Bad buys
A week is a long time. Last Friday I sat in the austerely gloomy surroundings of Room 8 of Auckland District High Court, listening to a sour-faced judge proclaim Omar Hamed such a danger to decent citizens that he could not be bailed, even with a twenty-four hour curfew. Five rows of family and friends wept and blew their noses. Today Omar and five others are free on bail, after the announcement that neither they nor the rest of 'Urewera 17' will face terrorism charges.
Skyler and I weren't expecting such good news on Wednesday, when we called in to the antiseptic visitors' centre at Mt Eden Remand to drop off some magazines. I told Greg, our new, 'no-nonsense NDU man' flatmate, that I'd brought Omar copies of New Statesman and New Scientist to help pass the long hours ahead of him. Greg threw his head back and guffawed. 'You're not serious, mate. You know prisoners share their zines around, they're like a currency. Do you think anyone's going to swap a pack of ciggies or a copy of Wheels or Penthouse for your friggin' New Statesman. That thing's gonna have a pretty small readership...you're not very democratic, are ya?'
I'll have to be more thoughtful next time, but I hope I won't have to go shopping for political prisoners again for a while.
posted by Skyler at 11/09/2007 08:58:00 pm
4 Comments:
Don't bend to that gnarled and clearly obstreperous Trade Union Philistine. There are a lot of bad bastards in jail and they need more than Penthouse.
Mind u I concede there are lot of bbs outside jail also - but that's not the point - as Pound said:
"Get an education!"
Don't go for this dumbing down tactic these guys go for... at the least give a good range of mags.
Not all 'insiders' are so ill-educated - admittedly all youngish men appreciate Penthouse but insiders don't live on Wheels and Penthouse alone.
Hamish would agree I'm sure.
[Jack Ross I believe could also be mentioned at this point and in this regard.]
who is that sheila on the cover of that mag any way bro? the one casuing all the trouble in Paki land??
John Banks
You poor white middle class Aucklanders. Is the tattooed Maori teddy bear making you folk feel uncomfortable. Harden up!. I haven't read so much redneck drivel covering up pakeha ignorance and fear as I have in these responses. Bought straight into Bush and Howards white mans politics. Have you Aucklandlers ever ventured out of Mt Eden to visit the Uruweras ? I doubt it. Oh, by the way you can catch Tama "hiding out" in the cafes of Ponsonby and Newmarket after he has finished his men's agony programme on Maori television and art shows. How pathetic are the police. Men with weapons and balaclavas looking for men with weapons and balaclavas! Get out of the way and leave it to the real men of the SAS if it was a real threat. Has there been one person shot in the Tuhoe bush by the so-called terrorists? Why don't 70 cops roll up to Remuera, stop a bus of white kids, and clean out all the celebrity P parties.
Ahhh, mystery solved! I was wondering who had dropped off those magazines. Thanks a million and although my fellow youth remand prisoners showed no interest in reading the mags they weren't all illiterate, uncultured gang prospects, and many of them regularly read more insightful literature than the FHMs and Ralphs they hoarded.
Cheers!
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