All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Break through – mural by REDL in Liechtenstein (video and photos) | STREET ART UTOPIA

Urban and Graffiti Artist Patrick REDL Wehrli

Anamorphic 3D mural titled “Break through” by Patrick REDL Wehrli in Schaan, Liechtenstein for Hilti Art Foundation.

Source: Break through – mural by REDL in Liechtenstein (video and photos) | STREET ART UTOPIA

Beyond Innocence by Phoebe Zerwick is Raw and Emotional | From Behind the Pen

I finished reading the first book for the 2024 North Carolina Reads statewide book club, Beyond Innocence: The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt, by Phoebe Zerwick. I had the opportunity to listen to an informative virtual book event with guest speakers, the book’s author, and topic experts last night. The discussion was truly engaging and the audience was locked in on the content included in the book that was being discussed, along with Darryl Hunt’s longtime advocate, friend, and faithful lawyer, Mark Rabil. I wish you could have been in on the Zoom event, but if you haven’t read the book, I included the following review on Goodreads that may whet your appetite.

~~~

This book is one that ripped at my heartstrings because there was no happily ever after ending to the wrongful conviction of Darryl Hunt. His case is one of many criminal injustice cases that we have heard of much too often. Along with the pain, and raw emotions that you felt knowing about this case, you also come away enraged by the venom people of power spewed on people, no matter how innocent they were, due to extreme racism. I couldn’t put this book down and was not shocked due to the evidence of the highs and the lowest of lows the criminal justice system embodies.
While we are fully aware of, and in many situations experienced the darkness of injustice, the magnitude is astonishing and history proves that it always has been a game-changer of life. Darryl Hunt always pleaded his innocence of not committing the crime he was charged, and imprisoned for. He refused to compromise his innocence. He was not prepared to sell his birthright.
Phoebe Zerwick did an amazing job of investigative journalism to meticulously chronicle personal and legal facts that finally led to Hunt’s exoneration.
Always, there was the pain few could understand, the pain of enduring all this for someone else’s crime…Prison life requires a code of silence, for the perpetrators of violence, for its victims, and for its witnesses. 
Hunt was leery of putting too much in writing. There was no telling what the guards would do to him if they knew what was in his heart.
Darryl carried the weight of a lifetime of loss. It was mind-boggling how deeply flawed the case against Darryl Hunt and others like him really was. He had panic attacks, which is a classic symptom of PTSD, for the body remembers what the mind tries to forget. Years of wrongful imprisonment would leave those who suffer such injustice scarred. Their symptoms ranged from hypervigilance, nightmares, heart palpitations, and panic attacks to digestive disorders.
A study published in the Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine found that most individuals who had spent time in solitary were more likely than those who had not, were diagnosed with post-traumatic disorder. If those experiencing solitary confinement are negatively affected by the exposure, it is society at large that bears the burden of ‘resocializing them.’ Those who spent time in solitary were more likely to die after leaving prison than those who did not, especially of suicide, homicide, and overdose. Idle time and isolation can make people lose their minds. The trauma manifests itself in such mental illnesses as reclusiveness, psychosis, and PTSD.
I was so impressed by the tireless commitment of Hunt’s legal team led by Mark Rabil. From the time he met Darryl when he was arrested on these false charges, Mark never gave up on Hunt’s defense case against all odds. Even when Rabil was grieving the death of his wife who battled breast cancer, Rabil didn’t walk away. He stuck by Darryl until the very end.
Hunt could not escape the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, the false narrative of Black men as sexual predators, the violence and tenderness of his youth, the terror of a jail cell, the heartbreak of a false conviction, the long years lost to captivity, and the public pressures that came next, the full weight of which he bore until he could bear no more. In March 2016, Darryl Hunt was found dead from a gunshot wound to the abdomen, and his death was ruled a suicide.
As Hunt would tell an interviewer: “Prison is just a warehouse, making money off of them, that’s just sending the back on the street to go back again.”
Scholars today make the case that our system of mass incarceration is rooted in slavery, a history that helps explain how and why Black men are so disproportionately represented in the nation’s prisons. With the abolition of slavery, Jim Crow laws created a new form of bondage by criminalizing unemployment, loitering, and other conditions of impoverished Black life. Racial profiling by police and other forms of systemic racism made prisons the new plantation.

_DSC1287.jpg

Image Reference: https://www.phoebezerwick.com/

Connect to Phoebe Zerwick:

Facebook PhoebeZerwick

Twitter @PhoebeZerwick 

Instagram @zerwicp

Source: Beyond Innocence by Phoebe Zerwick is Raw and Emotional | From Behind the Pen

Batteries are killing off gas power plants – Darcy Hitchcock

Recent cancellations include electricity plant developer Competitive Power Ventures decision announced in October to abandon a gas plant project in New Jersey in the United States. It cited low power prices and the absence of government subsidies without giving financial detail.

HTTPS://NEWS.YAHOO.COM/GIANT-BATTERIES-DRAIN-ECONOMICS-GAS-071607545.HTML

Source: Batteries are killing off gas power plants – Darcy Hitchcock

टकराहट / Clash – Kaushal Kishore

 

दीमक दिन-रात परिश्रम करते और घुनते रहते हैं, 

अपनी आकांक्षाओं को अटूट शक्ति से गढ़ते रहते हैं…

मकड़ियाँ भी महीन धागों से अपने सपने बुनती जाती हैं,

फिर भी मानवीय आशाएं उन दोनों के लक्ष्यों से टकराती हैं…

🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️

Termites toil and spin ceaselessly day and night,

Crafting their aspirations with unwavering might…

Spiders, too, weave dreams with threads so fine,

Yet both clash with human hopes in life’s grand design…

*

–Kaushal Kishore 

Source: टकराहट / Clash – Kaushal Kishore

The Tramp – yaskhan

He touched people’s heart and funny bones with his parody 
A pantomime who never slapped a stick but used it with dexterity 

His name was Charles Spencer Chaplin 
His slapstick was a sure~fire win 
Tugging at heart strings, his tramp persona 
His mime, and awkward gait made him a supernova 
He walked, danced and gestured with with his cane 
Silently, he exulted the black and white era to claim his fame 

The character he portrayed was kinda hanky~panky, jiggery~pokery 
Without saying a word, he spelt articulatory 
His butterfly moustache flowed off his speechless lips 
Bowler hat, black suspenders, oversized shoes.. his signature showmanship 

His spinning on one leg around corners gave me the giggles 
He cracked me up with a full belly chuckle 

Screen writer, composer, mime, director 
There will never be again an actor of his caliber.

Source: The Tramp – yaskhan