The Angry Exile: Getting blood from a stone...

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

Saturday 22 October 2011

Getting blood from a stone...

... must be something Oz's chief tax collector believes he really excels at, because he's asking for an extra $300,000 a year for it. No, not $300,000 but an extra $300,000 - he already gets (I won't say 'earns') half a million.

AUSTRALIA'S top tax official has come under sustained attack in a Senate hearing for lobbying to get himself a 58 per cent pay rise.
Tax Commissioner Michael D'Ascenzo is at present paid just over half a million dollars.
He has written to the Remuneration Tribunal asking for a package of around $800,000 to bring himself into line with other agency heads such as the head of the Securities and Investments Commission and the Competition and Consumer Commission.

Well if it's just a matter of bringing into line there's a perfectly good solution, though the heads of ASIC and the ACCC wouldn't like it, but to be honest I don't see why any bringing into line is necessary. If the job's worth a minimum of $800,000 then they wouldn't have been able to get anyone to do it for less. As it is Michael D'Ascenzo was prepared to do it for half a million and is now having an attack of the sads because some other people get more. I'd hope the tribunal recommend dropping the salary by the exact amount he wants it raised and seeing if anyone still wants the job.

Asked by Labor senator Doug Cameron how much extra he was planning to pay his own workers, he said the increase would be about 3 per cent.
Asked to put a percentage figure on the pay rise he wants for himself, he said he ''hadn't worked it out''.
An increase from $505,000 to $800,000 would amount to 58 per cent.

< Whistles > Hey, Occupy protestors. Greedy and exploitative fat cat alert, but you need to get your signs and arses over to Canberra and protest there. Seats of government are the root cause of everything you've got your cocks in a knot about anyway.

Mr D'Ascenzo defended the application, saying it was a matter of comparative wage justice.
Labor Senator Mark Bishop, who chairs the committee, said comparative wage justice hadn't been used as a basis for justifying wage increases since the 1970s and 1980s.

Good for Mark Bishop, and worthy of my 'Politician's getting things right' tag. But it must also be said that it's nice of Mr D'Ascenzo to bring it up in October, the end of which is the last date for getting tax returns in and so is a month when taxation is on many minds. I'm sure I can guess the thoughts going through most of those minds as they learn that the Australian Tax Office's capo di tutti capi (well, he runs the ATO and has an Italian name - if you think I'm not going to make a joke Mafia reference you're very much mistaken) already earns something like ten times the median salary and now wants more than half as much again.

I think it's an offer I think we can and should refuse.