Trump’s Rally Plans Toppled

Posted on by Thor

The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse are pestilence, war, famine, and death. The fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse is astounding incompetence. After dismissing prescient advice on pandemic preparedness from the outgoing Obama administration, the Trump administration went on to weaken the nation’s pandemic response capabilities. Trump eliminated the White House global health security office that was established following the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic to foster cross-agency pandemic preparedness, and in late 2019, he ended a global early warning program, PREDICT, that identified viruses with pandemic potential. Quite simply Trump ignores science and reason. Rather than “Making America Great Again”  incompetence and failure of leadership have ushered in an unprecedented public health crisis that continues to threaten the lives and livelihoods of countless Americans.

On top of the pandemic the country has become galvanized behind the protests after the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer kneeling on his neck. The tide it slowly tuning as protests have been going on for weeks. NASCAR has decided that displays of the Confederate flag at races are no longer tolerated. The US military is considering re-naming bases that are named after confederate traitors like Fort Bragg names after Braxton Bragg, Confederate army officer who served as a general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. The confederacy tried to split the union and lost.

Protestors are toppling Confederate statues around the country. The statues were put up long after the south lost the war a symbols of slavery. A neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to the death of one protester resulted in calls to tear down statues of Confederate leaders, but conservative local politicians largely managed to keep the statues in place. Those tides are finally turning. There are now also calls to remove confederate statues from inside the US Capitol building. Racism is a painful sickness this country has dealt with for a very long time.

Trump is adamantly opposed to changing the names, tweeting Wednesday that he would “not even consider” doing so. Just hours after Trumps announcement, the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would require the Pentagon to rename bases and other military assets bearing the names of Confederate leaders. Senator Dick Durbin, from Illinois said, that Trump’s resistance is so out of touch as to be almost irrelevant, it’s part of the reckoning that’s long overdue.

Some things need to be toppled.

Pre Pandemic Orlando Urban Sketchers Drink and Draw

Posted on by Thor

By February 27, 2020 Covid-19 which started in Wuhan China had spread to 37 locations internationally, including cases in the United States. This week however life was normal. I was sketching rehearsals in theaters and I sketched in a crowded theater.

The CDC was making the following recommendations at the time…

  • Wash your hands frequently with soap and water, and use alcohol-based hand sanitizer between hand washings
  • Cover your cough: Use tissues or cough into your sleeve.
  • Stay home when you are sick.
  • Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces
  • Get Vaccinated: CDC recommends vaccination for everyone aged 6
    months and older, especially for those people who are at high risk of
    serious complications from the flu. (This step we now know would have no effect on Covid-19. There is no vaccine for Covid-19.)

15 days later, On March 13,, 2020 Donald Trump would Tweet, “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages
between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the
economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of
CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”

Orlando Urban Sketchers held a drink and draw at the Bear and Peacock Brewery, 1288 N Orange Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789. Pam and I arrived a bit late and found everyone crowded around a table. With no where to sit, we decided to get our own table in the corner and I sketched the group huddled together. Gay Geiger had picked the venue because her co-workers wanted  to go out after work for a drink. Her co-workers never left so we had two groups crushed together for drinks and conversation. This sort of scene is unimaginable today in our new reality.

Daily over 2000 Americans are dying from Covid-19 this week. Over 2 Million people have died world wide. 37,154 people have died in America so far from the virus. The inaction of the president has resulted in a massive death rate that didn’t need to happen if testing was being done on a massive scale to find and isolate those infected. 

Trump is now effectively calling for protests in Minnesota Michigan and Virginia where followers are protesting stay at home orders. A similar protest took place yesterday March 17, 2020 in Orlando Florida outside the Administration building downtown, with no social distancing among the protesters gathered.