The Angry Exile: A plague on both their houses.

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 11 August 2010

A plague on both their houses.

Last Friday I had a rant about taxpayers' money being spunked away on promoting sports because governments forget that being a sports promoter isn't a government function. What I forgot to mention is that of course both sides are as bad as each other. While I don't hold back at blasting the Labor government here in Victoria for blowing heaps of our money every year on Bernie Ecclestone's Grand Prix circus it's only fair to say that it was originally a Liberal Premier, Jeff Kennett, who's vanity project it was to pinch Formula 1 from Adelaide and bring it to Melbourne. The ALP get to share the blame since they've been in power for more than a decade and have neither told Bernie to fuck off nor insisted that the Melbourne Grand Prix does without taxpayers' money, but it was a Liberal who brought it here in the first place.

Similarly I was less than complimentary about the Labor government's promise to throw money in the direction of what membership numbers suggest is the least popular AFL club:

THE LABOR Party has pledged to fund a $1.9 million overhaul of the playing surface at North Melbourne’s Arden Street Oval if re-elected on August 21.

The announcement was made on Thursday afternoon by infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese.

He was flanked by Labor frontbencher Simon Crean, who is a lifelong North Melbourne supporter.
Seriously, fellas, what? The? Fuck? Are you doing giving handouts to any football club, let alone the least popular club by memberships in the whole bloody league? Did you bastards help out the Melbourne Demons, or did you let them clear $5 million of debt over two years by themselves, like the business that an AFL club really is?

Not to be out~~scum~~ done the fucking Liberals have now also promised to put their hands in our trouser pockets to favour a particular club.

GEELONG Football Club has thrown itself into the federal election fray through a ringing endorsement of the Coalition's $36 million pledge to revamp Skilled Stadium.

Fuck me sideways with a goal post, $36 million? I'd guess there are about 3-3.5 million taxpayers in the state so that's more than ten bucks each. Might not sound much but here's the thing: that ten bucks will be taken from everybody by force and only Geelong supporters and residents of the town - who'll often be one and the same - will get the benefit. If the club president went round to every house with a gun and demanded $10 for his stadium's improvements he'd go to prison, but when a state government do it it's fine.

Labor and Labor voting Geelong fans are getting quite upset about this because they see it as a club endorsement of a party, which of course it is. But Labor have only themselves to blame.

[Club Chief Executive Brian Cook] said the club would have issued such a release for Labor, ''had they had committed to funding the redevelopment''.

Clearly aware of the sensitivity of such an issue in the battle for marginal Corangamite in particular, Costa acknowledged the club was using the joint statement as leverage to pressure Labor to match or better the the conservative promise.

Labor has said it will fund the upgrade if Australia is successful in the 2022 World Cup bid, to be announced in December.

See? You fucknuts started it with a conditional promise of robbing us all to benefit Geelong. All the fucking Liberals are doing is upping the ante (also with our money, natch).

[Club President Frank Costa] said he would lobby Prime Minister Julia Gillard at an exclusive ALP fund-raiser tomorrow night.

This would be long time Western Bulldogs supporter, Julia Gillard, yes? I can only hope that she tells Frank Costa to fuck off in no uncertain terms, but I'd also hope that it's not just because she's the number one ticket holder for one of Geelong's premiership rivals. Someone in politics needs to grow the balls to tell private enterprise 'No' whenever it comes to the door with its hand out, especially when that private enterprise is a sporting club or event, but sadly I doubt that Julia Gillard or Tony Abbot or their state level counterparts are the ones to do it. The fact is that both parties are as bad as each other and see absolutely no problem with robbing people in order to bribe them with their own money. Why people continue to vote for the bastards when they keep doing this is quite beyond me.