The Angry Exile: ... Then they came for the people who like hamburgers ...

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 6 January 2010

... Then they came for the people who like hamburgers ...

They've just about won on smoking, they feel they're doing pretty well on drinking, and for a while now it's been pretty clear that what we eat will be next. So while it's depressing this comes as absolutely no fucking surprise whatsoever.

Restaurants and takeaway shops will have to provide health warnings on menus as part of a new Government drive to prevent obesity, climate change and global food shortages.

Oh, my. Health nazism, delusional green control freakery and a touch of neo-Malthusianism, all in one sentence.

The first major food strategy to be published since World War Two establishes a new "Healthy Food Code of Practice" that will ask all restaurants and fast food outlets to clearly label the amount of sugar and fat in unhealthy meals.

Yes, I'm sure it's planned to remain at 'asking' and nobody's drawn up a schedule for when it'll turn into 'advising' and then 'ordering'.

New labels on food will show the 'carbon footprint' in manufacturing and transporting products.

Good. It ought to be pointless since a higher priced item immediately implies that it cost more to produce and/or transport, or at least it would do if you lot weren't constantly muddying the waters by taxing this, subsidising that and giving an allowance on the other. But well done for the carbon footprint idea. I'll know what to buy more of then, and if your retarded idea works with any luck demand for those products will bring the price down a bit.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, who is due to announce the new strategy at the Oxford Farming Conference, said the UK could be a "food superpower" in the next ten years by revolutionising farming and food manufacturing.
But ultimately, the vegetarian minister said healthy eating is up to the consumer and pledged more money to educate people in eating and buying the right food.

The right food being vegetables? Sorry but when someone says that something is up to individual people and then pledges money, money that those same people have had taken from them by force, to 'educate' them into making the 'right' decision I smell a rat. Who are you to say what is the right decision? I spy with my little eye something beginning with an ideology and ending with a conflict of interests. Seriously, why not just put Paul McCartney or some other fucking meat hater in charge? If it's to be a veggie I really don't mind, providing it was one known to not give a flying fuck if other people eat meat. I'm far from convinced Hilary Benn qualifies.

The Government's food policy for the next 20 years is intended to not only promote healthy food but also to fight global warming and ensure we do not fall victim to food shortages.

Look, you deluded, nannying fuck monkeys, number one, an individual's weight is their problem even if the state pays for their healthcare because, if you'll care to recall, you've already drained the poor sod of money to pay for their healthcare in advance. It's their body and they've paid in advance at the point of a metaphorical gun, on your orders. You don't get to carry on making their decisions for them - fuck you.

Number two, if you think forgoing the extra cheese topping will have the slightest measurable impact on the climate you're quite mad. The scientific arguments are still going on about whether it's possible to separate an anthropogenic signal in all the climate noise from the net total of every single thing our species has been doing for 150 years, and you seriously believe you can narrow it down to a contribution from junk food? Bullshit! But perhaps you don't seriously believe it at all, you just want the proles to believe it because they'll have to keep coming to you for ~~instructions~~ advice. What a happy thought. If you're daft enough to believe it then fuck off, and if you're just hoping we'll believe it then fuck you.

Number three, the warble gloaming driven, government subsidised, international rush to stop using productive land for growing food and start using it to produce bio-fuels instead helped make a global food shortage. Your fault! Yours! Don't you fucking dare lecture us for living in wealthy nations (though less wealthy than they were due to unrelated fuck ups of yours) and being able to afford increased food prices as production fell due to your policies. Don't you fucking dare hint that it's taken the food from the mouth of some poor bastard starving somewhere in the developing world when they might have had a little more if you lot in western governments hadn't been spunking away our tax money to persuade farmers there to grow inedible crops for fucking fuel!

Fuck you! Fuck you all right in the fucking gob, you hypocritical, joyless, knob chomping, nannying cuntrags.