The Angry Exile: Smut and filth everywhere.

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

Friday, 18 December 2009

Smut and filth everywhere.

And we must be protected from it because our poor minds are too fragile to stand it. That is the default position of the government of the Commonwealth of Australia, and for that reason I'm going to call them a bunch of patronising cunts while I still can. I was also going to post the results of a Google image search for 'patronising cunt' with the safe search set to off in the hope of getting at least one X-rated picture while I still can, but the first two results were respectively Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey (slightly unfair on Ramsey, I feel).

Now it's worth remembering that we've been here before (see here, here, especially here, and here, here, here and here). Yes, I do get mildly exercised about this from time to time because I was under the impression that when I migrated I was leaving an over regulated country of nannying twats for one that was more free and treated its population like fucking adults. Sadly Australia is in some respects even worse than Britain. Yes, we don't have the bazillions of CCTV cameras monitoring our every move, though there are quite enough to be getting on with. And true, we don't have some of the more worrying mini-enabling acts that Devil's Kitchen often talks about (at least not as far as I know - probably be told different before long). And we don't have coppers and semi-coppers bullying and harassing anyone with a fucking camera just ~~for shits and giggles~~ because they think they can (and I doubt I'm the only one who finds the fucking gum chewing annoying in someone who's supposed to be serving and protecting the public - the cunt). However, what we do have is a group of self righteous, moralising, over protective pricks who, quite possibly driven by their religious beliefs, are determined to prevent anyone in Australia whether adult or not from seeing anything offensive. Offensive being defined by those same moralising, over protective and possibly religiously driven pricks of course. If I wanted religion determining my freedom to do what I want and look at whatever online content I choose I'd have moved to Iran, but I suspect it's going to prove more an embarrassing nuisance.

They know it won't work and they don't care. They know that determined users will bypass the filters by various means and get access to whatever is being blocked, and they don't care. They know that some offensive content will inevitably slip through the cracks and be available to outrage anyone in Australia too retarded to click away from something they came across by accident, and they don't care. They know that plenty of harmless content will inadvertently be blocked and that people innocent of any crime either here or elsewhere may suffer as a result, and they don't care. They know it'll slow internet services down and they don't care. They know that ISPs will naturally pass the costs of web filtering on to customers, and they don't care about that either. All they care about is that they are being seen to be doing something about the seedier parts of the internet and supposedly protecting the delicate sensibilities of Australia, ignoring the fact that if they just kept the fuck out almost all of us would manage to avoid anything we don't like on the web all by ourselves. As I said, embarrassing... but the nuisance factor is that Australian taxpayers will inevitably be made to pay handsomely for this fucktivisation and will reap a slower and crappier internet service as a reward. Thanks a fucking bunch, you cock sockets.

But do you know what I find saddest of all? That they also know this isn't popular, and they don't care about that either. Democracy? Nyaaaah, fuck it. So what if a poll in one of the largest newspapers in the country is overwhelmingly against? 96% of, at the time I'm blogging this, 22,392 people are clearly opposed to the Great Firewall of Australia. But if the last federal election is anything to go by well over 11,000 of the 21,500 or so who oppose it probably voted for the cunts who are doing it.

So if you don't like the government acting like you're incapable of deciding for yourself what offends you online and what to do about it when/if you ever stumble across something you don't like by accident, or if you find the infringement of freedom and the possible precedent it sets for censorship of the web in a much broader sense as offensive as some of the worst the web has to offer, but you voted for the ALP or gave them your second preference then you can, to paraphrase V, blame the person you see in the mirror. Give yourselves a big pat on the back, preferably with a bundle of red hot barbed wire.