The Angry Exile: One pilot gets it.

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 22 October 2010

One pilot gets it.

If you're my age, give or take, then you might remember when flying was fun. Even into my early teens arriving at the airport felt like the beginning of the holiday. Not any more. These days, thanks largely to a fuckwit in a cave and the spinelessness and paranoia of various governments, it doesn't feel like you're on holiday until you're finally released from the destination airport. Going to your departure airport isn't the beginning of the trip but just the beginning of all the checks and questions and scans you have to go through before they let you squeeze into a space that would make a veal calf claustrophobic. Travelling light is no answer since even with no luggage at all you're increasingly likely to be ordered to take your shoes off. I'd made the mistake of wearing hiking boots the last time this happened to me, and since then I've vowed if I've got the choice I won't fly anywhere again as long as they insist on treating me like a suspect even though in this country it can take a day or more to drive between major cities and well over a week to go from one side to the other.

But of all the insane security theatre in airports now the most window lickingly pointless is putting the bloody aircrew through it. I mean, think about it. You don't need to check to see if pilots have tucked away something they intend to use to gain access to the cockpit for a very obvious reason: it's where the airlines pay them to fucking be anyway. If one of them goes off his head and wants to kamikaze the plane I doubt there's much to stop him. So how many other people are being scanned pointlessly? Well, if the Israeli experience is any guide the answer is virtually everyone. Now one pilot has decided he's had enough of being treated as a suspect as well.

A Tennessee pilot is waiting to find out if he has lost his job because he refused to go through a full body scanner at a Memphis airport.
ExpressJet Airlines first officer Michael Roberts turned up for work on Monday but says he's tired of being manhandled by security agents and went home after deciding he didn't want to be patted down.
Roberts was chosen to go through the X-ray scanning machine at Memphis International airport before getting into the pilot seat to fly a commercial aircraft.
The Houston-based pilot walked off his job after declining to go through the security screening but has said he wants to go back to work.
The 35-year-old says he has an issue with the security procedure because he doesn't want to be 'harassed or molested without cause'.

And good for him. Now if all of us self loading freight can just follow his lead and refuse to accept our unjustified treatment as terrorist suspects by most airports then maybe, just maybe, flying anywhere might stop being the miserable and tedious experience it's become. Vote with your feet and your wallets - it's all they'll understand.