The Angry Exile: Intervals at the security theatre

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

Monday 19 September 2011

Intervals at the security theatre

If we have to have security theatre it'd be a nice idea to have intervals, wouldn't it? Not only could you have a break, stretch your legs a bit, browse the programmes and maybe get a glass of wine or something, but you could also look forward to the second act not being exactly the fucking same as the first. And that's where the analogy falls apart because with security theatre you actually have to have the first act all over again even if it's just because someone fluffed a couple of lines.

Flights from Sydney Airport's domestic terminal have been delayed after a security breach.
Two people reportedly entered a secure area of the Qantas-managed T3 domestic terminal without being properly screened this morning.
Passengers report that planes have been grounded and the terminal closed, with thousands having to be re-screened.
"Two passengers enter secure area in Sydney Airport (domestic) causing all passengers to be rescreened. Will be mass delays," one passenger tweeted.
Another passenger said on Twitter: "Entire Sydney Airport terminal has been evacuated due to a security breach. Looks like I'm not getting home today."

And people ask me why I avoid flying if at all possible. You have to queue up to be questioned, then x-rayed and finally scanned and fondled, all of which means passengers are sometimes being told to arrive three hours before departure (I was the last time I flew out of London Heathrow), and then you have to do it all over again if the daft sods lose track and accidentally let someone in without having first questioned, x-rayed, scanned and fondled them.

If the person who wasn't scanned doesn't own up then the whole terminal - and I do
mean the whole terminal - will have to do it all over again. I can wait all day.

Not only has this now happened four times that I know of in Aussie airports - once here in Melbourne, once in Brisbane and twice in Sydney - and caused big delays and inconvenience each time, but the media have failed to ask what seems to me to be the big questions. If people have slipped through security and got airside four times that we know of, but were eventually checked along with everyone else's recheck, then how do we know it hasn't happened a few more times without it being noticed and there being rechecks? And if so, what the hell's the point in all the security theatre anyway? Because it doesn't sound like it's actually keeping the place all that secure. It's not like it's just Aussie airports either, because as I noted a couple of weeks ago undercover journalists managed to smuggle a dismantled gun onto flights from two French airports (and just to prove the point they then took it into the toilet and mantled it) while in the US an undercover federal agent got through security on multiple occasions with her gun in her knickers. So I repeat, what is the point in security theatre that's intrusive, costly, inconvenient and can't even guarantee our security anyway? Can't we just go and see a different play?

If security be the food of air travel, play on;
Give me excess of it, that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.

Well, it's worked for me, which is why my appetite for flying is roughly zero. At the risk of repeating myself, when I get treated like a paying customer again I'll happily fly, but as long as I'm treated like a suspect by security that we can see doesn't bloody work I won't unless I really have to.