Core of the Watermelon

#ActsofPride Day 11 - Favorite LGBTQIA+ historical figure

“Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky, and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.” - Josephine Baker



Tumblr Creatr @Rose contributed this original work based on today’s prompt celebrating the iconic Josephine Baker. The American-born world renowned Black bisexual dancer, actress, singer, civil rights champion, and WWII French resistance agent rose to fame in the 1920s and quickly became one of the most famous entertainers in her adopted home of France. Pablo Picasso and Earnest Hemingway were also huge fans.

The artist told us a little about why Baker inspires her:

“Josephine Baker was hailed as ‘The Black Venus’ by fellow artists of her time. Though she fled the oppression she faced in America in 1925 to live the majority of her life in France, she returned often to fight for civil rights, speaking alongside Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington. Now more than ever, it is vital to lift up queer Black lives and histories, and Josephine’s is one of pure resilience, love, and absolute joy” 

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but i think thats not bad. my dad has wanted to be a musician forever, and hes rly pretty good. but then he joined the military to get away from an abusive family, and then he got married, and then he got divorced, and a lot of horrible shit HAPPENED. he has ptsd and severe anxiety and he could never really get back on the horse. and he never made it as a musician, and now hes 53

but i grew up in a house full of instruments, and he can play all of them, and some of my earliest memories are of him playing guitar on the front porch and me thinking there wasnt a better musician in the world. so. even if you dont get to the stars, exactly, what you do isnt worthless. its not a waste of time if life is difficult and you cant make it, or if you arent famous, or if your work doesn’t influence thousands of people. it will influence someone

“Listen,” says the mayor, opening the windows of his office. From the street below rises the sound of human voices. “Before I became mayor 14,000 cars passed along this street every day. More cars passed through the city in a day than there are people living here.”

Miguel Anxo Fernández Lores has been mayor of the Galician city since 1999. His philosophy is simple: owning a car doesn’t give you the right to occupy the public space.

“How can it be that the elderly or children aren’t able to use the street because of cars?” asks César Mosquera, the city’s head of infrastructures. “How can it be that private property – the car – occupies the public space?”

a metro-style map of pontevedra shows typical walking times. 

“They stopped cars crossing the city and got rid of street parking, as people looking for a place to park is what causes the most congestion. They closed all surface car parks in the city centre and opened underground ones and others on the periphery, with 1,686 free places. They got rid of traffic lights in favour of roundabouts, extended the car-free zone from the old city to the 18th-century area, and used traffic calming in the outer zones to bring the speed limit down to 30km/h.

The benefits are numerous. On the same streets where 30 people died in traffic accidents from 1996 to 2006, only three died in the subsequent 10 years, and none since 2009. CO2 emissions are down 70%, nearly three-quarters of what were car journeys are now made on foot or by bicycle, and, while other towns in the region are shrinking, central Pontevedra has gained 12,000 new inhabitants. Also, withholding planning permission for big shopping centres has meant that small businesses – which elsewhere have been unable to withstand Spain’s prolonged economic crisis – have managed to stay afloat.

flickr/rodolforamallo

“The city is the perfect size for pedestrianisation,” says local architect Rogelio Carballo Soler. “You can cross the entire city in 25 minutes. There are things you could criticise, but there’s nothing that would make you reject this model.”

…

“Pontevedra is well connected by road and rail. It sits on the A Coruña-Tui railway and motorway corridor. Pontevedra is located between the Galician capital Santiago de Compostela (58 km to the north) and the largest Galician municipality, Vigo (30 km to the south). Pontevedra city itself does not have an airport in its municipality but the city is relatively close to the airports of Lavacolla to the north (in the municipality of Santiago de Compostela) and Peinador to the south (in the municipalities of Redondela, Mos and Vigo). A good network of roads and motorways efficiently connects Pontevedra with the other Galician cities, and also with Portugal (55 km to the south), and inland (100 km to the eastern city of Ourense). Regular bus lines link Pontevedra with other Galician cities and towns, as well as with Madrid, Porto and Lisbon (among others).

The AVE high-speed train (in Spanish Tren de alta velocidad, or TAV) reaches Pontevedra and the city is a stop in the “Atlantic Line”, running from the northern Galician city of A Coruña to Lisbon (Portugal).[22][23][24] Likewise, Pontevedra will benefit from the high-speed train connecting Galicia and central Spain. That Galician connection will be fully operational in 2018.[25]Despite the fact that Pontevedra was once the main Galician port, at present the tiny Pontevedra harbour is only used for recreational purposes, not for cargo or passenger transportation. Neighbouring Marín is a major military and commercial harbour 7 km away.”

Wikipedia which is really quite interesting. 

Here’s what their official government page says, via google translate from Galician into English:

“Accessibility

The integrating city. 

That was one of the main goals of urban reform, which is practically achieved throughout the public space of Pontevedra. Starting from a global approach, accessibility to facilitate an independent life for everyone was a fundamental axis of the whole transformation.If the barrier-free work is for those who find it more difficult to walk (wheelchair users, older people, moms and dads with baby strollers, etc.), it also works for everyone else, who runs between ramps and stairs. they often use ramps.

Testing the works

In the first phase of urban reform, when the technicians were still not very familiar with the features of these works, it was the members of the Friendship association who tested the result before receiving it as fit. Thus, unique ramps and platforms, which make life easier for so many people, have a very resolute resolution.

Illuminated

In addition to the configuration of the street or square, public lighting is of primary importance, especially when thinking of the elderly or those with some type of visual difficulty. The lighting has been enhanced throughout the city, both in strictly pedestrian and mixed-use spaces. At some points, light intensities on pedestrian crossings have been enhanced.

Accessible trails

The city is the epicenter of several trails accessible to anyone who has or wants to use a few wheels to get around. All departing from the capital, except for the Gafos River, are wheeled. Both the Mirador and the Alameda parks as well as the Senda do Lérez and those that make up the Xunqueira de Alba water complex can be covered from start to finish in good accessibility conditions. Likewise, all the coastal walk between the city and the river (axis Buenos Aires - Uruguay - Corbaceiras - Av. De Marín) can be crossed without any impediment.”

Back to the Guardian article:

Post reads as follows

I performed an emergency surgery several months ago to treat a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. The patient could have died, but we were able to stabilize her and send her home the same day.

She called my office this week in tears asking why we did not reimplant her pregnancy in her uterus, why did we not offer her this option. Because maybe her baby didn’t have to die.

Pseudoscience is invading my operating room and my relationship with my patients. This poor woman had to have emergency surgery, and then grieved the loss of a pregnancy that was never viable, that could have killed her.

And now she is grieving it again because politicians who lack even the most basic understanding of the physiology of pregnancy are dangling untruths in front of her and calling it fact.

In case anyone reading this is wondering, THIS IS NOT A THING. It is NOT POSSIBLE to reimplant ectopic pregnancies into the uterus. These are NOT viable pregnancies, and all the wishing in the world, the magical thinking, the political grandstanding, will not make it so.

This is the reproductive system in question.

Interesting, right? I’ve been told it looks like a shark.

In viable pregnancies, a fertilized egg (known as a zygote in biology) implants in the wall of the uterus.

As the pregnancy progresses, the zygote grows. Cells undergo mitosis (where the cells replicate) and differentiation (where the cells take on special jobs and become organ systems). At full term, the zygote resembles a baby we know.

The placenta delivers nutrients to the fetus and helps detoxify wastes. From the placenta comes the umbilical cord, which serves a similar purpose. The fetus’ head presses against the cervix, through which it will pass during birth. The part in the circle are the pregnant person’s internal organs! The uterus smooshes them to make room. It’s no wonder they use the restroom so often!

In an ectopic pregnancy, however, the zygote doesn’t implant correctly.

It can implant in a variety of places (including the fallopian tube, pictured) to which it is not suited.

After it implants, it continues to undergo mitosis (which we talked about earlier). Whereas the uterus is equipped to deal with this exponential growth, other parts of the body are not.

As the zygote grows, it puts immense strain on the organ it implanted in. If it continues to grow too long, it can rupture! The zygote will lose blood supply and will quickly die. The pregnant person will begin to bleed internally without proper medical care. Left alone, it can lead to death of the pregnant person.

This diagram is a little complex, but put very simply, because the zygote hasn’t implanted in the right place originally, it cannot be removed and implanted in the correct one. It won’t be able to fuse correctly with the uterus, or to send signals to develop the umbilical cord and placenta we talked about earlier, not to mention that the rupture causes blood to be diverted from the zygote, effectively killing it before it can be implanted.

Not only is it futile, but it’s unsafe for the pregnant person. Ectopic pregnancies cause blood loss, which is exacerbated by further surgical intervention. Exposure to external environments exposes the zygote to infection, and surgical implantation exposes the pregnant person to infection, which could also lead to pregnancy complication or loss.

Iran’s admission that it accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane has been met with international demands for a full investigation into the disaster, in which 176 people died during a period of soaring tensions between Tehran and Washington.

A statement on Iran’s official IRNA news agency on Saturday morning said the military had made an “unforgivable mistake” in targeting Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 shortly after it took off from Tehran’s international airport on Wednesday. It was followed by condolences from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and an apology from the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani.

The Boeing 737 was hit by two surface-to-air missiles in the hours after Tehran launched ballistic missile strikes on US military bases in Iraq. The airliner was downed as a result of human error at a time when miltary forces were on high alert, the statement said.

Iranian officials had previously denied a missile strike was to blame, dismissing the allegations as western propaganda and blaming mechanical malfunction.

Saturday’s statement was greeted with some relief that the immediate cause of the disaster had been made clear, but Ukraine, Canada and other countries with citizens among the victims have since made fresh calls for further measures from Tehran.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymy Zelenskiy, said: “Even before the termination of the international commission, Iran has pleaded guilty to crashing the Ukrainian plane. But we insist on full admission of guilt. We expect from Iran assurances of readiness for full and open investigation, bringing those responsible to justice, returning the bodies of the dead, payment of compensation, official apologies through diplomatic channels.”

He later wrote on Facebook: “We expect Iran … to bring the guilty to the courts,” , adding that he was scheduled to speak to Rouhani on Saturday afternoon.

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said his country’s focus was on “closure, accountability, transparency and justice” for the families of the 57 Canadian victims.

Iran has invited investigators from Canada, Ukraine and Boeing to visit the accident site on the outskirts of Tehran and said it would welcome representatives of other countries whose citizens had died.Responsible parties would be held accountable, Iran’s military said, and its systems would be upgraded to prevent such mistakes in future.

Khamenei said he sent deep sympathy to the families of the victims and expressed a desire for a comprehensive investigation. He called on the armed forces to “pursue probable shortcomings and guilt in the painful incident”.

The acknowledgement of responsibility has renewed questions about why authorities did not shut down the country’s main international airport and its airspace after launching the missile attacks on Iraq when they feared US reprisals were possible.

The strikes on the two US bases on Iraqi soil were retaliation for the US drone strike that killed the powerful Quds force leader Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad on 3 January, the culmination of months of tit-for-tat attacks that recently threatened to push Washington and Tehran into war.

It also undermines the credibility of information provided by senior Iranian officials so far. As recently as Friday, Ali Abedzadeh, the head of the national aviation department, told reporters with certainty that a missile had not caused the crash. The cabinet spokesman, Ali Rabiei, dismissed reports of a missile on Thursday, saying they rubbed salt on a painful wound for families of the victims.

Air crash experts have raised serious concerns since the accident over the handling of the crash site, including the removal of debris, sparking fears that Tehran has sought to eliminate evidence from the area.

The passenger plane was mistaken for a hostile target after it turned toward a sensitive military centre, said General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace division. His unit accepted full responsibility for downing the plane, he said. In an address broadcast by state TV, he said he wished he was dead when he learned about the accident.

He said the Revolutionary Guards had strengthened their air defences and were at the “highest level of readiness” for fear the US would retaliate. He said an officer made the “bad decision” to open fire on the plane after mistaking it for a cruise missile.

The public acknowledgement is likely to inflame public sentiment inside Iran against the authorities after citizens rallied around their leaders in the wake of Suleimani’s killing.

The vast majority of the passengers on the plane were Iranians or Iranian-Canadians, and the crash came a few weeks after a widespread crackdown on protests triggered by a rise in fuel prices.

The flight, which was bound for Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew from several countries, including 82 Iranians, at least 57 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians and three Britons.

The semi-official Fars news agency reported that Khamenei had ordered top security officials to review the crash on Friday morning and announce the results.

“If some individuals, in any position, were aware of the issue but made statements contradicting the reality or hid the truth for any reason, they should be named and tried,” said Fars, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards.

Others speculated that the security forces may have concealed information from civilian authorities. “Concealing the truth from the administration is dreadful,” Mohammad Fazeli, a sociology professor in Tehran, wrote on social media.

“If it had not been concealed, the head of civil aviation and the government spokesmen would not have persistently denied it. Concealing the truth for three days is dangerous.”