Ford-iFy the Arts Groundbreaking

I went to the groundbreaking ceremony at City Arts in Downtown Orlando. I arrive rather early and set up across the street to sketch the courtyard and Kean building. the event was held just days after the Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis vetoes all funding for the arts.

A new gate had been added to the entry of the courtyard with two swans and surprise and delight written in the clouds. People gradually started to gather at the gate to kibitz and schmooze.

The new yet to be fully constructed courtyard will be named in honor of Ford Kiene, the former owner who donated the historic green of the green Rogers Klein building. He donated the building to the city of Orlando.

Ford-ify the Arts is a fundraising event organized with the intentions of raising capital to construct a courtyard on the north-side space adjacent to the Rogers Kiene Building (home to CityArts). The vision is to create a beautiful public space in the heart of Downtown Orlando, which complements Orlando’s oldest commercial structure, built in 1886. This space will be used for diverse, inclusive, and creative arts engagement, as well as private gallery-related and specialty events. Interstruct, Inc. created the concept and design of the courtyard.

The design seems to consist of a clear arched canopy that looks like it might blow away in a hurricane or high wind. Murals already exist though they might be planning to change them, and there are benches for the homeless to lounge on. In the promotional image a couple walks hand in hand towards the back wall of a parking garage as if strolling on the beach.

As I was sketching a guy walked past me twice with a hand truck stacked with cases of beer. He pointed out to me that the Rogers Kean building was  donated by the guy who stated the beer distribution company he worked for. Its a small world.

COVID Dystopia: DeathSantis Office

This image shows the DeathSantis Office scene from two views. On the left is a view of the scene from above. The purple box shows the full depth of the office. The lighter lines show the planes of the Governor held cell, the hand animation and the microphone held cell.

The office depth was created with the ZOE Depth freeware online. I left the coffin and all the patients in the depth information. Having a patients feet so close to the foreground resulted in a very limited ability to move the camera before things got highly distorted. I ended up doing a very subtle truck in with the camera to focus attention on the Governor.

Having discovered this ZOE Depth tool so late in the process means I will only be using it in a few shots. So far I have applied it to two shots where I was adding animation anyway. The next shot I am considering is a freezer truck morgue where I might animate the prisoners who were in charge of disposing of bodies at the time. The deep freezer truck interior should be a perfect place to apply this depth.

COVID Omaha Run

I decided to start animating probably the most complicated scene in the COVID film yesterday. I started with the larger boy in the foreground since I figure other figures might be partially hidden behind him as he runs. A run is much like a fast walk only both feet leave the ground for several frames. I completed two runs and have 8 more to do.

By the time I complete this scene I should be more of an expert on animating runs. Some of the runners disappear behind the beach barricades set up on screen left. The challenge comes because I have to animate backwards from the final frame of each run as it appears in the illustration. I break each run into 4 keys, the contact pose, down position, passing position, and the up pose.

Finding the right stride is a challenge. Once I have one section of the run complete I can duplicate frames to add the other strides. There are about 3 strides that can happen in the one second of animation. There is another scene similar to this with Ron DeathSantis with children running so I will probably roll right into that shot once this is complete. I suspect this will take several days to complete so you might see it again. You can’t rush a run.

What the flock are they doing?

Most sheep are easily controlled and manipulated. The rebel black sheep cares about the herd. The United States has decided mass infection is the cheapest cost of action. If you wanted to thin the herd by several million people then convincing the population that a deadly virus is “mild” would do the trick.

Propaganda is now in the works to make those who wear masks seem like outliers. The mayor of NYC is asking store owners to insist that people entering their stores must remove their mask. It might be far easier to ask them to show their drivers license, but the point is to discourage the population from protecting themselves from an airborne virus that has killed millions of Americans and continues to do so.  The unintelligent are scapegoating the intelligent.

Floriduh Governor Ron DeathSantis wrote an order, that directed the state’s health and education departments to issue rules preventing the implementation of school mask mandates in an effort to “protect parents’ freedom to choose whether their children wear masks.”

Mandatory masking in schools reduced the spread of the virus. Some masks are better than others. Cloth masks and the flimsy blue medical masks are not as effective as N-95 masks. By the time quality N95 masks were being advised, masks had already become a political flash point.

CDC released three studies in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that highlighted the importance of using layered prevention strategies including universal masking to stop the spread and minimize disruptions to school operations for safe in-person education. These studies found that school districts without a universal masking policy in place were more likely to have COVID-19 outbreaks.

There are no longer any states requiring people generally to wear masks in public places. Several states still mandate masking for most people in certain high-risk settings, including health care and long-term care facilities. The federal government’s nationwide mask order for public transit, commercial flights and transportation hubs such as airports and train stations was struck down by a federal judge in April 2022. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration has stopped enforcing the mandate and major U.S. airlines made face-covering optional on domestic flights.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues to recommend that people ages 2 and older wear masks while on public transportation and at transportation hubs.

Though president Joe Biden has decided to promote, “the pandemic is over” since he is eyeing a re-election run. No level of fantasy or denial can dispute the fact that several thousand people continue to die every week inn America due to COVID-19.  The American workforce is also continuing to thin as more and more people are crippled by long COVID.

People who are going about life unmasked as if the year were 2018 are fearful of those who wear masks since it reminds them that the pandemic is not over. Seeing someone in a mask can actually make them angry.

DeathSantis Bullies Special Olympics

The T4 Program, also called T4 Euthanasia Program, was a Nazi German effort,   framed as a euthanasia program, to kill incurably ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught, and elderly people. Adolf Hitler initiated the program in 1939, and, while it was officially discontinued in 1941, killings continued covertly until the military defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

At first the disabled and inform were killed by by starvation and lethal injection, they later chose asphyxiation by poison gas as the preferred killing technique. Physicians oversaw gassing in chambers disguised as showers, using lethal gas provided by chemists.

On a related note, Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis ripped a page out of the Trump playbook by threatened the Special Olympics with a 27.5 million dollar fine if they insisted on a vaccine mandate to keep participating athletes safe.

The New England Journal of Medacine stated that, “If diagnosed with Covid-19, patients with intellectual disabilities were more likely to be admitted to the hospital, and…were more likely to experience mortality due to Covid-19 following an admission.” A page on the Special Olympic’s website reported that vaccination is especially urgent for people with intellectual disabilities, including Down syndrome, Fragile X syndrome and autism. These are the core of the organization’s community of participants, who are especially vulnerable to COVID-19.

The Special Olympics caved and chose cow-tow to Florida State governor’s insanity rather than protect each and every athlete. DeathSantis has realized that his best chance of being a presidential contender in 2024 is if he is as anti vax and conspiracy minded as Trump.  The cruelty is the point.

Hanzel and COVID

On March 7, 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis‘s mouthpiece, Surgeon general Joseph Lapado recommended against children being vaccinated for COVID-19. As he put it, “the Florida Department of Health is going to be the first state to officially recommend against the Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children.” He justified this insane stance with concerns about possible side  affects that are pushed by anti-vax groups.

Ladapo’s announcement contradicted guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) which says all people over age 5 should get vaccinated.

Dr. Tina Carroll-Scott, medical director at South Miami Children’s Clinic, blasted Ladapo’s verbal directive on Monday, calling it “irresponsible and incorrect.”

This goes against the Florida’s Department of Health’s new guidance issued on March 8. 2022 which does not recommend against the shots for kids.

“The known risks of Covid-19 illness and its related, possibly severe complications, such as long-term health problems, hospitalization, and even death, far outweigh the potential risks of having a rare adverse reaction to vaccination, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis,” the CDC’s website says. The CDC has been monitoring reports of myocarditis, and found that cases of the condition “have rarely been reported, especially in adolescents and young adult males within several days after” vaccination.

DeathSantis himself went on to scold children for wearing masks at one of his press briefings, making it clear he doesn’t feel it is a parent’s right to decide if their child wears a mask, it is his choice that they not be protected. DeathSantis knows best.

DeathSantis Puts All His Eggs in One Basket

Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis has a one track mind. He has done little to encourage mask wearing or getting vaccinated, instead he put all his eggs in one basket by opening monoclonal Antibody treatment sites.

Monoclonal antibodies have helped in treating the Alpha and Delta variant of the virus if given early enough. But a far cheaper and simpler way would be to protect Floridians before they get infected with free masks and vaccines.

It turns out that the two widely used monoclonal antibody treatments from Regeneron and Eli Lilly, do nothing against the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Because of this the Biden administration stopped shipping the now useless treatments to Florida and other states. You don’t need to be a virologist to understand this simple idea. They DO NOT WORK against Omicron. Let me state this more simply, in a way that even a 2 year old could understand, Regeneron is USELESS against Omicron.

Citadel, a Chicago-based hedge fund, has $15.9 million in shares of Regeneron Pharmaceutical Inc., according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has donated $10.75 million to a political committee that supports Ron DeathSantis.

Florida continues to do nothing to stop the spread of COVID-19 while continuing to spread doubt and misinformation about vaccines and masks. The state has deaths so far from COVID-19. When Ron DeathSantis was asked if he had gotten a booster of vaccine, he blubbered and evaded the question. When the aspiring Florida Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, of demon sperm fame, was asked if vaccines worked, he dodged, ducked denied and deflected from giving a simple yes or no answer. Democrats walked out of the confirmation hearing since they were getting no meaningful answers from the DeathSantis stooge.

DeathSantis Hoards a Million COVID Tests

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried accused Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis of stockpiling COVID-19 rapid tests while residents across the state are waiting for multiple hours for the opportunity to get tested in the Omicron Surge.

Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie confessed the state did have a warehouse full of one million COVID-19 rapid test kits that have since expired. Guthrie said the tests expired between Dec. 26 and Dec. 30 after being granted a three-month extension.

Guthrie’s remarks confirm what Fried, the lone Democrat in the Florida Cabinet who is challenging DeathSantis for governor, has alleged since Christmastime.

“It’s bad enough that Governor DeSantis has de-prioritized testing with Omicron exploding across Florida, but it’s an absolute disgrace for the governor and his communications team to have lied and covered up the massive failure of a million unused tests while Floridians wait in hours-long lines for local tests that are running out,” Fried said January 6, 2022 in a statement shared on her social media pages. “Now the governor has to beg President (Joe) Biden for another waiver to even use these expired tests — should they still be safe and effective. The governor’s executive failure during this pandemic continues to hurt Floridians. This is why I speak up.”

“Worst off, during this time period, they lied about it, they tried to cover it, they said that my accusations were unfounded, called me a liar, and the reality is this governor is not fit to serve,” Fried said. “He should have known that this stockpile of tests could have been distributed all throughout the state. This is not only a derelict of responsibility, but this is a complete failure of this governor.”

Fried said new leadership is needed and questioned why DeSantis didn’t contact local health departments, hospitals, nursing homes and pharmacies about a possible exchange program.

Team COVID-19

Members of team COVID-19 do all in their power to deny, deflect and downplay the pandemic.They are doing everything in their power to kill anyone who listens to them.

Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis has been doing all he can to stop school boards from requiring mask mandates for children and he is also fighting against vaccine mandates for workers. He hired a new surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo who appeared in a Demon Sperm’ Doctor’s COVID Conspiracy Video. Ladapo has also promoted the anti-parasite medication ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19 symptoms. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has advised against using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment.

An unvaccinated Aaron Rogers lied to the press saying he was “immunized.” Rather than accepting medical advice from doctors he gets his advice from Joe Rogen, a podcaser who was also infected by COVID and treated himself with ivermectin. Rodgers justified being unvaccinated by speaking out against the highly effective vaccines and spewing a stream of misinformation and junk science. His misinformation will result in the deaths of football fans who believe his every word.

Paul Gosar who claims he was once a dentist has no idea how to wear a mask. As insurrectionists stormed the capitol building Gosar was droning on at the podium in the chamber with his mask sagging below his ample nose. Gosar wrote off our national catastrophe as something bordering on fake news, suggesting our interest in the pandemic will disappear after the election. As over 100 people continue to die each day from this virus, he is making anime style animation in which he violently kills a member of congress. I haven’t seen it and I don’t need to see it.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is fighting OSHA’s vaccine and testing mandates in his state. Like DeathSantis he wrote an executing order banning mask mandates in schools. A judge rules that the governor’s order impedes children with disabilities from the benefits of public schools’ programs, services and activities, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Ted Cruz attacked Sesame Street’s Big Bird who expressed fears of getting vaccinated but bravely got vaccinated anyway. This is a fine example of the stupidity of political posturing in the COVID pandemic era.

Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota is known as the COVID Queen. She claimed that Covid was a Democratic plot to take over the country, masks were optional, and her state would always be open for business. She urged everyone to ride to her state for the Stugis motorcycle really twice during the pandemic. The first rally was proven to be a super spreader event that seeded the virus all over the country so the next year she decided to do it again.

President Jair Bolsanaro of Brazil seemed to follow the same COVID playbook f our last president. He has been accused of crimes against humanity. A report was drafted that outlines hat happens when a leader shows an utter disregard for human rights during a pandemic. Covid-19 killed more than 600,000 Brazilians, but thousands of those deaths could have been avoided, evidence presented in the report indicates. President  Bolsonaro spread false information about Covid-19, opposed social distancing, refused to wear masks, and routinely shook hands with crowds of supporters. His ultimate goal, the report concluded, was rapid contagion.

Sweep

The Tampa Bay Times reported that for 105 days in the worst of the pandemic, Florida’s COVID-19 death toll went missing. County death tolls were withheld from the public. Floridians had no idea how many of their neighbors were dying. This is part of Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis’ blue sky policy. If you hide the statistic from the public they can go about their lives in blissful ignorance.

The Florida Department of Health knows how many people are dying in each county, but stopped telling the public on June 4, 2021. That’s when state officials stopped releasing daily pandemic data, switched to weekly reports and started withholding data once available to the public.

The state directed the public to find that information via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But the CDC relied on Florida’s online portal of COVID data — which the state also took down in June 2021. The CDC’s tally of deaths for Florida went blank. The number of people dying in each Florida county went missing from June 4, 2021 through September 17, 2021. This episode that illustrates how governments continue to hinder the public’s understanding of the virus and its toll. What they don’t know can’t kill them, or can it?

The designer of the Florida COVID-19 dashboard, was fired when she refused to cushion the numbers. The dashboard was also scrapped just as the Delta variant began to kill Floridians in large numbers. Florida leaders spent years whittling down the Department of Health, leaving Florida with one of the lowest numbers of epidemiologists per residents in the country.

As of October 18, 2021, the Florida COVID-19 related deaths per 100,000 was 0.79 with an average of 170.3 Floridians dying every day from COVID-19. Only Texas has a higher death toll at an average of 197 people dying every day. Lets just sweep that under the rug.