Jean Carlos Nieves Rodreguez

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.  

Jean Carlos Nieves Rodriguez was one of the 49 who died on the evening of June 12, 2016 at the Pulse Nightclub shooting. Staff of the Orange County Regional History Center visited the Rodriguez home to talk to his mother about his life.

Jean Carlo always had high aspirations of working hard.  He was working as a manager in Miami. Just a few months before his death he and his mother bought a house with a pool. His mother DiMarie Rodriguez invited us to that home. DiMarie speaks Spanish and a translator helped conduct the oral history. Jean Carlos sister, Valeria Monroig, was in the kitchen. Once, he told his sister, “I love you more than I love myself.” He always watched out for the family. The room echoed, feeling empty.

Since the house had a pool Jean Carol’s friends would often come over and his mom loved the activity. They brought an energy to the home. On June 13, 2016 they decided to have a BBQ but she had to work, so they pushed it back to June 15, 2016.

Jean Carlos group of friends were debating about what they should do on June 12 and they decided to go to Latin Night at Pulse. This was his fort time going to Pulse. A roommate of Jean Carlos was going back to Columbia on June 16, 2016.  They all decided they should celebrate Wakim’s birthday early. All the friends met at the house before gong to Pulse. They hung out by the pool and had a few beers.

Jean and his mom had a tradition of texting each other before bed. She might text “Night, night” and he might follow with “Love you” to which she would text “Love you more.” That night as she was getting ready for bed she texted, “Night night.” That night she didn’t hear back from him and at 3AM she bolted straight up in bed. She checked his bedroom and the bed was immaculately made. Her heart sank. She texted him, “Where are you?” “Are you still hanging out?” At 5:16 AM she was texting him again. She texted again at 10:47AM as well. She hoped he was with his group of friends. She tried texting again from work. While at work she heard there was a shooting at a downtown club.

Once she found out the shooting was at Pulse, she called her best friend and asked her to help find her son. Her friend could help since she knew English. Her friend called back and said, “You need to leave right now.” She explained that the hospital was full and everything in the area was locked down. “You need to go find your son because this is huge.” She didn’t know where to start looking. She drove to the hospital and found one of the moms who was a long time friend. Together they tried to get information. They were eventually moved to the hotel across the street. There they waited for the survivors list to come out. She prayed for the strength to get through the ordeal.

In a vision she saw him face down. She knew she shouldn’t hope to see his name on the survivor list. By 10AM she officially knew. They came to her house to let her know. Over 700 people showed up for his services. It was overwhelming to see the public outpouring. The Osceola Parkway had to be shut down for the funeral procession. Jean Carlos was laid to rest in Puerto Rico with his grandmother. She regrets that decision and hopes to one day have him back.

Guess Who

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What to O.J. Simpson, George Zimmerman, Casey Anthony, The 45th U.S. President and The Duke have in common? They were all convicted a crime and got off.

Lo G and Colbonyx  are trying to send signs to the world that The Duke, their corrupt and greedy employer and CEO of a record label, is guilty for illegally supplying blood samples to Tim Nugget, CEO of a corrupt tech company called Manogen. The Duke was in a court case but was found innocent even though he wasn’t.

This is the premise for a series of illustrations I did for this local band. I branched towards caricature for the two band members in the series so things get a  bit distorted in a fun way.

Guess Who? is a two-player character guessing game created by Ora and Theo Coster, also known as Theora Design, that was first manufactured by Milton Bradley in 1979 and is now owned by Hasbro.

Each player starts the game with a board that includes cartoon images of 24 people and their first names with all the images standing up. Each player selects a card of their choice from a separate pile of cards containing the same 24 images. The objective of the game is to be the first to determine which card one’s opponent has selected. Players alternate asking various yes or no questions to eliminate candidates, such as:

  • “Is your person a CEO of a record label?”
  • “Is your person greedy?”
  • “Is your person wearing a top hat?

The player will then eliminate candidates (based on the opponent’s response) by flipping those images down until only one is left. Well-crafted questions allow players to eliminate one or more possible cards.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings

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From a September 23, 2020 Orange County Regional History Center Oral History with Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, “You have to be a bit of a realist in these processes where, no matter what you think, you won’t be able to make all the changes that need to be made in days, months. It will be decades of being in the fight. So I have been doing this now for four decades.”

“I know what I know about this. I’ve been in this fight for decades. I haven’t been sitting as a spectator in the arena. I’ve been in the arena.”

“So that is what I say to young people, ‘you want to really bring about change, you need to become the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, the judges, the police officers,  the school teachers, the doctors, the professors in college, the researchers, the entrepreneurs. You need to become all of those if you really want to bring about change.’ ”

“Otherwise they are going to be frustrated if they think that, it is going too happen like that, They are going to be so frustrated. I think that is what we see. Sometimes when you see the violence, the destruction, it is frustration manifesting itself. Because they really don’t understand what the fight is at this point.”

Crossword

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Lo G and Colbonyx of Galia Social, are trying to send subtle signs to the world that The Duke, their corrupt and greedy employer and CEO of a record label is guilty for illegally supplying blood samples to Tim Nugget CEO of a corrupt tech company called Manogen. Duke was in a court case but was found innocent even though they know he was guilty.

In this case they are solving a large crossword puzzle in a museum.

1 across, the clue was, “An insurgent or agitator.”

2 across was, “A male holding the highest hereditary title in the British and certain other peerages.”

3 across was, “Dialectal present tense first-person and third-person singular.”

4 across was, “Culpable of or responsible for a specified wrongdoing.”

1 down was, “A piece of thick, stiff paper or thin pasteboard, in particular one used for writing or printing on.”

2 down was, “Not searched for, requested, or desired.”

3 down was, “A person who steals another person’s property, especially by stealth and without using force or violence.”

4 down was, “An assertion that is believed to be false.”

5 down was, “A long or rambling story, especially one that is implausible.”

COVID Kills Sperm

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A research report in the journal Reproduction stated that COVID-19 may negatively affect sperm quality and reduce fertility in men. The magnitude of that effect may depend on the severity of disease, according to Behzad Hajizadeh Maleki, a doctoral student and research assistant in the department of psychology and sports science at Justus Liebig University in Germany, and Bakhtyar Tartibian, PhD, of the physical education and sports science department at Urmia University in Iran.

The study was conducted with 84 men with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 and 105 men without the disease in Iran. Semen quality, was evaluated at 10-day intervals for up to 60 days. A urologist confirmed that all the men were fertile in the study. Most of the men in the study were in their 30s and “differed substantially” in body weight, body fat percent and Body Mass Index, according to the researchers.

Markers of inflammation and oxidative stress in sperm cells of men with COVID-19 were increased by more than 100% compared with controls, according to the researchers. Sperm concentration was reduced by 516%, mobility by 209% and sperm cell shape was altered by 400%. The magnitude of these changes were also related to disease severity. Antiviral therapies for COVID-19 may have “additional harmful consequences” on male fertility, and that further research is needed.

The moral is clear, get vaccinated or end up like Donnie Dead Balls.

Tip of the Iceberg

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The BMJ reported that as of May 3, 2021 official figures suggested that the Global deaths from covid-19 was 3.27 million. However a study from the University of Washington suggests that the pandemic’s true overall toll will reach 9.43 million deaths by September 2021. The report, based its conclusions on the past year’s deviations from expected overall mortality.

The report states that the virus is claiming about 33,000 lives a day around the world, more than twice reported figures. They estimated the true United States death toll at 905,289 compared with an official figure of 574,043.

In India the disparity between the official reported deaths to the horrors on the ground of hundreds of bodies floating down the Ganges river and crematoria unable to keep up with demand make it obvious that death numbers are far higher than reported. India is forecast to lose a further 842,000 people by September 2021.

Countries who are believed to have under reported Covid-19 deaths include Egypt, India, Mexico, and Russia. India’s death toll as of May 2021 was estimated as 654,395, which is 2.96 times the official figure. Mexico was attributed 617,127 deaths, 2.83 times the official figure. Egypt, was attributed 170,041 deaths, which is 12.6 times the official figure. Russia has the largest number of unreported deaths, they estimate, with a real death toll of 593,610, which is 5.43 times the official estimate. While some governments may attribute deaths in Covid patients to co-morbid conditions to keep their numbers low, the commonest reason for under reporting of Covid-19 deaths is inadequate testing.

Turkey and Brazil are often accused of under counting, but both were reporting more than half of their Covid-19 deaths. Many countries of central and eastern Europe were reporting only one death in three, a ratio also seen across sub-Saharan Africa. The worst under counts were found in the Caucuses and former Soviet republics.

First Fringe Film Festival

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I entered my short animated film Greyhound, in the first Fringe Film Festival going on at the Shakes in Orlando Fl. The screening was on my birthday, May 22, 2021 so I felt I had to go. I have not been documenting this years Fringe due to the ongoing pandemic, but in this instance I decided to make an exception.

The screenings were held at eh Play What You Can Stage in an outdoor tent between the Shakes and the Firehouse museum. Pam and I arrived a bit early and I started sketching the venue right away. We both kept our masks on and other audience members were split with about half wearing masks.

It felt awkward finding a seat with a view of the stage. Finding seats with a full six feet of social distancing was impossible. Before this outing, I liked to keep 4 dead body lengths (about 24 feet) between myself and anyone else. It has been more than a year since I have sketched on location. It seemed like everyone was watching us.

An artist, Gabriella Serralles, was on the stage doing Imprompto Digital Paintings which showed up on the screen. I think she was supposed to be doing pet portraits, but I can’t be sure. There were no dogs in the audience. The staging was all wrong however since she was seated right in front of the screen meaning more than half the audience could not get a clear view of shat she was painting on the screen. When the artist was finished, audience members let and a whole new crowd filled the seats.

The first film was a documentary about a metal working artist who sculpts fish. I didn’t pay close attention since I was frantically trying to finish my sketch. My film was next in line. I kind of assumed my film would be last in the lie up so I was surprised. Up until this night the film had only been screened as part of the Ocoee Exhibition at the Orange County Regional History Center. I am sure people saw it but privately with one or two people at a time. It was therefor a surprise when the audience broke into applause after my film screened. Visual artists aren’t used to that kind of spontaneous affirmation.

My second favorite film for the evening was made by Evan and Christie Miga of Miga Made. It had two robots flying a car through a futuristic world reminiscent of Blade Runner. I love how they take the simplest objects and covert them into props of a high tech world.

We didn’t linger when the screenings were over preferring to remove ourselves from the crowds. I didn’t count how many were in the audience, maybe several dozen, but it was more crowded than I would prefer during a pandemic. The seven day average for deaths in Florida was 58 deaths a day the week of the screening. Which is lower than the several hundred who died every day in January of 2021, but still not reassuring.

COVID ICU Delirium

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The Atlantic reported that COVID-19 patients have been experiencing a sort of living nightmare as they battle the virus in hospitals.

Hallucinations vary, from a feeling of falling in slow motion, to one patient felling that a nurse had taken a circular saw and cut her arm and both of her legs off. The saw then came through the wall and cut her head in half.

Patients suffering from Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). Many of these patients have to be put on a ventilator. 80% of patients on ventilators experience ICU Delirium. Patients are sedated in a medically induced coma to ease the memory of the difficulties. However patients reconstruct false memories from stimulus while sedated.

Patients might look like they are resting, while in reality their brain is on fire. A patient might then wake up in a medically induced haze with a tube down their throat and wrists tied. In war time, that would be considered torture. Patients might feel they are being kidnapped or being tortured. They might see blood dripping down the walls, or people might have animal heads. Children might float by with no faces. If a patient has to get an MRI they might feel they are being put in an oven.

COVID-19 is the perfect storm for Delirium. Patients are put on a high dose of drugs, a longer illness along with absence of family and mobility. Communities around the country and around the world are going to have to deal with a tsunami of survivors who have delirium. Even when patients recover and can rationalize that the things in their head could not have happened, the terror is still very real. The delirium can last even after a patient returns home. One in Four ARDS survivors had PTSD symptoms later in their recovery. Nightmares can get so bad that the recovering patient might wish they had died. Surviving and getting your life back are two different things.

 

India’s COVID Martyrs

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In India on May 16, 2021 fifty doctors died in a single day. 269 doctors have died in the second wave of the virus in India. Last year, 736 doctors had lost their lives during the first wave. The highest number of fatalities have been reported from Bihar (69) followed by Uttar Pradesh (34) and Delhi (27). Only 3% of the doctors who died were fully vaccinated.

Five months into India’s vaccination drive, only 66 per cent of India’s healthcare workers have been fully vaccinated.

Dr. Jayesh Lele, the General Secretary of The Indian Medical Association, (IMA), told NDTV, “It is very unfortunate that we lost 50 doctors yesterday across India and 244 in the second wave since the first week of April”.

“Secondly we want to highlight that doctors are understaffed and overworked. They sometimes work for 48 hours at a stretch without any rest. This adds to the viral load and they ultimately succumb to the infection. The government needs to take measures to boost the healthcare workforce,” he added.

While the The Indian Medical Association (IMA) says that a thousand doctors have died due to Covid so far, the actual numbers may be far higher. The IMA only keeps a record of its nearly 350,000 members. India, however, has more than 1 million 200 thousand doctors. The former president of IMA, Dr. K.K. Aggarwal died on May 17, 2021 from COVID-19. The doctor was infected despite being vaccinated.

Doctors and nurses who are on the front line of the battle against the virus are being stigmatized in India. There are cases of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals, being shunned by others for fear of being infected. This includes the threat of being evicted from their own apartments and general ostracism. People are frightened and superstitious. “They recognize us with our lab coats and stethoscopes. Many doctors have been asked to vacate their rented homes by their landlords as they believe that doctors staying at their houses may make them more susceptible to Covid-19,” a junior doctor at Hyderabad’s MGM Hospital told The New Indian Express newspaper on condition of anonymity.

 

 

Vaccine Incentives

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President Joe Biden has a goal of seeing 70% of Americans vaccinated with at least one shot by July 4, 2021.

Dating Apps including Tinder, Hinge, OK Cupid, BLK, Chipsa, Plenty of Fish, Bumble, and Badoo will be offering badges for singles to display their vaccination status, and give vaccinated users free benefits like boosts, super likes and super swipes.

The apps are also implementing filters so people can see who has been vaccinated as well as promotions and links to vaccine.gov to help people find where to get the shots.

“Hinge will encourage users to share their vaccination status on their profile and give vaccinated users a free ‘Rose,’ which is premium content that indicates to other users that they’re especially excited to get to know them,” the White House said.

“Vaccinated people will also receive a free ‘Boost’ to move their profile to the front of a daters’ stack,” the White House said of the app’s plans. The White House noted that OkCupid has found that people who are vaccinated or who plan to be receive 14 percent more matches compared to those who don’t.

This might seem like small beans compared to “Vax-a-Million” which gives Ohio residents a chance to get one million dollars if they get the shot. The state will pick the name of name of one vaccinated person per week for 5 weeks. The “Ohio Vax-a-Million” lottery will be funded with the state’s federal coronavirus relief dollars, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said during a statewide televised address on May 19, 2021.

Along with Melinda Gates, lets hope the Ohio winners get bumped up to the top of the dater’s stack.