The Angry Exile: PETA

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

Wednesday, 1 July 2009

PETA

An outraged Mummy Long Legs has done another post on PETA, this time because of a billboard ad they've got up outside a Glaswegian hospital.

Mummy comments:

This billboard would appear to intimate that if you eat meat (any meat) you will catch swine flu and die to death in a hideous dying to death way.

Indeed, and it's largely bullshit of course, albeit plausible bullshit to the vast numbers of scientifically illiterate people and dedicated non-thinkers in Britain today. Pigs may be a host for swine ‘flu but I’d bet avoiding pork won’t guarantee you won’t catch it, especially if it's properly cooked. MRSA has been known for only a few decades and would seem unlikely to have existed before the methicillin to which it's become resistant. That puts an upper age on it of a fairly modest rather less than a century, while our species has been eating meat for many thousands of years. Linking a Germy Come Lately like MRSA to meat eating is fucking ludicrous. Mad Cow, assuming we’re not talking about Ingrid bloody Newkirk or those women who get their tits out for PETA’s attention seeking publicity stunts, is widely assumed to be linked to meat consumption but nearly 30 years on the vCJD epidemic we were told was certain has failed to show up. And I’m sure I recall hearing that at least one life long veggie went down with brain rot. I suspect the science is nothing like as settled as people think and the precautions taken back at the time of the scare have turned out to have been good enough to protect us meat eaters (I notice that The Devil is even more sceptical – as he points out people have been dropping dead of CJD for a very long time and researchers might be seeing what they want or expect to see or will be paid to see rather than something else that has simply been with us all along). Lastly, E. coli. - this is PETA's weakest example of the lot given that it lives in the human intestine anyway and is quite capable of causing a food poisoning outbreak on vegetables as well as meat. Even water can carry it. PETA’s implied message that you can protect yourself from E. coli by becoming a vegetablist is fucking laughable.

The implication that meat consumption will kill you and that vegetablism will ensure your safety is patently untrue. I suggest complaining to the ASA. I’m serious. I’ll draft something but having left the UK I expect I’ll get a polite version of fuck off. Massed complaints from UK based people, say for example bloggers who’ve highlighted the Pilkington Taste Testers’ (incidentally, glad you’re still using the phrase, Mummy) ridiculous poster, along with any readers they’ve encouraged to complain as well.

UPDATE: Some excellent alternative marketing strategies for PETA to get the vegtablist message across to be found here, the work of Al Jahom. The first one I wouldn't put it past PETA to use for real. I wonder if he could be persuaded to do their PR for them.

UPDATE 2: Because I saw it and laughed.