Hard News: Undie Wankers
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Mediawatch spent some minutes this week on the media coverage. They raised an interesting point that the local news channel, 9, didn't see fit to give the riots anywhere near the profile/prominance that the national tv news did. The implication being that it was to some extent hyped up by national media when the locals treated it as one of several serious local issues of the day.
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I was talking to a friend of mine last night and we both agreed - nothing is quite so thrilling and fun when you are young as running away from the police.
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Oh what jolly japes. Let's bottle the cops, chums.
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Yeah, not like punks ever did that themselves, eh?
Or David Bowie, either.
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I was talking to a friend of mine last night and we both agreed - nothing is quite so thrilling and fun when you are young as running away from the police.
Some cops enjoy the chase too, I've heard. All fun and games innit? Get out the batons and a few ambulances on standby and we're set. And is that Yakety Sax starting up in the background?
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I dispute that the cops have a right to prevent people from remaining in a public place. I dispute the concept that the police are above the people and entitled to order them to do anything.
That's based on my personal worldviewI'll 2nd that
Burning sofas provides what social benefit, exactly?
It is tradition! The whole event is based on tradition! And, seeing as you wanna get judgemental Matthew, Why the hell aint anyone ever charged for burning down houses in the middle of the night?.Being in the news for a couple of weeks, does not make it acceptable because some other shitty thing happened there. Cops all over the house and it burns down?The reason I suspect is because it is considered taboo, so in a sense it is tradition.
Obviously a narrow field that I find myself in and having not seen any of this (but know what time of the year it is), I am out there on the side of the punks. I think Tom's right and I agree with Rich, after Matthews description of why the police were right to perform asbo.
First they came for the sofa,
then they came for the fancy dress.... -
Why the hell aint anyone ever charged for burning down houses in the middle of the night?
They aren't? Really? I'm sure the cops who're investigating that latest arson will be rather put-out to hear that you've decided that nobody will be charged for it.
If nobody is put before a court for it, it is unlikely to be through lack of trying on the part of the police. Arson is traditionally a very difficult crime to solve in the absence of a narrow suspect profile. In this case, the suspect profile is enormous and it's unlikely that there'll be much in the way of evidence pointing to the perpetrator.
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Tut tut tutting that student mob behaviour is awful, no fun and totally negative is about as accurate and helpful as claiming drugs are never fun. To remember what it was like to be nineteen, to accept that when you were nineteen and full of testosterone and energy it WAS fun to run away from the police, might restore a bit of perspective and compassion to how we assess these things.
I am not really defending these students. The ones that got caught probably deserved a face full of pepper spray for their troubles and a thick lip as a reward for their ability to articulate in an educated way their views to the arresting police officer, but it should also be "here endeth your lesson".
Philosophically I can't square the circle of defending on one hand the right of fundamentally bad gangsters to parade about in gang colours and then demand that the full weight of institutional violence be used to crush the lives of fundamentally good kids who drunkenly threw a bottle at a policeman one night. It just seems to me that a lot of people have internalised the whole proscriptive, purse lipped P.C. mindset they laugh off as non-existant all the time.
I find it difficult to understand how a supposedly intelligent web community that ridicules Judith Collins at every opportunity fails to grasp the reasons why you should be institutionally lenient towards the actions of drunk young men and women very unlikely to ever offend again. Surely the state's institutions also needs to protect our youth from themselves, not just aid and abet in making sure they fall at the first hurdle in such a way as to guarantee they'll never get a decent run?
No wonder we have the second highest prison muster per capita in the Western World.
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Oh, and Sofie, we don't have ASBOs here. That particular spot of fascism hasn't made it beyond the shores of the UK, and long may it continue. The laws about assemblies where those uninvolved may fear for the safety of themselves or their property long pre-date the jackboot behaviour of the current UK government.
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I'm sure the cops who're investigating that latest arson will be rather put-out to hear that you've decided that nobody will be charged for it.
I don't think they would care, but If I had a couch now, I could see how potentially dangerous I might be ,what with my " I killed bambi" jacket an'all. :)
Matthew my point being these are uni traditions. Their fathers and mothers took part (yes I know, I know) and it has continued throughout the ages much like the Illuminati. much like we had cars that did burnouts up Queen St back in the 70's only now cars are fast. much like drunk participants at an annual party event do not stop 1/2 way through having a party and place all 10 green bottles on the wall, so if one green bottle will accidently fall, is that intent. Drunk is rather difficult and only by experiencing your own stupid behaviour do ya learn (by about 30) that there are other games to play. Some learn, some don't but I'll be dammed if youth aren't allowed to grow like the rest of us do. -
Driving under the influence was a tradition too, Sofie. Getting absolutely plastered and then taking your own car home from the pub was a rite of passage. Same with theatre cast-and-crew parties, from the stories I've been told by fellow techs and thespians, and doubtless the same with sporting clubs. Do we accept that such a tradition should continue, untrammelled by society's desire to reduce harm to others, just because it's a tradition? Like fuck we do!
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First they came for the sofa,
then they came for the fancy dress....I should point out that burning sofas on Castle street is a relatively new tradition Sofie. Sofas were traditionally burned at Carisbrook at the end of the cricket in the 80s and 90s. Carisbrook decided to ban people from bringing their sofas because they burnt them. In the late 1990s therefore the tradition switched to the street. Street parties tended to burn fence palings historically.
Which is ironic, because burning a sofa on the terraces at Carisbrook is only a risk to people, its unlikely anything else will catch fire.
Burning things on Castle St however is much more dangerous. A lamp post caught fire on the night in question, but previously houses have caught fire. As much as it's been adopted as tradition by the student body, it's not only a nuisance, it's also dangerous. The student who fell on the couch isn't the first person injured as a result of a burning couch, and quite possibly someone will eventually die as a result of a fire going out of control.
I've always thought that it would be sensible if there was an available piece of property on castle street, that the city council should set up a party property and have a fire pit in it. Be a lot safer than what happens now.
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Driving under the influence was a tradition too . . .
Definitely, though it's not been something to boast openly about for around a generation. You can bet that a fair proportion of the undie kids' grad-dads were wont to make with the laddish tales of seeing two beige holdens with identical licence plates, and not being able to decide which one to pass first.
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Yes Matthew you are absolutely right. Youth today are just terrible, doing all the things that we did, how dare they?
I remember the time I went to a party, had an onion tied to my belt, it was the style at the time. Young Garth George was telling me the other day about how when we were kids we use to tie our bootstraps together for fun, not today, mark my words, all elastic sided slip-ons you know, lazy that's what they are, never fought in any world wars and rationing would be abhorrent to them quite frankly and don't get me started, you wouldn't like me if I got started put them in the Army I say what with all the... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! -
Like fuck we do!
Are you shouting at me now? Can't say I know much about the sporting clubs but worked at the Merc for a few years and all our partying was absolutely drunken respectability which did not harm others.I know we had fun.
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No, Sofie, shouting at you WOULD LOOK RATHER MORE LIKE THIS.
Maybe the pro theatre crowd do it rather differently, but I know that back before DUI was mostly considered socially-unacceptable the amateurs would drive themselves home in the small hours after partying all night. More than one has observed that it was no small miracle that nobody got killed on their way home from such parties.
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Steve, it appears that the burning of couches in the middle of the street isn't at all an old tradition. So, you were saying?
My point is that things that are dangerous to uninvolved persons shouldn't be considered sacrosanct just because they're "traditions". If you want to continue a tradition of dancing around the May Pole, go for your life. Do it in traditional garb, even. But don't expect me to support you if you want to get blotto and then drive yourself home in keeping with other "traditions".
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3410,
No, Sofie, shouting at you WOULD LOOK RATHER MORE LIKE THIS.
I once replied to an all-caps email from my sister by, in part, enquiring "Why are you shouting at me?"
She responded, "THAT'S NOT SHOUTING. THIS IS SHOUTING."
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Oh, and Sofie, we don't have ASBOs here. That particular spot of fascism hasn't made it beyond the shores of the UK, and long may it continue. The laws about assemblies where those uninvolved may fear for the safety of themselves or their property long pre-date the jackboot behaviour of the current UK government.
Yes, they go back to the jack-boot behaviour of previous UK governments.
(And, seriously, just because you're a rioter doesn't mean you don't have rights.)
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Keir, I was meaning Labour as opposed to the current term.
And who said rioters don't have rights? Where this discussion appears breaking down is the apparent belief that it's unreasonable for the police to enforce the laws surrounding disorderly public behaviour, engaging in dangerous behaviour, and breaching the liquor ban. Whatever the merits of liquor control laws, the controls on people endangering the safety of other persons or their property are normally considered to be perfectly justifiable.
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Yes, I know exactly what you meant.
The laws referred to are the other, supposedly non-jackbooted-in-origin laws.
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The laws referred to are the other, supposedly non-jackbooted-in-origin laws.
Such as? ASBOs are particularly awful tools, even by the standards of the most-surveilled nation on earth. From the Wikipedia article: "A person was forbidden to make excessive noise during sex anywhere in England."
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I don't care about asbos; I'm not talking about them.
But seriously, laws left over from putting down the Chartists and such are not candidates for anything other than derision.
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Oh, right. You're talking about real history, as opposed to just recent history.
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Have a nosey on page 5/6 of the Undie 500
KKK lynching.
http://www.ensoc.com/Gallery/2009/Undie%20500%20Charity%20Drive
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