Items

• 
  2022-07-20

  Hermit HERALD, ISSUE 143

  Biden/Trump 2024?
• 
  2022-06-21

  HERMIT HERALD, ISSUE 142

  We perceive what we want to perceive
• 
  2022-04-28

  My Covid-19 Story

  reflection paper on how covid impacted life, religion, gender, power through my eyes and point of view.
• 
  2022-04-28

  Reflection

  During the pandemic, many people were able to see a huge shift in the public and the way we all interacted with one another. We saw huge changes in racism and power. One of the biggest examples was the Trump presidency. This was a huge shift in power when it came to the democratic and republican parties. We also saw much racism and violence regarding police brutality and the black community. Furthermore, we saw racism towards the Asian community as well when it came to COVID 19 and the backlash that surrounded its origin. We can all agree that the pandemic was not enjoyable for anyone involved. Many even lost multiple loved ones, or people they once knew. People were leaving jobs, schools were closed, parents had to work from home and teach their students simultaneously, while essential workers continued working in uncertain conditions. Any way we look back at it, those times during the pandemic were difficult. When It came to religion, I think it was a way for people to come together. Although churches were closed to the public for over a year, religious followers adapted. We saw many churches and other religious entities providing prayer or gatherings through streaming services online. People were able to participate in prayer, and even attend mass virtually from the comforts of their home without the risks. This goes to show that no matter what the world endures or changes that come, followers will always find their ways to their religions.
• 
  2020-04-06

  2020 is One for the Books

  This collage represents the main events going on in our lives during the Covid-19 pandemic. Like one of my pictures says "2020 A Year Like No Other." I wanted to represent the election of Trump vs. Biden because it will more than likely go down as one of the largest and craziest elections in history. It divided the country like no other and is still an ongoing battle of Republicans vs. Democrats. I wanted to show the black square and the protests for George Floyd along with The Black Lives Matter movement. I added the air pollution of Los Angeles before the pandemic vs during. With everyone staying inside and not driving around, air quality improved tremendously. We gave the Earth a minute to breathe and heal. A quick photo to shoutout the flight attendants who have had to deal with some craziness on board for the last couple years. It has not been easy, and everyone needed a vacation after 2020. The media has been a huge factor and enemy for this pandemic. I wanted to show an illustration towards facts and fake news. A huge debate on that especially with my final photo of the protests on the vaccine mandates. The world is divided more than ever and hopefully one day we can reunite we can reunite and look back on this pandemic and remember to love each other and this planet. There were many lives lost to Covid, to suicide, and addiction. Rest in peace to everyone who didn't make it and my prayers with the families who lost someone.
• 
  2020-12-15

  My favorite day

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-11-09

  Challenge me!

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-10-29

  Boto Votos

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-10-28

  Reenactments

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-10-22

  Trump Wants a vaccinne for this

  Covid and Yossarian, A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-10-21

  Ok, I won't be afraid

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-10-16

  Great idea

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-10-13

  Cysts

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-10-09

  Shame shower

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-10-04

  Ignored the risks

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-10-03

  A nice gift

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-09-28

  Cover those taxes!

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-09-25

  Peaceful transfer

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-09-14

  No panic

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-09-10

  How many letters can a vacccine get me?

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-08-17

  Finally a mask mandate

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-08-10

  Working hard on Covid

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-07

  Demon Sperm

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-07-20

  A monument to the suffering

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2022-04-26

  HERMIT HERALD, ISSUE 140

  Republican/ Democrat warfare
• 
  2022-04-25

  Being Asian During COVID-19

  I think many people in the US have similar experiences with the beginning of COVID-19. I worked at Walmart at the time, so I saw first hand the progression of seriousness that took place. Thinking back on it now, it was like a movie. It started out like a movie; rumors of some deadly virus in China was spreading rapidly, and everyone is in danger. The world could be affected by this sickness. Most didn't really take it seriously, but one day, everyone decided that it actually was that serious. Walmart has never seen busy like COVID-19. The shelves were emptied like an apocalypse. It really did feel like a movie. I do think that my experience during COVID-19 was different than others in a few ways. I am Asian, and COVID-19 reminded me of that constantly. Asian hate is underreported and normalized for many reasons, but COVID-19 was the biggest recent occurrence where Asian people were discriminated against brutally. News posts were going around where Asian Americans were attacked on the streets, even though they were born and raised in the United States and have never stepped foot in China. Many, like myself, weren't even Chinese. The ignorance was at an all time high, and typical racist comments were more prevalent than ever. “Go back to China” was used more than ever, and Donald Trump encouraged the hate with “Kong flu” and the “China virus.” Racist comments hurt, but the fact that people were being attacked sparked a new fear in the Asian community. It’s crazy to think about the day when my family gathered and talked about the violence that was going on; they told me to be careful and aware of my surroundings because people like this were everywhere, and anyone could be a victim. The Asian community was heavily impacted, but somehow, some people to this day still don't know that this kind of hate was occurring during COVID-19. Asian hate was still underreported and normalized, as it always is. It’s always sad to be reminded that no matter how American you are, and no matter if you were born and raised here or not, your race will always be the most signifying thing about you, and people will use it to segregate you whenever they want to.
• 
  2020-07-09

  The true virus

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-06-30

  The 19th Hole

  A comic strip about Covid-19
• 
  2020-07-15

  That rascally Fauci

  A comic strip about Covid-19 [Sign reads] Fauci Season [Sign reads] Masks Save Lives (Cartoon shows Donald Trump with a gun hunting. Dr. Fauci is dressed like a rabbit. The final panel has Fauci placing a mask on the end of Trump's gun. )
• 
  2020-08-04

  The new doctor

  A comic strip about Covid-19 White House Interviews More Alternative Doctors Dr. Strange: I saw 14 million possibilities and you screwed up all of them. President Trump: Strange. Weird. No thank you. No more reality TV guys, Dr. Phil. Cat in the Hat: The more you read, the more... President Trump: "Read"?? Bye, Dr. Seuss. I thought you were already on my staff. Who are you? Dr. Fauci: Um, Dr. Antoine Caufi. President Trump: Sounds fishy. You're hired.
• 
  2022-02-01

  hermit HERALD, ISSUE 137

  Putin vs NATO
• 
  11/15/2020

  Retail Worker Oral History, 2020/11/15

  C19OH
• 
  11/20/2020

  Joanne Jahkne-Wegner Oral History, 2020/11/20

  C19OH
• 
  2022-01-01

  HERMIT HERALD, ISSUE 135

  Dems and Republicans, down the rabbit hole
• 
  12/08/2020

  Mark Kompsie Oral History, 2020/12/08

  C19OH
• 
  2020-10-06

  Bernd Geels Oral History 2020/10/06

  C19OH
• 
  2020-12-31

  Trump administration falls far short of vaccination goals as new virus variant looms

  Logistical problems at the heart of the federal government’s faltering rollout of coronavirus vaccines came into sharper view Thursday as the Trump administration fell vastly short of its goal of delivering an initial shot to 20 million people by the end of December. On the final day of a bleak year, only about 2.8 million people had received the shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the first of two doses needed to provide immunity to the virus. Around 14 million doses had been distributed as of Wednesday, according to Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, and a total of 20 million doses have been allocated. Though the figures are an underestimate — data collection on vaccinations has lagged — the doses administered so far represent just a small fraction of the ambitious targets outlined by officials from the administration’s Operation Warp Speed program in the fall. “We’d have liked to have seen it run smoothly and have 20 million doses in to people today, by the end of 2020, which was the projection,” Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s leading infectious-disease expert, said in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday. “Obviously it didn’t happen, and that’s disappointing.” Nationwide, states and health-care providers continued to grapple with unpredictable timelines for when new vaccine shipments would arrive and in what quantities, while chronically underfunded public health departments struggled to muster the resources to carry out mass injections of front-line workers and vulnerable people. Fauci said that he hoped momentum for vaccinations would build in the first weeks of the new year and bring the country closer to its immunization goals. “But there really has to be more effort in the sense of resources for the locals, namely the states, the cities, the counties, the places where the vaccine is actually going into the arms of individuals,” he said. “We have to support the local groups, the states and the cities to help them get this task done, which is a very prodigious task.” Under the Trump administration’s plan, the federal government supplies vaccines to states but leaves it to state officials to prioritize residents, send doses to providers and get shots into people’s arms. The approach — as well as a litany of logistical problems — has caused a varied distribution effort. Local health departments and hospitals tasked with administering the vaccines have complained that they do not know when shipments will come or if they will receive additional resources, said Oscar Alleyne, and epidemiologist and chief of programs and services for the National Association of County and City Health Officials, which is made up of about 3,000 local health departments. “Some health departments have only received vaccines as recently as this week,” Alleyne told The Washington Post. “I had one health department that told me they had received their vaccines the day after Christmas.” Alleyne compared the communication concerns to those that cropped up during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, when unclear guidance hampered efforts to get the population vaccinated. “It really boils down to ensuring a very transparent process,” Alleyne said. “There will always be a lag between the doses allocated and those shipped; between those shipped and those administered; and between those administered and those reported to CDC as administered,” Michael J. Pratt, a spokesperson for Operation Warp Speed, said in a statement. “We’re working to make those lags as small as possible.” At the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical complex in the world, the approach has already created logistical challenges. Hospital officials on the campus in south Houston often don’t know exactly when to expect new shipments or precisely how many vials they’ll receive, according to Bill McKeon, the center’s chief executive officer. That leaves the center with just a couple days’ worth of vaccine inventory on hand at a time, he said. “At best, we hear estimates. It’s a day-to-day situation,” McKeon told The Post. “We hear that we may be getting more next week but we’re not sure.” To date, the center has administered the first of the two injections to about 60,000 people, averaging more than 4,000 a day, according to McKeon. That includes some of the center’s 120,000 employees, as well as patients with underlying conditions who are first in line for inoculation. But it’s only a tiny portion of the sprawling metropolitan area the center serves. Until hospital officials can better predict how many vaccine doses they’ll have available week after week, McKeon said, vaccinating more people, faster, will be an uphill battle. “You can’t do scheduling with a couple days of inventory. We wouldn’t put a patient through the process of coming to the hospital, leaving their home, and then say, ‘Sorry we don’t have the inventory,’ ” he said. “We can’t be bold and just say, ‘Let’s do ten thousand a day.’ ” McKeon called on the federal government to take a more active role, possibly offering more large-scale vaccination centers, and relieve pressure on state officials, whom he said were “rowing in the same direction” as providers. There will be a growing need not just for more health-care workers to give the shots, he said, but for people who can perform the administrative work of calling patients, verifying their personal information and signing them up for injections. “I’m not seeing the grand strategies on a national basis, and I’m concerned, because this is a war,” he said. “Every day that we delay on some of those grander strategies we’re going to see losses of life.” As the distribution of vaccines has proceeded in fits and starts, coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations have soared to new heights. More than 125,000 people around the country were in hospital beds battling covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Hospitalizations have exceeded 100,000 since Dec. 2. The nation on Wednesday also recorded a record 3,862 deaths in a day. The previous record, set on Dec. 17, was 3,406. New daily reported cases were trending upward again, after dipping during the week of Christmas. Family gatherings and spikes in holiday travel make it all but certain that the new year will bring yet another wave of infections. Compounding fears about the accelerating virus spread, a new, more transmissible variant of the coronavirus has cropped up in multiple U.S. states after circulating in the United Kingdom. The presence of the mutated pathogen only added to the need for vaccinations to ramp up quickly, said Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner. “The Covid vaccine could be a tool to help reduce the impact of current wave of epidemic spread,” he tweeted Thursday. “But we’re largely missing the narrow window we had to deploy it rapidly enough to alter the present trajectory of death and disease in January. The new variant makes this more urgent.” Clarification: This story has been updated to cite Operation Warp Speed’s distribution numbers. It has also been updated to note that Operation Warp Speed has allocated 20 million vaccine doses to states.
• 
  2020-05-21

  HHS, AstraZeneca Speed COVID-19 Vaccine Development; First Doses Due in October

  The Trump administration announced early today that HHS and AstraZeneca will collaborate on a coronavirus disease vaccine called AZD1222. A statement released from HHS said the partnership will make “at least 300 million doses” of the vaccine available, “with the first doses delivered as early as October 2020.” The vaccine is one originally developed at the University of Oxford; the university and AstraZeneca announced a global development agreement for the vaccine on April 30. In its own statement early today, AstraZeneca said a phase 1/2 clinical trial of the vaccine began last month to assess its safety immunogenicity and efficacy in over 1000 healthy volunteers, who are 18 to 55 years of age. These volunteers are all in the United Kingdom. Late-stage trials would begin in several countries based on these results, the statement said. According to HHS, the agreement between AstraZeneca and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), an agency within HHS, would essentially kick start manufacturing of the doses while phase 3 clinical studies are under way this summer, involving 30,000 volunteers in the United States. BARDA will spend up to $1.2 billion for research, technology transfer, and scaled-up manufacturing, Emergency use authorization or licensure from FDA would be needed for the vaccine to reach the public, the statement said. As for the timeline, “Early milestones enable BARDA and AstraZeneca to determine how the program progresses forward.” “This contract with AstraZeneca is a major milestone in Operation Warp Speed’s work toward a safe, effective, widely available vaccine by 2021,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. “Getting a vaccine to the American public as soon as possible is one part of President Trump’s multi-faceted strategy for safely reopening our country and bringing life back to normal, which is essential to Americans’ physical and mental well-being in so many ways.” “The Trump Administration is making multiple major investments in developing and manufacturing promising vaccines long before they’re approved so that a successful vaccine will reach the American people without a day wasted,” Azar said. Besides the BARDA agreement, AstraZeneca said it has reached deals with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organisation (WHO), to ensure the fair allocation and distribution of the vaccine around the world. AstraZeneca is also in discussions the Serum Institute of India and other potential partners to boost production and distribution. AstraZeneca also holds a major stake in Moderna Therapeutics, which announced earlier this week its experimental vaccine had produced antibodies in small group of healthy volunteers.
• 
  2020-11-07

  You're Fired

  I worked the polls at Nevitt Forest Elementary during the 59th presidential election. The lines were crowded at 6:00 prior to the polls official opening at 7:00. The energy in the voting room was definitely mixed--some determined, some anxious, and some angry at the previous conditions of Trump administration of 2017-21. Although the energy of the election results are still mixed today still, this meme reflects one of the more amused and joyous reactions of the election turnout. Thus, using one of Trump's infamous lines of his famed tv show Celebrity Apprentice, this meme pokes fun at the importance of public ratings not only in pop culture but in politics as well.
• 
  2021-09-22

  Breitbart says the Left is Trying to Kill Conservatives En Masse with Reverse Psychology

  I just can’t. I shit you not….. right wing nutters are now claiming that the organized left is doing everything they can to make sure the right does not get vaccinated… things such as vaccine Mandates…….. VACCINE MANDATES. He says the Biden Admin has instituted mandates in order to ensure that the right DOES NOT GET THEM. I’m so sick of the victim mentality exhibited by the far right. It’s so dangerous and the misinformation and disinformation being circulated on social media and right wing “news” is genuinely terrifying to me. I have family members who have refused to get vaccinated and I have begged them, BEGGED them to get vaccinated. So much that they refuse to talk to me about it. It’s lunacy to me that my efforts could be construed as “reverse psychology” to ensure their deaths.
• 
  2021-08-27

  hermit HERALD, ISSUE 125

  Afghanistan, "None of this had to happen."
• 
  2021-08-14

  One person stabbed as COVID anti-vaxxers and counterdemonstrators clash in front of L.A. City Hall

  The title of this article quickly caught my attention and then I immediately felt saddened by the reality that this pandemic has been politicized from the beginning. People have become so passionate that they have lost all reason. There are always two sides to every story but I find it so hard to understand who oppose vaccinations and reject science. Its not at all surprising that the anti-vax side of this particular story showed up in MAGA hats, its further proof of the political foundation of their argument to "fight for their rights". I understand that people want the right to decide, but then those same people refuse to get tested regularly. This issue has been a messy and passionate one from the beginning and its really hard not to blame Donald Trump for the misinformation that is still being used by the anti-vax community.
• 
  2020-11-03

  Election Night 2020

  This poem sits at the nexus of pandemic life and political desperation. My wife lost multiple elderly family members to COVID because her parents believed the rhetoric spread by Donald Trump and those like him. Five years of dealing with racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic bigotry being the political norm, and eight months of a pandemic in the heart of one of the largest science denying states in the country led to this moment of desperation, where all I could do was blindly bake and write to get the nervous energy out.
• 
  2021-06-01

  hermit HERALD, ISSUE 116

  Ransomware made easy
• 
  2020-03-09

  Future Historians

  Dear Historians of the Future, In 2020, there was a pandemic that occurred known as COVID-19 that made drastic changes in terms of restaurants, traveling internationally, school and work. One of my biggest pieces of advice is to ensure the president you have is not a narcissist or a leader who does not take responsibility for the bad things that happen. According to the article “Donald Trump owns the Coronavirus,” published on March 9, 2020, by a senior economist Dean Baker, this document explains how COVID impacted the community and what experiences people faced. Reading this article will allow you to understand the ability to have directorship in guiding the country to a better path then shifting it to the left. For instance, the reading states “It is very likely that we will face a recession as people cancel travel plans and are reluctant to go out to restaurants, sporting events and other public places.” Because of Trump, Americans and the people that live in it had to cancel many of their plans as a result of Trump not taking accurate information into consideration. He was mainly focused on putting blame towards China or the democrats, rather than looking for solutions with CDC. During the pandemic, many people believed Donald Trump was responsible for the Coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. in the article, Baker concludes: “In short, the fact that we are likely facing a serious pandemic, unlike any we have seen in more than a century, is 100 percent Trump’s fault. Because of his vanity and ineptitude, people will die, and many more will get sick.” This article demonstrates how Trump did not care to take action when the pandemic initially began. Because of this, one can say when it comes to having a narcissist president like Trump, leadership plays a role in situations like this for the world. In conclusion, I chose this source to explain my experience of the pandemic and what challenges people faced. In other words, this article will help you understand how the pandemic had an impact on many people's lives. If president Trump initially took action when he first started receiving news about the COVID, people would still be employed and parents would not have to stay home with their children. The negative aspect of this is some families struggled financially as a result of the pandemic and staying unemployed.
• 
  2021-01-19

  Tȟokáta Hé Miyé (My Name Is Future)

  A film by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Earthjustice Written and Directed by Josué Rivas Narrated by Grace DeRockbrain Cinematography by: Josué Rivas, Adam Johansson. Drone2Bwild, Digital Smoke Signals, Akicita Film Edited by Dylan Sylwester Audio by Natalie Huizenga Community Outreach and Recording: Sunshine Woman Grace DeRockbrain (Standing Rock Sioux Tribe) Teena Pugliese and AnnaLee Yellow Hammer Translation: Doug Goodfeather Co-Producers: Rebecca Bowe and Chris Jordan-Bloch for Earthjustice
• 
  2021-03-23

  NDN Collective Releases Statement on Updates to Cases of Land Defenders Arrested at Mt. Rushmore

  Last summer, 21 Indigenous people and allies, including Nick Tilsen, the president and CEO of NDN Collective, were met with force from the state police and arrested for protesting Trump’s rally at Mt. Rushmore. Though Trump and his group were violating multiple treaties with their presence, including one through the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Land Defenders faced multiple charges. Tilsen himself was facing a felony and up to 17 years in prison. Today, NDN Collective announced that the charges for Tilsen and all other activists arrested on July 3 will be dropped. This announcement comes after months of political pressure from grassroots groups, including petitions, social media campaigns, and local and national media coverage of the cases.
• 
  2021-01-15

  Retired Oakland cop attended US Capitol riot, OPD internal affairs investigation underway

  A former Oakland police officer has received a visit from the FBI. Jurell Snyder tells the ABC7 I-Team, agents interviewed him about attending last week's Trump rally that led to the assault on the Capitol, and about his social media posts promoting conspiracy theories. Some current Oakland police officers liked and commented on Snyder's posts, and now, the department is investigating those officers.
• 
  2021-01-16

  Guard troops deployed throughout downtown Sacramento in advance of expected violence

  California National Guard troops were deployed throughout downtown Sacramento early Saturday in advance of expected protests and violence that the FBI warns could last through Inauguration Day. At the state Capitol — which is expected to be the site of protests Sunday and Wednesday as well as unrest between supporters of President Trump and antifacist groups — armed soldiers, Guard trucks and armored Humvees were stationed on streets around the building. Soliders and vehicles were positioned around other buildings, including the federal courthouse and the Superior Court building, as well as the Leland Stanford Mansion and buildings along Capitol Mall.
• 
  2020

  Pandemic Street Art: TVBoy and pop street art during the pandemic

  TVBoy is the artist name of Salvatore Benintende, Italian graffiti artist from based in Barcelona, Spain. Through the months of the pandemic, TVBoy has put up several wheat paste murals incorporating imagery of the pandemic, social justice issues, Catholic imagery, and political topics: a school of fish wearing masks; former President Trump in a Superman costume; the Sacred Heart Jesus figure wearing a mask; imagery of Antonio Canova’s statue The Three Graces (the mythological three charities, daughters of Zeus — Euphrosyne, Aglaea and Thalia — said to represent youth/beauty, mirth, and elegance) wearing form-fitting scrubs, clogs, masks, and representing three well known vaccines (Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca); imagery of Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper but with Jesus wearing a mask and separating two sides of the table; and others.