The Angry Exile: Illogical, inconsistent and inaccurate.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Sunday 17 August 2008

Illogical, inconsistent and inaccurate.

Three stories today from the pen of Christopher Booker, and well worth a read.

The first relates to the apparent readiness of the US, and for that matter Europe, Australia, New Zealand and pretty much the whole developed world to commit economic suicide, all based on the theory of global warming which in turn is based largely on the output of computer models. Friends and family who are believers consider me a climate denier, but aside from that argument being dangerously close to the nonsensical one that vegetarianism is bad because Hitler was a vegetarian it also fails to take into account that the debate isn't over. As for the computer models... I've got a computer model that clearly shows that a girl with unfeasibly large tits called Lara can heal her own bullet wounds by picking up boxes with red crosses on. It works that way because the computer has been told it does. It strikes me that crippling economies on the strength of computer models that even the modellers admit don't actually make predictions (in which case you have to wonder what the fuck they're any good for) might not be a great idea, and that it'd make more sense to find out what really is going on first.

The second story Christopher Booker writes about, not for the first time, is that of three small time fishermen. Naughty fishermen. Baaaad in fact. They've - and you should probably sit down for this - used up some of someone else's fishing quota because... well, because it wasn't being used up, was supposed to be redistributed by the government, and they didn't see any harm in it. Now they have been prosecuted and properly screwed under the Proceeds of Crime Act, an Act designed to clobber drug dealers and organised crime rather than clobber fishermen over quotas and permits (that should have been redistributed because they weren't being used remember). Aside from the all too familiar use of legislation brought in for a totally different purpose Booker contrasts the draconian punishment inflicted on the fishermen - loss of houses and boats to pay the fines, or two years inside - with the suspended sentences the same judge gave to a paedophile and a postmaster who stole £15,000 ($32,250) as well as the six months a third man got for bashing a 76 year old pensioner. Maybe there were sound reasons, maybe the judge is a twat. But the real worry for me is that we have yet another example of legislation brought in to deal with one thing being twisted for ad hoc use.

The final part of Booker's piece might ring a bell with Brits fed up with council bullshit about putting the right sort of waste in the right sort of bin and fining those who don't sort it out correctly. In San Francisco the mayor wants to fine people US$1000 for this. A thousand bucks! And so unnecessary too. Here in Melbourne we have two bins - one with a yellow lid into which anything and everything with a recycle logo can go, and one with a green lid for non-recyclable household waste. Big stuff can be picked up by arrangement or you can pay a few dollars to drop it off round the local transfer station (or "tip" as I used to call it). Both bins are emptied every week and I can just leave 'em in the road the night before. (Do you hear that British councils? Every week, and none of this crap about not putting them out the previous day.) Anyway, if Brits are annoyed about being fined 80 quid or so for putting an envelope in the wrong bin the fact that residents of San Francisco may soon have it very much worse should not be taken as cause for relief but as a sign of things to come. Consider yourselves warned.

But the bit that really got me about that last part of Booker's article was this:

As one American explained to me, "San Francisco is a very liberal city". We see what they mean.

It look like someone needs to fucking carpet bomb San Francisco with dictionaries. Since it's America I'll refer to Websters rather than the O.E.D.

Liberal
Adjective
1. Showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's opinions".
2. Having political or social views favoring reform and progress.
3. Tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition.
4. Given or giving freely; "was a big tipper"; "the bounteous goodness of God"; "bountiful compliments"; "a freehanded host"; "a handsome allowance"; "Saturday's child is loving and giving"; "a liberal backer of the arts"; "a munificent gift"; "her fond and openhanded grandfather".
5. Not literal; "a loose interpretation of what she had been told"; "a free translation of the poem".
Noun
1. A person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties.
2. A person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets.

I'm dying to hear how the moron Booker spoke to can justify the use of the word "liberal" to describe the San Francisco proposals, but then Americans seem to have a very funny definition of "liberal" in normal day to day use. It seems to mean what I'd call "illiberal except where it fits the agenda". Blackwhite in other words.

What an asshole.