The Angry Exile: So what?

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, 9 February 2010

So what?

Most of us who've had to make a speech had to because of some event or dinner that by tradition involves a speech or two, and almost all of us prepare in advance rather than try to ad lib and make a tit out of ourselves. In my case it was being best man at a wedding. I'd been to weddings where speakers had struggled through it because they'd only started thinking about it a day or two before so I began writing the speech a good couple of weeks in advance and had the bones of it down on cue cards. Couple of anecdotes, old joke re-worded to make fun of the groom, anecdote, lovely couple, many happy years together, good friends, charge your glasses - that sort of thing. While I have stood up and spoken since without cue cards it's only been on a topic I knew intimately well. Beyond that I think it'd be pretty normal to have cue cards in your pocket. As such I find it hard to understand what the fuss is over Sarah Palin doing something similar.

A close examination of the former vice-presidential candidate speaking at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville at the weekend revealed she had the words "Energy", "Tax," and "Lift Americans Spirits" scrawled in ink on the inside of her left hand.

So what if she's using notes? This isn't the usual political hypocrisy where the bastards tell us to do one thing while they live by a completely separate and altogether more cushy set of rules. She's not been telling the rest of us we can't speak with the aid of a few notes.

Ah, but...

Sarah Palin mocked President Barack Obama as 'a charismatic guy with a Teleprompter' during a speech only to be photographed with crib notes written on the palm of her hand.

Well? He is a charismatic guy with a teleprompter. She, on the other hand, is an arguably charismatic woman with a little bit of writing on her hand. See the difference? Teleprompter as opposed to six words written on someone's palm, seven if you count the one that had been crossed out. Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not a fan. I think she's barking mad and steered way too much by her belief in the 13 billion year old invisible sky fairy for anyone to expect her to be anything other than a social authoritarian, despite her libertarian pretensions with all this small government low tax guff. Why not go after her for that instead of this thinly veiled jibe about keeping crib notes on your palm? Fuck, why not take the piss out of her for being unaware that you can do that with small bits of paper these days? Why not point out the $349-$549 cost of entry to hear Palin speak, and ask questions about that and the $100,000 she was paid and which she says she's donating to 'conservative causes' that aren't being specified? Because she apparently said something unkind about The One perhaps? Well, let's have a look at the quote in context.

“This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any one king or queen of a tea party, and it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter,” she said.

If I was a picky sort, which I am, I'd point out that she doesn't even mention Obama by name there. Almost certainly she's referring to him but it's applicable to hundreds if not thousands of politicians the world over. She seems also to be lumping herself and other Tea Party big names in with the charismatic guys with teleprompters with the bit about 'any king or queen of a tea party'. What she is not saying is that she's better than him because he uses a teleprompter for speeches and she doesn't, and even if she was half a dozen words on her hand doesn't make her a hypocrite.

I know this was the Telegraph but I think the article comes under this heading:

3 comments:

Bill Sticker said...: I don't get why the British press seem to get so het up about Sarah Palin. I took the trouble to watch the speech she made in Nashville all the way through (and the question and answer session afterwards). As you say, so what?

She comes across as down to earth and right wing, a conviction politician who can speak relatively well off the cuff. May not agree with everything she says, but don't detest her either.; 9 February 2010 at 15:49
JuliaM said...: That probably IS the reason they are so het up... ;); 9 February 2010 at 16:44
Angry Exile said...: Bill, Julia... reckon you've nailed it. How dare she have convictions! Well, apart from the Jeffrey Archer sort - those convictions help sell papers and so they're fine. But like I said, what I find annoying is there are plenty of things that they could tackle her on and instead they choose to focus on irrelevancies.; 9 February 2010 at 16:55