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4/21/2013
by Will “Glasspopcorn” NeibergallSome of my close friends will confirm this if necessary: I’ve said some inappropriate and inflammatory things about Kathryn “Kitty” Beckwith. Besides making the occasional snide comment about her music, I’ve been calling her Kitty Pryde for a…
(via altcrit)
We each all live, work, and play in three states united; the lands of present, the past, and future.
Some dwell in one, some wish to move to there, some even have a beach front view in another.
We may lay roots in one state then in the busyness ignore comings and goings happening elsewhere. Tending to comfort and cozying closer to someone. It’s no direct fault of our own, so it goes.
Some, though, shack up, take shelter. Belayed boards to battle the bad weather end up bars when storms part. Christmas lights in February, brown lawns unmanicured, evaporated pools unfiltered. Live enough somehow and slowly it’s easier to exist this way.
We live in these states united in different ways, in different times, with different people, with different means, on different schedules, on different expectations.
Some, the bold, stake speculative claims in the best state. If they guess right they relax and wait, claiming blessings from gods to the godless. If they guess wrong we wage war.
We do this, live and travel with days bright at first, then blurry between weeks, eventually felt only as years weighing heavy as if I’m maybe out of place.
Maybe one day it’ll be bright again. But one day is always someone’s some day, and some day is always anyone’s any day.
Now in these states united.
(Photo The Lower 48 via nedhepburn)
(via thepiratefuture)
"Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testament—the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana—is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It’s not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today’s Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn’t particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human."
(via fyeahchristopherhitchens)
A high school football star who was once one of the most highly sought after athletes in the nation has had a rape charge against him dropped after the woman confessed on Facebook that the rape never happened. Brian Banks, who is now 26-years old, spent six years in prison and broke down crying when the prosecutor moved to have the case dismissed.“There are no words in any language, no gesture in any culture that can explain or describe what I have been through,” said Banks. “I hope my story brings light to a major flaw in the judicial system.”
Banks was once a football star with dreams of playing in the NFL. He was only 16 when a woman accused him of kidnapping and raping her at school. The woman, Wanetta Gibson, added him as a friend on Facebook and in a message said she wanted to “let bygones be bygones.”
Banks’ attorney, Justin Brooks, said that Gibson and Banks met and she was caught on video admitting that no rape every took place, and that she would help him to clear his record. She was then brought before prosecutors and is now obligated to repay the $1.5 million that her mother was paid by the school for what allegedly happened.
“I will go through with helping you but it’s like at the same time all that money they gave us, I mean gave me, I don’t want to have to pay it back,” she told Banks.
Banks went to jail in 2002 for the crime, when he was just 16 years old. At the time, he was being heavily recruited by USC and other colleges. He was on his way to fill out college applications when he met up with Gibson and went to a stairwell to make out. He apparently said something she didn’t like, which led to the allegations of kidnapping and rape.
Investigators found no physical evidence of rape. Due to the pressure from his attorney and prosecutors, Banks pleaded no contest to the kidnap and rape charge, after being told that he would get 41 years in prison if he fought the charge and was convicted.
Banks thought he would get just 18 months based on his attorney’s advice, and instead ended up in prison for six years. While in prison, his case was taken on by the California Innocence Project.
“Brian’s story is so compelling, and his case for innocence so clear, we knew we had to take this on,” said Justin Brooks of the Innocence Project. “Brian lost a huge part of his life when he was unjustly sent to prison.”
Banks has had to remain on probation under electronic monitoring and could not get a job after being registered as a sex offender.
“This is a kid who was a superstar,” Brooks added. “He would be playing the NFL now if this hadn’t happened.”
(via youmightfindyourself)
