Well, dinner may have been expensive thanks to that dastardly inflation, but dang it was good. Once you’ve tried one of my wife’s hamburgers, you’ll never even so much as look at another hamburger ever again.
And about one of the links in one of today’s numerous posts: Sure, the police have a legitimate point of view, and I respect that. But when people you know and trust tell you they were sitting on the steps of the registry, saw the front doors fly open and police in full riot gear storm out, and then saw fellow students literally fly over them- and it’s not a short drop from the top of the registry steps to the ground- and when a good friend who is about as left wing as Helen Clark (not, in other words) who was not in any way involved in the events of that day describes how, walking past the registry before the protest on her way to perfectly lawful classes a police dog-handler had her bailed up against the wall of the registry just about wetting herself in obvious fear (police dogs in New Zealand are trained to take people down with absolutely no mercy- I have been told directly by a Kiwi cop that if a police dog is about to be released, stay the fuck out of the way because it will take down the nearest target in whatever way is most effective- just in case you come from a country which has kind and gentle police dogs) and said cop had a rather sadistic grin on his face, well, let’s just say I’m not inclined to trust the official police view of the events of that day.
And remember: I was still in high school at the time, but I remember clearly, I remember being sick to the stomach in disgust with what I saw on the TV news, and I met people who were involved, and people who just happened to be walking past before the protest had even arrived at the registry, and in my day I was a pretty active activist. Not hugely active, but active enough for my lecturers to tell me to calm down and study lest my grades turn against me. Active enough to be worried about what the Dunedin police would try should a protest turn ugly, and I’m a pacifist, definitely not the kind to push things.
