!

More tomorrow…

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