The Angry Exile: Lights and fences and lawsuits, oh my.

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 28 January 2010

Lights and fences and lawsuits, oh my.

One of the things I'm quite happy for government to do, and therefore for me to be taxed to help pay for, is a bit of street lighting. Okay, governments being what they are I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone said that it costs more than it needs to, but overall it's mostly not bad value and as public services go it's simple enough that it must be quite hard to fuck up. However there are limits and I think lighting up a whole fucking bridge at a cost of $20 million just because you want it to look good is going beyond them.

Melbourne's Westgate Bridge will be covered in thousands of new lights, in a face-lift that is expected to reinvigorate the city's night skyline.

The Victorian Government will spend about $20-million on the lights, which will be placed on the bridge's cabling poles and lanes.

...

"That will provide for a safer, more visible structure, and ultimately one that I think will aptly demonstrate a key piece of urban infrastructure for the city of Melbourne," [said the Roads Minister, Tim Pallas]

The lights can be illuminated in patterns for special events such as New Year's Eve.

Look at the fucking thing, will you? I realise that Melbourne feels a little like it's living in Sydney's shadow sometimes but the Westgate is not and never will be the tourist attraction that the Sydney Harbour Bridge is. You can't get out and admire it or walk across taking photos of the city, and there's no museum and gift shop or anywhere obvious to put it. The most significant part of its history that I know of is part of it falling down during construction, and I bet very few visitors trouble themselves to go and find the particular support with the plaque listing the names of those who died in the accident. So how about saving $20 million of our money, not to mention the ongoing costs, and settle for lighting that does the simple job of helping drivers see each other on the bridge at night?

Ah, but it's not just the lights. As the article mentions, the lights are just part of a $1.4 billion project to improve and upgrade the bridge, which includes the anti-suicide fences that I've mentioned before:

... if you said that saved 100 lives over ten years I'd agree that 100 grand per life saved is a more than fair price. But if it means that 100 people over ten years simply go for a walk in the forest with a rope I don't see we've gained a single thing. Come on, this is Australia for Christ's sake - you can almost guarantee your own death by going into the bush and annoying the wildlife.

As I said back then I'm a little undecided about the virtues of anti suicide fences on bridges in general and the Westgate in particular. The argument that some people choose to jump on impulsion is plausible, but people buy crap they don't need and can't afford on impulse as well and we don't think about putting barriers up to stop them. I'm all for the idea where suicides present a strong risk of injuring, killing or even inconveniencing others (I've always said that if I wanted to top myself I'd be looking at ways that don't involve jumping off of or under anything, and preferably that doesn't mean some poor sod has to peel parts of my brain of every flat surface in the room) but otherwise I lean towards leaving the situation be and accepting the fact that now and again people will jump, and that stopping them from doing so won't prevent the serious ones looking for alternatives. On top of that I feel strongly that if our lives are truly our own then an individual must have the right to decide whether they want to die, assuming they can do so rationally.

What I'm damn sure I oppose is suing other taxpayers because someone you care about took their life and that you blame the state for not doing enough to stop them.

Ali Halkic [whose son committed suicide by jumping from the Westgate] claims [the state government and Vicroads] did not do enough to stop people committing suicide at the bridge, by putting up public safety barriers.

"If there are people out there who need any form of assistance, they should be prepared to do whatever needs to be done, knowing that they let these people die, and they could have prevented some of the deaths."

I do feel sorry for the guy but really, would fences have stopped his son going down to Point Lonsdale and jumping in The Rip or something? And even if it would have is a lawsuit that, win or lose, is going to use up more government resources (and taxpayers' money) going to help, or is it going to cost money that could have been used to fix the problem that you're suing over? This is always one of the big problems when it comes suing governments. Another is that even if you're after nominal damages and just want a head or two to roll it's actually taxpayers being sued, or at least picking up the bill, and that includes whoever brought the suit. Campaign all you like, maybe even bring a private prosecution, but every time the government spends money we all pay. We should probably think about that before trying to force them to spend even more.