The Angry Exile: Spot what's missing here

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

Tuesday, 2 August 2011

Spot what's missing here

Down here in Mellie we're currently basking in sunshine and unusually warm temperatures for the time of year, it still being winter and all. And since Victorians, though many wouldn't admit it, like to chat about the weather as much as the English it's no surprise to see a news report or two on it. Here's one from The Age, which I'm going to quote en bloc since I think it's notable for something it doesn't say. Read all the way through and see if you end up thinking the same thing as I did.

Melburnians have revelled in record-breaking warmth today and can expect more freak winter warmth in the coming days as the city experiences an unseasonably sunny start to August.

The top temperature in the city reached 20.2 just after 2.30pm, the warmest ever August 2.

Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Stuart Coombs said it was the warmest start to August since records began in 1855.

In Geelong and Avalon, the mercury climbed to just over 22 degrees.

The Bureau has nudged up tomorrow's forecast maximum from 20 degrees to 21 degrees and expects Thursday will reach 22 degrees.

Mr Coombs said if the Bureau's forecasts were correct, Wednesday and Thursday will also be the highest recorded temperatures on those dates.

The city’s previously hottest August 2 was recorded at 19.5 degrees way back in 1873.

Nights have also been remarkably warm for mid-winter, with the minimum temperature in the city hitting 11.7 degrees at 3.46am today.

That is five degrees above the average minimum temperature for August.

Other parts of the state are also enjoying pleasant conditions. Mildura hit nearly 27 degrees today, Orbost reached just over 20 degrees and Kyabram nearly 21 degrees.

But the sunshine won't last.

"Let's face it, in Melbourne these things never do," Mr Coombs said.

"We will see a cold front gradually crossing the state by the end of the week bringing rain and cooler conditions by the weekend."

The temperature is expected to drop to low and mid teens by Saturday and between 10 and 20 mm of rain to fall from Friday.

This week's mild conditions are being created by a high pressure system over the Tasman sea and northerly winds over Victoria.

Did you see it? Or rather not see it because it isn't there? An article about unseasonably warm weather with not one single mention of climate whinge, emissions, carbon taxes or any of the other warble gloaming catastrophist agitprop that's so often regurgitated for these kind of stories. And it's not the first time recently that I've scrolled down a weather story looking for the almost inevitable 'the Earth is angry because you drive a Land Rover' line only to find it's not there.

Why do you think that is? I'd like to think it's a sign that the whole trope is gradually suffocating in its own bullshit and climate science might soon return to an honest approach, being open about the huge amount of uncertainty there is and the vast number of things that remains unknown about how the climate works, or perhaps that the media is finally becoming bored with linking everything to warble gloaming. But there's another possibility too. There have been some damned cold winters in the last few years, and here in Oz our decade long and allegedly warble gloaming induced drought broke all of its own accord.* And each time the catastrophists have said, quite correctly, that these are weather events rather than climate. The trouble is that sceptics have always said the same thing about warm weather events that the catastrophists and their media fellow travellers have beaten up as indicators of coming disaster, and weren't slow to point out the hypocrisy of pointing fingers at our industrialised lifestyles when there's a heatwave before dismissing a cold snap as 'just weather'.

Maybe the science is getting more honest and maybe the MSM are getting over it and looking for the next long term scare so that terrorism doesn't have to do all the heavy lifting on its own.** But maybe the savvier catastrophists have realised that to the layman this seems like they're trying to have their cake and eat it and this is less a surrender and more a tactical withdrawal. It'll be interesting to see which.

* How dare it not wait a year or two so the carbon tax we're about to be screwed by could try to claim some credit, but of course some pinned the blame for the rainfall on warble gloaming anyway. The scientific formula is very simple: any negative consequences of any kind = evidence of warble gloaming.
** The events of the last week make me wonder if the next scare down at the MSM's joint bullshit production facility will be libertarians and anarchists. I'd be kind of flattered since I don't think I've ever been scary before.