The Queen of England has COVID-19

Posted on by Thor

Queen Elizabeth of England, has tested positive for COVID-19. She had been doing a great job of social isolating in Buckingham Palace but she came out for her Platinum Jubilee celebrating her 70 years as the queen.

Being 95 years old she is at high risk of complications, from the virus but is experiencing mild cold-like symptoms. She expects to keep up light duties in the following weeks. “She will continue to receive medical attention and will follow all appropriate guidelines,” it added. the palace announced.

UK media reported that the Queen is fully vaccinated. Buckingham Palace previously confirmed that she and her late husband, Prince Philip, received their first doses of a Covid-19 vaccine in January 2021. The palace declined to reveal any information about subsequent vaccinations, citing medical privacy. In October 2022, the Queen had secretly spent a night in the hospital for undisclosed reasons.

“A number of cases have been diagnosed in the Windsor Castle team,” a palace source announced. Prince Charles previously contracted coronavirus in March 2020. He tested positive for Covid-19 for a second time 10 days ago while his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, confirmed she too had the virus on February 14, 2022. Charles is the heir to the throne should anything happen to Queen Elizabeth.

 

Smoking Like COVID-19

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Benjamin Mazer of The Atlantic wrote a wonderful article that had the intriguing premise that COVID-19 will not become endemic like the flu but rather more similar to the annual pandemic of death from smoking. Close to a million deaths could be prevented with a simple behavioral change.

Pandemic minimizers have long suggested that COVID-19 is no worse that the flu. However after over 900,000 dead it is hard to justify that stance unless your head is firmly entrenched in the sand.

However experts are now on board with the idea that if you are fully vaccinated and boosted your risk is on par with the flu for hospitalization and death. The flu results in about 52,000 deaths annually. That is a far better risk than about 333,ooo deaths a year from COVID-19. There is no risk less option.

A new normal will arrive when people realize that COVID deaths closely resemble smoking deaths. Both are easily avoidable. Choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID is, a modifiable health risk on par with smoking, which kills more than 400,000 people each year in the United States.

COVID vaccines have proven to be incredible effective in avoiding hospitalizations and death, An unvaccinated adult is 68 times more likely to die from COVID than a boosted one. Yet people still choose not to get protect thenselves with a simple jab. Because so few are vaccinated in America, hospitals continue to be over run. Denmark and Sweden who have done an amazing job of vaccinating their populations and have decided they are over COVID. Herd immunity is being build in the rest who survive the disease.

Smokers are 15 to 30 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers. Quitting the habit is akin to receiving a staggeringly powerful medicine, one that wipes out most of this excess risk. Yet smokers, like those who now refuse vaccines, often continue their dangerous lifestyle in the face of persistent attempts to persuade them otherwise. So for those who choose death, you can heighten the experience by shoving a butt in every one of your holes. Oh, and protest those who are trying to save your life while you are at it.

 

OMA Debacle

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Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) has put Orlando on the art scene map by having a blockbuster showing of 25 potentially fake Jean Michel Basquiat paintings on cardboard. The New York Times investigated and now Orlando is a laughing stock in the international arts scene.

At the exhibit opening, the museum in it’s wisdom had an artist named Naderson Saint – Piere, in the lobby creating a painting in Basquiat’s style, thus demonstrating how easy it would be to forge the famous artists work.

OMA has a new and ambitious director named, Aaron De Groft, who learned all he knows about art by getting a PHD from Florida State University. He should be expert enough to spot a forgery. “Dammit Jim I am a doctor not an art expert.” At the opening of Heros and Monsters: Jean – Michel Basquiat, De Groft claimed the work on exhibit was worth $200 million dollars.

The “story” is that these were created in 1982 while Basquiat, working out of a studio space beneath Larry Gagosian’s home in Venice, California, preparing for a show at the art dealer’s Los Angeles gallery. The cardboard works are said to have been sold by Basquiat directly to the television screenwriter Thad Mumford, a producer and writer for the top-rated M*A*S*H. for $5,000 in cash without Gagosian’s knowledge.

Mumford threw the work in a storage locker and it stayed there for 30 years until he failed to pay a bill for the storage locker in 2012. Thad Mumford died on September 6, 2018. William Force, a “picker,” and his financial backer Lee Mangin, snagged the lot for $15,000.  This story of forgotten treasure in a storage locker is too good to be true. Gargosian told a reporter that he “finds the scenario of the story highly unlikely.” Gagosian, lived just one floor above Basquiat and kept close tabs on his studio progress. The provenance of the artwork is in question. Force and Mangin have not been able to find a buyer since the works legitimacy has been in question. If they could get a museum too exhibit the work it might become easier to sell.

In 2017 one of Basquiat’s paintings sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s which is the current auction high for an American artwork. One “proof” that the work was  created by Basquiat is a poem in which 25 paintings were mentioned. Now what rhymes with 25 paintings? The treasure hunting pickers claim it as a form of receipt. It wasn’t in the storage locker but was apparently retrieved by them from Mumford. It was signed in oil stick, JMB.

To confirm the authenticity of the artwork experts turned to the cardboard it as painted on. It is hard to differentiate cardboard of 1980s from that of today. However on the back of one of the works was a company imprint that said, “Align top of FedEx Shipping Label here.” According to Lindon Leader, an independent brand expert consulted by The Times, who was shown a photo of the cardboard, the typeface in the imprint was not used by Federal Express before 1994. He should know: that was the year he personally redesigned the company’s logo and its typefaces while working as senior design director at the Landor Associates advertising firm. “It appears to be set in the Univers 67 Bold Condensed,” Leader said of the label’s distinctive purplish font. In 1982, “They were not using Univers at that time.”

BOOM so these were created 6 years AFTER the artist’s death from an overdose on August 12, 1988.

The Orlando Weekly reported that a tipster claimed a gag order had been handed down to OMA staff by museum higher-ups and that computers had been seized from the museum by the FBI. This has not been confirmed. De Groft is doing what he can to, deny, deflect and distract as pompously as possible. This morning 18 February 2022 his story was that he was absolutely no doubt that works were genuine. By this afternoon his story changed when he told the Orlando Sentinel‘s Matt Palm, “Our job is not to authenticate art. Our job is to bring the best art to the people of Orlando and Orange County.” Ha. Yes the best Orlando can do is exhibit fake art.

Omicron Invasion

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More than 66,400,000 Americans have been infected with COVID-19 since the pandemic began in early 2020. The country has seen more than 900,000 deaths and that number will likely climb to over a million. The total number of Americans who had COVID-19 could be much higher due to asymptomatic cases.

Hospitalizations have fallen in the last week by about 20% and immediately politicians want to lift all restrictions. however 98% of states in America are at high risk of transmission.

About 60,000 people are still in hospitals and there are still about 2,500 deaths a day due to COVID-19. On top of this there are still about 250,000 new cases every day. Now is not the time to let your guard down.

Things could be dropping to a base line level in the coming weeks unless a new variant emerges.

16 states so far have found COVID in their deer populations. Up to 30% of the deer tested have the virus. Some deer are being re-infected. The virus can circulate in an animal population and then re-emerge and infect humans in a new variant.  Some researchers believe that Omicron was circulating in mice and then re-emerged in its highly infectious form. Our immune systems don’t recognize the new variant and thus the virus can spread unchecked.

It has not yet been proven that a deer can infect a human but certainly humans can infect deer. An unvaccinated hunter might be the next conduit for the next wave of the pandemic. Venison when properly cooked can not spread the virus.

Waiting Room

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I have been going to a barrage of medical appointments this past month. This particular sketch was done at the waiting room for my butt doctor. One guy came in and had no idea how to wear a mask. He kept it on as a chin strap. As an artist I am surprisingly repulsed by a bare exposed nose. I was thankful that, when he started coughing, my name was called and I got the hell out of there.

The night before I drank two bottles of some sweet tasting liquid which turned my insides to liquid magma. I imagine may of the people waiting in this room had been through a similar explosive sleepless night.

Pam was allowed back as I was gowned up and had an IV put into the back of my drawing hand. The doctor was late so I lay on the gurney to wait. I had the same procedure don about 10 years ago so I had some idea of what to expect.

My memory of last time was of being partly awake to with the video of the camera exploring my insides. This time however after being wheeled into the surgery room they put something in my IV and I was out like a light. Although I didn’t get to watch the operation or sketch it, I dd get to see a nice portfolio of photos of my insides.

I hadn’t eaten for over a day and after the procedure, Pam treated me to some Krispy Cream donuts. That made all the poking and prodding worth while.

9/11: Falling Man

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On 9/11 when the Twin Towers were attacked by terrorists, New Yorkers gathered to watch in horror as the top floors burned. Some people went into local shops and bought up all the portable cameras to bear witness.

On the top floors windows were broken open to let out smoke and people faced the choice of being burnt alive or jumping. Many chose to jump. Richard Drew shot photos as one man fell. How many photos can be shot before the inevitable impact?

Photos like these were not shared widely on national media. What most people saw was a long shot as the towers burned and then fell. Americans don’t witness death. It is instead ignored and denied. 900,000 graves have been dug so far due to COVID. People protest for their freedoms rather than find ways to help the family’s who have been irreparably devastated because of this virus. Misinformation and ignorance continue to kill as the latest wave  subsides. We are all falling.

Surface

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As hospitalizations decline across America, politicians are once again in a rush to declare victory and lift all safety measures. It seems there is always a knee jerk reaction to the changing landscape of the pandemic and a high degree of acceptance of easily avoidable death.

Is it too early to lift all safety measures? Only about 27% of the US population has received a coronavirus vaccine booster shot, according to CDC data. The moves to phase out state mask mandates conflict with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s guidance to continue wearing masks in areas with “high” or “substantial” Covid-19 transmission, which includes about 99% of U.S. counties.

States lifting mask mandates include, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island. The percentages of people vaccinated in these states are…

  • 66.8% in Delaware and Illinois
  • 68.2% in Oregon
  • 69.6% in California
  • 73.5% in New Jersey
  • 74.8% in New York
  • 77% in Massachusetts
  • 77.2% in Connecticut
  • 79.7% in Rhode Island
  • 59%. in Nevada

That means on average, over 25% of the people in those states are unvaccinated and therefor highly vulnerable to possible hospitalization and death. There are well over 100,000 new cases of Omicron a day. So why are states declaring victory over COVID? There is a new variant on the rise named Stealth BA.2 which spreads even move effectively than Omicron. This variant may create a new wave and stall the drop in hospitalizations as it has in the United Kingdom. In the next two weeks we should see just how bad BA.2 will become. It would make more sense to jump into the freezing water moments before a rescue is on the horizon.

Of 5 to 11 years olds, only 23% are vaccinated and they will be the first to be thrown under the bus. Omicron is more severe in children than adults. 1 in 7 kids can develop long COVID. Children infected then bring the virus home to their parents and grand parents.  There is likely to be another surge in the summer just as there was in 2020 and 2021.

Chris Hayes put out a Tweet saying, ” A big part of American Exceptionalism is just generally tolerating a lot more death and illness and violence and shorter life spans than other peer countries.” Over 900,000 deaths means less in America than it does for other nations. Politicians are fine with justifying the deaths of children, saying the children are dying with COVID rather than from COVID. That is a morally warped semantic perspective that seems to imply that children are expendable. Since the advent of a vaccine to combat COVID over 200,000 unvaccinated Americans have died needlessly due to an aggressive anti science sentiment.

History is once again repeating itself, we have been to this rodeo multiple times during this pandemic. America is unsinkable. This too shall pass, but stay safe in the mean time folks.

 

Family History

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On Sunday, Pam Schwartz held a zoom meeting with a former museum colleague whose family history she had researched. When Pam begins researching a person’s genealogy she works incredibly fast scouring though millions of online resources to look deep into the family’s past.

Many evenings we sit together on the couch and work on each of our family trees. Back in the 1990s I started researching my tree using the New York public library in New York City to find links to the past. Pam introduced me to online research and I re-worked my research entirely using online documents to verify each fact found. It is possible to find the smallest details of a persons life at the touch of a button.

I lost two relatives recently and their loss renewed a need to piece together moments from their lives. I feel like that is an artists propose to document personal history through sketches and paintings. It is rewarding each time I find that a distant relative left behind a paper trail that has hints about what their life must have been like. Very often they are stories of human resilience and perseverance all of which offer lessons for life today.

After Pulse: Geoffrey Paquette

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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.

Geoffrey Paquette is a union leader and is one of the protestors who was arrested for a sit in Marco Rubio‘s office.

On Sunday Geoff went to Centra Care because he was sick. His wife was away in Atlantic City. She texted to ask if he was OK. He called her back and she asked, “Did you hear the news?” He hadn’t. He turned on the news to find out what had happened. He hadn’t been to Pulse before but they lived just a mile from the club.

He went to the vigil downtown. there were about 50,000 people there. There were so many people, you couldn’t even really move. It was incredible. Then there was the vigil in front of the new performing arts center.

The union began to pull together with the activist groups, like Organize Now and Jobs for Justice, CWA, and the Unitarian Church in Orlando after Pulse. There were weekly meetings. There was an outpouring of support where people felt that had to do something.

Marco Rubio was one of the first politicians to stand in front of camera to say how horrible the Pulse shooting was. However he does nothing to help Floridians in terms of better paying jobs. Laws are needed to benefit working people in the state. He didn’t support any bill to outlaw assault weapons. Prayers for the families are empty without meaningful actions.

The union was involved in the planning for the Marco Rubio sit in. Most of the Union staff of about 25 who went to the sit in are hotel workers. About half the staff went. They met at Organize Now’s office prior to the sit in. They were not even sure if they could get in the building. They filed into the building in s line. The security guards must have been on a bathroom break. The lobby was empty. Everyone sat don in the lobby. When the guard got back from the bathroom, he found 80 to 100 people sitting in the lobby. He shouted, “OK, everyone out!” This was a way to apply pressure against those, like Rubio,  who did nothing following the Pulse shooting. It was a way to push for what is right. You have to put your money here your mouth is. Geoff was arrested and he is proud that he stood up for what he believes in. It was the right thing to do. Unfortunately Rubio is still in office.

Let COVID Burn!

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Ottawa, Canada has been under siege form a truck convoy since January 26, 2022. The truckers are protesting a vaccine mandate for truckers, implemented in mid-January on both sides of the US-Canada border. They want the freedom to spread disease.

Protester demands include an end to all Covid-19 restrictions in Canada and the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Much like the insurrection at the United States Capitol some protestors carry Trump, Nazi and Confederate flags.

Ottawa Mayor, Jim Watson has declared a state of emergency, and Trudeau’s government has deployed hundreds of Royal Canadian Mounted Police to the protests. This has not stopped the protest from expanding and shitting don several bridges which are important trading routes between the United States and Canada.

The protest in Canada has inspired copycat truck protests. CNN reported that the Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement across the country that a convoy of truckers protesting Covid-19 vaccine mandates could soon begin in the U.S., with the potential to affect Sunday’s Super Bowl in the Los Angeles area and cause other disruptions. “The convoy will potentially begin in California as early as mid-February and arrive in Washington, DC, as late as mid-March, potentially impacting the Super Bowl LVI scheduled for February 13 and the State of the Union Address scheduled for March 1.” the bulletin said. Law enforcement and security officials guarding the Super Bowl in Inglewood, California, are preparing for any possible disruptions.