Reading, Drinking and Dancing with a Chaser of Snark

Jimmy Vargas’s mom says goodbye.

This morning, around the same time Táchira State Governor enjoyed an easygoing chat from an air-conditioned Caracas radio booth about how not a single gocho has died during protests on his watch, Jimmy Vargas, 34, was on his way to his charcutería job, as usual. Finding the mall where he worked besieged by the National Guard, he sought shelter from the tear gas and rubber pellets that the Guards was firing indiscriminately into the second floor of the building.

One mis-timed peek out to see what was happening cost him his life. According to eye-witnesses, he fell to his death from the second story balcony after being hit in the face with rubber buckshot (perdigones) and a tear gas cannister and losing consciousness. Once he hit the ground, Jimmy´s lifeless body was repeatedly kicked by the same Guards who shot him, until the…