Musings about Pacifism and Just War

Comment I made during FB conversation:

During the Viet Nam war, I felt completely persuaded that we were wrongly preventing self-determination of another country, based on unreasonable fears and prejudices. We also visited horrors on the country of Viet Nam. If you look at St. Augustine's doctrine of "just war," the Viet Nam war clearly failed the test.

This was seems different.  There is a country that has been wrongly invaded by someone else who is trying to remove their power of self-determination.  With respect to this war, we are on the side that the Russians were on during the Viet Nam war -- helping a country that was wrongly attacked.

It's a challenge for me, as a Quaker, to my pacifism.  I'm still praying about that.

******

During the Viet Nam war, the US military did not accept as conscientious objectors those who said that the Viet Nam war was not a Just War under the St. Augustine test.  You had to object to all wars.   

The US military should not be an arbiter of my pacifism, tho.

On mis-gendering trans women

 I get so confused having 2 trans women in my family. 

It's called being mommy brained, you know. My ex's mother, when my ex was small (formerly he), called all of her 4 sons "Nor-Frank-Al-Bruce, whatever your name is." That was all 4 of their names. 

It's not so easy to correct conditioned reflexes that have passed into the subconscious. 

I find myself hesitating whenever I say the word "he," even when it's a cis male. I have to stop and think and say to myself "wait, it's ok to call him, 'he.' He doesn't mind. He might even prefer it." 

Personally, when asked what my preferred pronoun is, I refuse to commit. I espouse no 3rd person pronouns, so long as I'm addressed with respect. 3rd person pronouns are for other people.  Let them say whatever.

Similarly, I'm having trouble using the Maya software that I am trying to get comfortable with, because there's a lot of pinky work in the left hand. You have to use shift, control, alt, and sometimes shift plus control. Then, on Mac, it's sort of confusing whether command or option is going to be the alt key, because it's not always the same. Also, on Mac, normally control click is the same as right click; but not in Maya. Maya does not recognize control click as being the same as a right mouse button click. I'm constantly pressing the wrong thing with that uncooperative pinky and having uncontrolled things appear on the screen that I don't even know what they are. I find that my left pinky has a mind of its own. That's very similar to what happens when I use the wrong pronoun.

I had something similar happen when I was taking dancing classes a few years ago. I could hear what the instructor said. I understood what instructor said. I knew that I wasn't doing what the instructor said. But my body wasn't cooperating. It wasn't willing to do what I wanted to do.  Some of us have neurological limitations.

Comments about avatar

This is a stub of a review of Avatar II.  I posted these comments on someone's post on FB.  He said he wasn't able to sit through the movie and he thought it was too full of stereotypical sequences.  

Here was my response: 

I sat through the whole thing, with one bathroom visit. I did have to take the glasses off when walking around, because they interfered with my balance and made me woozy. 

Yeah, these things do usually have the same plot of someone trying to destroy the world, though here it was not quite the whole world. 

One thing that was unusual was that the people were the bad guys and the aliens were the good guys. 

I was somewhat disappointed in the 3D aspect. I walked out of the first one feeling like I had been flying and craving more. This time the 3D effect was much more subtle and subliminal. I wasn’t conscious of it most of the time. 

I want to see more of the story of the adopted daughter who was said to have epilepsy, but turned out to really have some kind of deep spiritual connection. She intrigued me. I feel like they might have been setting her up for her own sequel. 

The suspense was much more intense towards the end. Really, literally got me up on the edge of my seat. 

I don’t feel that that part was at all stereotypical. I don’t want to put in spoilers, tho.

Protest of illegal "No Trespassing" sign, landscaping, and plantings

This is the text of an e-mail message that I have sent to Richard Slingerland, Village Administrator, Village of Tarrytown, NY

I hereby formally protest the placement of a "No Trespassing" sign and landscaping on the longstanding pedestrian pathway between Grove Street and Leroy Avenue adjacent the temple.

This is a longstanding pedestrian walkway. I have lived in this neighborhood for 33 years.  That walkway was already well-worn when I arrived here.  My family and at least one other family I know have been using the pathway for over 25 years.  

The New York State statue of limitations for adverse possession is 10 years (NY CPLR §212).  Many people have been openly and notoriously using this path for much longer than that.  Any right that the Temple might have had to block this public easement has long since expired.

The placement of this sign and of landscaping blocking and obscuring the path are illegal infringements on a public easement and right of way.

I hereby formally request that the village assist the public in forcing the removal of the illegal "No Trespassing" sign and illegal placement of landscaping and trees from the public right of way.

#Easement #PublicEasement #AdversePossession #BethAbraham #TempleBethAbraham #IllegalNoTrespassingSign #TarrytownNY 

Summary resume

 

 

Education

*      2022 completed a certificate in 3D animation and 3D modelling at SUNY WCC

*      2013-present miscellaneous coursework in performance and media 

*      JD 1983, Columbia University School of Law, NYC, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar 

*      IFP 1982, Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, NYC

*      BA 1978, Physics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, Magna Cum Laude, with distinction in major (also 10 honors math courses & citation in math)

*      1974 baccalauréat C, mention assez bien, Lycée D’État Jules Ferry, Paris, France

*      prior to 2013: miscellaneous technology related coursework

 

Work history

*      2017-present – Artist/Animator artwork & animation summary

*      2013- present -- Acting Acting/performance   Actors Access Resumé

*      2014-present -- Of counsel at falati.com 

*      1980 to present: various positions in my spiritual activities that included management, counseling, treasury, newsletters, and extensive public speaking

*      1999-2014 Sole practitioner in patent law

*      1997-2005 Attorney-in-fact managing a mini-nursing home in my mom’s home

*      1986-1999 Senior Intellectual Property Counsel, Philips Electronics North America, Corporation

*      1984-1986 Associate Attorney in IP, Kenyon & Kenyon, NYC

*      1983-1984 Associate Attorney, David & Finell, NYC

*      1982 Summer Associate -- student, Cooper, Dunham, Clark, Griffin & Moran, NYC

*      1981 Summer Associate -- student, Lathrop & Clark, Madison, WI

*      1978-1980 Junior Programmer, IBM, Rochester, MN

*      1976 Engineering intern, Framatome, Paris, France

*      1974-78 (part time) Teaching assistant/paper grader, Dartmouth College, NH

 

Languages

       *   Native speaker of USA English

*      French, fluent (lived in France for a year and a half)

*      Spanish, working knowledge (4 years high school)

*      Russian, good phonetics (2 years college Russian & summer program in USSR)

 

Miscellaneous

*      Quick study with all things computer.  Skills:  Gimp, Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere, Animate), Autodesk (Maya & Sketchbook pro), zBrush, java/eclipse, Zoom, MS office (Word, excel, PowerPoint), Intuit: (Quickbooks & Turbotax), Apple (Garage Band, imovie, calendar, pages, text editor, reminders, etc) Audacity,  Google (gmail, drive, maps, translate) social media (Facebook, twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Linkedin, WhatsApp, Signal, Slack, Discord)

*      Excellent writer

*      Excellent with conference calls

*      Published 7 novels under a pseudonym

*      Hobbies: Yoga; Singing; Calligraphy; hiking 

*      Raised 2 special needs children (now adults)

ANNE BARSCHALL

ACTRESS, WRITER, 

ANIMATOR, ARTIST,

PATENT ATTORNEY

This home page is also part of my blogspot blog.  

Some places to start in my blog:

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Art & Animation

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A.B. Physics, Dartmouth College, magna cum laude, with distinction in major

IFP, Columbia SIPA

JD, Columbia Law School, NYC, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar 

Certificate in 3D Modeling and 3D Animation

On cell phone, this blog looks better in landscape view

Asymptomatic and Presymtomatic COVID transmission

 I had a discussion with my neighbor about whether asymptomatic or presymptomatic COVID transmission has been proven.  

I did some research.

This is what I found 

Per our discussion, I reviewed a number of research articles on the topic of asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission — listed below.  These articles all complained about lack of data, from which to draw conclusions.    Moreover, it is hard to say who has symptoms, since many people lie about it https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2797071

The gold standard of medical testing is the controlled double blind test.  No such test appears.  What appears is small scale contact tracing, where some anecdotal asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission was confirmed.  The articles generally concluded that such transmission is possible, with presymptomatic transmission being more likely than asymptomatic transmission.

They do conclude that there is more transmission from people with symptoms — but, then again, no controlled double blind testing.

What they were able to document was viral load with respect to symptom onset.  In this respect, I note https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7310638/  and in particular figure 2 of this article, an image of which is enclosed.  This shows viral load relative to symptom onset.  The colors on this graph represent statistics vocabulary that I have not researched.  However, there is viral load above the level of transmissibility prior to symptom onset in 3 out of 4 of these curves.

These curves do, as you indicated, show  viral load increasing after symptom onset, contrary to what is commonly stated.  

Otoh, I’m not sure, from a practical viewpoint, what the difference might be between contracting the disease from people who have no symptoms v  contracting the disease from people who are lying about having no symptoms, or people who mistakenly believe they have allergy or GERD symptoms.

—————————————

These are articles that I looked at, not date order, but rather in google order — where later studies with more data apparently tend to appear after earlier studies with less data.  

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2019716118

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34217301/

https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-022-07440-0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7310638/  (review of articles)

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003987

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2022.836409/full

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2022/06/02/covid-transmission

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/05/news-scan-may-27-2022

https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-022-07440-0

Curious -- research showing symptoms peaking after symptom onset rather than before, contrary to popular sayings https://t.co/rLxiDUR7e5 pic.twitter.com/RqxTH3vU2k

— AnneBarschall (@AnneBarschall) November 7, 2022