The Angry Exile: Selling your car? BANNED!

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, 13 May 2010

Selling your car? BANNED! - UPDATED

Good laws are instinctively easy to understand, and given that ignorance of the law is supposedly no defence that's pretty essential. The opposite situation, where people find themselves breaking the law without knowing or even having a reasonable expectation that they may not have acted legally, is not only undesirable and unjust but is also likely to damage the relationship between citizens and the judicial system. Either this has been forgotten or never learned in Adelaide where, to the surprise of many residents, it is now illegal to put a for sale sign in your car. And it might not stop in Adelaide.

THE old-fashioned money-saving practice of placing a "for sale" sign in your car window could soon be illegal across the state, with councils starting to introduce a controversial new by-law.

Car owners are already being fined up to $100 by some councils for displaying the signs on their vehicle, even while it is legally parked at a kerbside.

At least seven councils have adopted the by-law - drafted by the Local Government Association - which makes it illegal to display advertising signs on your car when parked in public. Onkaparinga Council says it has issued more than 100 of the $100 fines since banning roadside ads in January.

Morphett Vale resident Megan Walkley, 28, said she was fined after she parked her car, with its for sale sign, outside her home just before Easter.

"I had only parked on the road because we were planning to have a (rubbish) skip delivered that day to the driveway," Ms Walkley said.

"I got a shock when I got the fine, I'd never heard of that by-law before and you see parked cars with for sale signs all the time."

...

Independent state MP Bob Such said the by-law was unjustified revenue raising and he would introduce a Private Member's Bill to State Parliament this week to overturn it.

"Council by-laws like these are whittling away people's basic rights and seeing them getting pinged by the petty hand of bureaucracy," Dr Such said. "This is of concern because the wording of the by-laws means they could also apply - if the council wants to get nasty - to the plumber who parks his car on the road with his name and phone number on his van."

Dr Such said visiting your sick mother in the wrong council with a for sale sign displayed on your car could result in a fine, even if you live in a different council area.

In other words not only must people in Adelaide be thoroughly familiar with their local by-laws but also those in force anywhere and everywhere they might visit. And why is this necessary?

Onkaparinga public health and safety manger Chris Button said the by-law was adopted by the outer southern suburbs council after complaints from residents about cars for sale left parked in prominent places.

"They are typically parked on arterial roads or busy intersections, creating a traffic hazard," he said.

"I know at least six other councils have adopted this by-law and another 15 plan to put it in place when they next review their by-laws."

Translation: some cars were parked inconsiderately or in unsafe places and we couldn't be bothered to deal with them when it's so much easier to just fine everyone who puts a home made 'For Sale' sign on the windscreen, not to mention more profitable.

I'm not sure if this upsets me more because it's liberty lost through laziness rather than from an actual attack. It's not like someone has decided that it's dangerous like the whole 'legal high' thing and therefore it must be stopped for everyone's good. It's just that liberty has such a low value put on it that nobody could be bothered to deal with this small problem in such a way as to not trample on the freedom of the sensible majority.

Your liberty... just not important these days. Not if you're flogging a car in Adelaide anyway.

UPDATE - courtesy of Chuckles in the comments I see this isn't just an SA thing but also a UK thing. Should we even be surprised?

3 comments:

Chuckles said...: They're just copying the UK, been illegal here for years, in a number of variants - e.g.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030410/Grandfather-For-Sale-sign-car-window-given-100-fine-running-street-business.html

I think if you drive around with a notice on a window or park in your driveway, they get you for trading without a licence or similar.; 13 May 2010 at 00:52
Angry Exile said...: There too? Oh for fuck's sake.; 13 May 2010 at 10:08
JuliaM said...: No, we shouldn't be surprised. And yet, we always are...; 13 May 2010 at 21:18