Shaped by the unique stories of my time in federal custody, the JailBird Diet takes the reader into the world of incarceration that challenges the mind, body, and spirit at every turn. Out of the “shock and awful” of prison’s daily rituals comes a radical life change: the cleansing regimens, “superfoods,” and feeding disciplines I used to confront this new world and achieve radical weight loss. JailBird defines the tools of my diet journey that drove my 100 pound weight loss and shaped a new me. Based on the food and activity logs I kept in my daily prison journal, the JailBird Diet also provides a week-by-week story of the journey from my first day of surrender to the last days when the pandemic and solitary confinement threatened to leave me just pounds from my weight goal. In so doing, it provides the tools to replicate this kind of weight loss in the free world.
Shaped by the unique stories of my time in federal custody, the JailBird Diet takes the reader into the world of incarceration that challenges the mind, body, and spirit at every turn. Out of the "shock and awful" of prison's daily rituals comes a radical life change: the cleansing regimens, "superfoods," and feeding disciplines I used to confront this new world and achieve radical weight loss. JailBird defines the tools of my diet journey that drove my 100 pound weight loss and shaped a new me. Based on the food and activity logs I kept in my daily prison journal, the JailBird Diet also provides a week-by-week story of the journey from my first day of surrender to the last days when the pandemic and solitary confinement threatened to leave me just pounds from my weight goal. In so doing, it provides the tools to replicate this kind of weight loss in the free world.
These are the war memoirs of Gil Mock, as told to his son-in-law, Robert E. Lee. 1940 - Sapper Gilbert Mock, British Expeditionary Force is ordered to blow up a bridge over the River Somme. Why? To buy time for over 300,000 of his comrades to be evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk. Today, this necessary rearguard action fought by men like Gil is largely overlooked whenever the remarkable events of Operation Dynamo are celebrated, but many were killed or spent the next five years in prisoner of war camps. Gil, however, despite his parents receiving a 'missing in action, believed dead' telegram from the War Office, made an eventful 350 mile journey (despite his bad feet!) to St Malo and the Last Boat Home.
This is a non-fiction book written as fiction, an harrowing task; the description of events are laid out differently than they happened; words and speeches have been changed to colourful words, meaning the same thing uttered by the non-actors inmates, words put into their mouths for effectiveness. All incidents, situations, conditions and confrontations are recognizable to inmates. The book Robben Island is not about geography or science; it is about struggle emotions, about how some could forgo the pleasures of a limited life, throw everything and answer the call for service, sacrifice and suffering for the liberation of mankind, to be cooped in Robben Island. A Sobukwe adage tells of a very lean hungry fox coming across a well-fed dog and ask asks something like this: dog where do we catch something to eat; the dog replied well I have plenty to eat where I come from, I am fed, come along with me. Along the way the fox notices a belt around the dogs neck and ask what this is on your neck? The dog replied I am being tied to a pole where I leave most times. Wow! the fox exclaimed: better hungry and free than plenty in bondage. By Robben Island we refer to the penal colony island where anti-colonial struggle heroes were imprisoned, from Makana the left-handed (Full name Makanda Nxele 1818) to Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe (1963 after serving 3 years from 1960). Robben Island more pronounced prisoner was Nelson Mandela. But most sad is fact that Robben Island held unsung heroes of the PAC who spent full life sentences in a bid to free South Africa from apartheid colonialism and racism. Prominent were Jafta Masemola, Ike Mthimunye, Philemon Tefo, Samuel ChipsChibane, John Nkosi, Dimake Pro Malepe. A 20 year full term is also Life sentence that happened to Johnson Mlambo. We lament the names of those others we could not mention here because the design for the unsung heroes is that is that their names disappear out of mind. Robben Island is now a tourist attraction whose design was to help ex-Robben Island prisoners out of poverty and settle back in society in the manner Americans take care of their veterans, and a trust was formed called Makana Trust; but endemic corruption prevents the Makana Trust from fulfilling that duty, as tourism in Robben island makes millions of money. And corruption or politics of the Makana Trust, whichever, prevented help from them republishing this book that was hailed by the late Eskia Mphahlele as the best to come out of Robben Island. And why not, I was a small fry in that conundrum.
There's nothing worse than spending your entire existence surrounded by the same people, in the same place only to find out those people can't be trusted; only to discover most of those people never really had your best interests at heart. Correction... there is one thing worse. It's that those people you're surrounded by call themselves Christians and all this craziness happens in a church. When enough is enough, do you leave, pray that it gets better, realize that it won't and if you do leave, how do you do that without being crucified by the powers that be? One churchgirl shares her eventful experience dealing with the worst of churchy folk and all the madness that ensues prior to "Let the church say amen".
Ranging from ancient times to the present, a survey of the evolution of the prison explores its relationship to the history of Western criminal law and offers a look at the social world of prisoners over the centuries.
Dr. William L. Banks comments on portions of the bible from Genesis to Revelation with the expectation that men and women will desire to lead more holy lives through meditating on God’s Word. This is a wonderful book for those who crave a daily portion of spiritual food to strengthen them for the challenges each new morning brings.
