July 9, 2005

  • Buddhism vs. Islamofacism

    My dad just returned from Thailand last week. He spent nearly four weeks there, caring for his relatives. Every time he called my mom, he reported a new bombing. They always target the schools or the police stations. They want chaos. School teachers are leaving that part of the country by the thousands. Why?

    Is it worth it to get blown up by people who are angry that you aren't their religion?

    Even my relatives are thinking of leaving that part of the country. It isn't safe, if you are not the correct religion.

    It always angers me when white Americans tell me that America is racist.

    This is the country that my parents came to, and in spite of not being white or wealthy, they made a life for themselves. My parents are two completely different religions, and from two completely different countries, and no one gave them any flack about it.

    When I go to Thailand, people hate my mother because she's not Thai.

    When I go to Philippines, people only like you if you have money.

    When I go to China, everyone likes you because they need a passport to get out of the country.

    My female cousins go about in spaghetti-strap tank tops and short-shorts, and their dads don't beat them black-and-blue when they do.

    It's really awkward to have to listen to white people complain about America, especially when they have never been out of the country.

    People are all concerned about the bombing in London. No one talks about the bombings in Thailand. Except. I did see on the news the media's wonderful slant on it. Thai police arresting Muslim men. Brutal? Yes. The killing of Thai schoolchildren and teachers is brutal. Not to mention the ritual beheading of Thai policemen.

    Even so, I know Thai people won't make a fuss. Mai pen rai. . . . Meanwhile, in Bangkok, those highly-educated city folk (ironically most of which were educated in American colleges and universities) keep blaming America for the weirdos who are blowing up and beheading the hillbillies in the southern part of Thailand. Nevermind that pointing fingers isn't solving a thing. As long as terrorists don't blow up Bangkok (yet), they won't lift a finger except to point it at the U.S. "Let America do all the work. We need to spend the Thai government's money on curing AIDS so we can continue our prostitution industry."



    Hangman
    by Maurice Ogden

    1.
    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.

    2.
    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.

    3.
    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.

    4.
    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
    Than 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.

Devich

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