“We Want Them Infected”

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In newly discovered e-mails, Paul Alexander, a Trump appointee, urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity”. “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk …. so we use them to develop herd … we want them infected…” Alexander added.

A maskless Santa exposed at least 50 children to COVID-19 in Ludowici, Georgia. Mr. and Mrs. Claus posed for pictures with the children and then tested positive for COVID-19 two days later. Some children were justifiably terrified, but many were forced to sit on Santa’s lap.

City officials have advised the children who were at the event to quarantine for 14 days and follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The event took place on the day Georgia reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases.

A 1918 Nebraska newspaper showed a stark contrast at the time. Nebraska was experiencing the ravages of the Spanish Flu which killed, 675,000 Americans. “In Gering, Nebraska, a department store arranged for a visit by Santa Claus in December, but hundreds of children were shocked when police arrested both Santa and the store owner for violating a local ban.” They knew how to knuckle down those days, unlike the soft, misguided, or genuinely evil officials of today.

Today the World Health Organization (WHO) claimed that Santa is immune to COVID-19, just as the infected POTUS declared himself immune since he caught COVID-19 and was injected with Remdesivir,  Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody cocktail, zinc, famotidine, and melatonin and dexamethasone a steroid. Santa must also be hyped up on steroids. Maria Van Kerkhove, who herself has two young sons said, “I can tell you that Santa Claus is immune to this virus,” She continued, “We had a brief chat with him and he is doing very well and Mrs. Claus is doing very well, and they are very busy right now,” she said.

Kraft Azalea Garden in a Pandemic

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For my Urban Sketching class at Crealde on Sunday, I had one student show up of the four who usually attended. We stayed outside and my first exercise was to have him sketch postage sized detail while studying a Rembrandt etching of a landscape. The goal was to fill in one postage stamp sized area and then move on to another adjacent area again focusing only on the detail in a small area.

This exercise stresses the importance of focusing on minute detail after the big shapes have been blocked into a sketch. When this exercise was complete, we decided to go to Kraft Azalea Garden which was about a mile away. I figured it would be a quiet bucolic scene for my student to capture.

I was wrong. When I got there I found literally no parking available. The park was packed to the gills. My student had already set up and begun to sketch, so I kept driving by and about a half hour later a spot opened up.

The Garden designed by Bertram A. Weber is located on Lake Maitland. There are some waling paths and this semi circular series of columns. Inscribed on the back of the structure is the saying, “Pause friend let beauty refresh the spirit.”

It turns out these columns are a very popular photo shoot site. As I walked into the gardens a husband was kissing his wife’s pregnant belly as she stood is a flowing white dress. As I started my sketch, a large mask less family gathered for their phot0 shoot. The grandfather or uncle showed the young daughters a series of fist bumps, hand slaps and hand shakes. He apologized to me for the scene but I shouted back that I likes the chaos. He laughed.Since I was the only person in the park wearing a mask, people thankfully did not approach to look over my shoulder. I also though ahead and leaned back against a large tree, so people could only approach from in front of me.

After their family photos were taken a wedding party moved in. The mask less photographer apologized for leaving her mask in her car and claimed she had been tested 3 days before. If that was the case, she would not know the results. Of course the wedding party were mask less as well and the photographer moved in close to adjust the brides veil. After this chaos another photographer moved in and shot a mask less husband wife and child. The child cried the whole time.

It occurred to me that a photographer would be the perfect super spreader. a 60 year old photographer in India caught COVID-119 at one of his wedding shoots. He went on to infect 30 of his primary contacts. The photographer did not voluntarily report for testing, but instead went to photograph a wedding. Because of this, three villages with a population of nearly 39,000, are now red zones. The photographer died from the virus. Contact tracers tested 500 people, all primary and secondary contacts of the deceased, and 213 were put in quarantine.

My student finished his sketch a half hour early and he had to pee, so he left. We joked about the possible fallout from this park outing two weeks from now. I stayed until the end of class and wanted to add more detail to this sketch, but I decided to get the hell out of Dodge as well. This quiet sketch outing had turned into a scene of absolute public indifference to the health crisis. At least each family has beautiful photos to remember the dead.

The Gift of the Magi

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In O Henry‘s short story The Gift of the Magi,a young couple at the turn of the century in NYC dreamed of getting each other magnificent presents for Christmas but they were short on cash. They lived in a humble eight dollar a month flat. Della only had 1 dollar 87 cents. It was hard to make ends meet on Jim’s twenty dollar a week job. As a couple they had two treasured possessions, she had her long luxurious hair and he had a golden watch.

It was Christmas eve and in Della’s distress she decided to sell her hair to get Jim’s present. Her hair sold for twenty dollars. She shrugged off the loss and rushed to get the perfect present. She found a beautiful chain for his watch. She knew he would treasure it.

When Jim arrived home Della worried he might not approve of her short hair. He was transfixed but his surprise became clear when she unwrapped the present he had bought for her. It was a magnificent set of combs with tortoise shell and gems.  She had dreamed of them every time she passed then in a Broadway shop window. She then gave him the present of the watch chain. He fell back on the couch and laughed as he had sold his watch to get her present. Though he had no watch for the chain and she had no long flowing hair for the combs, they loved each other dearly and embraced.

In a modern re-telling of the tale, I imagine the couple would share their love by staying home on Christmas and staying away from crowded family celebrations and holiday parties. They would share the gift of life as the hope of new vaccines might save them from the year long pandemic that terrorized their city and the entire world.

The first shots of the Pfizer vaccine were administered yesterday December 14, 2020 to nurses and doctors on the front lines. Moderna‘s Covid-19 vaccine as then found too be 94 percent effective at preventing symptomatic illness and appears to prevent the spread of the virus as well, according to documents released Tuesday December 15, 2020. So hope is on the horizon, but most people must face several more months of the worst of the pandemic before they can get this hope for a future life.

Disney Digital Brains

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Disney World in Orlando, Florida shut down at the beginning of the pandemic but re-opened as the cases spiked in Florida over the summer. Guests had to wear face masks at all times, except while eating or swimming, but enforcement has been a challenge.

Some guests would take off their masks for the photo opportunity. At first the parks refused to offer those photos to guests but that meant that guests who were wearing masks could not get a copy of the photo. To overcome that problem, digital masks were Photoshopped onto guests who did not wear a mask, allowed those in the photo properly wearing their face masks to get the photos.

Since this issue caused online discussion, Disney decided to reverse the policy and will not be digitizing face masks over guests’ faces any longer. Convincingly Photoshopping a mask onto a guests face is a challenge, and it comes off as a clear fake. My advice is that Disney Photoshop brains onto guests who slip their masks off. It might hide most of their face, but it makes them seem like they are capable of thinking and reasoning. The only real solution to the Photoshop conundrum is to escort any guest photographed without a mask out of the park. Better yet close the damn parks during the pandemic.

In September 2020 Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis signed an executive order removing all statewide restrictions. This executive order allowed the Central Florida theme parks to re-open. Disney invested $2.4 billion in COVID-19 related safety measures in latest quarter. It would be difficult or near impossible to contract trace COVID-19 cases back to Disney World. The infected person might have been infected at a restaurant off property, at the hotel, or on the trip to or from Florida. This is what allows the parks to function with immunity. Disney Land out in California remains closed because that Governor is working to keep his constituents safe.

Florida reported 11,699 new COVID-19 cases, the most since July, as the total deaths near 20,000. The Florida governor has been bragging about the first vaccines to be administered, but it will be many months before everyday citizens are able to be inoculated. Florida has the fourth most deaths of any state with 20,133, following New York (35,360), California (20,969), and Texas (23,911). The following months will be the darkest of the pandemic.

Fun Spot: Fluid Dynamics

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Fun Spot was one of the last Central Florida attractions to close back in March of 2020. They re-opened a month before Disney in May 2020 after just a two month shut down. Fun Spot welcomed guests back with no masks required.

The Orlando Weekly reported that Fun Spot has multiple failed inspections by county officials. Bill Kitchen reached out to Fun Spot on May 20, 2020 after the park announced it would be reopening. He implored, “[An] expert in physics, aerodynamics or infectious disease would ask you to realize the danger in allowing the public to ride an attraction that would allow high speed airflow to travel between occupants, no matter whether the ride motion is circular or linear. Sterilizing the seats and hand-holds (or separating occupied seat rows) may be of no use whatsoever in protecting the public from infectious aerosols flowing into the face of the participants on the downwind side of an infected occupant.”

The funder John Arie, forwarded the message to his son adding, “I believe God has designed our bodies to heal and our immune systems to protect us as it has done for centuries. Our immune systems cannot develop and protect us if we are forced to ‘stay in place’ and quarantined.” He then asked his son to let him know “when you will be allowed to open.” Two days later, John Arie Jr., the current CEO of Fun Spot, reopened the parks. An associate of Kitchen’s visited the Orlando park and observed multiple people not adhering to safety protocols. Disney and Universal require mask-wearing and physical distancing but Fun Spot doesn’t have the same level of adherence. Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings signed an executive order instituting fines for repeat violators.

Disinfecting the White House

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CNN reported that On January 20, 2021 president elect Joe Biden plans to give the White House a deep cleaning before he and his family move in. Throughout the campaign Joe has consistently worn masks and practiced social distancing in stark contrast to Trump’s super spreader rallies.

The General Services Administration (GSA), is handling what will be a “thorough disinfecting and cleansing” of every surface in the 55,000 square foot mansion. Rugs and window treatments, if kept, will also be deep-cleaned.

In November 2020 there were multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in the White House even infecting the first family. GSA began using a mist disinfectant throughout the building at that time. Staff in full hazmat-looking suits misting widely used areas such as the briefing room.
According to federal financial docs, obtained by TMZ, the Public Building Service agency’s dropping nearly $29,000 on the cleaning service in the East and West Wing “due to COVID-19 at the White House.” The White House has been a hot spot for the spread of the virus and continues to be as 20 Christmas parties are held this month inside it’s walls.
NBC News reported that back in April, 2020 the White House invested up to $600 million dollars on 60 washing machines that could disinfect N95 face masks for up to 20 times.  The machines use vapor phase hydrogen peroxide which as it turns out degrades the masks after two or three washes. There was no open bidding process for the contract and of course Trump doesn’t like wearing masks, he feels they make him look less masculine.

Pre-Pandemic: Fridge Repair

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This is the first sketch I did in a sketchbook that was returned to me after if fell off my bike on a cross country bicycle trip 35 years ago. Someone found the sketchbook packed away in a box and realized I had signed the first page.

The pages are rather thin and don’t hold watercolor very well, but I am attempting to full the remaining pages. This is a sketch of Jimmy John’s sandwich Shop in Downtown Orlando. The fridge was on the fritz and a repairman was trying too get it back up and running. I sketched as I enjoyed my sandwich.

The sketchbook ha once again been put on hold since I am no longer going on location to sketch each day. Now Most of my sketches are illustration having to do with the COVID-19 virus and America’s mishandling of this health crisis. Those illustrations are being done digitally. That work could also be lost to time if I don’t keep on top of backing up files or making prints of all the work I am doing. I remember a film historian mentioning that the early silent films of Thomas Edison are the only samples of very early film because film degrades and burns up in time. Thomas Edison thought ahead and made paper prints of every frame of film and those paper prints make it possible to recreate the films of the time, remaining the only samples of early film.

I am thinking that making prints of digital files may be the only way to have digital art stand the test of time.

Daily COVID-19 Deaths Surpass 9/11 Attack

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The New York Times reported that at least 3,011 Americans died Wednesday, December 9, 2020, the most deaths in any single day of the pandemic. Over the past seven days, an average of 2,249 Americans have died from COVID-19 each day, the Times reported.

On September 11, 2001, 2,977 people died when terrorists crashed two commercial airliners into the Twin Towers. It is very possible that we will keep experiencing the carnage of a 9/11 every day as the numbers keep rising exponentially.

The U.S. also reached a record high Wednesday with more than 106,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

For 30 years, the World Trade Center Plaza showcased a 25-foot, bronze sculpture known as The Sphere sculpted by German artist Fritz Koening. The bronze sculpture took four years to create.

In the aftermath of the collapse of the towers, the sculpture was damaged but largely intact. It was carted away and stored at a JFK storage facility for a year. It was then moved to Battery Park along with an eternal flame. AS the memorial was built people kept petitioning to move the sculpture back to the World Trade Center site. in 2017 it was finally returned to a site outside the 9/11 memorial. Unfortunately the artist Fritz Koening had died earlier that year so he never got to see the sculpture’s return. The sculpture was not rebuilt or refurbished. It remains as a symbol of hope despite the scars of a horrific event. Hopefully we can also recover from the horror that COVID-19 continues to ravage on the county.

Blue Sky

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Ron DeathSantis was one of the last governors to shut down the state of Florida at the beginning of the pandemic and he was one of the first to open up to full capacity much to the pleasure of his mentor POTUS Trump. At press conferences The Governor always puts a favorable spin on his handling of the pandemic by picking out obscure facts from the data and ignoring the growing danger as the state is being hit by a wave much bigger that the summer surge. This is known as the blue sky policy. If people are ignorant of the facts they can go about their merry way until they are also infected.

Like the POTUS, his denial of science puts every Floridian in danger since many are encouraged to not wear masks and gather in large groups. He is literally killing his constituents. Though the hope of vaccines are on the horizon, his backwards policies may result in many denying their efficacy. To him politics are more important than human lives.

The Sun Sentinel reported that, the Florida Department of Health’s (DOH) county-level spokespeople were ordered in September to stop issuing public statements about COVID-19 until after the Nov. 3 election. Rebekah Jones a former DOH worker had her computer and phone seized by police because she was reporting the daily hard facts about the spread of COVID-19 that don’t mirror the Blue Sky policy. He withheld data about the spread of the virus in schools, prisons, hospitals and only after prolonged legal battles could reporters gain access to those facts. The sunshine law requires certain proceedings of government agencies to be open or available to the public. When it comes to COVID-19 there has been a black out. Any messaging has to go through the Governor and he insists on Blue Sky messaging rather than stating facts. He seems to think he can pack everyone into bars and restaurants at full capacity despite the rising tide, and he can still keep the at risk population safe. The fact is he can’t. Rather than make adjustments to slow down the spread, he seems to want everyone infected. He seems to have embraced the disgraced former POTUS advisor, Scott Atlas’ herd immunity theory which will result in a huge spike in needless deaths. With community spread as wide spread as it is becoming, this will be a very dark winter with very dark sky’s.

Joe Biden state, “Out of our collective pain, we will find our collective purpose: to control the pandemic, to save lives, and to heal as a nation.” Lets hope DeSantis eventually decides to help rather than hinder as COVID sweeps through Florida a second time. Information is power. Stay informed. Stay safe.

Data Raid

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Storm troopers entered the home of Rebekah Jones to seize her computers and tech. They didn’t take the router or other tech in the home,  just the computer she uses to keep Floridians informed about the daily death toll of COVID-19. They also took her cell phone which has all the contacts who have helped her in the quest to keep Floridains informed.

On Twitter she posted home surveillance video of the raid as officers entered her home with guns drawn. She answered the door and was pushed outside. She was asked who was inside and she told them her husband and two children were upstairs. An unmasked officer stepped around a child’s ball in the hallway and shouted up the steps for the husband to come down. As guns were pointed up the steps Rebekah shouted for them to stop pointing their guns at her children.

Quoting Jones from her tweet, “There will be no update today. At 8:30 am this morning, state police came into my house and took all my hardware and tech. They were serving a warrant on my computer after DOH filed a complaint. They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids.” She went on to say, “This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly. This is what happens to people who speak truth to power.”

A search warrant had been issued based on a complaint from DeSantis’s Florida Department of Health (DOH) regarding an investigation claiming Jones sent an alert to the DOH emergency alert system. She denied the claims in that charge. In a December 9, 2020 tweet Rebekah reported, “The judge who signed the search order of my house was appointed by Governor Desantis and sworn in less than a month before he signed that warrant. In civil court. He’s not even a criminal court judge. It was one of his first actions as judge.” Rebekah could face 5 years in prison if convicted of cyber crime.

Rebekah Jones worked for DOH and she designed and built their COVID-19 data dashboard which was praised by members of the White House corona virus task force at the time. Six months ago she was fired when she refused to alter data to downplay the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic as Florida Ron DeathSantis wanted to fully re-open up the state. Jones created her own version of the dashboard with more accurate data. It is the source of information I turn to when seeking honest numbers about the outbreak in Florida.

In an interview on CNN with Chris Cuomo, Rebekah stated, “I have not had access to any systems at DOH for over 6 months. I am not a hacker. This is just a very thinly veiled attempt of the governor to intimidate scientists, and get back at me while trying to get to my sources. DeSantis needs to worry less about what I am writing about, and worry more about the people who are sick and dying in his state. And doing this to me will not stop me from reporting the data, ever. She started a Go Fund Me and plans to get a new computer so she can get immediately back to work. Data on Rebekah’s Florida Community Dashboard is now being updated.

DeSantis has been strong arming a Blue Sky campaign that ignores the pandemic and paints a rosy picture of his handling of all the death and agony.  The Sun Sentinel reported that Governor DeSantis in the weeks leading up to the November election ordered health officials to not talk about COVID-19 with the public.

Ron Filipkowski, the commissioner and vice-chair for the 12th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission tendered his letter of resignation in response to the treatment of Rebekah Jones. Lets hope more politicians, lawmakers and civil servants stand up to this abuse of power by the Florida Governor. In response, Rebekah tweeted, “I continue to be amazed not by the depravity of our leaders, but by the strength of our community.“