The Angry Exile: Easily confused

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

Sunday, 24 April 2011

Easily confused

Via the Ranting Kingpenguin, a story of breathtaking offence seeking to the Nth degree. A persons who is a living, black woman with a lack of facial hair consistent with her gender claiming offence over the similarity she has with a scale model of a dead white guy with a beard you could insulate your roof with.

Yes, really.

For a poster advertising a primary school parents’ meeting, it is certainly unusual.
Using models, it depicts scientist Charles Darwin surrounded by an angry mob wielding flaming torches and makeshift weapons.
According to the school governor who created it, City executive David Moyle, it is a satirical joke about pushy middle-class parents demanding higher standards.

But...?

Yet when black headmistress Shirley Patterson saw it, she believed it represented her surrounded by white parents.

Do fucking what? What, did she think it was supposed to represent?

She reportedly compared it to a scene from Mississippi Burning, a film about the Ku Klux Klan’s racist lynchings...

Starring Morgan Freeman as Charles Darwin? Oh, wait, no.

... saying it left her ‘fearing for her and her family’s safety’.

Oh, please. Anyone with a torch is evocative of Deep South Klansmen lynchings? Really? Indiana Jones? The Statue of Liberty? The Fellowship of the Ring? Shall we go on?

Torch and a scale model. Also bearded.
RAAACIST!

Needless to say the constabularists were called in although they said there was no law against it, which is slightly surprisingly since the definition of racism seems to have been broadened to include anything that anyone anywhere might perceive as racist even if it's not aimed at their own race. But you just know that's not going to be the end of it, don't you?

Although the police realised Darwin was white, and said no crime had been committed, Southwark council insisted it had ‘appropriately’ investigated the ‘deeply disturbing’ poster.

Seriously, guys, the only thing that's deeply disturbing is how quickly some people are able to see a race issue in something so patently unrelated to anything to do with race, and even a fairly cursory investigation should have found that out simply by asking David Moyle.

He found the image on a website mocking ‘creationists’ angered by Darwin’s theory of evolution...

And a few minutes googling backs this up since I've found the same scene photographed from a different angle in a piece dated March 2009 about Darwin and the creationist/evolution argument. So you'd imagine the investigation would be over pretty quickly, eh?

I'm kidding. Of course you wouldn't. Not only is it a local council and almost certainly shot through with political correctness, but it's a Labour run council and likely more prone to PC bullshit anyway. And so inevitably...

‘A two-week investigation was carried out into the toy Charles Darwin’s ethnicity, before it was ruled “indeterminable”.
[...]
The Labour authority refused to reveal details of its inquiry – which involved half a dozen officers at a time when 500 jobs are set to be cut.
And it will not discuss how a model of a white, bearded, Victorian scientist could be confused with a black 21st century headmistress.

I doubt it's justifying its assessment of the image as disturbing either. Oh, sorry, not just disturbing but

“deeply disturbing and damaging to children”

Altogether now: Won't someone think of the chiiiiiiildren?

Fucking twats.

And the poor sod painted as a racist by this collection of idiot offence seekers, self righteous arsewipes, and bullying pricks? What of him? Well, having been suspended as a school governor over this lunatic claim he's not surprisingly thinking of taking his kids out of there and sending them to another school. Personally I think he has another lesson to learn.

"[...] as an ardent supporter of local government, I was taken aback by the reaction of the council, who not only fully endorsed the disproportionate reaction of the school management, but also contrived additional charges about the poster that had no relation at all to the original complaint.

An ardent supporter of local government, eh? Mr Moyle, I think I've just spotted your mistake.