Wednesday, October 16, 2019

The Joker

Caveat: I have not seen this movie, nor do I think can allow the film industry to draw me into such an emotional maelstrom.  I need to remain more serene than that.  Nevertheless, I commented as follows on a friend's post on FB and wanted to memorialize it here.


I haven't wanted to see this movie, because I fear it would be too upsetting. I prefer fluffy stuff; however, I am curious, in view of the comments below, whether this is a depiction of mental illness based on medical science, or whether it's really just a sensualized and sensationalized piece of glorified click bait.

I wondered similarly about Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of Christ.” Yes, it might have been true to the Bible story, but the Bible doesn’t present the story in technicolor with high drama, lingering closeups.

This type of glorification of emotional drama is not real life. I’m not sure exactly why it draws people in — but it does — much like junk food.

Of course, we have the ability, through the casting process, to find performers who have the talent to enthrall people with their performances; again, not because their depictions are truly realistic, but because they are artfully heightened. Real people aren’t so enthralling. Why are we sucked into a high drama portrayal? Why does drama seem more interesting than watching ordinary people walk by on the street? Or than watching a tree?

Having kids with autism spectrum disorders, I am familiar with the history of blaming these disorders on “refrigerator mothers,” when really the disorders were neurological and congenital.

I question whether these homicidal maniacs were really all abused so badly as to make them go bad, or whether they were predisposed from birth to over-react to ordinary stress. Maybe there isn’t a story about them going mad. Maybe they just were like that.

I’m also disturbed by the whole “mental illness” rubric; partly because psychiatry doesn’t seem to be oriented around any disorder of this type, i.e. the fictional “homicidal maniac.” They don’t know how to diagnose any such disorder or treat it.

It may be simply because these people are too maladjusted to seek treatment. They don’t walk into a doctor’s office and say “Hi! I’m a homicidal maniac. Please give me a pill to cure this.” They live in a different world from the rest of us, in terms of how they perceive things — so doctors aren’t in a position to develop protocols. But really we don't know much about such people. They usually die before they can be interviewed.

Friday, October 4, 2019

NH trip September 2019

Yeah, ok, I go the same place every summer, but, still, the pix are nice -- or so I think.

These are the unedited google photo albums

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ncA1KzqwxkDwrjfE8

https://photos.app.goo.gl/paNoi8CXbDGBswX39

https://photos.app.goo.gl/iWydHxxajUsMe3F67

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6nso5LtA7aSnP2it6

https://photos.app.goo.gl/a1bWzvp1NhZKC6bn7

https://photos.app.goo.gl/bEeeY3iQaqtLFZky5

https://photos.app.goo.gl/h9iipbT4dbw4Rp5SA

Here are some of my favorite individual photos, embedded


This was kind of a bucket list thing: hike to Roger's Ledge











Maybe I'm a bit like my dad in generally preferring landscapes as photo subjects to people


Fungi photos




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A post shared by Anne Barschall (@barschall) on



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A post shared by Anne Barschall (@barschall) on




stream photos


Wednesday, August 28, 2019

open letter to @US_FDA @CDCgov @NIH @MVPHealthCare about Synthroid and false equivalents

This blog is an open letter to the Food and Drug Administration about your having declared certain formulations of levothyroxine to be "equivalent" to Synthroid.  They are NOT equivalent -- and your having declared them so is putting me and other thyroid patients in mortal peril.

I first started Synthroid many years ago, due to hypothyroidism -- later diagnosed as Hashimoto's Thyroiditis.  I also have a history of heart palpitations.

At that time, I tried a generic "equivalent" of Synthroid.  I quickly discovered that the so-called "equivalent" gave me heart palpitations, when Synthroid did not.

My primary care physician referred me to an endocrinologist.  The endocrinologist explained to me that the body is highly sensitive to small changes in dosage of thyroid medication.  The generic levothyroxine uses a different substrate from what the Synthroid uses. This causes changed efficacy in the body. My endocrinologist said that I must always use brand name Synthroid.

Recently, my health insurance company, MVP, demanded that I try other brands, before getting rid of the brand name penalty price for Synthroid.  I tried Levoxyl.  I experienced heart palpitations, anxiety, poor sleep, inability to focus, and tingling in my chest, face, and mouth. These are all clear symptoms of overdose.

I'm over 60. I have a strong family history of heart disease.  I personally have suffered from heart palpitations before.  I have been treated with Doxil, which can cause heart damage.  It's dangerous for me to be playing with these medications.

Now MVP wants me to try another generic "equivalent" before getting rid of the brand name penalty for Synthroid.  This is too dangerous for me personally. My physician says that she has not previously been able to convince insurance companies to stop this practice.

The Food and Drug Administration having falsely declared other formulations of levothyroxine as equivalents of Synthroid is putting my life in danger.

#Synthroid #levoxyl #genericdrugs #levothyroxine

Monday, August 26, 2019

irobot roomba e6

I got this in June.  It stayed in the box for 40 days or something, because I didn't have time to straighten up enough for it to clean a room.

Afterwards, I finally let it out and it did pick up an impressive amount of dust and is surprisingly quiet.



annoying things it does:
1. refuses to stay on area rugs.  will just vacuum a few swaths of the rug and leave dirt in another section
2. repeatedly entangles itself in the same cord that it just got tangled in five minutes ago.  It should have a cord sensor and it should avoid places where it just got tangled up.
3. communicates with cell-phone via wifi.  the router had a security setting that wouldn't allow it to communicate with devices that were communicating with each other via wifi.  my son had chosen that setting to prevent spying in our home.  he also changed the router password and couldn't remember the new password. As a result we couldn't implement voice control features.
4. gets trapped in narrow area between area rug and wall.
5. pulled a radio alarm clock off a table and broke it

#irobot #roomba


Tuesday, August 6, 2019

searching for barschall on ecosia

I tried searching for my name on ecosia.

I went out to page 49.

I skip most of the references which are to my dad, the famous physicist -- and to me, since those are on other parts of this blog.

I wanted to memorialize some other interesting links I found, especially referring to my grandfather


http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM38/AM38_118.pdf
https://www.gjenvick.com/Passengers/HamburgAmericanLine/Pretoria-PassengerList-1903-08-22.html
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4Y1AAQAAMAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA183&ots=NQxFpflTxz&sig=4kb0wsjrOv5G_fHmArw9opl0pxc#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.tpa-project.info/html/body_moriz___barschall.html
http://jinfo.org/Physicists.html
http://www.merrytheschristmascollection.be/papcards.htm
https://gregnjenn.wordpress.com/2016/08/23/becoming-visible-quaker-outreach-at-colleges/
https://theodora.com/encyclopedia/f/formalin.html
https://search.amphilsoc.org/collections/view?docId=ead/Mss.B.B445-ead.xml
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,435972,00.html
https://viaf.org/viaf/153001167/
http://www.denkmalprojekt.org/verlustlisten/vl_1_brb_drag-_reg_nr_2_wk1.htm
http://www.denkmalprojekt.org/dkm_deutschland/b-amtsgcharlottenburg.htm
https://www.kegler-von-spandau.de/files/dokumente/Oberliga%20Spandau/10.%20Spieltag%20EW%20Oberliga.pdf  Ullrich Barschall — now

https://www.berlin.de/ba-charlottenburg-wilmersdorf/ueber-den-bezirk/geschichte/stolpersteine/artikel.179914.php
Johanna Barschall, b. Loewenheim, was probably the daughter of Jenny Loewenheim and was born on 4 March 1889. Her husband Willi was registered 1939 with the designation Kaufmann / Papiergroßhandel and still 1940 in the address book. After that he is nowhere to find any more, according to his wife he had died. Her son Karl-Heinz, who was born in 1912, was able to emigrate in time.
Johanna ran a bridge club in Wielandstraße and lived on the revenue, because virtually any other activity was forbidden for Jews. In 1939 she wrote to her son that she was forced to deliver her jewelery and other silver and auction her valuables. She had to give everything up and was taken to Grosse Hamburger Strasse. On February 19, 1943, she had to jostle into a demolished by the Nazis as "age transportation" with 997 people occupied death train to Auschwitz.
The next day they arrived there, almost all were gassed.

https://www.bildarchiv-ostpreussen.de/cgi-bin/bildarchiv/suche/show_foto.cgi?lang=deutsch&id=119889&showmenu=1&bildinfos=1
http://www.territorial.de/dawp/thorn/landkrs.htm
http://www.gbv.de/dms/weimar/toc/672553600_toc.pdf (Wilhelm Barschall)
http://www.goethezeitportal.de/index.php?id=6874

It turns out that there's a book on amazon that may contain my grandfather's doctoral dissertation https://www.amazon.com/Arbeiten-Aus-Dem-Reichsgesundheitsamte-German/dp/B009F648H6/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Arbeiten+aus+dem+Reichsgesundheitsamte&qid=1565066848&s=books&sr=1-1

amazing


Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Turkeys Go on Strike



This is a musical that was in, playing the villain, Tanya von Turkenson.

It's a story about turkeys who don't want to be eaten for Thanksgiving, but it has a lot of parallels with civil rights movements.  There were a lot of geniuses in this. I'm expecting big things of them and of this musical going forward.

I'm really impressed with the sophistication of the musical score, by B. Sweeney and M. Janover.  These guys are young, but real pros.

While everyone in this production was amazing -- and unfortunately I couldn't see most of it, because I was backstage -- there were 2 voices that particularly captivated me, being a person easily hypnotized by singing voices: Dayle Vander Sande and Gabriella Mack.

Also, I find the story intriguing.  It's very silly (even slapstick) in some parts -- and very serious  and moving in others.  There are very strong female characters, which is always nice.  It was also intriguing to me that the playwright/director cast himself as Hooch, the dunce of the show.  I found the rappers, Turner & Hooch, to be kind of similar to the typical pair of clowns in a Shakespeare play.  It was audacious without being overly depressing or offensive.

Producer/author: Ethan Felizzari

This was part of the 2019 Dream Up Festival at the Theatre for the New City

Schedule

8/25 2pm
8/26 9pm
8/27 6:30pm
8/28 9pm
8/29 9pm
8/31 8pm
9/1 5pm

Link to buy tickets

Especially if you can't make it, please donate to support the production

link to donate

#turkeysonstrike #dreamup2019 #dreamupfestival #theatreforthenewcity

Link to FB event

graphic with more info


Website for the musical



Images of the program






Links to cast members, creators, etc. on social media

Justin Glass
















Aerika Gabbin

Alexander Price

Madeline Blue

Brian Sweeney

Vincent Donnadio

Kristin Felizzari

Michael Janover

Nick Camacho

Rick Eberle