CurseTheDarkness

This is a spot from an italian estate agency (we are governed by the right-wing party)

The woman says "Ridiculous..."

The old lady is not in her home. She is at work. She's meant to be what in Italian is called "la portinaia", aka a cross between a doorwoman and cleaner of a residential building. She's in her small "office" space, at the entrance of the building, from where she can survey the coming and goings of the inhabitants. It's a job that has mostly disappeared, but is culturally very clear to us as having the connotation of "potentially gossipy, one-million-percent judgmental woman who sees everything that goes on in the apartment complex, knows everyone and their secrets, and has Strong Opinions™️".

It is not good for women to be afraid all the time, and we should not encourage it! When you consume a media diet of mostly true crime, buy a surveillance device for your house, and commiserate with the girlies online about how scary it is to see a man in a public place, you are basically cultivating an anxiety disorder. This will make your life more unpleasant, because you have trained yourself to be scared all the time, and it will not benefit you, because your fears are based on memes, not reality. You're not protecting yourself from anything; you're just giving yourself an extra flinch response.

And it plays right into the hands of conservatives! The right wing would love it if all women, especially all white and/or wealthy women, were terrified to leave their houses alone because they might see a strange man. They want you to be on a quest for One Good Man who will protect you from all other men and to be too scared to go anywhere without him. They want you to be on a hair trigger, ready to call the cops on anyone who makes you uncomfortable, because that is your function within their hierarchy.

If you are a woman, especially a white woman, then your fear is used to justify violence against poor people and people of color, especially men. From the perspective of conservatives, this is what your fear is for. And your fear is, in large part, what you are for.

This photo is known as The Pale Blue Dot. It was taken by Voyager 1, a space probe meant to explore the outer reaches of the solar system. Far from dying, she's still out there doing her job and is the furthest human made object from Earth.

In the mid 80's, they knew Voyager 1 would soon pass beyond where her cameras would matter and she needed to save power, so the question became: what's the last thing she should take a picture of?

Carl Sagan and Carolyn Porco both independently had the same thought: take a picture of Earth. Us. Yes, it would be essentially just one pixel. It wouldn't be scientifically useful. It might even damage the camera because of how intense the sun is, even forty times as far from Earth as Earth is from the Sun. But they got it sorted because it's NASA.

3.7 million (not billion) miles away, that's Earth. Caught in bands of light, artifacts of the Sun's incredible power even 4 million miles away. We are an island in a sea of radiation and vacuum and it's all we have.

I can't say it better than Sagan did, so I'll let you alone with his words:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

— Carl Sagan

Scott Wiener did literally every single thing the Free Palestine movement said was necessary to be a Good Antizionist and it still wasn't good enough.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5944159-wiener-faces-protest-gaza-stance/

California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D), who earlier this month advanced to the November general election to succeed former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said on Saturday that he was “harassed, threatened, and physically intimidated” while attending a march for transgender rights in San Francisco a day earlier.

“As I walked through Dolores Park to participate in a trans-led Pride Shabbat service in connection with the trans march, a group of people began screaming at me, ran up to me, surrounded me, and began harassing me, both verbally and physically, including physical contact,” Weiner wrote in a lengthy statement shared on the social platform X.

A video circulating online showed Weiner walking through the park surrounded by a group of individuals shouting profanities, making obscene gestures and accusing him of “betray[ing] queers” with his stance on Gaza. According to Weiner’s campaign website, he supports Palestinian statehood and describes the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza as genocide.

“You stopped being queer the moment you started supporting Israel, you piece of s—,” one person can be heard yelling in the background of the video, which has racked up more than 6 million views.

Wiener, who is Jewish and openly gay, also claimed that the group of people made comments about his “Israeli handlers,” among other statements he described as “inaccurate, extreme, and vile.”

“They were so physically and verbally aggressive that it was impossible for me to safely remain in the park,” he wrote. “As a result, I left the park and, for the very first time, did not participate in the trans march.”

The Democratic state senator said Friday’s incident followed a separate incident at a popular San Francisco dive bar in which he was “accosted” while watching a World Cup match.

Wiener said the man, who had allegedly confronted him several years ago, “screamed abuse” at him and his staff before being ejecting from the bar.

“I have no objection whatsoever to anyone disagreeing with me, opposing me, or protesting me. All of that is core to democracy,” Weiner wrote. “But when opposition and disagreement transition to harassment, including cornering me, touching me, or trying to physically bully me out of a public event, that crosses a line.”

Weiner is facing San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan in the race to succeed Rep. Pelosi in the House. The pair advanced to a November runoff for the retiring lawmaker’s seat following the June 2 primary.

He is seen as a key player in the “Yes in My Backyard” push for increased housing development, a stance that has put him at odds with some farther-left members of the Democratic Party.

Wiener also faced backlash for hesitating to call the war in Gaza a “genocide” during a congressional candidate forum earlier this year. He later reversed course, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“For many Jews, associating the word genocide with the Jewish state of Israel is deeply painful and frankly traumatic, but despite that pain and that trauma, we all have eyes … and we all have ears,” he said in a video on X. “To me, the Israeli government has tried to destroy Gaza and to push Palestinians out, and that qualifies as genocide.”

Israel has become an ideological flashpoint among Democrats, becoming somewhat of a litmus test in primary races across the country between democratic socialists and more moderate members of the party.

In two separate incidents this week, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) was harassed, threatened, and physically intimidated while attending public events to engage with the San Francisco community. Both incidents were sparked by people who had previously targeted Senator Wiener with aggressive behavior in the past. Senator Wiener issued the following statement on the incidents:

”Last night I attended the trans march, as I’ve done each year for the past 22 years since the first march in 2004. I attend each year in solidarity with our trans siblings, who are facing existential threats from right wing extremists, including the President. It has been a deep honor to partner for many years with trans people to advance legislation and budget requests to support the community.

”As I walked through Dolores Park to participate in a trans-led Pride Shabbat service in connection with the trans march, a group of people began screaming at me, ran up to me, surrounded me, and began harassing me, both verbally and physically, including physical contact. They made statements about my ‘Israeli handlers,’ among many other inaccurate, extreme, and vile statements. They were so physically and verbally aggressive that it was impossible for me to safely remain in the park. As a result, I left the park and, for the very first time, did not participate in the trans march.

“This follows an incident Wednesday night at a bar in the Mission where I’d gone to watch a World Cup game. During the game, a man accosted me in a corner of the bar, effectively cornering me and the young women staffers who were with me. He screamed abuse at me and our staff before being ejected by the bar’s employees. After being ejected, the man remained outside the bar, shouting my name and pounding on the side of the bar near where I was sitting for several minutes. The same individual, in December 2023, stalked me on a plane and in an airport, shouting at me about my ‘tainted bloodline.’

”I have no objection whatsoever to anyone disagreeing with me, opposing me, or protesting me. All of that is core to democracy. I also have no issue when people talk to me on the street and ask questions or express opposition. That’s democracy, even when the people engaging in this conduct misrepresent my views.

“But when opposition and disagreement transition to harassment, including cornering me, touching me, or trying to physically bully me out of a public event, that crosses a line. We’re living in a time when violence is all too often threatened or used against people in public life. In San Francisco, we’re better than that.”