Routing Out

The last two days I have been disgusted by the bad words on the videos of Alton Sterling being killed by police officers in Baton Rouge. What disgusts me is that I can’t hear the “bad words”, and that much of the repulsive activity taking place is being masked by the bleeping out of those “bad words”. The notion of what offends, and what we need to be “protected” from, demonstrated by these videos, sums up how distorted the priorities of ruling institutions have become. Philando Castile lies dying in his car after being shot several times by a hysterically shrieking police officer, while Diamond Reynolds, Philando Castile’s fiancée, calmly films and narrates the whole proceedings. Meanwhile, her 4-year-old daughter is being traumatized in the back seat as she witnesses the whole revolting happening. Heaven forbid that that little girl should ever hear "bad words" on television......

Jeffrey Deskovic is a New York State exoneree, who was released in 2006. He has spent the last four years directing a unique foundation to help other wrongfully-convicted prisoners gain release, exoneration, and find their feet back in the free world. We talk to Jeffrey about the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice. The feature picture shows Jeffrey Deskovic in 2013 walking just behind the left shoulder of newly exonerated William Lopez, his first success story.  Mr. Lopez, sadly, died only a year and a half after he walked to freedom. You can become a monthly donor to the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, even for as little as $3 or $5 a month, by clicking the link below:  https://www.patreon.com/DeskovicFoundation?ty=h Thank you!

In December 2015, a 29-year-old British man of Somalian origin attacked three passengers with a knife at Leytonstone Underground station in east London, severely injuring one of his victims by cutting his throat, as he shouted “This is for Syria!" A non-Muslim bystander, who was concerned about the growing identifying and stereotyping of Muslims with terrorists, called out from the sidelines “You ain’t no Muslim, Bruv....”, coining a social media hashtag in a rally-cry against all perpetrators of violence in the supposed name of Islam. “You ain’t no Muslim Bruv”, even though declared by a non-Muslim, sums up the sentiments of ordinary true Muslims, who want no part in or identification with the sickness that is attempting to infiltrate their communities, taking advantage with lies and distortions of the disaffected, the deranged and the desperate, particularly if they are naïve and manipulable youth. In what we hope to be an ongoing series called “I’m a Muslim, Bruv”, we hear the voices of true Muslims, starting in this episode with a 14-year-old British Muslim from east London in the UK. میں مسلمان ، بھائی ہوں Gulamshabir’s speech: “Watching the news every morning, I was regularly hearing of a group based in Iraq and Syria that was carrying out killings in the name of Islam. Often it was minority communities and non-Muslims that were targeted, but I also found that this group destroyed mosques and even the shrines of the Muslim Saints who had brought Islam to these areas. This was not the Islam which I had learnt. The Prophet, Peace be upon Him [PBUH], said: If there ever is a war or Jihad, then it is strongly prohibited to kill women or children, and buildings should not be destroyed. Jihad means to Struggle or Strive. Islam is a religion of Peace. When Muslim Brothers and Sisters meet they say the Greetings of Peace: "Salam O Alaykum", which means “Peace be upon you”. They are killing innocent people, not because of their faith, but because of Power. They are killing innocent people in the name of God, religion and Islamic State. Islamic State can never come into existence with violence or brutality. Islamic State and Islam is based on peace. The way the Prophet, PBUH, after his migration, the way he established the Islamic State: After entering in the alliance with Jews, Christians and other non-Muslim communities; by writing down a constitution; by protecting, propagating and enforcing Human Rights. They are murdering in the name of God, and no faith in the entire world justifies it. Why are these youth deciding to go and do the so-called "Jihad"? Why have they left their families and education? Why have they left everything, and are going to kill themselves and others? This is not new today. It is “ISIS” in the present. In the past it was another name. In other centuries before, it was another name. The new names will keep on coming. Holy Prophet, PBUH, had already mentioned that there should appear a group, young in age and foolish. They will speak the words of the best of people. They will raise good slogans. They will talk of Quran and Sunnah and Islam but they will just mislead the people. But their faith will not pass their throats. Holy Prophet, PBUH, said: Whenever these people appear in any name, this is the duty of the community - to terminate them. I am quoting from Sahih Bukhari, the most authentic book of Hadiths. Hadith means a report of the sayings or actions of Prophet Muhammad, PBUH, or his companions. Prophet, PBUH, said: Every time there will appear the groups, they will be terminated slowly until the Day of Judgement. They will keep on emerging till the Last Day. The first group of these terrorists, they emerged against the guided Sayyidina Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet, PBUH. When Sayyidina Ali tried to resolve this conflict in a peaceful way, through dialogue, they took up arms and they rejected the peaceful settlement of dispute.

Impressions and reflections on attending part of Adnan Syed's second Post-Conviction Relief hearing, which took place in Baltimore, Maryland from February 3rd - 9th 2016. Contrasts and parallels with a court appearance of another young man convicted of the murder of a young woman - Raffaele Sollecito.      

Following Amanda Knox’s recent acquittal on slander charges brought by 7 Perugia police officers, who she claimed yelled, slapped at and threatened her during interrogations in November 2007 after her house-mate, Meredith Kercher, had been found murdered, we examine how the simple text message that was the focus for these interrogations was distorted in its meaning by police with the help of interpreter, Anna Donnino. By breaking down the text message into its three components and analyzing their linguistic and semantic characteristics, we explore the disingenuousness of Anna Donnino’s mistranslation, a supposed blunder that led directly to Knox being coerced into signing a statement that falsely implicated her boss, Patrick Lumumba, and to another slander charge when it was realized he had been uninvolved. Knox has never been exonerated of this ostensible “fingering” of Patrick Lumumba. Does Anna Donnino bear some responsibility for Patrick Lumumba’s arrest and Amanda Knox’s upheld slander conviction?

We look at the parallels between the Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey cases from Making a Murderer and those of other high-profile defendants such as Adnan Syed, Amanda Knox and the West Memphis Three, and at some of the defendant characteristics and police and prosecution tactics that heighten the likelihood of wrongful conviction, especially when minors and the mentally compromised are involved. We examine why defendants succumb to false confessions, the unreliability of polygraph tests, media misrepresentation, and the tendency towards blind faith in the prosecution’s narrative by victims’ families, even in the face of absurd prosecution forensics, and in some cases, eventual exoneration.

You won't believe it, but somehow our narrator has managed to get through decades of life without ever having watched a single Star Wars movie from beginning to end.... till now. Hear her irreverent observations on the very first film, Episode IV A New Hope, as our late starter begins her Star Wars education.....

An elderly couple, Allan and Dolores Avery, stoically marching on.......

Did the response to Serial’s first season reinforce the already developing notion that podcasts and podcasting was a “white people” thing? How did this idea get propagated into a social media meme, and what message did it imply? We look at what led up to Saturday Night Live’s sardonic take on the end of Serial’s first season, and hear the perspectives of a panel of African American podcasters at the first DC PodFest.

  "Sometime in 2015...." "November" has come and gone. So? Where is it??

Are beard-wearers all muscularly-challenged hipsters in gender-identity crisis? Bearded philosopher and writer Dr. Carsten “Baal” Müller, owner of the beard products website Bartkultur, talks about the history of the beard, and its resurgence in popularity in recent years. He shares his interesting perspectives on the advantages of wearing a beard, and the cultural tendencies he thinks may be reinforcing men’s investment in their beards. This episode of Routing Out is in honour of No-Shave November, which supports cancer research and education. Please make a donation to the Let It Grow campaign at our fund-raising page at  www.no-shave.org/member/routingoutpodcast  

Pagan…… a word that, for some, sums up negative assumptions about morbid people practising dark and unwholesome rituals. But is this the true nature of Pagan ritual, and the people who practise paganism? What do pagans celebrate in their ceremonies,  and what attitudes, emotions and preoccupations to they bring to their practise? We join a group of Pagans as they celebrate the Autumn festival of Samhain, to find out for ourselves….. Listen in, and make up your own minds....

Many who regard Halloween as an unwholesome, even evil festival cite its focus on death. We explore the origins of the relationship between Halloween and death, who has been preoccupied with death through the ages, and how. We look at the meaning of death from the perspective of the Romans, ancient Celts, early Christians, Catholics and modern-day pagans, and debunk some of the misconceptions about what has motivated people to mark the various festivals that have contributed to Halloween as we know it today.  

The case of Adnan Syed, the subject of the podcast “Serial”, has been followed and analysed predominantly from the perspective of its possibly being a wrongful conviction. That Adnan was a minor charged as an adult in draconian Maryland is an issue that is barely pondered. This is borne out when we interview some Serial fans and find out what made an impact on them about Adnan Syed's case. We give an overview of adolescent psychology, and the inappropriateness of charging teenagers as adults, and we examine the recent history of juvenile justice sentencing reform as a context for the October 13th, 2015 SCOTUS hearing on Montgomery v. Louisiana, the petition to have the 2012 Miller v. Alabama ruling against mandatory Life Without Parole for minors made retroactive.  

No matter how mainstream having tattoos has become, there still remain some designs that give cause for pause, not just for viewers, but for tattoo artists themselves. We explore the relationship between artist and client, and how sensitive and provocative designs are negotiated.... or even denied. Are some symbols in and of themselves inherently offensive, or is it the overall visual context or the client’s mindset that endows the nature of a particular tattoo’s meaning? Could these concerns be the reason for reticence among some tattoo artists about allowing outsiders to probe their craft? …. oh, and that puzzling conundrum from last time is solved!  

A twenty-something Midwestern Millennial living in Washington DC has an unexpected and ambiguous encounter with a strangely-tattooed man, triggering a chain of assumptions, judgments, speculations, behavioural reactions…….. and a numerical conundrum. How would you have reacted to this meeting? We asked a random collection of young DC residents, and got some widely varying and interesting answers…. But that numerological enigma remains……