Monday, December 28, 2020

responding to @dscc survey

 I got some more junk mail this morning.  I decided to write a long handwritten letter to them with all my complaints about them and their meaningless surveys and the issues that I really want to see addressed.  I'm recreating that letter here, with a few things edited or added.


I have already contributed. I am not contributing again I'm tired of getting dozens of requests for money every day. I'm tired of these idiotic surveys that don't accomplish anything meaningful, because they're just broad Hallmark type stuff that any Democrat would agree with. I'm tired of being treated in this impersonal, mechanical, dumbed down way.

 

I'm very angry about the disinformation that the Democratic Party seems to be responsible for distributing about Tulsi Gabbard. I'm angry that, by excluding her from the debates, you kept the debates focused almost entirely on domestic policy and not on our horrendous foreign policy that has kept us engaged in counterproductive, disastrous, bankrupting regime change wars. 

 

American people clearly demonstrated for support of both Trump and Sanders that the majority of people do not want foreign policy as usual the military budget needs to be cut DRAMATICALLY

 

By keeping Gabbard out of the debates, you allowed the most hawkish candidate to rise to the top.

 

As to legislation, you don't even mention some basic items that I think are very important:

 

1.    The current limit on HSA contributions is less than the out-of-pocket maximum for my insurance. That doesn't even take into account glasses and dental. The limit on HSA contribution should be *at least* the out-of-pocket maximum on my insurance.

2.    I lost my health insurance under ACA, because ACA did not allow the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) to be considered as a group. This forces me to buy insurance as an individual. Major cancer centers like Sloan Kettering (MSKCC) won't take any insurance that an individual can purchase. This forced me to get cancer care from incompetent providers miss my recurrence for nine months due to malpractice.   

 

a.    The NYSBA should be allowed to be a group

b.    Hospitals like MSKCC that will not take any insurance that individuals can purchase should lose their not-for-profit status with the IRS

c.     There needs to be a public option

 

3.    Our Social Security numbers have been compromised by hacks. We need new Social Security numbers. We should be able to get new Social Security numbers like we can get new credit card numbers and no one should be able to offer credit cards without the users photo.

 

4.     I am constantly plagued with scam phone calls.   I cannot block the numbers, because the numbers are spoofed. Spoofed calls must be made illegal immediately. People making unsolicited Robo calls should be considered felons and given STIFF penalties.

 

5.     Addiction is a disease, not a crime. Drug abuse should be treated with a medical model, not a criminal model. The field war in drugs must be stopped.

 

6.     (thought of this later) Trump fired a whole bunch of inspectors general. These federal employees should be protected from random firing by the president. They’re too important.

  

 


Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Digital animation

 I took a Digital Animation course this semester.  Here's a link to my final paper, which describes what I did

https://barschall.wordpress.com/case-study/

Sunday, December 13, 2020

A Virtual Christmas Carol

 On December 12 & 13, I participated in a Virtual Production of a Zoom version of Dicken's Christmas Carol produced by AlphaNYC, directed by Elizabeth Aquino, assistant director Andrew James Bleidner

The screenplay was written by Flip Kobler and Cindy Marcus.  It took about 1/2 an hour, and was fairly light and child friendly.


Here are some screen shots of  my performance taken by Tenaya Griffin, who played "Fan," Scrooge's sister. 










For this production, I designed two virtual backgrounds

This was the set for the ghost of Christmas Future



This was the set for me (the ghost of Christmas Past)


We had 4 scheduled rehearsals of the whole cast.  I also organized several Zoom rehearsals of the past scene.  This business of being able to schedule rehearsals over Zoom is just sublime -- so easy


Here is a whole cast photo



This was the cast list



Thursday, November 5, 2020

Pix from my art show @warnerlibraryny


This is the way the rocks look with the display organizers








This was the way the rocks looked without the display organizers





 

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Letter to @mondairejones

  In response to his email thanking us for supporting him, I wrote the following: 


l  am excited that we get a young person of proven intelligence who can represent us, hopefully for years to come, presenting a more progressive approach to legislation.


I am particularly interested in de-escalating our military

I hope you'll remember my little legislative points, which sometimes get lost in the big issues
1) the cap on my HSA should not be less than the out of pocket maximum on my insurance
2) we need new social security numbers, because our numbers have been compromised. We should be able to get new numbers more easily, just like credit cards
3) the FCC needs to take more aggressive action against phone number spoofing, which has allowed widespread scam phone calls and bombing of telephone conference calls

Also spelling reform.

*****

And on November 5 I thought of a couple more points

- hospitals that refuse to take any insurance off the exchange should lose their not-for-profit status;
- we need to reinstate low-cost sea mail, so that we can return packages to China at a reasonable price.


Saturday, October 3, 2020

A Trumpist friend liked this article

https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/biden-has-earned-11-pinocchios-from-fact-checkers-during-coronavirus-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR1zx_v_7WYpdlU5IX1T8yRB7Z1WnWPk5KtAG_HX3-U7ZYQtaCusbeEJgR4


Which cites 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/13/biden-ad-manipulates-video-slam-trump/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/24/biden-campaigns-false-claim-top-cdc-official-was-silenced/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/03/how-much-pressure-did-trump-put-china-access-concerning-coronavirus/

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/16/joe-biden/biden-falsely-says-trump-administration-rejected-w/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/20/was-white-house-office-global-pandemics-eliminated/

This is curious since Trumpists normally consider these sources to be fake news.


In the mean time, WaPo identified 20k instances in which Trump lied


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/