The Angry Exile: Nearly over

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

Friday, 20 August 2010

Nearly over - UPDATED.

Election day is just about on us down here and that'll be it for another three years (apart from state elections, which for Victoria is actually only another three months or so). It goes without saying that as with the British election I can't bear to support the main parties even though their similar awfulness is a little more distinguishable than in the UK. Julia Gillard impressed me a little by not sucking up to the religious vote and stating that she's not going to insult them by pretending to have a faith that she hasn't got, but any hope that she might get what I suspect is a religious inspired internet censorship policy off the table has been shot down. The not-actually-Liberals are being uncharacteristically liberal about it and saying they'll make any such filter optional, which is kind of what the Howard government did at one point before giving up on the idea due to hardly anyone actually wanting it. However, both have been bribing us with our own money in the shape of their respective broadband plans. Labor want to install a 100 Mbps fibre service to cover 93% of the country and high speed satellite for the rest - a snip at $43 billion. The Coalition would rather provide us with a 12 Mbps fibre and wireless service that might go as fast as 100 Mbps, covers 97% of the population (the rest to get satellite again) and which only costs $6 billion. And obviously both are missing the point:

It's not your fucking money, you thieving pricks! You're not there to piss our cash away on rolling out broadband as if it's a public service. Being a telecoms company is not a government function, which is why we have fucking telecoms companies. When 90 plus percent of the population really need that sort of service, whether it's $6 billion or $43 billion, they'll be willing to put their hands in their fucking pockets for it and someone will come along and put the network in. It's called the market, and all that is really required from the government is for it to stay out of the fucking way.

Unfortunately no matter who wins in just under 24 hours we're certainly in for more of the same.

UPDATE - Mrs Exile has pointed out to me that in addition to wanting to censor the whole fucking internet Labor would also like to censor all games and apps for smart phones, though from this article I have no idea if it's the usual nannying or because it's an untapped revenue stream for the government (my emphasis).

THE Labor Party has flagged it will shut down a major loophole in the mobile phone industry.

The loophole has allowed games and applications to go online without any kind of classification.

Amid debate on internet and video game censorship, it has emerged that thousands of smartphone games and applications are being sold or distributed without going through a classification check, in contravention of the National Classification Scheme.

The largest distributor of smartphone applications, Apple, is bypassing millions of dollars in fees, as classification fees range from $470 to $2040 for computer games, costing the government revenue.

I'm not sure exactly how Apple (who I'm more than happy to slag off when I think they deserve it) or distributor is bypassing millions in fees or how it can be in contravention of the ~~censors' rule book~~ National Classification Scheme. If there's a loophole then by definition this is legal and nobody is in contravention of anything, and for 'bypassing millions of dollars' we should read 'not being sufficiently moronic to hand over millions of dollars to the government for which it has absolutely no legal claim'.

More than 220,000 applications are available in Australia for download.

At a conservative estimate, one-third of them are games, suggesting compliance costs would be in the millions.

And if the ALP get their way who will actually pay those millions of dollars, eh? The distributors? The developers? Somehow I doubt that. It will be the customer, as it always is when government make the price of goods or services artificially high. Seriously, anyone want to bet that prices for apps and games would not then go up to cover these compliance fees? Anyone at all?

'Kinell. It's almost enough to make me vote for the fucking Liberals.