© image/photo by Daniel DeMarle 6/2018

 

Since a few days before the Election day over 50,000 Americans have died from Covid-19. Currently the total US deaths is 281,121. Across the globe 1.5 million people have died.  The response from Trump and his administration has been zero.  He is, as I write this, at a rally in Georgia, ostensibly to promote two Republican Senators, but really to just stroke his ego. Pictures show crowds with no social distancing and no masks.  It is another super spreader event brought on by an evil man. 

Going back it is completely striking how wrong Trump and his administration have been in pretty much everything they have done and not done.  This is a simple comparison just look at any other country on Earth.  Yes, Virginia we are exceptional, but only in this regard in all the wrong ways. 

On 3/31/2020 the IHME model, the model used by the White House, predicted a total of 83,967 COVID-19 deaths (range of 36,614 to 152,582) through the end of the epidemic’s first wave.  The 83,967 number was passed the week of 5/11/2020 and the 152,582 number by the week of 7/29/2020.

The Model on 4/30/2020 predicted 70,044 deaths by 8/4/2020 and total deaths of 115,000.  The 70,000 was passed the week of 5/5/2020 and 115,000 by the week of 6/7/2020. 

The Model on 7/29/2020 predicted 219,864 deaths by 11/1/2020, that was passed by 10/19/2020.

The most current model based on data from 11/18/2020 calls for 538,893 deaths with a top range on 770,234 deaths by 4/1/2021.

The effect of Thanksgiving may only just now beginning to be felt, but right now 10,000 Americans have died in just four days. Again about 50,000 Americans have died since election day.  This is the most incompetent American Administration in our history. There are about 55 days left in the Trump Presidency.  At the current rate of deaths, another 110,000 American’s will be dead by the time Biden is sworn into office. The rate of deaths will increase due to Thanksgiving, so there will likely be more than that.  That would get us 390,000 US deaths. The IHME model based on data from 11/18/2020, which is old, predicts 404,266 deaths by the time Biden is sworn into office. 

It is important to remember that most officials think that all these numbers are missing anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 deaths.

Deaths                                   Cases

4/5/2020 – 10,000

4/10/2020 – 20,000

4/15/2020 – 30,000

4/19/2020 – 40,000

4/24/2020 – 50,000

4/19/2020 – 60,000

5/5/2020 – 70,000

5/11/2020 – 80,000

5/18/2020 – 90,000

5/27/2020 – 100,000

6/7/2020 – 110,000

6/22/2020 – 120,000        2,284,823

7/6/2020 – 130,000          2,898,234

7/19/2020 – 140,000       3,715,166

7/29/2020 – 150,000       4,392,637

8/6/2020 – 160,000         4,881,974

8/16/2020 – 170,019       5,401,167

8/27/2020 – 180,527       5,860,397

9/9/2020   – 190,727       6,358,5247

9/22/2020 – 200,710      6,890,622

10/5/2020 – 210,127      7,453,829

10/19/2020 -220,086     8,208,093

10/31/2020 – 230,336    9,114,418

11/11/2020 – 240,918   10,392,672

11/18/2020 – 250,426   11,517,455

11/25/2020 – 262,132   12,769,915

12/1/2020 –  270,481    13,709,452

12/5/2020 –  281,121    14,567,529

White house models

The following are screen shots from the IHME which it the institute that the US has used for COVID-19 mitigation.  The models show that the US government and individual States have completely failed to protect US citizens. 

Model 3/31/2020

On 3/31/2020 the IHME model predicted a total of 83,967 COVID-19 deaths (range of 36,614 to 152,582) through the end of the epidemic’s first wave. 

That number was passed the week of 5/11/2020.

Deaths per day predicted on 4/30/2020

The Model on 4/30/2020 predicted 70,044 deaths by 8/4/2020 and a total deaths of 115,000.  We passed 70,000 the week of 5/5/2020 and 115,000 by the week of 6/7/2020. 

70,000 US Deaths was passed on 5/5/2020

The Models on 5/6/2020 predicted 92,674 deaths by 8/1 and a worse case total of 240,000. We passed 92,000 by the week of 5/18/2020, and 240,000 on the week of 11/11/2020.

America was at 130,000 by July 4th.

Model 6/25/2020

America passed 180,000 deaths on 8/27/2020

The Model on 7/29/2020 predicted 219,864 deaths by 11/1/2020 we passed that by 10/19/2020.

Models on 8/24/2020

Models on 9/10/2020

Model on 10/31/2020

Model as of 11/4/2020

Model on 11/18/2020

Current models

I often find myself on this side of an invisible line, while the vast majority of my family, friends, and neighbors are on the other side. Listening to a recent interview with Kae Tempest, the English Poet, they were referred to as a prophetess. I am not a prophet but I can relate to what they discuss

On being described as a “prophetess” by Amy Ray As they stated, “For writers, we pay extreme attention — this is what I’m saying about this decision to pay particular attention. And when you do that, what you access is the present but what it looks like and reads like is prescience. It looks like you’re talking about the future, but actually you’re just paying attention to the present, and it happens all the time when you read novels or you listen to lyrics by people that are afflicted with the burden of being somebody who notices in such sharp frequencies what’s going on. Then you explain it and you get it out of you and it seems like you’re talking about future but you’re not; you’re just describing the moment.”

What this means is that I spend my time looking at things that most people are not aware of. I look at you driving your car, and I see how that is going to directly impact my grandchildren’s climate future. I see you saying how you want to buy a house in the least diverse suburb and I see the future for your children growing up in that setting. I see a neighborhood and I see all of the patterns of exclusion and redlining and government policies that have resulted in it being ‘miraculously’ almost all white or not. I know there was nothing miraculous about it. Going back farther I know that the Seneca Indians had villages here, but there are now no traces, what traumas made that happen? I do not know? Do I want to? I see a patient and see their disabilities and I see countless probable futures that depend on what actions are taken or not taken today to address them.

The thing is most of what I see right now is not good. It is scary as hell. I feel like the person who knows the monster is coming and they will be here in the next five panels of this comic book and I want to scream a warning, but because it is not here yet, no-one will believe me. I often socially find myself in situations where people don’t believe me. I try not to talk at parties, because if I open my mouth, I might scream.

There are so many connections pointing to the direct impact of climate change on each and everyone of us, but because America’s news media is totally focused on the latest tweet of our idiot in chief, they never show the flooding, the storms, the heat waves, the infestations, the deaths, the loss of glaciers which will impact every life that currently depends on that glacier melt for life. It is all there, but no one is putting the pieces together to show all of us that driving that car and burning that gas to go a fucking quarter of a mile, is just making the whole situation that much worse.

I see color and I see systematic racism. I see from my male white middle class eyes, how systemic racism has shaped my entire community and how it is so fucking obvious but when I point it out to another white person it is like I am talking about a color they can not see. It is as if half our country insists on being literally color blind and they actively deny the existence of red and green. Meanwhile people of color are like, can you actually believe this shit?

I see homeless people. You drive by them and somehow do not see them, but I see them and their stories. I talk with them, I give them support when I can. I just discovered winter solstice services that honor the deaths of homeless people in a community and wonder how I did not know this and pledge to attend next years.

In the same way I see new immigrant families, not nearly as many now after three years of this awful presidency and its policies. I have sat in their houses, and I have heard their stories. I know in the words of Warsan Shire that “you don’t leave home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” I have looked into the mouth of those sharks working with these families, we have counted the bodies together, I have sat while they cried about their murdered family members.

I see food waste, I see factory farming. You eat that hot dog and I see how that pig was raised and slaughtered, I also see how pigs are smarter than 5 year old children. Would you eat a 5 year old child? You eat that chicken and I see how it was raised and never saw the light of day in that hot, hot building in which it was raised, lived, and killed, and I think your a Christian, Jew, Muslim, and it was one of God’s creations, how?

I see the religious right saying “oh 170,000 dead American’s from a flu (just insert the latest number there), they were going to die anyway, but we will fight tooth and nail to protect unborn children. I see this is not about life, it is about misogyny and patriarchy and about controlling women’s bodies. If you cared, you would be at the border freeing migrant and immigrant children from our modern concentration camps, because is that not what Jesus would do?

I see female genital mutilation and the fact that it is largely done by women to their children or grandchildren and I see the hands of the patriarchy and how when you are raised in a stew of patriarchy and misogyny that it flavors you. If flavors you to the point that you can not smell the stench on yourself.

As you can see, I see dead people. I see you on the other side of this line, and I often wish, I could still be on that side of that line with you. Then I realize that that world is a fantasy. Enjoy it. The monster is now only two three colored panels away, it will be here soon.

© words by Daniel DeMarle 8/25/2020

There was a beautiful fairy house. The children had worked on it together for a number of days. They were making it for a special person, their grandmother. She of warm hugs, fun stories, and lots of energy. She of the kind face and heart.

The children gathered and worked and decorated, but all the time although they thought they were making a normal fairy house, just a fun and nice decoration, they did not realize that people are made of stardust. That when you work together, and love together, that sometimes in the making of things, particularly presents for someone you love, that sometimes, some of your stardust rubs off on the thing you make. Now, if only one or two people work together, this is not a problem, but when you have five or six or more, then that stardust gathers. It gathers and sometimes ends up inside the thing you are making.

So it was that that fairy house was embedded with stardust, and not just any old stardust. This was some of the rarest and most powerful stardust, that comes from the oldest stars, the ones that are from the love of grandchildren and grandparents. Each child, though they did not know it, left some of that stardust in the fairy house. If they had tasted a little of that fairy dust, they would have recognized it, because it tastes a bit like warm cookies on a cold winter night and a blanket and a good book, just exciting enough but not to scary, and if it is just the right kind, like a dog’s kiss just in the middle of the one scary part in that book.

Now that, all by itself, a little stardust is not usually a problem. A little stardust is a good thing. But at this time, Titania, the queen of fairy was looking for a new home. She and Oberon, the King of fairy, had decided their old fairy house was too small, and they were on the hunt for a new one. In the woods where they were living, they sensed a powerful magic made of stardust and love very far away. So they quickly made a fairy circle, and found that house. Shrinking themselves, because the King and Queen of fairy are larger than regular fairies, they found they loved it. So before the moon set, they captured some moon beams and hooked that fairy house up to a passing star and spirited it away to Fairy.

They are living in it now, and when they go to sleep feeling a little bit of a cuddle, a good book and a dog kiss.

So when next they design a fairy house, be careful to just let a little stardust fall upon it, because otherwise some other fairy may decide to spirit it away.

© words by Dan DeMarle 8/23/2020

When the wind blows hard across the plain, the long grass may bend with each gust, but between gusts, it is already rising again. When the farmer comes to cut that field, because its roots have been tested and grown deep into the soil, it grows back. When the farmer comes and digs up its roots and throws it on the now empty plain to let it shrivel in the bleaching sun, it’s seeds have already spread to oh so many other places.

© words by Daniel DeMarle

Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit

Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad

Creativity is finding a way to put it in a fruit salad that works

Artistry is putting tomato and other fruits on a shishkabob and making it look gorgeous

© words by Daniel DeMarle 8/13/2020