Current Events

An Assault Gets Worse

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The Stanford University sexual assault story became uglier yesterday when the Santa Clara County Superior Court released 471 pages of documents that appear to prove that almost every defense claim made by the defendant, Brock Turner, under oath, was untrue.

The story, horrible as it is on the face of it, attracted international attention this week when, after a jury convicted Turner of three counts of sexual assault, the judge in the trial gave the sexual assaulter a lighter sentence than the one requested by prosecutors. The judge, Aaron Persky, told the court that he “took [Turner] at his word” when he decided to send Turner to county jail for six months instead of state prison for several years, as prosecutors had requested. He will have to register as a sex offender with every landlord and with whomever may employ him for the rest of his life.

It is understood that he will get out of jail after three months. Vice reports, “According to the website of California’s Santa Clara County Department of Corrections, he is to be released on Sept. 2, 12 weeks before his planned release, because ‘it was assessed that he was unlikely to misbehave behind bars.'” Whatever the opposite of Philip K. Dick’s “pre-crime” is, this sounds like it.
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Dylan, Ali, an Apple

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee—his hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see.”—Muhammad Ali, of course

Today is our first day without Muhammad Ali. If the world seems to be off its axis today, I would point to that sad fact.

The photo at top is from the great photographer Ken Regan, who took it backstage at Madison Square Garden on December 8, 1975. Bob Dylan had brought his Rolling Thunder Revue to New York City and Ali joined the parade of well-wishers.

Regan wrote, “Ali had brought Bob a giant boxing glove that was about as big as Bob; just the right, spontaneous, quirky touch that captured the spirit of the Rolling Thunder Revue.” You can see the pair of gloves and a silk robe on the bench between them. Ali is finishing off an apple and Dylan appears almost kid-like in glee. Even Bob Dylan seemed to regard Muhammad Ali as “really famous.”
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Century’s …

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“Bacon makes everything better.”—a sign in Susannah Mushatt Jones’s kitchen.

The 19th Century came to a conclusion in the United States on Thursday night with the death of Susannah Mushatt Jones of Brooklyn, New York, who was born on July 6, 1899. She held the title of oldest person in the world since June 17 of last year. Every person alive in America right now was born after the dawn of the 20th Century or in this current one.

Every person who is not Emma Morano (pictured above) of Verbania, Italy, was born after January 1, 1900, too. Ms. Morano was born on November 29, 1899, and she is the oldest person alive on the planet now and is also the last human being who was here the century before last.
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