Mosquito Alcatraz

Posted on by Thor

By Thomas Thorspecken

My friend, Stella P. Arbelaéz Tascón had to pick up art from from the Morean Gallery in Saint Petersburg and she also had to go to the Colombian consulate in MIami to pick up her national ID, a document which she had to renew. She had the brilliant idea of also going to the Everglades to see the protests happening against Alligator Alcatraz.

Alligator Alcatraz is a 3000 bed concentration camp being build with tents on Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport which was abandoned due to its being an environmental travesty. The point of this facility is the cruelty.

Since this was such a far drive we decided to camp overnight near the protest in the Big Cypress National Preserve. When we got to the entrance of the detention center there were unfortunately no protestors. Stella decided to talk to the State Trooper. She parked her Prius at the entry way and the trooper said over a loud speaker that she would have to move her vehicle, which she did. I stayed in the car with her dog, Boo Boo, who always is nervous when he looses sight of her. She explained that we were illustrative journalists and wanted to know when the protestors were usually out. She was told that there had been maybe ten protestors in the morning. A man standing near a federal vehicle  joked condescendingly that the “they all leave the moment the first mosquito come out.”

Disappointed, we decided to go to the campground she reserved, to set up our tents. We planned to experience what it was like to camp in the Everglades like the inmates. The site had a covered picnic table and a small fire pit. It overlooked a lake which would be nice when the sun rose in the morning. I threw my art bag on the picnic table and we threw the first tent on the ground to set it up. As I was unfolding a tent, Stella shouted, “Thomas, look at your legs, you are covered!”. Sure enough there were what seemed like hundreds of mosquitoes on the backs of my legs. Stella scrambled to get the bug spray out of the hatchback. I sprayed my legs frantically, but they kept buzzing around my face and ears. it was a full on frontal assault. Stella has walked through the Everglades on her 2020 through hike of the Florida National Scenic Trail, but this was too much. She shouted, “To hell with this!” and we threw the half unfolded tent into the Prius and drove off in haste. It took us another 45 minutes to kill all the mosquitoes that had followed us into the car. It was pure madness, absolute hell.

We drove past the entrance to Alligator Alcatraz one more time, and saw a single woman holding a sign that said, “They kill Latinos here.” I admired her tenaciousness.

We pulled into an Indian Reservation parking lot and decided to find rooms in a La Quinta Inn near the Miami airport. Airplanes flew over the hotel all night long, but it was preferable to having a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing in my ears. I slept like a baby that night, so thankful I wasn’t in a tent being eaten alive. I decided that a much better name for the horrific detention center was Mosquito Alcatraz.

Webster Westside Flea Market

Posted on by Thor

By Thomas Thorspecken

My friend Stella P. Alberaéz Tascón and I went to sketch and shop at the Webster Westside Flea Market. This produce sales area is just a fraction of what can be found at the market. We set up on and near a wooden bench.

Stella’s little grey dog, Boo Boo was a star attracting the attention of so many patrons who were entering the market. He would stretch out the leash to get all the attention and pets. Stella remarked that she heard the faint barking of dogs, but I couldn’t hear a thing.

The stand we were sketching has been at the market for three generations. There were green peppers, cucumbers, green beans and other assorted fresh produce. Some of the sellers had thick southern accents which they played up.

With our sketches complete we began to shop. Stella had a little granny cart which saved us the trouble of carrying so many bags of vegetables. I got some bananas, apples and Stella introduced me to three Colombian fruits, Tamarind, Passion Fruit and Mamey, also known as Zapote. I now have a jar of Tamarind which comes in brown pea shaped pods. The fruit is delicious, being a deep red and having a sharp and sweet taste. Mamey is an amazing sweet snack, being bright yellow inside with soft edible seeds and the passion fruit is bright orange inside and easily scooped up with a spoon. Stella, who was born in Colombia, and came to America when she was 15, explained that you could have a different fruit every day of the year in Colombia and never run short of varieties.

Next to these market stalls there were many young puppies for sale in cages. Some pups looked playful while other looked like they were desperate to escape. Behind all these stalls is a vast array of stalls called the Swaporama, for flea market items. I haven’t explored this area yet. I am imagining it is like Renninger’s in Mount Dora but multiplied by 10. I enjoy shopping at this market where you can get fruit at a fraction of what you would pay at Publix. There is also an area of a cattle auction which I hope to return to and sketch.

Mu Detected in Local Sewage

Posted on by Thor

The Mu COVID-19 variant (B.1.621) has been detected in Altamonte Springs, Florida sewage. The virus is shed it in stool or urine. Tests are done on the waste water as a predictor for possible transmissions in a community.

The variant has also been found in 49 other states. As of Oct. 29, 2021 the Mu variant accounts for less than 1 percent of all COVID-19 infections in the U.S., according to the GISAID Initiative, which is an organization that promotes the rapid sharing of data from all influenza viruses and COVID-19. It is still the dominant strain of COVID-19 in Colombia, where it was originally found.

People did not consider Delta to be much of a concern when it came to the United States from India back in June. When a virus takes a foothold it grows at an exponential rate. By the time everyone realized it is a problem it is already too late.

Mu has mutations already in Delta ( B. 1.617. 2) but it also has mutations from Alpha (B.1.1.7), which was also known to be highly transmissible. A lab study pre-print suggests, that Mu is the most immune evasive virus we’ve seen in the pandemic. It could be able to evade the immunity provided by vaccines and prior infections. It has been listed as a a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization since August 30, 2021.

“Mu looks potentially good at immune evasion,” Danny Altmann, PhD, an immunologist at Imperial College London, told The Telegraph. “For my taste, it’s a stark reminder that this isn’t by any means over. On a planet of 4.4 million-plus new infections per week, there are new variants popping up all the time, and little reason to feel complacent.”