I can’t handle wildfires on top of everything else right now!

Posted on by Thor

Conspiracy theories help people believe they can make sense of the pandemic disaster that is the ongoing. We are in the 4th year of the pandemic and conspiracy theories still abound. On February 26, 2023, The United States Energy Department released a report that acknowledged that there was low confidence that the virus originated in the Wuhan Virology lab. There is still not enough evidence to state if the virus had a lab origin or spread from an animal to humans. Regardless this has now been accepted as gospel truth by conspiracy theorists that the virus was a biological weapon developed in a lab. The same people who believe it is a biological weapon however refuse to wear a mask of filtrate indoor air. This report which has not been made public, had caused COVID minimizes to crawl out of the floor boards.

Misinformation spreads much faster than the virus. Chinese social media has come up with the theory that the United States developed to Corona virus and then released it in Wuhan to frame China. A pro-China you tuber wrote, wrote on Twitter. “I can now announce, with ‘low confidence,’ that the COVID pandemic began as a leak from Hunter Biden’s laptop.” Such conspiracy theories would be funny if so many ignorant people didn’t take them a face value.

Conspiracy theories are related in that people believe there is one malicious master conspiracy. What makes conspiracy theories most successful it the idea malicious purposes and secretive actions. Facts , corroborating evidence or scientific research are not important. The conspiracy theory that 5G technology could harm people existed before the pandemic. But once influencers said that the 5G towers spread the virus the insane theory went viral like wildfire.

Governments like the United States, the U.K. and Sweden let the coronavirus rip through their populations with the hope that they would reach herd immunity—the point at which enough people are immune to the virus that it can no longer spread. Herd immunity however is never going to happen with COVID-19 since the virus mutates so quickly finding ways to break through our immune response. The horrible side effect is that COVID instead destroys our immunity making everyone who is infected more vulnerable to multiple COVID infections and other pathogens as well.

In February 2023, the CDC quietly added a paragraph to their website about the destructive side effects of multiple infections with COVID… “‘Emerging evidence suggests that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),the virus that causes COVID-19 can have lasting effects on nearly every organ and organ system of the body weeks, months, and potentially years after infection. Documented serious post-COVID-19 conditions include cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, renal, endocrine, hematological, and gastrointestinal complications, as well as death.”

Government policy related to public health seems to be to deny, minimize, and then let it out on the sly, after the fact. It took the CDC years to acknowledge that COVID is an airborne virus that can stay suspended in the air for much further than 6 feet. Each public health talking head that I have been following has been infected by COVID because they did not follow the simple public health protocols that they promoted.

 

But, did he die with wildfires or from wildfires?

Posted on by Thor

With of from COVID? That is the question. In April of 2020 the CDC gave specific advice to doctors on how to determine the cause of death that should be listed on a death certificate. If a patient died of pneumonia caused by COVID-19, then Pneumonia would be listed as the cause of death and the patient would have died OF COVID. Those who died OF COVID-19 are considered the number of people whose primary cause of death was due to the virus.

If other  COVID was considered a co-morbidity like obesity, but the person died from an accident or other cause, then the patient would have died WITH COVID.

We have officially entered the COVID exhaustion phase of the pandemic. People grasp at any straw of misinformation in order to pretend the pandemic is over or never happened. I have seen FOX news hosts claim that thousands of people are dying in motorcycle accidents and they just happen to have COVID. This is just lunacy. A doctor would never claim  COVID as the cause of a motorcycle accident.

One patient had cancer and was told he only had months to live. In those final months he caught COVID-19 and was unable to breath. He died OF COVID.

In April of 2021 Dr. Deborah Birx, said, “If someone dies WITH COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.” That lead conspiracy theorists to assume numbers were being inflated. In the spring and summer of 2021 that policy was altered to say that in order for a death to be counted as a COVID-19 death, the disease had to have played a role.

Since the start of the pandemic the numbers of non-COVID excess deaths have been on the rise. Excess deaths are deaths that are above the average number of deaths expected based on an average of the previous 5 years. Many of these rising excess deaths are likely due to COVID causing an increase in  heart attacks, strokes, embolisms, aneurysms, diabetes, and damage to autoimmunity. COVID causes damage to the lungs, kidneys, liver, heart. It causes brain damage, brain inflammation, brain autoimmunity. COVID can cause ongoing illness and disability that can be life changing and may be lifelong.

Regardless of weather the death is OF or WITH COVID, when a loved or friend one dies, the cost is incalculable. I don’t understand the need for the semantics. The pandemic is not over and over 500 Americans are dying needlessly every week.

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill

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Pam and I went to see Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill in the Mandell Theater in the Orlando Shakes, (812 E Rollins Street, Orlando, FL 32803). We sat in the back row house right which was good for me since it meant no one was seated behind me who might be distracted by the glow of my iPad screen as I drew. I sketched as the audience filled in and it was a packed audience. Pam and I wore masks while the rest of the audience were mostly mask less.

In this powerful musical production, Billie Holiday sings her most famous songs and reminisces about the great triumphs and losses of her life. The time is 1959. The place is a seedy bar in Philadelphia. The audience is about to witness one of Billie’s last performances. With the help of her piano man, Jimmy Powers, she lets music tell her story, sharing soulful, heart-wrenching, and bawdy songs from her memorable canon including: “Strange Fruit,” “God Bless the Child,” “When a Woman Loves a Man,” and “T’Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.”

The set felt like a smoke filled lounge. They actually used a smock machine to get a smokey effect to the lights. Some of the audience were in small tables surrounding the stage. They got the full lounge effect. The pianist was the first to arrive on stage, then the drummer and cello player took their spots.

When Lady Day arrived she was stumbling a bit and clearly had been drinking. She was in high spirits to start and regaled the audience with details of her life from the start. She talked more than she sang, but that was the point. Members of the audience murmured their support and surprise as she spoke. The lounge became like a sort of spiritual revival. Details of Lady Day’s life slipped out in her drunken stupor. When she sang however the earth stood still.

In one number the lighting was spot on to what I painted in the poster. Working on location I didn’t try and catch that momentary moment of lighting, I kept changing the lighting in the sketch until something worked right.

Lady Day continues to play at the Shakes through March 5, 2023. I highly recommend it. Masks are suggested but not required.

 

We have to protect the forest economy!

Posted on by Thor

Joe Biden based his entire 2020 presidential campaign on the promise he would solve COVID by trusting “the science”. That was all lip service. 2021 began with the hope that miraculous vaccines developed under the previous administration, would end the pandemic. Vaccines alone will not end the pandemic and that is something Biden does not understand.

President Joe Biden has been infected by COVID twice. He was fully vaccinated and got they best medical treatment possible. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stunned reporters on July 21 2021 when she brushed off an inquiry about how President Biden caught COVID-19, saying: “I don’t think that matters.” This is an example of how the administration gaslights and downplays the virus.

Since Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021, over 717,354 Americans have died from COVID-19. That is as of February 22, 2023 according to the CDC data tracker. Since about 500 people are dying every week we can assume that number is more like 718,354 today. According to Our World in data, 806,439 Americans died while Donald Trump was president, so he still leads in his ability to kill his voters.

Biden said, “If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the ICU unit and you’re not going to die.” This is simply not true. Though vaccines reduce the likelihood of infection, serious illness and death, they are not a guarantee. Breakthrough infections are common and vaccinated individuals are dying more often than unvaccinated individuals. In August of 2022 vaccinated individuals accounted for 58% of COVID deaths.

Biden said, “I sometimes underestimate it (COVID), because I stopped thinking about it, but I’m sure you don’t: we lost 1 – over 1 million people in several years to COVID.” His policy clearly has been to ignore the ongoing pandemic and claim it is “over” despite over 500 deaths a week. This is the mindset of a fascist who does not value life. I voted for him and had high hopes but he has dropped the ball and chosen ignorance and death.

Biden intends to end the COVID public health emergency on May 11, 2023. The public health emergency should only end when the ventilation, air disinfection, N95 masking, and an updated variant-proof infection-stopping vaccine are available to everyone around the world!

Let it Burn!

Posted on by Thor

Since the start of the pandemic three years ago the United States had embraced a policy of allowing widespread infection to occur in low-risk groups, like young people. This has resulted in the highest death toll of any country in the world with well over one million deaths. The hope in all this mass infection was that the country might develop herd immunity. However herd immunity is impossible since the virus keeps mutating into variants that break through past waning immunity from past infection and vaccination.

The vast trouble with this mass infection strategy is that children are getting very sick and repeat infections are resulting in worst outcomes. Over 96% of children have been infected in our country so far and those kids then infect their parents and grand parents. Children are the primary way the virus is burning through society.

The United States is riding on a plateau of about 500 deaths a day due to COVID-19. That has become the new normal. At the start of the pandemic 500 deaths a day would have been unheard of, but after experiencing spikes or deaths in the thousands, 500 deaths a day seems low in comparison. Americans want to wish the virus away while taking no basic safety precautions. Wishful thinking and ignorance is not a public health solution.

Pandemic fatigue has become pandemic burn out and most people have given up all hope. The only way they can cope is to pretend that the pandemic is over. All evidence to the contrary will be ignored for the sake of imagining that life has returned to normal.

The 45th president knew the virus was airborne and highly infectious. Despite this he downplayed the potential dangers. The 46th president isn’t much better, in that he publicly proclaimed the pandemic is over while thousands or people needlessly die every week. Gaslighting the public and convincing them that mass infection is in their best interest seems to be the one thing that straddles party lines.

It was just a little spark, sparks don’t have any after effects!

Posted on by Thor

Many don’t think it is their responsibility to self isolate when they are sick. They seem to think that a “mild” infection can not spread.

Typical symptoms of a mild case of COVID include…

fever cough, fatigue, loss of smell or taste, body aches and pains, headache, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, digestive symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea.

A case is considered mild if there is no shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. Research has found that about 81 percent of people with COVID-19 have a mild or moderate illness. Some people are asymptomatic, not even aware that they are sick and spreading the virus. Research found that people with a mild or moderate illness had at least one symptom for an average of 9.82 days.

So how long are people infectious? The amount of virus detected in the upper respiratory tract (nose and throat) peaked early on, generally in the first 3 to 5 days of illness. People with more severe illness seem to shed virus for a longer time. Individuals over the age of 60 appear to shed the virus longer than younger individuals. The virus is most contagious shortly after symptoms begin. However, some individuals may shed the virus for longer periods of time.

A study of 57 people with mild symptoms found, that the majority are not infectious before symptoms develop, but two-thirds of cases are still infectious five days after their symptoms begin. Lateral flow (at home) tests do not detect the start of infectiousness well, they more accurately identify when someone is no longer infectious and can safely leave isolation.

No one’s getting burnt anymore!

Posted on by Thor

The elite love to minimize COVID. They were among the first to flout COVID restrictions when they existed. That is in part because any precautions might cut into corporate profits. Investing in clean air for workers would be an investment. They also feel secure knowing they would have the best treatments should they become infected.

If you look at Hollywood elites or government elites you will not see a mask insight. The inequalities put on display when the rich and powerful flout the rules only add to public discontent. People are less likely to take even the simplest precautions like wearing a mask when elites act as if the pandemic is over.

By focusing on violations, the media helped undermine compliance by creating false norms, by implying, ‘if everyone else is going out, if everyone else if breaking the rules, why don’t we? Leaders should lead by example and the only person I noted doing that this week was Bernie Sanders who wore his mask in a crowded maskless presidential state of the union address.

A study found that the United States and United Kingdom were the only two countries of the 14 polled where a minority of people said the government had handled Covid-19 well. Not surprisingly those two countries have the highest death rates from COVID in the world. of the 6,782,716 deaths in the world, America is number 1 with  1,140,017 deaths. The UK comes in at number 9 with 205,540 deaths.

 

I’ve got a strong natural defense against bursting into flames!

Posted on by Thor

Does keeping children safe, endanger them? Some scientific “experts” fear that lockdowns could have left children with life-long immunity problems. The fact is that repeat COVID infections are creating life long immunity problems in children. Children are indeed becoming infected with RSV, flu and COVID more often than ever before. This “expert” seems to feel that COVID infections are an education for a child’s immune system.

Data in the UK from the Office for National Statistics suggests about 71,000 children in the UK are suffering from long Covid, which includes symptoms such as debilitating fatigue, brain fog, sleep problems and muscle pain.

On a personal note, I developed scarlet fever as an infant and was not expected to live. Scarlet fever, has had  more than ten times the average number of cases this winter season. COVID-19 reduces the numbers and functional ability of certain types of immune cells in the blood, say researchers. This could affect responses to secondary infections.  96 % of children have already been infected with COVID. Repeat COVID infections are resulting in children being more prone to other infections as well.

Toasy Studio

Posted on by Thor

One assignment I have with my virtual Urban Sketching students is to sketch the studio they happen to be working from.I always sketch and paint along with them and explain in this case, one point perspective and how to block in a scene. In this case the foreground has all warm colors while the mid–ground is more neutral and greyed down. I emphasized how things in the foreground will have fewer horizontal lines while object further away might be home horizontal.

You can see how disorganized I am with rags and folders stored in egg carts. Larger sketches are rolled up on the table and stacks of sketchbooks wait to be filled with sketches. Entry to the studio is blocked with a short stack of plastic containers. That is so the dog doesn’t come in and make even more of a mess. When the dogs have to go outside, they sit at the entrance to the studio and stare at me until I stop painting and let them outside. They are a bit spoiled since they can go out at any time since I am always painting.

Another goal of the painting was to make sure anything outside the windows was painted lighter than anything inside. If I had more time I would erase lines and focus on hard and soft edges of objects.

On July 1, 2022 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers that updated booster shots for the fall season will need to have added protections against the latest omicron sub-variants. By this time people were becoming keenly aware that breakthrough infections would shift from a statistical anomaly to a regular occurrence.

This is a wildfire of the unburnt!

Posted on by Thor

Ignoring COVID does not make it go away. The World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out that, although everyone is tired of hearing about COVID-19 and its restrictions, “we need to face an undeniable fact…the virus is still very much present among us”. Engaging in risky behavior sends the message that COVID isn’t really their problem, that they don’t see a reason to modify their behavior to mitigate risk. To see this behavior just watch the State of the Union Address in which the only member of Congress to wear a mask was Bernie Sanders. The president giving his speech kept coughing.

People feel helpless and out of control. Their only coping mechanism is to pretest the pandemic does not exist. Complacency, denial and ignorance take over for rational thought. People do not want to live in fear, so they ignore the source of the feat rather than facing the fear. The risk has not magically disappeared, they have chosen to ignore the risk. Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is also death.