Prison rampage over, for now

Headlining the Saturday bulletin, an objective summary from 3 News:

"A five and a half hour rampage by prisoners in Wellington's Rimutaka prison has been brought under control. Fifteen inmates from its youth unit have spent much of the day on the prison's roof after causing thousands of dollars worth of damage during a cell riot."

A rugby team spent a fine Saturday afternoon on a roof before coming down for dinner. A skylight was broken, costing about the average price of a prison shrubbery. The cost of damages does not include the hundreds of thousands of dollars that it will cost to get triplicate reports detailing how it wasn't that department's fault, before concluding that systemic failures were to blame.

Mike Moro reports:

"This is the third incident involving prisoners escaping from their cells at Rimutaka prison in the past two months. The last involved 14 inmates who smashed windows in their cells and then climbed onto the roof, where they remained for two hours."

What's so fascinating about Rimutaka's roof? Is it a nice view from there? What, no helicopters to snatch them to freedom like in the movies?

"Police hostage negotiators eventually talked the inmates down about 4:30 this afternoon. It's not thought that anyone sustained serious injuries. [Corrections spokesdude then says,] 'We are thoroughly checking every person involved, all the prisoners and staff to make sure their are no injuries.' "

So, Mike. There is no evidence of anyone being hurt at all during this rampage, seriously or not. Credit to TVNZ for being slightly less drama-queenish.

Boyracers accused of not being nice

It could well have been a podcast from a rest home sunroom conversation. However, it happened to be Tuesday's Panel on boyracers. Dick Griffin qualified himself being a curmudgeon on the subject. Dick would like the term 'boyracer' dropped for something more objective like 'Hoons on Wheels'. He could always take a page from Ron Mark's book and call them 'Vehicular Terrorists'. Of course, the Silver Fox was a bit of a hoon in his day. Oh, but the cars these days are much more powerful. Liz Bowen-Clewley wanted to sympthasise with the boyracers, but the ones on the TV weren't very nice. "Grubby and defiant." In other words, teenagers. Well, there's a surprise.

Superintendent Dave Cliff explained that the old charges of reckless driving, careless use of a motor vehicle, etc. weren't working as the threshold of proving an "objective level of danger" was too difficult to bring to court. Now, certain behaviours have been deemed illegal. Merely an unnecessary exhibition of speed or acceleration is verboten. Danger is irrelevant. This is legislative creep in action. Bit by bit, laws are moving away from reasons and becoming independent bubbles of unpopular behaviour. It cannot last.

SI Cliff asks why we have high-powered vehicles capable of reaching speeds of 200 kph when the speed limit is 100? The simple answer is this; to outrun tsunami and volcanic eruptions. If it's OK for Wellington City Council to spend $100,000 for a tsunami warning system, it's good enough for car owners to be able to take advantage of this warning. Besides, the real reason is unlikely to make it to select committee. It involves high speed on the Desert Road north of Waiouru and a girlfriend keen on giving head. It's called fun.

In fairness to Dave, he did say some sensible things. The monkey see, monkey do thing for example. He admits that the boyracer thing is insignificant compared to where most of the meat comes from. Boyracers are loud and suitable for news zombies to consume and feel morally outraged about. Burnouts look good on the telly, as opposed to incisive interviews of the newsmakers.

It's funny, cause at work Michael the Storyteller was saying what it was like in his day. Back in the 60's, everyone with half a brain stayed off the roads between 6:30 and 8:30. That's when all the drunks poured out of the pubs and drove home. If they wanted to risk it, let them wrap themselves around a power pole. Darwin at work.

An email arrived at The Panel saying, give us something to do then! Smug teacher Liz scoffed at this comment. This listener had hit it on the head. Provincial NZ is a goddamned boring place for teenagers. Think of all the places that boyracers thrive. Christchurch. Palmy. Utterly devoid of teenage amusements. In my day, the choices of social interaction were youth group, Blue Light discos, hanging out at the Spacies parlour, or drinking.

Not much has changed. Teens make their own fun, and as far as the boyracer thing goes, it's fairly tame stuff. Yeah, some will die occasionally. That will always happen, irregardless of the trivial pursuit. Perhaps it is something that Western Civilisation could learn from the old cultures. The animist old cultures had ritualistic tests that children had to pass in order to claim adulthood. Is NCEA and learning to drive the best things we can think of to test the wits and wisdom of yoof?

Oh Far Cough

Jeezy-wheezy, isn't Rosemary Mcleod in a huff over the cannabis puff?

"Just half a joint of cannabis can trigger symptoms similar to schizophrenia in anyone, British psychiatrists warned last week."

And giving peanuts to anyone might trigger symptoms of death. When are you going to ban the peanuts? And if half a joint can send us all psycho, why isn't that reflected in NZ's mental stats? That's because you are wrong, dear Rosemary.

"As people my age know, cannabis is much stronger today than it was in ours."

That's because you are old and we are young. We can handle the jandal, while the more delicate can stick to St John's Wort. We don't have to smoke huge reefers to get us where we want to go. A spot here, a toke there. Less is better, and NZ grows more varieties of cannabis than there are wineries.

"Is violence the only real danger they face in family life? What if both parents were exercising a legal right to be stoned every day of the week?"

Oh no, won't somebody think of the children?? I know many responsible parents who sit down for a smoke once the young ones are tucked away, in much the same as many others might pour a G&T. The big difference is, smoke too much dope and you fall asleep. Drink too much off the top shelf and you might take a swing at the kids. I've seen many more moody and mean drunks than angry hippies.

But Rosemary Mcleod cannot be that ignorant or hypocritical. I think she's afraid of the Gnarly Marley for other reasons. Just as her generation never trusted anyone over 40, now she's hit that bump, she trusts no-one under 40. We can't handle the reality, she reckons.

It's been a busy few weeks, getting a few things done for J Day. I was interviewed for a Salient story on the cannabis movement at Fidel's on Friday night. Saturday was J Day in Central Park, featuring Met Turei speaking about her Medpot Bill, as well as some bands and DJs: 5:16, Narcosia, Tough Love, Xhale, Espionage and Psychedelic Jellyfish.

What an interesting bunch of people. I caught up with a medpot user who was once defended by the old man in court. Three Mongrel Mob members had picked a fight on him and lost. These three big fellas sat in the front row of court, while the skinny short defendant sat in the dock. The old man had the judge in tears of laughter, dismissed all charges. This dude has got me interested in picking up Aikido.

There was the Brit who lives in the town where the CCTVs tell you off. He's seriously considering emigrating here for good. Caught up with a Palmy family who presented a filled-in medpot petition from the NORML News she had passed around. Due to a small clusterfuck of venue change (our bad), they had gone to the wrong festival and lit up a fat one. No-one seemed to mind. The whanau finally made it up the hill to the real venue. The missus she was in retrospective horror for the rest of the afternoon. No harm done, and what a story to tell when she got home!

Who dares presume to know better than these people in pain? A wise man once told me, "the absence of pain can, in itself, be a form of pleasure." So stick your moral panic where it hurts, Ms Mcleod.