The Angry Exile: Green fatigue. We haz it.

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, 21 October 2009

Green fatigue. We haz it.

The short version is that people care about the planet but are dog sick of hearing about it all the time.

A Reader's Digest survey of 1500 Australians has found that we are in danger of zoning out from messages to live a green lifestyle and are rebelling against the notion of carrying all the problems on their shoulders.

"We know global warming is a problem," the survey report says.

Ah. Let me just stop you there. You 'know' in the same way that billions of religious people 'know' their god is best - and that's official now, by the way. Even Stephen Schneider, one of warble gloaming's long term proponents (so long term that it was still global cooling back when he started), conceded that it would fail a beyond reasonable doubt test. So for 'know' read 'believe', or possibly 'would like to think is true' for some weird fucked up reason.

"But incessantly reminding us that we'll ruin a perfectly good planet if we don't half-flush, ride to work and recycle - and guess what - there's a real danger we'll just zone out."

I'd go further than that. Once politicians - a group not known for the way honesty comes naturally - jump on the band wagon not only does credibility suffer but in order to grub more votes they won't fucking shut up about it. That adds to the incessant reminders that are 'zoning us out'.

Despite living in one of the driest environments in the world the survey found just 31 per cent of respondents feel bad about showering for more than four minutes and 85 per cent regularly take long showers.

Men are 50 per cent more likely not to care about letting the tap run while brushing their teeth.

Okay, that's slightly surprising given the water shortage and the fact that everyone's on meters here. You let taps run and you'll feel it on the bill a few weeks later. Sure, the water shortage has been blamed on bad management and increased demand as much as warble gloaming, and I haven't looked into it enough to make my mind up, but the bottom line is whatever the reason water bills here aren't going down anytime soon. Never mind the planet, my wallet can't take a running tap or baths instead of showers.

It found 94 per cent of Australians accept plastic bags and while 98 per cent say they are doing their bit for the planet, only three per cent describe their everyday behaviour as "totally committed".

It appears that while the green messages are getting through, many people cannot give up some of their comforts.

"15 per cent feel guilty using all the hotel towels, but do it anyway, 20 per cent feel guilty using full-flush instead of half-flush, 22 per cent regrets tossing their rubbish into the wrong bins, 19 per cent feel guilty leaving lights on when they're out."

In other words while the brainwashing has taken enough to produce guilt pangs there's a bit of resistance to giving up on modern life.

Who could possibly have seen that coming?