Lady Justice
by Mary W Maxwell
The case brought against Martin in 1996 is called R v Martin Bryant, so of course Her Maj and Martin have in common that their names are on that case. But another very obvious similarity is that both the queen and this particular prisoner are sequestered from the Australian public.
Occasionally the monarch of Australia visits Australia and then some people, carefully chosen and closely monitored, may get to exchange a few words with her. For instance, R attended a garden party in Sydney in 1954.
Other visits were in: 1963, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1992, 2000, 2002, 2006 and 2011. My late husband got to meet the royal person in the ’80s when she ribbon-cut a new clock at Adelaide Children’s Hospital, where he was a ‘personage,’ albeit on a small scale.
If you want to write to the queen you can do so and feel assured that some member of her staff, however lowly, will see it and post a reply to you. Phone calls or text messages to Her Maj are not encouraged.
Seeing Martin Bryant
No member of the public, has seen Martin Bryant, as far as I know, since his sentencing day, November 22, 1996. His mother has visited him. Photos were taken of him in the cages, from a distance, by the Murdoch press last September.
Gumshoe has already reported that Cherri Bonney went to Risdon Prison twice recently in hope of seeing Martin Bryant. She was turned away on the grounds that she would need Martin’s permission for a visit. The Federal (?) police trailed her from the campus out onto the road. She brave girl.
Cherri has a bee in her bonnet so I’ll bet there will be further attempts at seeing the unseeable MB. I’ll print here some of the things you must do, per the Tasmanian Prison Service, when you go to see any Risdon inmate.
Honor the Rules
For starters (according to their website): “Lewd, inappropriate, offensive or disruptive behaviour will result in the termination of the visit.” In other words don’t say “Darn” or “Crikey,” much lass “Bloody ’ell.
(Speaking of language, the prison visits to Risdon don’t require you to converse in English, after all Oz is multi-cultural, but poor old Jahar Tsarnaev in the US — under the SAMs rules for terrorists — is not allowed to speak Russian, as the FBI needs to monitor his mind type thing).
Physical contact at Risdon? “Prisoners and visitors may hold hands during the course of the visit.” But as far as hugging and kissing goes, you are entitled to only an “appropriate hug or kiss at the beginning and end of the visit.”
I suppose they clock it, with a 4-second hug being OK, but not a 6-second one, and a 5-second hug would call for arbitration. A kiss that could be heard on the other side of the room could be, perhaps, a cause for arrest of the visitor. (Based on perverting the course of justice, which is indeed a crime, and who would know that better than the said Martin Bryant?)
Legal Telephone Calls
Risdon has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Tasmanian Law Society about contacts between prisoners and their solicitors:
“Prisoners may initiate contact with their legal representatives via the Arunta telephone system during their normal out-of-cell hours. Calls from prisoners are limited to 10 minutes duration to ensure equitable access to the telephone system by all prisoners. Where a lawyer is required to place a legal call to their client, a booking will be required. Each legal call placed to an inmate is limited to 20 minutes duration…. Calls between legal representatives and their clients will not be monitored or recorded.” [See? I told you we are civilized.]
It thus appears that solicitors are allowed to say “piss’ and so forth, as who would dob them in? Certainly not the prisoner. But note that Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said, in The Gulag Archipelago, that just about 100% of prisoners were rooked into becoming snitches.
Writing to Martin
A few weeks ago I sent Martin Bryant a one-page, very neutral letter, in care of: Tasmanian Prison Service, 29 Liverpool St, Hobart TAS 7000. How did I know to do that? From a letter sent to me by Dr Vanessa Goodwin, the Attorney-General of Tasmania. I give her full marks for prompt reply to my (and Cherri’s) questions.
I don’t know if Bryant actually received my missive. May I ask you, the reader, to please send him a greeting card? If several such cards arrive, I imagine the warden could find no excuse to hold them back. Just purchase one with a ready-made printed message — so you can’t be “accused” of sending, say, instructions on how to escape.
A belated birthday card should be all right. Martin turned 49 on May 7 (his year of birth: 1967). The Queen was born 21 April, 1926. I don’t know if she received cards on her birthday for each of the last 20 years, but most likely she did.
Music
And now back to the celebrations. The concert below was held for the anniversary of Her Maj’s reign rather than of her birth but it contains the all-important Music for the Royal Fireworks. Its composer, George Frideric Handel, (1685-1759) was, of course, German, but lived mostly in London and is buried in Westminster Abbey, along with Ned Kelly.
Oh wait, sorry, that’s not true (about Ned). Anyway the queen herself is partly German, via Albert. Recall that Victoria married Albert, in order to found the Victoria & Albert Museum and Albert Hall.
Their grandchild, Geroge V, our monarch’s grandfather – note: he was our monarch, too – changed the name of the royal house of Britain from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.
On a later occasion we will play Handel’s “Sheeple May Safely Graze.” Or maybe that’s by Bach.
Until I saw this particular rendition of the Fireworks, I did not know that Buckingham Palace even had a backyard. And no, these fireworks are not related to Jahar’s putative visit to New Hampshire in 2012 to buy (illegal in Massachusetts) firecrackers – all of which featured bigly at his “trial.”
Oh God.
Photo credit: mexicoinstitute.files.wordpress.com
The fireworks start at 7.10 on the tape.
If it doesn’t give you goosebumps you’re a party pooper.
they put Him on the cross for no reason at all. nothing has changed for the better only worse. Our Lord Isus Krist said that all will suffer that believe in Him. how can the same god kill his own Son? impossible. a shark or tiger will not kill its own. Our Lord is totally opposite to satan . the Light will never be covered by darkness
Orlando was a sacrifice (just like Port Arthur) to expand the agenda. Oz was the launching pad. The Muslim faith is innocent ! They believe in Jesus (peace be upon Him) just like true Christians know that the Truth can never be a lie.
Gettin’ sick of this stuff, anybody? Meet Omar.
From masslive.com: The man authorities said shot and killed 50 people inside an Orlando gay nightclub Sunday pledged allegiance to ISIS and referenced the Tsarnaev brothers during his shooting rampage, the Massachusetts State Police said.
“During a conference call with federal law enforcement officials a short time ago, Massachusetts State Police learned that the gunman, during his rampage, pledged allegiance to ISIS and referenced the Tsarnaev brothers, the terrorists who exploded bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon,” State Police said. They said they are investigating the “terrorist act.”
Aw shucks. Omar forgot to “reference” Monis.
(Please don’t think we at Gumshoe enjoy this. We are trying to call a halt to this fantasy garbage, not wallow in it.)
That’s the first thing I thought Mary. “Oh, not another one”. It’ll be interesting to see how American political forces in play right now use this. That may even tell us something of why it was made to happen.
Paul, I have always thought that Trump was trumped up, perhaps thrown into the race so that at the end everybody has to choose Hilary. He now has secured the Republican nomination. I don’t want to clutter up Gumshoe with the Election nonsense, but as you say we may learn that the Omar Mateen shooting was done for purposes related to election publicity.
Trump has used it so far to knock the Democrats for not being strong enough against “that foreign element.” At the moment Obama is still prexy, so Trump is blaming him. Trump said:
“He won’t even use the term ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’ which I think is insulting to our country and it’s insulting to everybody.”
Paul, this is quite a cultural change for Seppos – to start being openly opposed to any ethnic group. (Omar was born in US to Afghan parentals.) I can only hope that some widow(er) of one of “Omar’s” victims will have been onto the game and will scream.
By the way, the more I read of Port Arthur, the more I discover that there are plenty of famiies wanting to tell their story. So let them tell Gumshoe. Nobody came to meet me at The Menzies the other night, or on the steps of PH. But I will keep trying.
Paul, here is a “brilliant” reply from Congressman Ben Carson:
“They are at war with us,” Carson added of jihadists. “Why are we afraid to admit that? I think a lot of the American people know that. They know they’re in jeopardy and their children are in jeopardy.
“If you’re having a party at your house and you’re inviting 100 people and you know one of them is a terrorist, are you still going to say, ‘Let’s have the party, it’s only one person?’ I don’t think so. We need to think about that on a national level.”
Carson additionally praised Donald Trump for speaking bluntly about the violence from Islamic extremists.
Paul, I know I know I know I shouldn’t be spending time on this, but you may have been more prescient than you realized. The Orlando thing took place at a “Gay nightclub.” So now figure how it has led to this on Capitol Hill:
“The LGBT Equality Caucus, led by Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), is giving new life to the years-old campaign for the FDA to repeal its blood donation ban.
Polis said Monday that the enormity of the tragedy in Orlando, which is now classified as the most deadly mass shooting in U.S. history, could bring enough attention to the policy to force the FDA to repeal it.” — that’s from The Hill, “Congress’s blog.”
Right, and therefore in the Comments to The Hill blog (most comments to all blogs supplied by CIA, I believe), we find:
“The Great Gazoo • 6 hours ago
Maybe we can have boutique blood banks. The gays can have their bank where they can donate their blood and receive transfusions. The straights can have our blood banks where we don’t have to worry about tainted blood entering the system. God bless america and f**k mohammad and islam.”
I absolutely cannot follow the reasoning. But that is the whole point. REASONING DONE GONE. So, Paul, I think that was the purpose of the shootout. Luckily Dee is out of town or she would say “No, the purpose has something to do with MH17.”
At the moment the total of signatures at Cherri’s Change.org petition is 2342. Don’t you think 2350 would sound nicer? Good. Then go to the highwats and byways and grab 8 people and force them to sign. Do it to this tune:
.