Plus: A car drove off the Bay Bridge… and into a building in San Francisco.
Most people are acutely unaware that for Western journalists to enter Gaza, they must enter by means of an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) escort. The moment these journalists — those from CNN, Fox News, ABC, etc. — step foot into war-torn Gaza, there’s a level of objectivity removed from any reporting, even if that journalism is conducted under the notion of highlighting Palestinian hardships caused by the war. Why? Because these journalists are only seeing a small sliver of the ongoing suffering; moreover, it’s a slice that’s been calculated in advance by Israeli militia; it’s altruism conducted in a vacuum changer that IDF has sucked all the air out of.
#SF calls for #ceasefire pic.twitter.com/7SwF6qID7H
— Ezra Goldman 🚲🌹 🇵🇸 (@ezragoldman) January 14, 2024
But that’s not to say the world isn’t rallying behind Paslentian freedom and the ongoing call for a ceasefire. On Sunday, January 14th, San Francisco witnessed a sister rally for the National March on Washington for Gaza that took place a day prior in Washington DC; that demonstration reportedly drew over 400,000 people. According to Broke-Ass Stuart, organizers of the SF rally saw some 25,000 participants — demonstrators who chanted all matters of pro-Palsetinal calls and pontifications — who came from all over the West Coast,
The Palestinian Youth Movement, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), and Jewish Voice for Peace wrote in a joint statement that the Israeli military is responsible for over 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza in the last 3 months, which includes over 10,000 children… or, to put it in another figure: 1% of the population in Gaza has been completely wiped out.
“The United Nations estimates that up to 1.9 million people – 85% of Gaza’s population – are now homeless due to Israel’s carpet bombing,” the statement continues. “The Israeli government has severely restricted water, food, electricity, and fuel from entering Gaza, and people are now at risk of dying from starvation and disease. As of January 12, Gaza’s Al-Aqsa hospital has run out of fuel, putting ICU and nursery patients at extreme risk of death.”
San Francisco showed up to denounce those aforenoted attracted conducted by Israel — and that makes us so fucking proud.
What else transpired over the weekend? Let’s take a look.
- A car flew off the Bay Bridge… and landed in a building. The vehicle was (obviously) moving (way) too fast when it careened off the Harrison Street off-ramp Sunday night around 11:05 p.m., crashing into a unit at the Clocktower Lofts; it’s unclear if anyone was home at the time of the crash, and the driver of the vehicle is currently being treated for “unknown” injuries at a nearby hospital. More info.
- No, that wasn’t a low-hovering cloud off Grant Avenue Sunday — it was steam from a blown pipe. A large steam pipe burst between Grant between Geary and Post, where SF Public Works, the SF Fire Department, and PG&E told passersby to avoid the area; the happenstance, ground-level cloud coverage cleared later that day when the pipework was fixed. More info.
- Hundreds of thousands of rare af butterflies will be released soon along the NorCal coastline. The endangered Behren’s silverspot butterfly is only found at the Salt Point Park in Sonoma County to the Mendocino Headlands, and, because of its precarious niche, the winged insect faces many threats ranging from coastal development to effects from the climate crisis; over the next two years, wildlife biologist and environmental hope to release some 600 captive-bred-and-reared butterflies back into their natural habitat to help boost their numbers. More info.
Feature image: Courtesy of X via [at]ezragoldman
