[id. A twitter post by @/Bennieeexyz
Jury duty letter came addressed to my cat.
Not a mistake. "Felix Martinez" - that's his full name according to his vet records.
My last name. His first name. Somehow he's a registered voter now.
Called the county clerk.
Me: My cat got summoned for jury duty.
Clerk: Is the name correct on the summons?
Me: Yes, but he's a cat.
Clerk: Is Felix Martinez a legal resident of this county?
Me: He's a legal cat.
Clerk: Sir, if the name matches our records, he needs to appear or file an exemption.
Me: He can't file anything. He has paws.
Clerk: You can file on his behalf.
Me: Under what exemption? There's no box for "is a cat."
Clerk: (pause) Check "unable to serve due to medical reasons."
Me: What's the medical reason?
Clerk: He's a cat.
Me: That's not a medical condition.
Clerk: It is if it prevents him from serving.
Sent in the form. Got rejected two weeks later.
"Insufficient documentation. Please provide medical professional's statement."
Took the letter to my vet.
Me: I need you to write that my cat can't do jury duty.
Vet: Why is your cat summoned for jury duty?
Me: Excellent question. No good answer.
Vet: This is the weirdest request I've gotten.
Me: Can you just write that he's medically unfit to serve?
Vet: On what grounds?
Me: He's a cat.
Vet: (started typing) "Patient is unable to serve due to species-related limitations including inability to speak, read, or comprehend legal proceedings."
Me: Perfect.
Sent it in. Got another rejection.
"Summons is mandatory. Failure to appear will result in contempt of court."
My roommate thought this was hilarious.
Roommate: Felix is going to jail.
Me: This is serious.
Roommate: Bring him to court. See what happens.
Decided that was actually the only option left.
Day of jury duty, put Felix in his carrier. Brought the entire paper trail of rejection letters.
Checked in at the courthouse.
Clerk: Name?
Me: Felix Martinez.
Clerk: (looked at the cat carrier) Is that Felix?
Me: Yes.
Clerk: (long stare) He's a cat.
Me: I've been saying that for six weeks.
Clerk: Why didn't you file an exemption?
Me: I filed three. All rejected.
Showed her the letters. She read through them, expression shifting from confusion to disbelief.
Clerk: Someone rejected the veterinary documentation?
Me: Twice.
Clerk: (called her supervisor over) You need to see this.
Supervisor read everything. Looked at Felix. Looked at me.
Supervisor: How did a cat get registered to vote?
Me: You tell me.
Supervisor: This is a data error.
Me: Took you six weeks to figure that out.
They dismissed Felix immediately. Apologized for the inconvenience.
Supervisor: We'll remove him from the voter registry.
Me: Appreciate it.
Supervisor: (pause) Out of curiosity, how would he have voted?
Me: Probably whatever party supports universal treats.
Got a formal apology letter a week later and a voter registration card.
For me this time. Apparently I wasn't registered, but my cat was.
Roommate: Felix committed voter fraud.
Me: Felix committed nothing. He's innocent.
Roommate: That's what they all say.
Felix is sleeping on the jury summons now.
Fitting end to his legal career.
end id]
In all my years in this website, and I've been here a long time, I can't recall a single instance of a callout post leading to actual restitution for the victims of the alleged harm the person was accused of. Even in cases where the accusations were true. Even in cases where there was legitimate harm done to another person.
Remember the sixpencee child slave thing? What happened there, exactly? Was the kid freed? No? They were just run off the website? OK so what good exactly did that do?
Remember the bone stealing witch? What exactly did that witchhunt accomplish? The person got arrested, oh that's great, the american justice system surely rectified the situation
And again, those are instances where the accusations were true and involved real substantive harm to another person. We used to joke on here how callout posts were shit like "receipts below: [several paragraphs of petty fandom drama] [three paragraphs of petty interpersonal drama involving cheating on partners or stealing food out of the fridge or something] [fabricated evidence that the person is responsible for the murder of JonBenét Ramsey]"
And that was back in the 2010s. The meta has changed. Callouts used to be a tool people used to point out actual harm a person had done, rarely, and more commonly were used as a means of bullying somebody over petty drama. Nowadays they're used to manufacture outrage and harassment against marginalized populations. They are a weapon bigots use to turn us against each other. A few manufactured accusations here, some out of context or clipped screenshots there, and people who should be standing in solidarity with each other against white supremacy, patriarchy, cisheteronormativity, are instead devouring each other.
It's sinister as shit, dude, and people will still share these accusations without a second thought. So, why? What is the point? What's the best case scenario here? Raising "awareness?" what the fuck is that supposed to accomplish? Will we get the oh-so-trustworthy authorities involved? Are we hoping for an arrest? A conviction? Throwing a queer or poc person in prison so they can be abused and assaulted and humiliated behind bars? Is that who we are?
Callouts and the like don't serve any real good in the world. At a macro scale they divide us when we should be standing together, and at a micro scale they result in deeply traumatic never-ending harassment and threats and doxxing and worse to a person who almost definitely does not deserve it. And again, for what? A sense of "justice?" this is not justice. This is retribution. It is punishment.
It's fucking cop behavior, and I'm not gonna participate in it.
did a bit of driving through the state of georgia today and wound up driving through a small town that i later discovered was called newborn, which is an odd name but doesn’t technically have anything wrong with it, except for the fact that i nearly gave myself whiplash doing a double-take at a building sign advertising NEWBORN TAXIDERMY
Millions of stars light up largest and most detailed shot of Milky Way’s centre
The glittering image, taken by the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope, heralds a new age of planetary discovery
The glittering image, taken by the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope, heralds a new age of planetary discovery
The dazzling sight of more than 60m stars at the heart of Earth’s galaxy has been captured by a space telescope designed to reveal the mysterious dark forces that shape the universe.
Astronomers used the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope to capture the largest, most detailed image ever taken of the visible light pouring from the centre of the Milky Way. The telescope’s camera is rare in being sensitive enough to separate individual stars in the crowded region known as the galactic bulge.
The enormous image marked the start of a new age of discovery of planets outside Earth’s solar system, researchers said. The number of known worlds is expected to rocket beyond the thousands already spotted around faraway stars.
Dr Eamonn Kerins, an astrophysicist at the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, said of the Euclid telescope: “It was never built with this science in mind, but it has proved to be a superb facility for the work.
“This data fires the starting pistol in a new age of exoplanet discovery, where we go from knowing about 6,000 exoplanets to finding more than 100,000 across the galaxy.”
The €1bn (£862m) telescope launched in 2023 to construct the most accurate 3D map of the cosmos and shed fresh light on the mysterious dark forces that shape it.
According to the most popular model of the universe, only 5% is made from ordinary matter. About 70% is said to be dark energy, the force that accelerates the expansion of the universe. A further 25% is called dark matter, an invisible substance that appears to clump around galaxies.
Astronomers took the snapshot of the stars in March last year after pointing Euclid at the centre of the Milky Way for 26 hours of observations. The image is a mosaic of nine “pointings” taken with the probe’s visible light camera. Each pointing covers an area of the sky larger than the full moon.
Beyond its visual appeal, the image will boost the hunt for exoplanets, or worlds that form outside the solar system.
[Full scale of image]
One way to spot an exoplanet is to observe its parent star as it moves in front of a faraway star. Through a process called microlensing, the nearer star’s gravity bends the light from the more distant star, making it appear brighter. When a planet orbits the nearer star, its additional gravity can create a spike in the brightening.
In August Nasa plans to launch its Nancy Grace Roman space telescope, named after Nasa’s first chief of astronomy, who died in 2018. Astronomers expect it to find about 1,500 microlensing exoplanets.
The Euclid image will transform that work because it shows the same stars before they overlap. This allows astronomers to measure how fast they move and to confirm the existence of the planet and its mass.
“The Euclid snapshot will improve those measurements possibly by up to a factor of three, which for a single image is quite something,” said Kerins.
The Roman telescope aims to spot a further 100,000 exoplanets as they move across the face of their parent stars, causing a slight, momentary dimming of the starlight.
The Euclid data will help astronomers to confirm they are transiting planets and not objects such as binary star systems, where two stars orbit one another, which can produce similar signals.
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