By All Let This Be Heard

It turned out that Jörg Haider, Herrenmensch, conservative role-model, valiant defender of Western values and people, Austrian patriot, upright citizen, devoted family man, grand-scale role model, rare political talent, straight talker, flawless democrat, man without guile, honest politician, was pissed as a newt, totally rat-arsed, utterly plastered or -- as we put it so quaintly and non-politically correct in German -- sloshed as a gang of Russians, when he cut a swath through the Klagenfurt suburb Lambichl (Liza). He aptly used today's yuppie-armour, killing the thing he loved most -- Jörg Haider -- in the process. Poofter extraordinaire Oscar Wilde wrote with stunning insight more than hundred years ago a much more befitting epitaph than all the current media-hype:

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

One thing he wasn't, a coward. For all that is worth.