The Angry Exile: The times are a-changing.

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 27 October 2010

The times are a-changing.

When I was a child I had more freedoms to look forward to as I grew up. Some were freedoms my parents decided I was ready for, such as crossing the road to the park on my own, riding my bike on the road, going to the local shops, sometimes with a signed note from Mum or Dad asking for a packet or two of Embassy since I was some years off 16 - I doubt many shopkeepers would do that now for fear that it was a local Trading Standards op or even that someone would simply dob them in. For others I was automatically considered ready by the state, such as buying and using my own tobacco, having sex, driving, buying alcohol* and standing for Parliament (which doesn't come with the freedom to do all the rest simultaneously although the behaviour of some MPs may suggest it comes with the misapprehension that it does). It would be a pretty depressing state of affairs if the reality was that you're born free** and then grow up looking forward to your freedom being progressively infringed and eroded, wouldn't it? Nah, surely not... that's just ol' Angry Exile's deeply ingrained cynicism, right?

Wrong, because thanks to a revoltingly authoritarian head teacher there's one neighbourhood here where kids can look forward to losing the freedom of association when they start primary school.

Students at [Osbourne Primary School in Mount Martha] on the Mornington Peninsula have been banned from congregating in groups of more than three in a bid to stop gangs of children teasing and upsetting their classmates.

...

In the latest edition of the school's newsletter, principal Liz Klein wrote that the rule was introduced to stop "gangs of students wandering around the schoolyard teasing and upsetting others for their entertainment".

The newsletter states that students are not permitted to walk around the school in groups larger than three.

What a stroke of fucking genius! Why bother teaching children right from wrong? Why go to the trouble of actually dealing with teasing and bullying as it happens? No, far easier just to ban groups larger than an arbitrarily chosen number in the ~~knowledge~~ ~~belief~~ hope that the problem will just magically go away. Oh, for fuck's sake, where do I begin with this kind of utter fucktardary?

Well, for starters there's the point that some of the parents have made:

The controversial rule ... has been criticised by some parents for punishing the whole school rather than just those students doing the wrong thing.

Quite, and doing so is not simply unjust but fucking lazy, which would be the second point. I can't imagine how the principal can even begin to justify it unless she was to suggest that it's a valuable lesson about what to expect when they're older since governments at every level will take the same lazy route of punishing largely innocent groups of people, and incidentally taking a huge, diarrheic shit all over their liberties - which is the third point - in order to get at a small number of trouble makers. Could this be the idea?

Yeah, I doubt it too. So what does the principal - and am I just being a pedantic pom approaching middle aged fartihood or does anyone else prefer 'head teacher'? - have to say for herself?

Ms Klein told 3AW today that certain students had made a habit of walking around the school in a pack aggravating others.

Certain students, yet Liz's response is a measure targeting all students.

Despite being spoken to by teachers, the students had persisted with their behaviour.

Well stack me, who'd have fucking seen that coming? And now those self same little shits can congratulate themselves for continuing to make their fellow pupils' lives at school just that little bit more miserable than they need be, all thanks to Liz Klein and her policy of don't-know-what-to-do-now-so-punishment-for-all. Fucking hell, Liz, whose side are you actually on here? The poor bloody kids who were on the receiving end are now being bullied by you and the fucking school instead of, or more likely as well as, the original bullies.

Because that's the fourth and final problem, Liz. As well as being lazy, unjust, and authoritarian your policy is going to fail as soon as the bullies work out that they only need to split into pairs and target lone kids, which I suspect they might be able to do faster than you did. You're assuming that in a group of three bullying can no longer take place, and simple mathematics - do you teach that at Osbourne? - should be enough to work out that in such a group two children can still gang up on the third. Fucking hell, woman, that's more or less how democracies function. Another lesson, perhaps?

Yeah, right.

* Yes, I realise this means that they are not really freedoms as such, but I'm in a bit of a rush and a discussion on freedoms, liberties and negative and positive rights wasn't the point of this post.
** If you have now got Matt Munro singing in your heads, I have an idea how old you are.*** And if you think beauty surrounds you as well then I also have an idea that you may be on drugs. Or just bloody lucky.
*** If you also have a cat it knows. Trust me, it just does. And its contempt for you has just doubled.