The Angry Exile: Christmas is cancelled. Everything's melted at the CG north pole.

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

Thursday, 24 December 2009

Christmas is cancelled. Everything's melted at the CG north pole.

Newsflash for Nathan Grills - alcohol isn't the only thing Santa can be used to market. If you're a warble gloaming believer who owns a toy company you can push your products and your beliefs on to the little darlings with this sort of shit (warning: some viewers may experience negative reactions to this video, including sticking a fist through the computer monitor).

Nice name drop for a shithouse warble gloaming disaster movie at 1:49, by the way, not to mention a hint of some fucking fearsome hallucinogenic drugs. Well, what else would cause anyone to come up with the idea of talking polar bears claiming that the north pole is going to melt in the middle of fucking winter? Obviously I won't be adding it to the warble gloaming diary dates because (a) it's as made up as Santa and (b) it's patently fucking ridiculous. Yes, I do realise that this is not exactly a first in the history of warble gloaming propaganda.*

Well, Build-A-Bear people, if that's what you want to do with your company that's up to you. Just like it's up to your customers to buy something else. And after their little vid made it to What's Up With That? (big H/T) it sounds like more than a few regulars there are planning to do just that. Still, it's nice to see that ideals don't get in the way of business, and so in the comments at WUWT? there's this:

The video has been pulled without apology.

http://www.buildabear.com/aboutus/OurCompany/Letterfrommaxineclarkwebisodes.aspx
Blog-o-sphere 1 Buildabear 0.

The link goes to a page that says:

Our goal is to entertain and engage the imagination of children with our stuffed animals, our store environment, and online. Our intention with the Polar Bear story was to inspire children, through the voices of our animal characters, to make a difference in their own individual ways.

They're children, fucknuts. Other than nag their parents what the fuck do you expect them to do?

We did not intend to politicize the topic of global climate change or offend anyone in any way. The webisodes concluded this week with Santa successfully leaving on his journey to deliver gifts around the world. The webisodes will no longer be available on the site.

Well, principles might fall on you if you stand by them too closely.

Wankers.

* And on the subject of warble gloaming propaganda WUWT? also has a history of the infamous emails available here.

3 comments:

JuliaM said...: "We did not intend to politicize the topic of global climate change..."

Translation: "We thought there was enough of you dumb enough to swallow this and buy our product, but we stuck our dicks in a hornet's nest and we're sorry, please don't hurt us..."

Blogosphere 1, indeed.. :); 24 December 2009 at 18:57
Angry Exile said...: Yep, though I suspect this was another example of a company jumping on the 'we care about our fragile planet' bandwagon greenwashing itself to attract the hordes of like minded folks with more money than sense. Unfortunately for them they seem to have over estimated the numbers and it backfired. Maybe next time they'll try something else like, oooo, I don't know... maybe making a better fucking product?; 24 December 2009 at 23:02
Dick Puddlecote said...: I saw this a couple of days ago. Good to see that they've dropped the vids, but what the fuck were they thinking in the first place?

My kids have been to a couple of kids parties there and they save their money to sometimes buy more clothes etc. It always strikes me as a distinctly odd experience. All through the shop are price tags of around a tenner an outfit ... for a fucking bear!

If this woman really cares about the world, perhaps alluring kids to cough up that sort of money for toy accessories when there are people starving in other continents isn't the way to go.

Hypocrisy at its most bizarre.

And as Julia notes, in trying to appear caring, she's jumped right into a godalmighty political argument. What a dolt.; 25 December 2009 at 03:17