The Angry Exile: Something to be sent to Mars... maybe.

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 23 December 2009

Something to be sent to Mars... maybe.

According to Urmee Khan in The Daily Telegraph the Russians are going to send a monkey to Mars.

A monkey may be sent to Mars, under plans unveiled by Russian scientists.

Just a mo, the headline says 'Monkey to be sent to Mars'. No ifs, buts or maybes. But what you're actually saying is that it's just an idea someone's mulling over at the moment. Not giving in to a little sensationalism here, are we?

Although the ape will be looked after by a robot on the mission, the decision is expected to spark controversy with animal rights groups.

Huh? It was a monkey a minute ago and now it's an ape? Never mind sending the poor thing to Mars, what about the fucking genetic transmogrification machine or whatever they must have fed it through to turn it from animal into another?

The Institute [of Experimental Pathology and Therapy in Georgia] is in preliminary talks with Russia's Cosmonautics Academy about preparing monkeys for a simulated Mars mission...

Preliminary talks doesn't sound much like the kind of concrete plan suggested by the headline. Oh, and I see it's turned back into a monkey.

... that could lay the groundwork for sending an ape to the Red Planet, he said.

Ah. Then the idea is to send a monkey first to try and establish safety parameters for a later mission to be carried out by an ape? Is the ape going as a larger scale experiment along the same lines as the monkey that's going first or is it going to be a fully trained apestronaut? Or are they planning to bring the monkey back from Mars and turn it into an ape again?

[Director of the Institute] Mr Mikvabia said: "Earlier this programme was aimed at sending cosmonauts, people (to Mars).
"But given the length of the flight to Mars, and given the cosmic rays for which we don't have adequate protection over such a long trip, discussions have focused recently on sending an ape instead of a person."

I'm confused. Has the monkey been turned into an ape permanently or have just gone and got a chimpanzee and sacked the poor monkey that's put all this effort in to the Mars trip?

If Russia pursues the idea of sending monkeys to Mars, Mikvabia's institute could become the site of an enclosed "biosphere" where apes would be kept for long periods to simulate space flights.

Monkeys and apes? Are the monkeys there to help the apes with small fiddly jobs? Are the apes there to help with the heavy lifting the monkeys can't manage? Or are they going to be turned from one into the other as necessary by the transmogrifier?

The Institute said a robot would accompany the first primate to Mars to feed and look after the ape.

Well, duh, of course they'll need a robot. Do they think the ape is going to turn into a fucking monkey on it's own? Everyone knows you can't operate a transmogrifier from the inside.

Mr Mikvabia said: "The robot will feed the monkey, will clean up after it. Our task will be to teach the monkey to co-operate with the robot."

Is that so it can eventually persuade the robot to get into the transmogriferdoodab, be turned into an encyclopaedia and mail itself to any newspaper where the staff seem blissfully unaware that monkeys and apes aren't the same thing?

"Monkey"? Fuck you! I used to be a robot.

Also expanding our horizons The Telegraph helpfully tells us that angels can't fly.

A leading biologist has compared the physiology of flighted species with the representations of spiritual and mythical creatures in art – and found the angels and fairies that sit atop of Christmas trees did not get there under their own steam.
Prof Roger Wotton, from University College London, found that flight would be impossible for angels portrayed with arms and bird-like feathered wings.

/headdesk
/headdesk
/headdesk

Mate, the main reason those can't fly is because they're all paintings and statues of something that might well not be real, hence the use of the phrase "representations of spiritual and mythical creatures in art". I think maybe Prof Wotton has too much time on his hands. That or UCL had a hell of a Christmas party.