Anatolian Houses Hotel in Görome Turkey.

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I stopped at the Anatolian Houses Hotel (Cevizler Sk, 50180 Göreme Belediyesi/Nevşehir Merkez/Nevşehir Merkez/Nevşehir, Turkey) two years ago on a trip. The rooms were carved into the limestone cliffs with stone rooms as additions. This stone living room where my X slept on the red couch, was connected via arched doorways into a bedroom that was carved into the cliff. The bathroom, also deep inside the cliff was a few steps up from the bedroom and had a large tub and plenty of pockets in the limestone walls to store towels and toiletries. Tiny windows carved in the walls overlooked the village below.

Another bathroom had deep holes in the floor covered in glass that fell away into the depths of the rock. The arched doorways between rooms had a definite disadvantage in that they were carved by someone who is less than 5 feet tall. I banged my head really hard one time as I was rushing to get out for a day of frantic sight seeing.

Colosseum

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I  keep trying to find a way to illustrate the toll that Covid-19 has taken here in America. As of this writing, June 1, 2020, according to World O Meter, 106,878 people have died in the United States from the virus. I decided to find out which football stadium has the highest seating capacity and found that Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, can seat 107,420 people. By the time this painting posts, that seating capacity may have been surpassed, or soon will be surpassed, by the number of people who have died from Covid-19. I then started thinking about how the protests across the country are playing out in real time on social media platforms. It is as if Twitter and Facebook have become the modern day equivalents of the Roman Colosseum. What if the dead are watching the violence unfold from their stadium seating?

Many are watching events unfold from the safety of their home isolation while others are being shot at by police with rubber bullets and tear gas. President Trump was hidden away in a White House basement bunker as protests in Washington D.C. resulted in fires burning all around the White House. The nation wide protests will certainly result in a spike in Covid-19 infections.

Police are also shooting at, macing, and arresting reporters who the president dubs “the enemy of the people.” A young African American couple are tazered and dragged out of their car on live TV. A family watched as police marched past their home and then police shouted “Light Um Up” and they shot rubber bullets at the family when they did not get back inside fast enough. It is a dystopian nightmare. Police violence has erupted nationwide. At least two have been killed in the Nation wide protests. a 21 year old journalist had his eye ruptured by a tear gas canister in Indiana

Meanwhile 106,878 ghosts watch from their stadium seating as police cars burn. Close up and violent details can be seen on the jumbo tron and in every social media post. Racism has existed for hundreds of years but today the injustice is captured by cell phones which everyone has in hand.

An independent autopsy found that George Floyd‘s death was a homicide. He died of “asphyxiation from sustained pressure. ” That that is plain to see if you watch the cell phone footage of officer Derek Chauvin as he keeled on Floyd’s neck as Floyd begged him saying, “I can’t breath.” The officer had his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds in total and two minutes and 53 seconds after Floyd was unresponsive. Dr. Michael Baden said, “Police have this false impression that if you can talk, you can breathe. That’s not true,” Baden said. George died because he needed a breath. He needed a breath of air.

Flight to DC then Turkey.

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 A couple of years ago, my X and I went to Turkey to visit her niece Allison Brown
who works for the United States foreign service. At the time we visited
Allison, she said that her job might get very complicated if there was
politically charged dissent in the country. Her hotel had metal posts at
a guard booth that were intended to stop any terrorist threat of, let’s
say, a bomb filled truck. Luckily, she is now working in Washington
D.C.during the time of the present civil unrest.

Turkey has been in the news recently with a huge “March for Justice” that ended in Istanbul. Hundreds of thousands of people joined the rally in Istanbul following the 25 day long march to protest the government of president Recip Tayyip Erdogen. The government has been cracking down against any perceived threats after a failed coup last summer. The president was granted sweeping new powers after a controversial referendum in April. Erdogen claims to be cracking down on those who support militant organizations, but the government definition of what constituted backing terrorism is so broad that it has led to the arrest of thousands of civil servants, journalists, campaigners and other workers. Protesters demanded “Rights, Laws, Justice.” Also since this trip, Washington Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the Turkish Consulate. What seemed like a gorgeous country to visit turned out to be dangerous.

The trip began with a flight to Washington D.C. where we would transfer to the international flight to Istanbul. I can never sleep on a plane, so the sketch pad invariably comes out.

It is a chance for me to check for the closest emergency exits and observe my fellow passengers.

Of course the flight from Orlando to D.C. wasn’t too long, but the flight to Istanbul was eternal. I watched plenty of movies and the progress map to pass the time after the sketch was done. Sketching on a plane is a thing that can only amuse me once a day. I don’t tend to like sitting in an audience staring at the back of heads and that is the only view available on an airplane. I can also easily pass the time watching the clouds which make amazing patterns, but this was an overnight flight which meant it was pitch black outside and everyone had their blinds down.

Crealdé Fall Session

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The Crealdé School of Art Fall sessions will be session from August 17, 2020 to October 8, 2020. The Crealdé main campus and the Hannibal Square Heritage Center reopened on Saturday, May 16, 2020.

I will be teaching an Urban Sketching Course  in the Fall but likely students will remain on campus for doing location drawings. The sketch above is an example of a quick demo I did for students on campus.

The school is initiating new safety features and health practices which will be in place until further notice.

The Crealdé School Covid-19 Safety Measures.

1. Reducing the maximum number of students in classes to 6 – 8 students depending on classroom size and medium.

2. Re configuring the studio spaces and work tables to allow for 6 feet of social distance. Classroom floors will be clearly marked in a way that student traffic and pathways utilized will not impede or intrude upon the six-foot or more social distancing.

3. Galleries and exhibition spaces will be limited to 10 visitors at a time adhering to the 6 foot social distancing guidelines.

4. On a daily basis, Crealdé and Heritage Center staff are cleaning bathrooms and disinfecting doors, handles and classroom surfaces.

5. The school staff will promote frequent and thorough hand washing by faculty, staff, students and visitors.

6. Any staff, faculty, students or visitors who are coughing, sneezing or in general not feeling well, are asked to please stay at home, and to continue to follow the directions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or a health professional. Anyone demonstrating health issues will be asked to leave.

7. Students are encouraged to use their personal work and art tools and equipment when possible. For youth classes, separate individual “baggies” will be provided for each student’s class supplies.

8. The school is instituting regular/enhanced instructor housekeeping and maintenance/janitorial practices, including routine cleaning and disinfecting of surfaces, equipment, and other elements of the school environment after each class is dismissed.

9. Until further notice, the school strongly encourages the wearing of masks in classrooms and exhibition spaces for students and visitors.  All  instructors will be wearing masks in class.

I Can’t Breathe

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George Floyd‘s last words were, I can’t Breathe. The 46-year old black man died Monday May 25, 2020, pleading for air, as a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck during an arrest. George was  suspected of using a counterfeit bill at a store. A video circulated of his final moments shot by bystanders who pleaded for the officer to to let George breathe. Former Minnesota Police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George’s  neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. The officer has been arrested and charged with murder.

This clear evidence of murder caused protests in Minnesota and across the country. A police station in Minnesota was burned by protestors. Police has to retreat out the back and surrender the building to the fire. Across the street the Minnehaha Liquor Store was also burned. The civil unrest in Minneapolis and St. Paul left a trail of burned out buildings, smashed windows, and looted stores across the Twin Cities. Over 100 businesses listed damages.

A black CNN reporter Omar Jiminez, and his crew were arrested live on TV as he was covering the protests. He was professional throughout the exchange with police and he was lead away in handcuffs and releases later that day. The CNN offices in Atlanta Georgia became a scene of violence when protestors broke down a front door to the office building. Protestors threw objects at police who created a phalanx in the lobby keeping protestors from entering the building. The escalating violence eventually was broken up with tear gas.

All this was happening in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic which has been killing African Americans at shocking rates, highlighting long standing inequalities. In Louisiana, African Americans accounted for 70% of COVID-19 deaths, while comprising 33% of the population. In Michigan, they accounted for 14% of the population and 40% of deaths, and in Chicago, 56% of deaths and 30% of the population. In New York, black people are twice as likely as white people to die from Covid-19. For me the angry protestors chants of “I Can’t Breath” reminded me of the thousands who might be struggling to breath on ventilators.

The CDC issued a report that states that offered race and ethnicity data from 580 patients hospitalized with lab-confirmed COVID-19.  45% of individuals for whom race or ethnicity data was available were white, compared to 59% of individuals in the surrounding community. However, 33% of hospitalized patients were black compared to 18% in the community and 8% were Hispanic, compared to 14% in the community. These data suggest an over representation of blacks among hospitalized patients.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo has vowed to investigate racial disparities in Covid-19 deaths. He asked, “Why do the poorest people always pay the highest price?” He noted that black New Yorkers comprise 28 percent of deaths in New York City and 18 percent of deaths in New York state, despite being 22 percent and 9 percent of the population, respectively.

President Donald Trump on the other hand issued a Tweed threatening to shoot protestors. Twitter had to issue a warning label for violating its policies on “glorifying violence.” The social media platform “determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible,” and allowed users to view Trump’s tweet if they chose.

Space X Scrubbed

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NASA initiated temperature checks and physical distancing at mission control leading up to the planned launch of the space X rocket, which is the first manned space flight in nine years from American soil. A successful launch requires the contributions from dozens of technicians at mission control.  Workers were separated into different rooms as much as possible and plexiglass was installed between work stations.

Extra precautions were taken with the Crew Dragon’s astronauts. Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. They have been in quarantine since May 13, 2020 to be sure that they do not transport any pathogen or virus into space. As an extra step, both Behnken and Hurley will be tested for Covid-19 twice before they leave for the International Space Station. Anyone interacting with the astronauts before the launch will wear masks and gloves and have their temperature taken. I saw a picture of the astronauts saying good buy to their wives and family. They held their arms up as if in a hug but with a good 10 feet of separation.

Besides protecting the ground crew and astronauts, NASA has a very short list for VIP visitors during the launch. Some members of Congress and of the National Space Council will be in attendance. But they can not bring any staff. Nine years ago over a million people gathered to see the launch but that can not happen during a pandemic. Ivanka Trump wore a face mask to the NASA launch on Thursday a day after her father, Donald Trump, mocked the practice as being “politically correct”.

While NASA took every precaution to keep people safe and encouraged people to stay home to watch the launch on TV, the Brevard County Sheriff, Wayne Ivey had his own ideas. “If NASA is telling people to not come here and watch the launch, that’s on them. I’m telling people what I believe as an American. And so NASA has got their guidelines, and I got mine.” he said.

The CDC has said that traveling bu car, plane or bus increases a persons chance of contracting the virus and spreading it. Crowds gathered on the A. Max Brewer Bridge in Titusville to watch the launch closing it down as they stood shoulder  to shoulder. The photo by Jim Shortt showed very few people wearing face masks.

A recent study from UC Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute and at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology says that if 80% of Americans wore  masks, then Covid-19 infections wold plummet. The scientists created a computer forecast model called the masksim simulator that allows you to see how an infection spreads under different scenarios. It  is like watching a video game play out as the virus spreads with no one wearing a mask as opposed to 80 % of people wearing a mask. Even home made masks can make a huge difference in controlling the spread of the virus.  Wake up people, wear a mask. Wearing a mask is cool.

For those that want to watch on TV or from home, the launch was rescheduled for today, Saturday May 30, 2020 at 3pm.

Twitter Distraction

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Twitter has had to add fact checking links to President Donald Trump‘s tweets about voting by mail. As the country has to come to terms with the loss of now over 100,000 people, the president is focused on just one thing, the upcoming election. He falsely claimed that voting by mail would be “substantially fraudulent.” He himself votes by mail but wants …. …. to stop others from doing the same during a global pandemic. Clicking on the link on Trumps post takes users to a Twitter “Moments” page titled, “Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.”

Trump has claimed he is a war time president and now that Twitter is fact checking him he has something to fight about. He is threatening to regulate or even shut down social media companies he feels are out to get him. The Associated Press pointed out that the president, does not have the power to “unilaterally regulate or close …. …. companies, which would require action by Congress or the Federal Communications Commission.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Tweeted, “There is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this.” He added that Twitter will “continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.” …. ….”This does not make us an “arbiter of truth.” Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions,” Dorsey wrote.

The White House is expected to issue an executive order that will curtail some of the legal protections for social media companies. As of this writing it is still being drafted. It is hard to imagine that the government can regulate a private publishing platform.

This is another Trump distraction. He will have another sheet of paper to wave around. It is more grandstanding instead of substance. Fact checking the lies of this president is a nightmarish situation to step into. The media has to daily fact check the presidents tweets but they have been dubbed “the enemy of the people.” Now Trump has a new…. …. enemy in his favorite social media platform.  As of April 14, 2020 the president has made 18,000 false or misleading claims according to the Washington Post.  I would much prefer that President focused his attention on listening to health experts and scientists during this health crisis, but that might be too much to ask.

While Trump is claiming Twitter is infringing on his freedom of speech, his campaign  organization tried to remove a political cartoon from an online site called Redbubble. The cartoon showed Trump serving his followers bleach from a tub using a ladle.  They claimed trademark infringement since the artist depicted the followers in MAGA hats. The cartoon was re-posted after the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and other free speech organizations got involved. This makes it seem like the Trump campaign has a system in place to trawl online for materiel they find objectionable. Cartoonist Michael de Adder tweeted that the Counterpoint political cartoonist Twitter account was suspended. The account went live again the same day, but their 10,000 or so followers all disappeared.

“The freedom of the Press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Governments.” – Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776

Republican National Convention

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Donald Trump has one thing on his mind and that is getting re-elected. He hasn’t been holding his political rallies, which stoke his ego, for months. As the death toll from Covid-19 neared 100,000 he threatened the governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, a Democrat, ahead of the 2020 Republican National Convention, that he might not hold the Republican National Convention in his state because the governor was “unable to guarantee” that the arena can be filled to capacity. The convention is expected to be held August 24 to 27, 2020.

Trump Tweeted, “Unfortunately, Democrat Governor, @RoyCooperNC is still in Shutdown mood and unable to guarantee that by August we will be allowed full attendance in the Arena. In other words, we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space.” The President’s calls for a “guarantee” overlooks the uncertainty surrounding the summertime levels of Covid-19 and the challenges of hosting a political convention in the middle of an ongoing public health crisis.

It is hard to imagine a more convenient super spreading event for the virus that a crowded convention. This politicization of the rush to re-open reminded me that the virus doesn’t care about red or blue. It just wanted to find people to infect. Over Memorial Day weekend pictures showed crowds of people practicing no social distancing as they crowded to beaches pools and parties. A huge stadium of adoring fans is precisely the thing that Trump must miss the most since the start of the pandemic. A nice round of golf is fine but a stadium of cheering fans is Trump’s wet  dream.

Immediately Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he supports moving the Republican National Convention to Florida. He said, The political convention would be great for Florida’s coronavirus-damaged economy as President Donald Trump has suggested moving the planned Republican convention out of North Carolina. Since he is lock step with Trump in the rush to re-open it makes see that he would not mind a huge Convention in the midst of a pandemic. DeSantis said numerous areas in Florida, Miami, Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville, could quickly organize a multi-day showcase. But he wouldn’t promote one area over another. I can not imagine a scenario in which a fully attended Republican National Convention could be done safely. There is no GOP safety plan in place. In response to Trumps threats, North Carolina Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen requested a written COVID-19 safety plan from the CEO of the Republican National Convention Monday. Before the pandemic, the RNC was expected to draw 50,000 or about half the number of people who have died from the virus.

Haircut Hotspot

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A hairstylist in Missouri may have exposed 91 clients to Covid-19. After the Missouri governor opened the state including salons to open on May 4, 2020. The worker at a Great Clips in Springfield worked on on eight different days while experiencing symptoms from Covid-19. The worker then tested positive for Covid-19. Since he and his costumers both wore face coverings it is hoped that there will be no new cases. Anyone who had their hair cut by this technician should get tested. The infections began one week after the state opened. The infectious hair stylist also went to Walmart and a Dairy Queen and made three visits to a local gym.

A second hair stylist in the same Great Clips shop also became infected and may have infected 56 other  clients. The two cases came just days after city officials announced plans to relax even more distancing requirements and about a week after the health department started seeing an influx of new travel-related infections. The salon has been closed for sanitizing.

The push by Donald Trump and some state governors to reopen most businesses with some public health modifications, such as social distancing and masks, comes as public health officials warn that relaxing restrictions will certainly lead to new outbreaks. Even if you wear a mask it is not a great idea to let a stranger run his fingers through our hair.

In debates over how quickly to reopen different businesses across the country, barbershops and hair salons have become a political flashpoint among conservative Americans, with some owners reopening in defiance of public health measures. In Michigan, a barber who refused to close his shop despite shelter-at-home orders staged a hair-cutting protest at the state capitol which was dubbed “Operation Haircut”, the Lansing State Journal reported.

A New York State barber also defied stay-at-home orders and continued to “illicitly” cut hair. He has also tested positive for Covid-19, county officials said in a public health notice. Ulster County officials are now recommending anyone who received a haircut from the barber in the past three weeks should seek a Covid-19 test.

“We are taking extraordinary measures to try and minimize the spread of this dangerous disease,” Dr. Carol Smith said. “Learning that a barbershop has been operating illicitly for weeks with a COVID-19 positive employee is extraordinarily disheartening.”  “As much as we would all like to go out and get a professional haircut, this kind of direct contact has the potential to dramatically spread this virus throughout our community and beyond,” she continued. This barber is believed to have infected over a dozen people. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said, “You know, that is a occupation of close proximity, right? You can’t really socially distance and do a haircut … that is by definition an up-close-and-personal occupation.”

In Texas, a hair salon owner, Shelley Luther, violated a stay-at-home order by keeping her Dallas-area salon open, was sentenced to jail time. A few days later, Texas Governor Greg Abbott modified his COVID-19 executive orders, effectively setting Luther free. She then refused to apologize in court for what she had done, has been championed by Republican leaders.

The Orange County Economic Recovery Task Force asked Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings to fight to get salons and barbershops back open. He wrote State governor Ron DeSantis and two days later DeSantis came to Central Florida where he met with hair stylists in OhSoooJazzy Hair Salon in Orange County. Hair Salons had been closes as part of his first phase of opening the Florida Economy. In a surprise move on Monday May 11, 2020, the governor allowed hair salons to open across the state. That excludes the two big southeast counties — Broward and Miami-Dade. DeSantis said, “I mean I haven’t had a haircut in two months, not that that’s the important thing, I am coming on a mullet almost because of how much my hair has grown.”

For my part, I plan to continue to buzz cut my own hair during the pandemic. Learn from the mistakes of others.

100,000 Shoes

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I am writing this on Memorial Day. The death toll for Covid-19 is about to surpass 100,000 and Donald Trump was seen golfing on Saturday May 23, and Sunday May 24, at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia in the midst of the pandemic. According to CNN, Trump visited Trump-owned golf courses 92 times between becoming president in January 2017 and January 3, 2018. Trump’s last golf outing was on March 8, 2020 when he visited the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. He wouldn’t dare golf there now, since Palm Beach has been a hot spot for the Covid-19 virus. As of Memorial day there were 16,522 cases of the virus in Miami Dade County with 614 death. By comparison Laudon County Virginia has 1195 cases of Covid-19 and 30 deaths, which is a far safer bet for the president who refuses to wear a face mask.

I began to wonder, how do you visualize 100000 lives lost? 100,000 people with dreams and aspirations. The New York Times listed 1000 obits of people lost to the virus on it’s front page. It is a sobering reminder of loss that the president would rather we did not remember as he rushes to get the economy back up and running at any cost.

If one shoe were added to a pile on a golf course for every American lost, how big would that mountain of shoes become? I remembered seeing a mountain of shoes of victims of the holocaust at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. In the Holocaust about 11 million lives were lost to man’s inhumanity to man. Today lives are being lost to indifference and incompetence. Besides golfing, Trump also fired off angry and hateful tweets. I have stopped paying attention to those rants.

Researchers at Columbia University this week estimated about 36,000 lives in the United States could have been saved from the Covid-19 had social distancing and other restrictions been put in place earlier in March. The researchers determined that if the measures had begun two weeks earlier, then 82.7% of deaths and 84% of infections — or about 53,990 deaths and 960,937 cases, could have been prevented nationwide. The study has not yet undergone the typical scientific peer review process, and all models are merely estimates, subject to change with new information.

The former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, Rick Bright said, “If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities …Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history.”

According to CNN, a leading infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota estimates that there could be as many as 800,000 Covid-19 deaths in the United States over the next 18 months. To date only about 3% of the population has been tested for the virus. Meaning the economy is being opened up blindly. Anyone you meet could be asymptomatic and spread the disease.

It amazes me that so many seem to be rushing out to gather in large groups this holiday weekend because Trump said the worst is behind us. As an artist I can not keep up with so many cases of absolute stupidity.