Michael Sorkin Dies Of The Coronavirus In New York

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Michael D. Sorkin (born 1948) was an American architect, author, and educator based in New York City. He wass one of the most provocative and polemical voices in contemporary culture and in the design of urban places at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Michael David Sorkin (August 2, 1948 – March 26, 2020) was an American urbanist architect, author, and educator based in New York City.He was considered to be a provocative and polemical voice in contemporary culture and in the design of urban places at the turn of the twenty-first century. In addition to being a noted professor at many great architectural schools, he was an architectural critic for the Village Voice and a guest columnist in many publications.He was director of the urban design graduate program at City College of New York.

Sorkin was born in Washington, D.C. in 1948. He was an architect and urbanist whose practice spanned design, planning, criticism, and teaching.Sorkin received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1969, and a masters in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.Arch ’74). Sorkin also held a master’s degree in English from Columbia University (MA ’70). He was founding principal of the Michael Sorkin Studio, a New York-based global design practice with special interests in urban planning, urban design and green urbanism.

Sorkin was house architecture critic for The Village Voice in the 1980s, and he authored numerous articles and books on the subjects of contemporary architecture, design, cities, and the role of democracy in architecture.

Sorkin was the co-president of the Institute for Urban Design, an education and advocacy organization, and vice president of the Urban Design Forum in New York. In 2013, Sorkin was awarded the Design Mind award by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

He was a principal in the Michael Sorkin Studio and president of Terreform, a nonprofit research group.

On March 26, 2020, Sorkin died from complications brought on by COVID-19 in Manhattan.

Mourning his death, architectural mavens were effusive in their praise of his writing and critical skill.

Revealed – Coronavirus: DOD Response

DOD Issues Flexible Instructions on Response to ...

Soldiers assigned to the 1st Special Forces Group’s Group Support Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, are manufacturing personal protective equipment for routine care and protection against COVID-19.

The soldiers created prototypes for reusable respirator masks, 3D-printed face shields, and surgical masks for Madigan Army Medical Center and its regional partners.

A soldier wearing gloves and a face mask operates a sewing machine.

The battalion’s parachute riggers repurposed their sewing machines — typically used to repair parachutes — to assemble surgical masks.

“The Aerial Delivery Platoon will be able to produce 200 [masks] per day, initially, with only five, lightweight sewing machines,” said Army Lt. Col. Christopher S. Jones, the battalion’s commander.

Soldiers will continue to refine the process of producing the masks and improving them following feedback from medical employees.

“We’ll get better by week’s end and be able to produce 1,000 to 1,500 during a normal work week,” Jones said.

The masks will immediately benefit personnel identified by medical professionals, said Army Col. Rodd E. Marcum, the 1st Special Forces Group surgeon.

Soldiers wearing gloves and face masks prepare surgical masks for sewing.

“The most likely application [for the masks] will be to have a symptomatic patient — one with a cough, sneezing, shortness of breath — wear the mask in order to reduce the amount of respiratory droplets contaminating the environment, helping reduce the likelihood that ill people expose others,” Marcum said.

In this period of adjustment for many people, he said, it is important to remember that the priorities are protecting the force and their families by following medical guidelines.

“Nothing is more important as we work through this unexpected challenge than following the recommendations of public health professionals. Physical or social distancing is critical in reducing the chain of transmission,” Marcum said.

A soldier places bags of masks on a hardened container as medical personnel look on.

Jones said he looks forward to witnessing the impact of his soldiers’ hard work on the nation as other forces join the battle against this disease.

“I believe this is a phenomenal effort to help our health care professionals and fellow Americans,” he said. “We’re collaborating with [Army Special Operations Forces] and conventional forces across the Army to make a difference. The effort in and of itself is a worthwhile exercise in how to innovate to provide solutions, especially as the U.S. military has the best capability in the world.”

Revealed – World Health Organization-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Report

The overall goal of the Joint Mission was to rapidly inform national (China) and international planning on next steps in the response to the ongoing outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and on next steps in readiness and preparedness for geographic areas not yet affected.

The major objectives of the Joint Mission were as follows:
• To enhance understanding of the evolving COVID-19 outbreak in China and the nature and impact of ongoing containment measures;
• To share knowledge on COVID-19 response and preparedness measures being implemented in countries affected by or at risk of importations of COVID-19;
• To generate recommendations for adjusting COVID-19 containment and response measures in China and internationally; and
• To establish priorities for a collaborative programme of work, research and development to address critical gaps in knowledge and response and readiness tools and activities.

Members & Method of Work

The Joint Mission consisted of 25 national and international experts from China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, the United States of America and the World Health Organization (WHO). The Joint Mission was headed by Dr Bruce Aylward of WHO and Dr Wannian Liang of the People’s Republic of China. The full list of members and their affiliations is available in Annex A. The Joint Mission was implemented over a 9-day period from 16-24 February 2020. The schedule of work is available in Annex B.

The Joint Mission began with a detailed workshop with representatives of all of the principal ministries that are leading and/or contributing to the response in China through the National Prevention and Control Task Force. A series of in-depth meetings were then conducted with national level institutions responsible for the management, implementation and evaluation of the response, particularly the National Health Commission and the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC). To gain first-hand knowledge on the field level implementation and impact of the national and local response strategy, under a range of epidemiologic and provincial contexts, visits were conducted to Beijing Municipality and the provinces of Sichuan (Chengdu), Guangdong (Guangzhou, Shenzhen) and Hubei (Wuhan). The field visits included community centers and health clinics, country/district hospitals, COVID-19 designated hospitals, transportations hubs (air, rail, road), a wet market, pharmaceutical and personal protective equipment (PPE) stocks warehouses, research institutions, provincial health commissions, and local Centers for Disease Control (provincial and prefecture). During these visits, the team had detailed discussion and consultations with Provincial Governors, municipal Mayors, their emergency operations teams, senior scientists, frontline clinical, public health and community workers, and community neighbourhood administrators. The Joint Mission concluded with working sessions to consolidate findings, generate conclusions and propose suggested actions.

To achieve its goal, the Joint Mission gave particular focus to addressing key questions related to the natural history and severity of COVID-19, the transmission dynamics of the COVID-19 virus in different settings, and the impact of ongoing response measures in areas of high (community level), moderate (clusters) and low (sporadic cases or no cases) transmission.

The findings in this report are based on the Joint Mission’s review of national and local governmental reports, discussions on control and prevention measures with national and local experts and response teams, and observations made and insights gained during site visits. The figures have been produced using information and data collected during site visits and with the agreement of the relevant groups. References are available for any information in this report that has already been published in journals.

The final report of the Joint Mission was submitted on 28 February 2020.

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The Global Response & Next Steps

1. The COVID-19 virus is a new pathogen that is highly contagious, can spread quickly, and must be considered capable of causing enormous health, economic and societal impacts in any setting. It is not SARS and it is not influenza. Building scenarios and strategies only on the basis of well-known pathogens risks failing to exploit all possible measures to slow transmission of the COVID-19 virus, reduce disease and save lives.

COVID-19 is not SARS and it is not influenza. It is a new virus with its own characteristics. For example, COVID-19 transmission in children appears to be limited compared with influenza, while the clinical picture differs from SARS. Such differences, while based on limited data, may be playing a role in the apparent efficacy of rigorously applied non-pharmaceutical, public health measures to interrupt chains of human-to-human transmission in a range of settings in China. The COVID-19 virus is unique among human coronaviruses in its combination of high transmissibility, substantial fatal outcomes in some high-risk groups, and ability to cause huge societal and economic disruption. For planning purposes, it must be assumed that the global population is susceptible to this virus. As the animal origin of the COVID-19 virus is unknown at present, the risk of reintroduction into previously infected areas must be constantly considered.

The novel nature, and our continuously evolving understanding, of this coronavirus demands a tremendous agility in our capacity to rapidly adapt and change our readiness and response planning as has been done continually in China. This is an extraordinary feat for a country of 1.4 billion people.

2. China’s uncompromising and rigorous use of non-pharmaceutical measures to contain transmission of the COVID-19 virus in multiple settings provides vital lessons for the global response. This rather unique and unprecedented public health response in China reversed the escalating cases in both Hubei, where there has been widespread community transmission, and in the importation provinces, where family clusters appear to have driven the outbreak.

Although the timing of the outbreak in China has been relatively similar across the country, transmission chains were established in a wide diversity of settings, from megacities in the north and south of the country, to remote communities. However, the rapid adaptation and tailoring of China’s strategy demonstrated that containment can be adapted and successfully operationalized in a wide range of settings.

China’s experience strongly supports the efficacy and effectiveness of anchoring COVID-19 readiness and rapid response plans in a thorough assessment of local risks and of utilizing a differentiated risk-based containment strategy to manage the outbreak in areas with no cases vs. sporadic cases vs. clusters of cases vs. community-level transmission. Such a strategy is essential for ensuring a sustainable approach while minimizing the socio-economic impact.

3. Much of the global community is not yet ready, in mindset and materially, to implement the measures that have been employed to contain COVID-19 in China. These are the only measures that are currently proven to interrupt or minimize transmission chains in humans. Fundamental to these measures is extremely proactive surveillance to immediately detect cases, very rapid diagnosis and immediate case isolation, rigorous tracking and quarantine of close contacts, and an exceptionally high degree of population understanding and acceptance of these measures.

Achieving the high quality of implementation needed to be successful with such measures requires an unusual and unprecedented speed of decision-making by top leaders, operational thoroughness by public health systems, and engagement of society.

Given the damage that can be caused by uncontrolled, community-level transmission of this virus, such an approach is warranted to save lives and to gain the weeks and months needed for the testing of therapeutics and vaccine development. Furthermore, as the majority of new cases outside of China are currently occurring in high and middle-income countries, a rigorous commitment to slowing transmission in such settings with non-pharmaceutical measures is vital to achieving a second line of defense to protect low income countries that have weaker health systems and coping capacities.

The time that can be gained through the full application of these measures – even if just days or weeks – can be invaluable in ultimately reducing COVID-19 illness and deaths. This is apparent in the huge increase in knowledge, approaches and even tools that has taken place in just the 7 weeks since this virus was discovered through the rapid scientific work that has been done in China.

Revealed – NYC Department of Buildings COVID-19 Response – Document

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Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 19:26:03 -0400
From: My NYC.gov News <MyNYC@nyc.gov>
Subject: Buildings News – COVID-19 Response – Application Processing

Buildings news

March 2020

service notices

forms

bis

codes

jobs

COVID-19 Response – Application Processing

 

As part of the citywide response to the Coronavirus, Department of Buildings (DOB) customers are being encouraged to immediately limit the amount of walk-in traffic to DOB offices. Effective Wednesday, March 18, customers are strongly encouraged to make use of the following methods:

 

  • Continue to use eFiling for Hub Development, Full, Self-Service jobs and AHV permits
  • Continue to use DOB NOW: Build for all applicable work types.
  • The Administrative Enforcement Unit, Licensing and Enforcement units are currently maintaining their normal functionality. Additional Service Notices will be posted this week with updates on these transactions.
  • Customer Service Night is cancelled on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 and until further notice.

Transactions conducted at a DOB borough office that are not listed, will continue to take place in-person, including Records Room requests and other functions that require a service ticket.

The following changes are mandatory.

Transactions with payments

  • New Job Filings
  • Subsequent Job Filings
  • Temporary Certificates of Occupancy
  • Letters of No Objection
  • Permits
  • Permit Renewals
  • Temporary Use Permits
  • After Hours Variances

For the above transactions that cannot be processed in eFiling or DOB NOW, mail the application to the appropriate borough office and include on the envelope Attn: Application Processing. The application can also be hand-delivered to the borough office and put in the designated drop-off box. Attach to the application a check or money order for the amount owed payable to the NYC Department of Buildings.

PW1 approvals or objections will be sent to applicants by email. Plan sets will not be returned by email and will need to be picked up from the borough office by pulling a service ticket.

L2: Requests for Overrides, Reductions or Waivers of Civil Penalties for civil penalty paid (CPP) or no relationship to the violation (NRV) can be included with the permit application. L2s for other reasons will continue to require an in-person visit to a borough office.

Transactions without payments

  • Certificates of Occupancy
  • Letters of Completion
  • Data Entry Corrections (DEAR)
  • Withdrawal Requests

For the above transactions that cannot be processed in eFiling or DOB NOW, mail the application to the appropriate borough office and include on the envelope Attn: Application Processing. The application can also be hand-delivered to the borough office and put in the designated drop-off box.

Post Approval Amendments and Supersede Requests

PAA applications and supersede requests that are filed in-person can be dropped off at the borough in the designated drop-off box. There will be no in-person processing. When the PAA status in the Building Information System (BIS) is PAA Fee due, return to the borough office to make the payment.

Locations for mail and drop off transactions

Bronx Borough Office
1932 Arthur Avenue,
5th Floor
Bronx, NY 10457

Brooklyn Borough Office
210 Joralemon Street,
8th Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Manhattan Borough Office
280 Broadway
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10007

Queens Borough Office
120-55 Queens Boulevard,
1st Floor
Kew Gardens, NY 11424

Staten Island Borough Office
10 Richmond Terrace
Borough Hall, 2nd Floor
Staten Island, NY 10301

DOB Outreach to Industry

In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Buildings Department is reminding our industry partners to take special care of their workers and construction sites.

The City’s Department of Health & Mental Hygiene has provided guidance on limiting the spread of COVID-19 which can be found here.

We ask that you be vigilant in monitoring your construction sites. Construction sites closed for a prolonged period of time can themselves pose a hazard to the public. In the event you chose to close a construction site due to illness, cleaning, or merely as a precaution, we ask the following:

Inform
E-mail the Department at COVID-19@buildings.nyc.gov and include in the Subject Line the location of your construction site and the period of time for which you expect it to be closed. Upon reopening the site, use the same e-mail address to update us.

Make Safe
Should you choose to close your site, for the public’s protection you must:

  • Have the site secured to prevent access from any unauthorized personnel. This includes maintenance of construction fencing and posting of permits.
  • Maintain and secure all scaffolding, debris netting, sidewalk sheds, and temporary walkways.
  • Maintain all adjoining property protection.
  • Maintain all guardrails, edge protection systems such as netting and cocoon systems, and floor and shaft opening protection.
  • Store and maintain cranes in accordance with manufacturer recommendations and approved CN drawings.
  • Ensure the proper shoring of excavated sites or backfill.
  • Ensure construction equipment is safely stored and maintained in accordance with manufacturer recommendations.
  • Ensure construction materials are safely stored. Any light-weight materials susceptible to becoming wind-borne must be removed from the site, tied-down, or ballasted.
  • Maintain any fire suppression and detection systems.
  • Maintain all essential utilities.
  • Remove any volatile gases and liquids.
  • Remove any standing water and construction debris.
  • Ensure public sidewalks are clear and clean.

Finally, construction sites requiring a Department-licensed safety professional cannot operate without one. If your safety professional is out sick, they must be replaced or permitted work cannot be performed.

Thank you for all you do to ensure the safety of workers and the public. The Department will be following up with additional communications as appropriate.

Melanie E. La Rocca Commissioner

Die Linke AKA SED Zeigt Ihr Wahres (STASI)-Gesicht – Tote Über Tote – Die Toxdat-Partei Im Machtrausch

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Ein Diskussionsbeitrag auf dem Strategietreffen der Linken zum künftigen Kurs der Partei am vergangenen Wochenende in Kassel hat scharfe Kritik ausgelöst. CSU-Generalsekretär Markus Blume forderte deswegen am Dienstag den Rücktritt von Linke-Chef Bernd Riexinger.

Riexinger müsse sich erklären und die Konsequenzen ziehen. „Der Rücktritt vom Parteivorsitz ist unausweichlich“, schrieb Blume bei Twitter. CDU-Generalsekretär Paul Ziemiak nannte die Haltung der Linken und Riexingers „abscheulich“.

„Deshalb keine Zusammenarbeit mit @dieLinke!“, twitterte er. Hintergrund ist ein Videoausschnitt von dem Treffen, der im Netz verbreitet wurde: Bei einer Diskussionsrunde äußert sich darin eine Teilnehmerin mit den Worten „Energiewende ist auch nötig nach ‘ner Revolution. Und auch wenn wir das ein(e) Prozent der Reichen erschossen haben, ist es immer noch so, dass wir heizen wollen, wir wollen uns fortbewegen…naja, ist so, wir müssen mal von dieser Meta-Ebene runterkommen“.

Im Hintergrund ist ein Raunen zu hören, vereinzelt gibt es Beifall, aber auch Kopfschütteln. Parteichef Riexinger, der auf dem Podium sitzt, greift nach dem Redebeitrag zum Mikrofon und sagt “scherzhaft”:

„Wir erschießen sie nicht, wir setzen sie schon für nützliche Arbeit ein“. 

Hinter den Kulissen zeigen sie ihr wahres Gesicht, während die Ober-SEDler pardon Oberlinken, muss es ja richtig heissen, Kreide fressen…

 

 

 

Must See Video – Carlo Marcello: The Man Behind the JFK Assassination

The One Paragraph You Need to Read from the JFK ...

 

Carlos Marcello The Man Behind the JFK Assassination (English edition: Enigma Books, 2013) (Italian edition: Editori Riuniti, 2013) by Stefano Vaccara.

New Orleans is the true birthplace of the Sicilian mafia in America. Carlos Marcello controlled organized crime in Louisiana and across the Southeast in the 1950s and ’60s. He was untouchable until he met the Kennedy Brothers. Once Robert Kennedy became attorney general, Marcello was deported to Guatemala and swore to seek revenge. It became a duel to the death. Marcello found his “patsy,” a former marine with a Russian wife. Lee Harvey Oswald was the perfect fall guy but he never pulled the trigger.

The author in conversation with: Joseph LaPalombara, Yale University George De Stefano, author Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò New York University February 26, 2014

Murdered – Dorothy Kilgallen killed After She Discovered WHO The Kennedy Assassins Were

Author and former criminal defense attorney, Mark Shaw, speaks about his book “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much” and its follow-up, “Denial of Justice.” Each chronicle not only his 12 years of research but most importantly, the life and times and mysterious death of What’s My Line? TV star and crack investigative reporter Dorothy Kilgallen and her 18-month investigation of the Dallas tragedies which included being the only reporter to interview Jack Ruby at his trial. Shaw also discusses his controversial exposure of the most important JFK assassination documents in history, the Jack Ruby trial transcripts.

#DorothyKilgallen #JFK #JackRuby #OnStageAPL #AllenTexas https://www.AllenLibrary.org