The Angry Exile: Austria ≠ Australia

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, 30 March 2011

Austria ≠ Australia

Click for linky

Per your own fucking article, folks, that'll be Austria, not Australia.

Austria's ORF network has so far banned a total of eight episodes, including one that features scientists Marie and Pierre Curie dying of radiation poisoning.

Australia didn't get a mention, although the softcocks at Channel Ten have since followed suit.

"All new and repeat Simpsons episodes are, as a matter of course, reviewed before going to air in case sensitive issues are detected, particularly during natural disasters," a Ten spokesman said.

"In light of this, we have decided to rest certain episodes that refer to nuclear power storylines." Ten screens The Simpsons on its digital channel, Eleven.

Look, you could find a reason that something in every single episode of every single program ever made might offend or upset someone somewhere. Everyone has sensitive issues at some time or another. What are you going to do, broadcast nothing just to be on the safe side? Of course not. You assume that if someone sees something they don't like they'll reach for the remote and turn off or over. And guess what? That's what they fucking do. Well, normal people anyway. I realise there is a small minority of DOTWs that will carry on watching because it'll help them achieve offencegasm.* But everybody can tell the difference between cartoons and reality, and if one is an uncomfortable reminder of the other they're capable of deciding not to watch. They don't fucking need you to decide for them. Adelaide Now! has a poll up on the subject on that article if anyone's interested.

Meanwhile at The Teletubbygraph they've managed to link detection of trace amounts of Iodine 131 in Oxfordshire and Scotland to Japan's ongoing problems at Fukushima in a single headline, before going on to say in the article that actually it might not be related at all.

But, just to clarify, Iodine-131 is also used as a radiopharmaceutical.
"So it might just be worth the people checking there that this is not some slight release, just above background, associated with people washing their pharmaceuticals down the drains in Scotland.

And then adding

The risk to human health at the levels that they are talking about, I think, are basically zero.

Nowhere do they mention that ¹³¹I has a half life of just over a week and so in a couple of months where it came from will be moot since effectively there won't be any more than you'd find normally.

in other words it's the usual bullshit doom laden headline before clarifying in the main article, at a point which the attention deficit generation rarely reach of course, that actually there's nothing to worry about.

* Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells.