Donkey Barrier

Posted on by Thor

This is a sketch I did with one of my Elite Animation virtual students to demonstrate one point perspective. I am always encouraging my students to sketch the simplest of scenes.

This is a view from my desk and shows the entry to my studio space. My sketchbook bookshelf can be seen to the left and books are stacked on a table in the mid ground since each time a sketchbook goes on a shelf another book has to loose it’s spot on the shelf. Even my childhood bible has lost its spot on the bookshelf and been demoted to tabletop storage.

You might notice that the entry to the studio is blocked by plastic storage bins. I step over those bins every time I exit or enter the studio. Stepping over those bins has probably been my best exercise all year during the pandemic. The roll top desk against the far wall was acquired by Pam and was once owned by a renowned local syndicated cartoonist.

Pam’s pup, Sprout, got upset every time Pam went to work each morning. She thought it would be a good idea to get Sprout a play buddy, so we ended up adopting a pup named Donkey. The first day Donkey was in the house, she decided to enter my studio and immediately poop on the carper. That dog never again entered the studio since I blocked the entry with storage containers. Donkey is evil incarnate.

Sprout used to huddle under my Disney Desk while I was working when afternoon thunderstorms rolled in. He felt safe there. Unfortunately he has to deal with the fear of thunder on his own now that Donkey is in the house.  Donkey also chewed the hell out of a coffee table in the living room. All four legs are half chewed off. They look like they were splintered by lightning. She also chewed up an antique wooden Monopoly game board. I suspect that is irreplaceable.

Donkey chews Sprouts face and legs incessantly. He growled to assert his dominance but she had outgrown him and literally stands dominant over him. He still pouts any time Pam leaves for work. He probably gets exercise trying to survive Donkey’s attacks but I am not so sure he his happier than before she arrived.

Outside the window, a dark silhouette is visible of an outdoor bar with bar stools stacked on top of the counter. Those seats are covered in rat poop since a rat discovered he could chew his way into plastic storage bins outside filled with seed. He got fat and happy and pooped all around the bar. I managed to catch the rat so he is no longer causing havoc around the bar.

The Incredible Shrinking Brain

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A new study based on data gathered by UK Biobank, found that COVID-19 survivors suffer from grey matter loss in the brain.

The long-term experiment, which involved 782 volunteers, compared brain scans of individuals before the pandemic. For an analogy between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic brain scans, researchers then invited 394 COVID-19 survivors to return for follow-up scans, as well as 388 healthy volunteers.

Researchers saw significant effects of the virus on human cerebral matter, with a loss of gray matter in regions of the brain. This incredible shrinking brain syndrome is particularly evident in the incoherent ramblings of the former president (45) who held a rally last weekend in Ohio. It has been nice not having to think about this psychopath for the last six months since Joe Biden was sworn in and oversaw a epic vaccination effort which surpassed several of it’s goals but might fall just short of the 70% hoped for by July 4, 2021.

Even die hard MAGAts got bored with the ramblngs of the ex-president and decided to leave the rally early while he was still droning on about the past. He was infected by COVID-19 in October 0f 2020 and clearly his brain has shrunk.

COVID-19 Mach Pit

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The Delta Variant of COVID-19 first identified in India now makes up over 25% of the cases in America. The variant is over 60 % more transmissible than the original. When anyone in a household gets the virus it quickly spreads to the whole family.

Health officials in Mesa County, Colorado, have been scrambling to contain the highly transmissible Delta variant of the novel coronavirus. May 5, 2021 the county, only had five cases. Within a month, with the vaccination rate in the area low, the variant positivity rate soared 2,500 percent.

The county is home of Country Jam, the state’s largest three-day music festival which sold over 50,000 tickets. The event headlining Carrie Underwood was held June 25, 25, and 26, 2021.  This potential superspreader pitted vaccine holdouts against an extra-contagious variant of COVID-19.

As of June 24, 2021 the Delta variant was approaching 300 cases, making it the dominant strain in the county and resulting in an uptick in hospitalization and deaths. There is an abundance of residents who have refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The primary reason health expert are concerned about the Delta variant in the United States is because of the unvaccinated population.” Both hospitals in Mesa County are nearing capacity. Only about 40% of Mesa County residents are fully vaccinated.

With Mesa County’s current COVID-19 surge, the festival asked that masks be worn at all times and for three feet of social distancing to be maintained. I can guarantee that did not happen. Those who attend will then return to their homes around the country to infect their family and friends on July 4.

With the rise of the Delta variant, the World Health Organization (WHO) has asked that people who are fully vaccinated to continue wearing masks. “People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” said Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general, during a news briefing Friday.

After Pulse: David Thomas Moran

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.

David Thomas Moran co-founded Gays Against Guns in the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting. He participated in a sit-in for the 49 lives lost and was arrested.

David first became an activist in college. The Pulse hate crime and Donald Trump’s election made the stakes higher than ever for him. He feels marginalized people are being scapegoated and targeted for everything.

The day before the shooting at Pulse, a friend had returned to Orlando. He picked his friend up from the airport and his friend wanted to go out that Friday before the shooting, but David was tired and so stayed home. His friend went out and saw Drew Leinonen and Juan Guerrero at Southern Nights, another club in Orlando. That was the same night Christina Grimmie was murdered at the Plaza Live.

Saturday morning, David walked to Plaza Live to pay his respects to her. That night he had to work at the restaurant again. After work, he asked his friend if he wanted to go out to Southern Nights or Pulse. However their car battery kept dying. They struggled in the parking lot to jump the battery and by the time they got a charge they decided they were done for the night. They went home.

David didn’t sleep well that night. He noticed some vibrating. He got a text message that said, “there has been a mass shooting at Pulse.” What? He went to CNN and the top story was the shooting. It did not make sense. At the time the news said that 20 people had been killed. Searching Facebook he found a post from Brandon Wolf that said, “Eric and I were there, we got out.” If they were there then other friends might have been there. Drew might have been there. Are they OK? he started to message friends. He had already texted his family to let them know he was OK. When he reached Brandon Wolf he was told, “We got out but Juan has been shot and we don’t know where Drew is.” A friend sent a link to a news clip and it was of Drew’s mother. She was at the hospital trying to figure out where he was. David froze.

Drew Leinonen and Juan Guerrero had planned to have a pool party on June 12, 2016 and they had invited David. He was considering going. The whole day he kept thinking, this is just supposed to be a pool party. The news announced that Juan was one of the first three who was confirmed dead. Juan and Drew’s pictures were being plastered all over the media.

David decided to walk to The Center and he got there around 9AM, then spent the whole day there. He posted updates and let people know where they could donate blood. He managed several Facebook pages that addressed peoples’ needs. At the Center, everyone stood and listened as President Obama came on the TV. He said it was an act of hate and terror. Moran felt some were calling it a terrorist attack to justify militarizing the police and anti-immigrant legislation, all of which he feels does not honor the lived experiences of the people who were victimized by this act of violence.

He left the Center and biked to Ember. He had originally met Drew at Ember. It was hard. Everyone was crying and grieving. There was a candle light vigil. We still didn’t know at that point who had been lost. Nothing was 100% confirmed. David went to Drew’s wake and funeral.

Much later, after the Dallas police shootings, Ida Eskamani contacted him and told him there was going to be a sit-in on gun safety reforms. They wanted to address intersectional concerns around racism, wage inequality, anti-immigrant sentiment, and Islamophobia.  Though he had worked with OPD through Bike Walk Central Florida, and had a good experience with that, he was hesitant to participate in this sit-in. He got to the sit-in just in time to walk in with protestors at 10AM. When he was arrested, he only had the red hat and a red heart in his pocket that you see in the sketch above. He had nothing else. That experience made him aware of the solidarity awareness movement coalition in Orlando. Various organizations sat in solidarity. After most people left, he stayed behind to sit-in with Ida. The sit-in made him realize that he had the power to save himself. The sit-in was largely about politician Marco Rubio‘s inaction. Rubio was confronted by David the next week. The Pulse shooting targeted people he did nothing to help. He used their oppression as an excuse to run for office again. He did nothing for gun safety laws, he did nothing for LGBTQ+ equality, and did nothing to alleviate the oppression of workers across the state.  Rubio was the epitome of the exploitation of the Pulse hate crime. People saw that confrontation. The Advocate dropped the story and it received a lot of coverage. That is when Gays Against Guns reached out to David about starting an Orlando Chapter.

Teaching in a Pandemic

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This summer I am teaching art seven days a week. Most of those classes are virtual. Summer courses have begun at Crealde School of Art. I have seven students but only five have shown up the past several weeks.

The first class, last week I held outside in an event tent that had been set up behind the campus. The morning started great but the heat was picking up by lunch time. One student found herself sitting in the direct sunlight when the clouds parted. She was a trooper and stuck it out to finish her sketch.

For week two I decided to hold a class inside at Crealde for the first time. I left the door open to allow some outdoor air to blow in but we got to experience air conditioning as we worked. One student kept her mask on the entire time which I deeply respect. I wore my mask around my neck as I gave the lesson plans since I have been fully vaccinated.

I recognize that being fully vaccinated does not make me impervious to COVID-19. There are breakthrough cases particularly with the Delta Variant igniting around the world.  The percentages presented a month ago were that fully vaccinated individuals are 95% safe from infection. However a study conducted in Israel found that half the people becoming infected were fully vaccinated. That means that the chances of becoming infected despite the vaccine went up to about 75%. So I’ve decided students should remain six feet apart when possible. I also kept myself well separated.

Each table is six feet long. I folded up any extra chairs and stacked them against the walls to reduce the chances that students would sit close together. Each student had their own table. In my sketch I put two students sitting at the same table but that is an artistic fabrication. I just wanted to squeeze one more student into the sketch for the sake of the demo. I did walk around and offer one on one advice to students, but for that, I flipped my mask up over my mouth and nose. I use sketches to do most of the talking, but the sketches stay in my own sketchbook. It was rewarding to see the students start to apply the ideas I offered.

Florida averages over 1600 new cases a day. The Delta variant has been confirmed to be in Central Florida as well. I paid attention to the air vents as I included them in my sketch. The air would circulate over students and then down the wall behind me. We are living in a grey transitional time. The Delta variant which doubles every to weeks will be the predominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States by August 2021 and another surge in cases is likely. Every day is a new risk assessment. Florida managed to have the highest case rates of any state yesterday, so there must be quite a bit of vaccine hesitancy in the Sunshine State. I went mask free for much of this class but my comfort level could change week to week as the pandemic continues to play out.

You Shall Not Pass!

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I am teaching virtual classes seven days a week this summer. I sketch along with the students as I show them how to construct characters and scenes. This sketch was done to show a student how to use spheres, cylendars and cubes to construct a scene.

Pam has a bird feeder in the back yard. She ordered plenty of seed to keep the feeders stocked. The seed was placed in plastic totes with lockable lids. Those totes were stored behind the outdoor bar.

We discovered that something had chewed its way into the totes and was having a feast on the seed and peanuts, spewing the shells all over the floor. Worse yet there were black pellets all over the bar.

As a man my primary roll seems to be to kill cockroaches and rats. We bought three rat traps and I set up the largest on in a narrow alley that I assumed would be the rats primary route to seed town. I used peanut butter as bait. The first night the peanut butter dissipated but the trap did not spring. Then for a week the peanut butter was ignored. I decided to mix in some of the seed which was this thief’s primary goal. I head the trap snap shut in the middle of the night but when I rushed out it was empty and the bait was gone. Was this rat smart enough to spring the trap with a stick and then feast on the peanut butter and seed feast?

A day latter Pam informed me that the rat had been caught. It was much larger than expected and sadly rather cute. I was in charge of the last rights.

My Portraits of Pulse

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The Orlando Gay Chorus and J.D. Casto presented My Portraits of Pulse in front of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (445 S Magnolia Ave, Orlando, FL)) on June 8, 2021.

The lawn in front  of the Center which was once covered in flowers and memorial items left behind after the massacre of 49 people  at Pulse Nightclub on June 12, 2016. The lawn is now covered with metal staging areas meant to promote social distancing for outdoor concerts and screenings. Food and drinks can be ordered by scanning a bar code and the orders are delivered to each table which avoids crowded lines at the concessions stand.

Three large screens were set up to project photos taken by J.D.Casto a local photographer. J.D. stood on stage talking about his perspective of what happened in Orlando following the shooting. That day he checked to be sure his camera batteries were charged and immediately went to The Center which became mission central for community outreach and a donations. In the Center a crowd was gathered watching TV and they all heard the official number of people who had died for the first time. Shock swept through the room. Photos taken that first day were largely of grief and sorrow.

National and international media flooded into Orlando and J.D. suddenly found himself shooting photos along side some of the best photographers in the world. His view of his self worth wasn’t that elevated, but he couldn’t stop taking photos and sharing them. The images captured slowly changed because along side all of the pain and grief, he saw a community filled with love. Many of his photos were used for a photo wall that is now part of the temporary memorial at Pulse. After each segment of his story, the chorus would stand and sing to a photo montage projected on the screens. The idea of telling the story of what happened after Pulse through the lens of one individual seems rather limiting, but the stories of thousands are also impossible to tell all at once.

 

Robot Hot Pot

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U & Me Revolving Hot Pot (12384 S Apopka Vineland Rd, Orlando, FL) required masks om entry though many guests did not have masks. The sign on the door said that temperature checks were required but none were done.

I had written an article about how restaurants were embracing robots to serve in the age of COVID-19. I learned about this robot hot pot restaurant and wanted to sketch. A shirt robot with a purple cap lead us to our table. Don’t get in the way of this robot however because it would rudely tell you to get out of it’s way. A chair from our table had slipped a few inched out into the aisle and that was enough to get the desert robot to have a melt down.

A conveyor belt circled the seating area offering dished full of vegetables and noodled that could be added to a broth that is boiled on four electric burners on each table. I ordered a pork broth from our flesh and blood server. He has a mom who is an artist and thus appreciated my sketching. The robots couldn’t give a flying fig. My mask came off to around my neck for the duration of the meal since my chance of getting infected by the Delta variant that is gaining steam in America is about 10% since I have had both vaccine shots. I have eaten out three times this week since Pam has family in town and it is a strange adjustment after over a year of isolation. The open all you can eat bar to our left was full of sea food and that is what I sampled the most myself.

A robotic recording sang happy birthday to a table behind us. D found a live worm in one of her bowls of vegetables which was less than appealing and fly’s did make the rounds to each table. I thought buffets had gone the way of the dodo bird on cruise ships and in restaurants. However ‘All you can eat’ is irresistibly American and worth the risk of possible infection and death.

Morimoto at Disney Village

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Pam had relatives visiting the theme parks in Orlando and we agreed to meet them for lunch at Morimoto in Disney Springs. Masks are required when entering the restaurant but they can come off once seated and eating at the table.

The table was round with a lazy Susan in the center making it convenient to order small dishes and share. However we all ordered separate dished due to the pandemic. The lazy Susan was relegated for art supplies. The kitchen was right behind out table visible through a glass wall. The place was bustling.

I ordered an Eel roll and it was convenient to eat while I sketched. I tried dipping one piece in soy sauce but it dripped on my sketch so I stopped dipping. As we all ate it began to pour outside. Lori is the artist in the family and she was seated beside me working on an intricate and beautiful sketch. She asked the waiter if he could get her some plastic to protect her sketchbook from the rain. He took he sketchbook back into the kitchen and wrapped it multiple times in Seran wrap. The sketchbook was waterproof.

Since my eel roll was rather small, I ordered desert and had a delicious tiramisu. That desert was in itself, worth the trip. Pam’s relatives paid the bill which was very much appreciated. We all masked back up as we left the restaurant. The rain died down and we were able to walk back to the parking garage with just a few sprinkles. Pam’s aunt was going to join us after her week in the theme parks and we met at a Disney gas station to get her bags into Pam’s truck. We have been eating out quite a bit this past week and it it a major change from our year of solitude and isolation. The pandemic isn’t over, but life is returning to a new normal.

Lab Leak?

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President Joe Biden asked the intelligence community to redouble their efforts to examine whether COVID-19 emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident. The COVID-19 lab leak theory seems to be gaining ground after 3 researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were reported to have gone to a hospital with COVID-19 like symptoms in November 22020, a month before the outbreak was reported in China. Those researches have yet to be identified.

SARS and MERS were linked to an animal host that then infected a human. It  should be noted that finding the source of an outbreak can take decades, so a quick evidence based answer may not come with the report President Biden requested. The World Health Organization (WHO), reported that there’s no support for the lab leak theory. However the director of the WHO said that the lab leak theory is still on the table. Bat caves about 1000 miles from Wuhan have been considered as a possible source for the virus. However researches have yet to find the virus in captured bats from the caves. The Chinese government has sampled something like close to 80,000 different wildlife samples. The outbreak began in the winter which is a time when bats would have been hibernating.

In the Untied States, the National Institutes of Health grants money to this EcoHealth Alliance which then grants money to other groups, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliance orchestrated a letter that discredited the lab-leak theory. A number of the signatories on that letter were on EcoHealth Alliance payroll. There is a clear conflict on interest. When the WHO went to China to research the origins of the virus China approved one U.S. representative, and that was Peter Daszak who had authored a letter discrediting the lab leak theory.

U.S. State Department investigators  investigating the possible lab leak theory realizes they might be opening a Pandora’s box since U.S. tax payer dollars were being used to fund research that might have caused the COVID-19 outbreak. The investigators put out a statement that Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting classified military research. Gain of function research takes an existing virus and makes it more contagious for humans.

China acted to cover things up from the beginning of the outbreak by initially claiming that the virus was not transmissible from person to person, they downplayed outbreak severity, and they silenced of scientists and doctors in China who spoke out about this. Journalists who went to the Wuhan marked were detained by police. Shortly after the start of the COVID-19 outbreak China invested in beefing up the safety protocols a the virus research institutes. A critical database that contains about 22,000 viral samples was taken offline several months before the official outbreak of the pandemic and has not been restored.

Back in 2012 six miners in China went to the Mojiang mine shaft to shovel bat feces. They became incredibly ill with symptoms that resemble COVID-19. Three of the miners died. The incident was not reported to the WHO. Viral samples of from that mine shaft  were taken to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and analyzed. The virus sampled was 96.2% similar to COVID-19.

There is no smoking gun to prove or disprove a lab leak theory. Weather the virus transferred naturally from an animal to humans or it leaked from a lab, it is important to find the answer of how this outbreak began. Much like how the FAA always looks into every plane crash, finding the problem that caused the crash can prevent future crashes or pandemics.