Sunday, October 7, 2018

Updates Summer 2018

This summer I appeared on The Perfect Murder, "Bizarre Love Triangle," on Investigation Discovery. You can stream the episode here


I hope to excerpt my part soon. I'll let you know when I've got that. In the mean time, I'm in the trailer


I also participated in a story slam. Here's my story


I also once again participated in the annual Randolph Mountain Club Charades


This is a live performance event attended by over a hundred people. I believe that this was the 106th annual charades. 

I got new headshots


I have migrated my website, http://barschall.com to Google. My home page is now part of my blog. 

I also took a lot of took a lot of time away from the city in Northern New Hampshire. Here are some photos from my biggest hike


A more extensive list of vacation photos can be found here


I've also been doing some art and even sold some. Here are some of my drawings.


I also took CLE courses in Diversity and Ethics in IP law

As always, I keep an ongoing blog of my activities here




Friday, September 28, 2018

About Kavanaugh lying

I am copying and pasting a meme here. I hope it doesn't turn out to be fake news

Here's the content about how BK lies.

Citing Stanford University Professor, Joel Beinen, (after Kavanaugh's testimony on 9.27.18, and prior to the delay authorized on Friday, 9.28.18):

"Here are some of the major lies that Kavanaugh has told:

1. He lied about Devil's Triangle. A Devil's Triangle is two different kinds of sexual acts, involving either a threesome, or three types of sexual intercourse with one woman in one night. It is not a drinking game. He lied about this several times and his classmates have called him out.

2. He lied about "bouf," which refers to anal intercourse, and not flatulence. He doubled down on this lie several times during testimony.

3. He lied about "Renata Alumnius." That referred to him going on a date with the purported class "slut." It was not about being her friend (and she recently said she was horrified by his yearbook references.) His testimony directly contradicts a poem about Renata written by one of his close friends found in the same yearbook he refers to himself as a Renata Alumnius, portraying Renata as a cheap and sleazy date.

4. He lied that the "Beach Week Ralph Club," which refers to vomiting from drinking at a traditional beach week (which all the schools around here have--we all know the expression). He lied and said it referred to his weak stomach.

5. He lied under oath about not watching Ford's testimony. Today. Witnesses saw him watching it. The Wall Street Journal reported he was watching it with others in the Senate's Dirksen Office Building. There are many press stories on this.

6. He lied about not knowing about stolen emails from the Democratic members of the judicial committee. He knew the emails were stolen and confirmed it in the emails the Judicial Committee republicans tried to suppress. The Washington Post gave him three pinocchios for this lie.

7. He lied about witnesses supporting his claims. They did not support his claims as he characterized their testimony. They generally supplied brief statements through lawyers about not remembering the party. This was no testimony. This was no independent investigation.

8. More specifically, Ford and Kavanaugh's mutual friend Leland Kaiser says while she does not remember that party, but she believes everything her friend Ford said about it. She has stated this to the press and it came up in testimony today.

9. Kavanugh lied about his drinking. He drank a lot in the last year of high school and college (and several witnesses say he drank a lot for years afterwards). Several friends of mine who specialize in alcoholism said he exhibited signs of having drunk before this hearing. He was referred to by his college roommate as a sloppy and belligerent drunk. We saw glimpses of that belligerence today. Dozens of his contemporaries have confirmed how aggressive he becomes with drinking.

10. He lied that never drunk on weekdays in the summer of 1982. In his own calendar, he referred to "skis," which he admitted refer to "brewskis," with Mark and PJ on Thursday July 1 in a calendar entry that matches closely Ford's account. Most of the people in that list were the same mentioned by Ford in her testimony. He drank. On that Thursday night. After working out.

11. He lied about Judge not remembering what happened. Six weeks after the incident, probably mid-August 1982, Ford reported seeing Judge at the Potomac Safeway in River Road near where we live. Local newspapers have confirmed that Judge worked there at the time Ford said. No one has refuted her testimony that Judge was "nervous" and had "turned white." The committee is still refusing to interview or depose or subpoena Judge.

12. He lied that "100 kegs or bust" did not indicate a lot of drinking in 1982-3. He was part of a group endeavoring to drink 100 kegs that year, and his best friend became a serious alcoholic and admitted to sexual assault resembling this assault during that period to his girlfriend. His girlfriend was also not deposed by the committee.

13. He lied about Trump in the first line of his first press conference as nominee. He lied about Trump doing more vetting than for any other Supreme Court nominee in modern history. In fact, Trump vetted much much less than other modern President's, admittedly working from short lists provided by two conservative think tanks, which he announced in advance he would limit his choice to. Several books have confirmed that Trump spent little time on the vetting.

14. He lied that he is "open to any investigation." He is not and is actively participating in blocking the testimony of eye witness Mark Judge, his girlfiend, and other participants. Judge is hiding out in a beach house on the eastern shore and Judge being interviewed by the FBI. Kavanaugh is actively involved in strategizing about evidence suppression, at all day strategy meetings with Trump's lawyers.

15. He lied about the nature of Mark's book. He said that both it was part of his therapy and coming clean as an alcoholic and drug addict, and called the book "fictional." It can't be both a testimonial of a recovering alcoholic and fictional at the same time.

16. He refuses to answer the question again and again about whether or not there should be an investigation and whether or not his friend Mark Judge should be questioned, further belying that he is "open to investigation."

17. He is lying about whether he was the "Bart O'Kavanaugh" in Mark Judge's book. He knows the drunken and vomiting "O'Kavanaugh" is him.

18. He is lying about never having forgot anything about the night after a night of drinking. There are several testimonials from classmates to this effect.

19. He is lying that there is a conspiracy against him and that Ford's charges are trumped up and part of that conspiracy. The best evidence of no conspiracy is how his high school classmate Gorsuch--they were one year about apart at Georgetown Prep--was subject to no such conspiracy, in confirmation hearings just months ago. Gorsuch is honorable. Judge is lying.

20. Kavanaugh supporter Whelan helped concoct the story of other men taking credit for assaulting Ford. Whelan has deleted all of his tweets after being challenged on the completely bogus stories he was advancing by his colleagues. The dissembling tweets are gone.

Senator Blumenthal quoted the legal principle "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which is a legal principle that dictates jurors can rule a witness to be false in everything if he says one thing that is not true."

If you believe any of the above is correct, you have to come to the conclusion that Kavanaugh is lying and should not be confirmed.

A Supreme Court Justice who can't keep it together during the biggest job interview in his life, and who cannot keep his facts straight and tell the truth shouldn't be hired."

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Animal House and SCOTUS


I am a graduate of Dartmouth College, which was, notoriously, the inspiration for the movie “Animal House.” I went there when it was newly co-ed, when the old contingent was not entirely sold on the presence of women, when alcoholic excess was still the norm in fraternities — the drinking age being 18 at that time.

I was and continue to be repulsed by drunkenness. I avoided fraternities. There was one that was sufficiently sedate that I might have joined, but then there was this story of a former love interest being a member… so that one was out as well. 

It baffled me why people were so attracted to them.  At our fifth reunion, one of the fraternities hosted us at an event. I went.  I told one of my friends, who accompanied me, that I had never set foot in that building previously.  He was quite surprised.  Tho personally very well behaved, he had been a great fan of those drunken jocks.  He couldn’t imagine never going into a frat, never attending a frat party.

What was most distressing to me afterwards, was that those participants in the frat culture, most of whom had gone through drunken and often violent hazing — and inflicted the same on others — ended up profiting economically. They were more likely to end up as highly placed business executives. Their connections helped them in the old boy network.

Those of us who paid attention to our studies, and hung out with others like ourselves, we ended up on the outside looking in.  

And now those same poorly behaved people are asserting their rights to be senators and SCOTUS justices, even after their drunken, violent behavior is exposed.

And people who speak out against this are getting death threats and having to go into hiding. 

I don’t like it.


Sunday, September 16, 2018

Summer 2018 vacation photos

Some of these photos were posted as FB albums.  I've figured out how to embed FB albums.  Unfortunately, tho, I guess you can't really look at these photos unless you have a FB account and can click on the link







My June photos I only have as a google album.  I know how to post a link to a google album, but I don't know how to embed it in the blog so that you get a preview.  These are of Lookout Ledge, Pine Mountain and Mt Crescent

June 2018 hiking photos

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

May and June Updates 2018


This is a clip from my most recent webisode, “Answers to Everything: Episode 2” d Greg Lakhan, Amusement Studios.  It’s dark intentionally, because it’s a late night party.



Got some new headshots.  Feedback appreciated:




Getting back into improv shows, after taking the winter off.

List of performances

Movies I saw recently:
Ocean's 8 (which I was supposed to be background in, but I'm not visible)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (which I liked, tho I gather some hardcore Star Wars fans didn't)

Albums I purchased recently:
Peter Hollens: Legendary Folk Songs
Lucia Micarelli: An Evening with Lucia Micarelli (CD & DVD)

Photos I took recently



Sunday, June 3, 2018

Important: Bystander CPR

IMPORTANT: My kids and I all got bystander CPR lessons at the Tarrytown street fair today. The EMT who trained me said that, sadly, he has never come to a call with a cardiac arrest case and found a bystander attempting CPR. NEVER. Yet even an inept attempt could increase the person's survival chances from 10% (without CPR) to 50% (with CPR).

They've really simplified CPR now. Things that have been eliminated:
- rescue breathing -- hence you don't have to worry about their germs or their vomiting in your mouth
- tilting the head back

- checking for pulse
-
 putting glasses in front of the person's nose to check for breathing (instead you only look visually to see if the chest is rising and falling)


So the sequence is:
1. You see someone is down & seems non-responsive

2. You call 911 and you say you see someone down and you're going to start CPR. You give the location

3. You tap their shoulder and see if they will respond

4. if no, check to see if their chest or stomach is rising and falling

5. if no to 3 & 4, you start chest compressions. You do them 100/minute without stopping until the ambulance arrives. The correct timing is illustrated by the beat in the famous popular song "Staying Alive," which they played for us to help us see how fast to do this.


If you get tired and if someone else is around, you ask for their help. 

Again:no rescue breathing. The compressions cause the lungs to exhale and inhale.

If you start chest compressions promptly, in case of cardiac arrest, the individual will have a 50% chance of survival. If you just leave the person lying there, they have only a 10% chance of survival, by the time the ambulance comes.

They said that you can't hurt the heart by giving them chest compressions when their heart is still breathing. The heart adjusts.

Good Samaritan laws (at least in NY) protect you in case you injure someone. You don't have to worry about breaking their ribs, because that will heal, whereas the brain injuries from lack of oxygen will not.