Two Americas

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Dr. Fauci said on an interview with Don Lemon of CNN, “When you have such a low level of vaccination superimposed upon a variant that has a high degree of efficiency of spread, what you are going to see among undervaccinated regions — be they states, cities or counties — you are going to see these individual types of blips. It’s almost like it’s going to be two Americas. You’re going to have areas where the vaccine rate is high, where more than 70% of the population has received at least one dose. When you compare that with areas where you may have 35% of the people vaccinated, you clearly have a high risk of seeing these spikes in those selected areas. The thing that’s so frustrating about this, Don, is that this is entirely avoidable, entirely preventable. If you are vaccinated, you diminish dramatically your risk of getting infected, and even more dramatically your risk of getting seriously ill. If you are not vaccinated, you are at considerable risk.”

In Florida Cruise ships have started sailing and unvaccinated guests are being allowed to board. Vaccinated guests, identified with special wristbands, get full run of the ship, while those unprotected from the virus won’t even be able to walk into the bar, casino, or spa. Since June there have already been cases of guests testing positive for COVID-19 while at sea. Two unvaccinated teenagers who tested positive and had to be flown back to the states from the Bahamas and  two asymptomatic guests testing positive on a ship from St. Maarten. Two vaccinated guests and one unvaccinated crew member on an Alaska cruise tested positive for COVID-19 as well.

The CDC recommends at least 95% of passengers and crew be vaccinated. However Florida’s governor Ron DeatSantis filed a lawsuit insisting that unvaccinated people must be allowed to sail. Norwegan Cruise Line is suing the state of Florida because of this ban on vaccine passports. The unvaccinated want total freedom and the vaccinated resent having to wear masks because unvaccinated lower class are on board. The only way to keep both sides happy is to insist that only vaccinated guests can go on the ships. Quite honestly anyone who wants to sail on a cruise death trap during a pandemic is insane. It turns out there are plenty of insane Americans.

The Rural Unvaccinated

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The number of American getting vaccinated fr COVID-19 has plummeted over the past several months. The number of people getting vaccinated each day has dropped 88% from April of 2021. Americans have been offered free beers, scholarships and multi million dollar lottery prize but many don’t want the vaccine. States with the lowest vaccination rates supported the former president.nws is specifically encouraging it’s viewers to not get vaccinated.

With the Delta variant spreading like wildfire across the country, the unvaccinated are falling sick and dying. Frustratingly those deaths are “completely avoidable” now that vaccines are available. Across the country, more than 99% of US Covid-19 deaths in June were among unvaccinated people, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Coronavirus case numbers are rising sharply in the Sunshine State once again as the Delta variant spreads. The Florida Department of Health reported more than 23,000 new coronavirus cases last week — an 8,000-case increase over the previous week. Only 58% of the eligible population in Florida has gotten vaccinated. A sharp rise in COVID-19 cases has prompted Orange County to abruptly change course and suggest that all people, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks when in crowded environments. The announcement by Mayor Jerry Demings came late Monday July 12, 2021 at an Orange County coronavirus news briefing. “A pandemic within a pandemic is starting to occur,” he said. Orange county’s 14-day rolling positivity rate hit 7.8% on Monday, almost double that of 4.28% two weeks ago. 406 cases of new infections were reported to Florida department of health July 11, 2021. The party only ends one way for the unvaccinated.

Playalinda Beach

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After I finished teaching on Sunday at Crealde, Pam, her niece and I headed out to Playalinda beach. We had never been to this beach before so it was an adventure for all of us. Playalinda is known for having a nude beach section and research on the road trip indicated the nude section was at the 13th parking lot.

Being a park on the Canaveral National Seashore, it costs money to get into Playalinda. A car load costs $20. For $40 you can get a yearly pass and Pam decided to get that since it would be paid off in just two beach trips. We quickly realized that these beaches are much less crowded than at Coco Beach. The water was a magnificent turquoise and deep blue and there were no rocks leading out to the surf.

Even I have to admit that the water was warm and delightful. The waves were gentle and rolling rather than threatening.

I decided I was not getting a sun burn this beach day. Sun screen was slathered on at home and I kept my white t shirt on even when I went out inn the waves. I stayed under the beach umbrella and kept my white Pocahontas beach towel over my legs the whole time to be sure my legs didn’t turn beat red. The last beach day I slathered some sun screen on my chest and shoulders and found out the next day that I had only applied sunscreen to a few patches and the resulting red pattern made me look like a camouflaged burn victim. Hopefully this trip I avoided getting to much sun. I suppose I will know by tomorrow.

Pam and her niece wanted to see the nude beach, so we drove to lot 13. They walked out to the beach to have a look but I stayed behind in the air conditioned car. If there isn’t enough time to sketch naked butts, I am not interested. Apparently there were quite a few very large naked men on the beach.  The larger the man, the smaller the dangling bits tend to appear.

After Pulse: Roberta Blick

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Roberta Blick moved to Orlando in 1986. She became a member at Windermere Union Church teaching oil painting. Nancy Rosado another member of the church came in on Sunday morning, to enlist volunteers to help first responders at Pulse. Roberta wanted to participate. She said, “What can I do?” Her son heard her and he said, “Do what you  do best mom, and make a quilt.”

So she sat down in her hospice chair, and she watched the TV seeing all those beautiful people from Pulse. Their gorgeous eyes looked at her. It broke her heart. She had to do something with all those wonderful people. She got to know them. She gathered pictures of each of the 49 young people and she transferred the photos onto plain white cotton. She began making the quilt out of her white squares of fabric.

When she got all the squares finished she had to lay them all out on the floor of her sewing room. She called some people from church and they helped her make a nice big square out of it. It became a big quilt with all 49 pictures on it. She worked on it all week and that next Sunday she brought it to church. Nancy Rosado was there and she sat down next to her. Nancy took the quilt to share with others. Nancy got so many amazing people to sign it. The first names o the quilt were fellow church members.

It pleased Roberta so much that something we were doing helped others. Nancy said that some of the people who came into her office didn’t even have a picture of their child. That must be such an awful feeling to not have a picture of the child they love so much. Anyone who is a mother would know that. Her first thought was to create something that would have a beautiful picture. Friends from church wrote the name of each one of the children, and the names went above their picture.

The quilt traveled everywhere.  Nancy would sit down beside Roberta to tell her who had signed the quilt. She said President Obama had signed it. He had put a special thanks to Roberta because he heard she was an old woman. That meant so much. The only thing that hurts is that she did not think to start doing it earlier of the Sandy Hook babies and others who died needlessly. Think of the impact walking into a room an having all those beautiful eyes looking back at you. Think of the impact for all of those mothers and fathers. Think of all the beautiful people who have been killed. Look what they have done.

At a one year remembrance exhibit the the Orange County Regional History Center, 453 family members of victims saw Roberta’s quilt in one and a half hours. Thousands of photos must have been taken of that quilt on exhibit. Roberta Blick died December 20, 2017 from cancer.

 

Nurse Magneto

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Nurse Magneto appeared before an Ohio House meeting to claim that COVID-19 vaccinations cause people to become magnetized. She wedged the key in her cleavage and the tried to get the same key to stick to her neck. It refused to stick. It as a laughable fail, yet people believe this shit.

The CDC says that the vaccine cannot make you magnetic. “Receiving a COVID-19 vaccine will not make you magnetic, including at the site of vaccination which is usually your arm. COVID-19 vaccines do not contain ingredients that can produce an electromagnetic field at the site of your injection,” the CDC says. “All COVID-19 vaccines are free from metals such as iron, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and rare earth alloys, as well as any manufactured products such as microelectronics, electrodes, carbon nanotubes, and nanowire semiconductors.”

Get vaccinated folks. Less than half the people in Florida are smart enough to be fully vaccinated so far. The Delta variant first found in India is ravaging the state. An Israeli study found an amazing high rate of breakthrough infections. If you are fully vaccinated, you are about 64% protected against Delta which will be the predominant strain of the virus by August. If you aren’t vaccinated you are facing a highly virulent strain of the virus. The unvaccinated continue to die. Over 4 million people have died world wide from the COVID-19 virus. Get the shot.

After Pulse: Nancy Rosado

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Nancy Rosado was is native New Yorker. She is a retired sergeant from the New York Police Department. She was in New York City when 9-11 happened. She moved to Florida in 2008. She became involved in politics and community activism.

Sunday morning June 12, 2016 she got a phone call which woke her up. “Oh my god, 20 people are dead.” She turned on the TV an brought herself up to speed. Her partner said, “This is not going to be a good day.”  Nancy was immediately thinking ahead to the psychological effects on a marginalized community. It had been Latin night. It would have a huge impact on the Latino community.

On Sundays Nancy goes to church. She got ready for church. On the drive to church, she had to take a detour to the LGBTQ Center. She met friends and let others know how she could help moving forward. She did get to church for a minute but had to leave and she went to the hospital.

The mood a the hospital was like a funeral. Here people looked like her. She and a friend started talking to people inn the room in Spanish. People were so relieved. Everything as being said in English. Latino names were massacred. A politician and a police chief were in the front of the room. She asked why they were addressing people just in English. Both languages could be used. Most people in the room were Spanish. They asked everyone to move to the Hampton Inn. No one wanted to move to the Hampton Inn. Their loved one might be in the hospital. The police chief made the announcement to move to the Hampton Inn in Spanish and there was an audible sigh of relief in the room. She advised the politician to pray and you could hear a pin drop as everyone grew silent. It became a smoother process to move everyone to the Inn. There were a lot of cooks in the kitchen at that point. She left for a while but could not stay away.

She was hoping there would be some order when she returned and maybe she could help somehow. She returned later in the evening. A large group of her friends were there to help. They agreed that what was happening was culturally insensitive. It was also an LGBTQ issue.

She helped found Somos Orlando but once it was up and running, she stepped back. The four women founders had one mission in mind, that this was a crime committed against Latinos. 23 of this who passed away were Puerto Rican. 68 Latinos were injured. Where are the organizations to back these people up? The four founders remained behind after a press conference and realized their message could not end there. So Somos Orlando was born. It started as a hashtag. The Hispanic Federation gave money and it picked up steam. A huge office space was rented to build capacity in Orlando.

Nancy always wanted culturally and linguistically competent delivery of services to the community and most importantly mental health. Nancy has first hand experience about what happens when PTSD is left to fester. PTSD can pop up 5 years out or 10 years out. It could be the sight of something it could be the smell of blood, it could be anything. These marginalized communities do not have the resources to pay for mental health.

 

After Pulse: Anna Eskamani

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Anna Eskamani is an activist in Central Florida. At the time of the oral history she was a senior policy director at Planned Parenthood. She has since been elected the State Representative for District 47.

The day before the Pulse shooting, June 11, 2016, which was a Saturday, Anna had a meeting at a coffee shop across from the Plaza Live. There were trucks around the Plaza because there had been a shooting there the night before. Singer Christina Grimmie had been killed outside the venue. They were discussing advocacy for gun safety. The crime scene was a reminder of why they do the work they do.

Later that day she went to the Don Quixote awards that the Hispanic Chamber does each year. She met a friend she hadn’t seen in a while and felt good when she left. She and her sister live a mile and a half from Pulse. Her sister was sleeping, jet lagged from a long plane flight having returned from vacation. Anna went to bed herself and woke up to the sound of helicopters about 3AM. She checked her phone and saw notifications from CNN. The Pulse nightclub had a shooting. She began texting Latino friends to see if they were OK. She had to turn on the TV and they kept playing the same footage over and over. On Facebook she found that the husband of one of her friends was an emergency responder, so he was in the hospital helping get people there. At the time there was a rumor that there was a gunman inside the hospital. She supported her friend by phone.

She was going to work out that morning with a trainer and she kept putting it off. She needed to see the next press conference. She finally decided she wanted to keep some semblance of normalcy and went to the work out. They trained outside and the sound of helicopters were even more predominant. She cut the workout short. She couldn’t do it. She has 185 co-workers and they began texting. Mass e-mails went out to staff to make sure they were OK. Planned Parenthood wanted to issue a   statement. This was before anyone knew the final count. Anna began crafting a statement for the national office. She hadn’t cried yet. She finally cried on a phone call with a co-worker.  She had been to Pulse in the past and she had friends who go to Pulse. The emotions welled up. She got the statement off to National and local press.

About 4PM there was a press conference at the Center. She needed to be there to show solidarity. The Center became the hub for the response in the beginning. She wore a t shirt that said “My Health My Life No Matter What.” It was so hot inside. The AC was not working. People were crying. There was so much press. There were at least 30 cameras. She wasn’t planning to speak. However all the advocacy groups were asked to speak. She got nervous. She spoke about how Planned Parenthood stands in solidarity with the LGBTQ community. Planned Parenthood is no stranger to violence and the community can not be paralyzed by violence. She pointed out, the community needs to push back and just like the health centers our spaces need to remain safe. This is very real for all of us. In Florida no practical efforts are being made to insure that when you go to school or you walk your neighborhood, or go to a club or movie theater, that you will  actually be able to get back home.

After Pulse: Carlos Guillermo-Smith

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Carlos Guillermo-Smith represents East Orlando House District 49 in the Florida House of Representatives. He was elected in November of 2016. He is Florida’s first openly gay Latin X lawmaker.

When Pulse happened he was a declared candidate for the Florida House. On the evening of June 11, 2016 he was at a Union Conference at the Double tree Hotel near Universal Studios. After the conference he went home.

Carlos found out about the shooting on his phone. He got a series of push notifications. He woke up a 5:30Am and those messages were the first thing he saw. Two messages stood out in particular. One was a CNN push alert, and another was from WFTV Channel 9. The CNN notification announced reports of a mass shooting in an Orlando night Club. He sat bold upright in bed and tried to process.

He then went on Facebook, and he turned on the TV to see CNN which had limited reports. Helicopters hovered over the club. Other than what he saw, he didn’t have any facts. People began to mark themselves safe on Facebook. He got text messages asking if he was OK. He got a blanket e-mail from the CEO of Equality Florida making sure everyone was alive. Everyone needed to confirm. He decided the easiest way to check to see if his friends were OK, was to look at each Facebook profile at a time to see if they had marked themselves as safe. For others he fired off texts. Anyone could have been there that he knew. That morning, Terry DeCarlo was the first person he recognized on TV.

When they announced that 20 people were deceased, panic started to set in. When Mayor Buddy Dyer went on TV and announced that actually 50 people were deceased, Carlos sat speechless. He didn’t know what to feel. He bean to think, “What next?” This was his community, he needed to get in gear. The need to emotionally process was overwhelmed by the need to act. Next pp was an 8Am conference call with Equality Florida. They agreed  to deploy and find out what the needs were. There were 5 Orlando staff. One of things they agreed needed to be done right away was to create a Go Fund Me page to raise money for people impacted. Ida Eskamani figured out how to launch the Go Fund Me. That Go Fund Me page raised 9.5 million dollars.

What do people know about Orlando other than the theme parks? We needed to show that Orlando was not a broken community or a hateful community, we are an inclusive and caring community. He made his way to the Center. It was packed. There were too many cooks inn the kitchen. He felt he wasn’t needed there so he made his way to a press conference of Muslim and LGBTQ leaders. At this press conference he spoke with Pastor Joel Hunter who leads the largest evangelical church in Central Florida. They shook hands and an APP photographer snapped a photo. In “Christian America” a large publication the pastor said he was embarrassed that this hand shake as the first time he had met Carlos. He felt he wasn’t doing any outreach to the LGBTQ community. He said, “Evangelicals must repent on LGBTQ oppression.

Next was a 5PM press conference at the Center.  This was to be the LGBTQ communities press conference. Every LGBTQ leader as there. This was their official response to the tragedy. It was so hot in the Center. There were so many bodies. The press were not local. It was international media. This was also when he first saw some of his closest friends. When you see familiar faces after such horror, that is when you start to process what is happening. Christopher Hanson, a survivor of the shooting walked up to Carlos and hugged him. They are now friends.

That night there was a faith service and Carlos offered a few words. By this time things were n overdrive with phone calls and text messages. His campaign staff helped manage it. The rest of the day was a blur. Weeks and even months later he began processing the news coverage. The next day was the first vigil for the 49. The day was a bur of media phone calls up until the vigil  at Dr. Phillips. Carlos was on the program. He went feeling unprepared. He peered around the stage, he saw the crowd and was stunned. He had prepared his remarks to be bi-lingual. He was nervous about what he needed to say in Spanish. He wanted to get it right. It turned out he was one of the few who spoke Spanish in the program.

Last minute changes happened. He realized there wasn’t much Muslim representation among the speakers. A friend of his, Rasha Mubarak, was Muslim and had a long history of involvement with the LGBTQ community. He found her nearby, and asked her if she could speak at a moments notice. She thought and said, “OK.” No pressure. He decided it was better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. After his remarks he would be with Nancy Rosado reading the names of the 49 victims. It was the first time the 49 names were read in a public space.  The Segway between his remarks and the reading of the names, he squeezed Rasha in. Her shared remarks form the Muslim and Islamic community and shared in the responsibility of reading the 49 names.

Saint Augustine Food Tour

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Pam set up a food tour on July 4, 2021 for her niece in Saint Augustine. The tour guide told me thee would be 6 stops on the tour, so I discuses my sketch page into 6 sections. I knew ther would be little time to sketch so these small thumbnails would have to suffice. We all met at Old City House across the street from The Leitner Museum and City Hall. This was my favorite stop. We were served large shrimp over a bed of mashed potatoes and asparagus. Neither Pam or her niece like shrimp so I got to eat theirs. I was full by the time we left for the second stop on the tour. Historical stories all seems to abound with insanity fueled by laudanum. Henry Flagler’s wife was certifiably instance and he had her institutionalized and then married her nurse.

‘The second stop was Ancient City Brunch Bar where we had pitchers of Sangria and some French toast slices. Here we got to hear out tour guides back story having been born in Chile and being do-ted by Jewish parents in America and moving south to Saint Augustine. The city is small with a crush of tourists. Between stops we stopped in front of a former Woolworths where black sit ins were held in 1964. I hadn’t realized the Saint Augustine was such a epicenter of civil rights activism. I thinks the stories told about the Civil rights era were my favorite on the tour.

We then stopped into Athena’s Greek Restaurant for some flaming saginaki, which is a delicious cheese. The red wine served was strong and bitter but went well paired with the cheese. I didn’t finish my wine, preferring to focus on the sketch. From here we went to a store which had tasting stations to try herb infused olive oils. The several I tried were delicious and Pam picked up several items here. Notably she bought an infused mayonnaise. I note this since I was handed the mayonnaise any time she rummaged through her bag. I leaned my umbrella up against a counter as I sketched knowing this would be a quick stop. We left in a rush and I didn’t have time to get my sketchbook back into my bag.

At the next stop, a cigar store and Cuban Cafe and Bakery, I realized I had forgotten my umbrella. Grey clouds quickly loomed overhead and it started to rain as we sat outside away from the cigar smoke. A trickle became a deluge as we ran through the stone covered streets to put next destination. The guide ran up onto a bed and breakfast porch to tell us a story which was once again about insanity and laudanum. Huge lakes formed on the streets.

The rain let up just a bit and we started our way to the last stop. Pam let me use the small folding umbrella which kept my sketchbook dry. However the sky opened up again and it poured as we ran past a cemetery. Everyone was soaked to the bone. The last stop was a cheese cake store right beside the cemetery. We had three slices to taste, and my favorite was the chocolate one. The walls of the parlor were a deep purple chocolate color. Each cheesecake was paired with a sip of wine.

Pam called the store where I left my umbrella but the damage was already done. The rain had come down so hard at a 45 degree angle so even the large umbrella might not have made a difference.

Capone’s

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Pam got tickets to Capone’s Dinner Theater and we went with her aunt and niece. Actors hinted that this was the first performance they had done without masks. We ended up at this amazing table right next to the stage which was perfect for sketching. Masks were required according to a sign, but few people wore them. I hope everyone was fully vaccinated. We wore our masks until we got to the table.

Capone’s used to have an open buffet but that changed when the pandemic hit. I ordered a pesto pasta dish and it was quite good. The performers were quite good especially the female lead who played a ditsy dame. The premise was that the entire audience was there for an evening of illegal gambling.

It was set up as a speakeasy and we had to wait for a knock at a secret doorway and give the password to get in. Mug shots were immediately taken upon entry. Later in the evening we were offered newspapers with the mugshots plastered across the front page.

This was the first indoor theater I have sketched in over a year. It felt good. The venue did a decent job of keeping tables separated. I ended up becoming part of the act when a male lead noticed me sketching during the intermission. In the second half of the show he asked to see the sketch and held it up for those audience to see. Then came a Bob Ross joke about how my hair had caught fire and burned off. This is actually not far from the truth. A week later the actor internet stalked me to inquire about the sketch. He asked another actor about the artist who sketches performances and I wasn’t hard to find. Not many artists are out there doing what I do.

The bottom line is this was a fun night of dinner theater. I would highly recommend it if you have guests looking for a fun night out.