The Angry Exile: Engage mouth before thinking.

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

Tuesday 22 December 2009

Engage mouth before thinking.

There are some people whose blatant stupidity and ignorance just shifts my misanthropy engine into high gear with one sentence. From a comment by David Davis (not that one) at the Libertarian Alliance:

In 2003 I had occasion to berate a “State primary school teacher”, responsible for one of this team’s present bloggers, for teaching the children in her class that the Tudors brought the world “war, piracy, drugs, potatoes and slavery”.

How wonderful to know that such a mind is involved in educating the latest generation! Because as we all know the Romans, Egyptians, Babylonians, and every other group of fuckers ending in -ites from the Old Testament would never have dreamed of using slaves. Equally I have little doubt that the Tudors invented piracy and that reports of piracy going on among those and other various ancient peoples are all exaggerrations, and that it certainly does not go back to the time not long after we worked out that boats were best if one end was a bit pointy. And of course none of them ever got stoned either, especially not the ones growing opium five fucking thousand fucking years ago, just as it's completely unheard of for indigenous cultures in the New World to have ever ground or boiled something up to get completely shitfaced on. No doubt that was why the world was at peace all the way from the dawn of time till Henry Bastard Fucking Tudor and his descendants came along and fucked things up for everybody. Them and their fucking potatoes.

Then over outside her cave the Thylacosmilus quotes a nurse on the subject of female genital mutilation:

Of course, when your campaign is spearheaded by muddle-headed people like this ... it's no wonder you are on a hiding to nothing:

Jackie Mathers, a nurse from the Bristol Safeguarding Children Board, said: "These families do not do this out of spite or hatred; they believe this will give their daughters the best opportunities in life. We would like a conviction, not against the parents, but against a cutter, someone who makes a living from this."

/facepalm

Yep, repeated /facepalm and probably four or five hefty /headdesks as well. Yeah, sure, ignore the parents because a belief that you're somehow giving her the best opportunities in life excuses asking someone to cut up your daughter's twat. What the fuck are we saying here? Would a belief that it was in his daughter's best interest to be locked in a cellar and repeatedly raped for more than two decades have excused Josef Fritzl? And if not him then why not someone who takes their child to have their genitals mutilated? Why is the use of force to do something to someone against their will okay in some circumstances, such as holding a sincere belief, but not others?* Is it the thing of which we dare not speak - hushed whisper, 'cultural sensitivity' or some bullshit phrase along those lines that means 'I don't dare criticize you because I fear the race card'? Never mind fucking /facepalm or /headdesk, I'm thinking a more appropriate response is something along the lines of /P45facestaple for Mathers.

I try not to hold the vast majority of the human race in complete contempt, I really do. I want to be optimistic and think the best of people and believe that most of us are actually pretty decent. But when I come across such outrageous cuntwaftery it just makes it so fucking hard to keep that ideal up and I just want to retreat to the middle of a desert with everything I need to keep twats like that at arms length while I scream and vent. Deep breaths, now. You have to rise above, Angry, rise above..... because it's better to drop the boiling oil from a decent height.

The world is full of complete cunts!

* Yes, despite friendly relations with my Jewish neighbours I do include circumcision of males, especially babies, for non medical reasons. The effects might not be as bad (or not - my equipment has been maintained in original condition so I really wouldn't know) as female circumcision and I'm sure if you're going to do it at all then better it done at an age where the lad won't remember it or have to deal with the possibility of morning glory during recovery from surgery - a fella I knew who'd had a medical necessary circumcision said that that was no fun at all. But still, why do that to someone before they're old enough to make a reasoned decision for themselves unless you actually need to? You wouldn't cut your infant's earlobes off, so why go near the poor kid's groin with a sharp implement? Ah, yes, sorry - God told you to. As the old joke goes:

And Abraham spake unto The Lord, and he said "Right, so let me get this straight. You say we're the chosen people, and you want us to cut the tips off our WHAT?"