Showing More In Poland

Europe as a whole is a little more open on the nakedness than the US.  Recently, a colleague of mine returned from the US and talked about how conservative it was compared to Poland.  He cited the lack of naked women in advertising and in magazines.

A magazine cover from the Chopin Airport not three feet from the children's section.

It's true, really.  If one is ever on Chmielna Street in Warsaw, stop by The Pictures Bar.  They often have erotic photography in full display of the street (definitely something that would violate decency laws in the US).

One other thing I have come to learn, is what happens when a society is no longer oppressed and gains free speech.  Numerous folks I have spoken to recall the time right after communism fell, and people were allowed to broadcast whatever they wanted.  They all fondly recount how, at night, porn was shown (and how they all watched it, most being between the ages of nine and thirteen).  They differ on the station (Polsat was named, Sat.1, and RTL were other favorites (the last two being satellite stations)).  I was told about how, when the chains were thrown off, there was no regulation, no decency laws, and everyone was like, "Well, why the hell not?"  (And apparently no minded that their tweens were watching erotica on TV.)

I should point out that the US may guard its children from the horrid nudity that many other children in the world are exposed to, but there it's fine to expose them to horrendous amounts of graphic and brutal violence and plenty of mind-shaping alcohol commercials.  Also, there's Cinemax (more like Skin-e-max, amirite?!)

He Hath Come

As the British were quite confused and a little amazed that Royal Fever caught on in the States before the Royal Wedding, I too stood a little confused at the general excitement that President Obama was coming to visit.  I've referred to Obama several times in this blog (only in jokes, actually), but this is the first time I'll take a semi-serious crack at what it means.  In reality, it means almost nothing.  He was here for twenty-two hours, and during that time parts of the city were shut down.  Obama's visit came when Poland is holding the rotating EU presidency, and the general feeling in Europe and around the globe is that Poland really is one of the few countries in the world (in more so in Europe) that has its shit together.  Just look at the comparison between Poland and Ukraine for readiness for the EuroCup.

Granted, not all Poles were enthusiastic about Obama's visit.  To them, it meant that several important arteries were going to be blocked off for three hours at a time, making it so they couldn't get home after work.  But, to others, it meant that the most powerful man in the world was gracing Poland with his presence at long last.  (NOTE:  The Poles were snubbed when Obama failed to show at the Kaczyncy's funeral, choosing to go golfing instead (that volcano eruption was to blame.))  The Poles have long felt that the US has ignored them for a long time and not lived up to its end of the deals (Iraq, Afghanistan.)  They saw this as an opportunity for Obama to set things right.

He gave vague promises that the visa restrictions for Poland would be lifted; he praised Polish democracy (something the Germans would never do (this is a joke for those who don't get it.  Look up what a 'Polish Parliament" is.)); he pointed his finger and Byelarus, a country no one particularly cares about, and said that they muffed things up; he also said/did some other things I have not recounted on this page.

Overall, I'm pretty bummed I missed out on a chance to see the VC-25, but I did get to see a snazzy C-17 that preceded the visit (no picture, sorry.)

The Eleventh and Travels

I was particularly excited for this November, mostly because I thought I would be able to spend the 11th in Poland, which happens to be its Independence Day.  First off, you might ask why a nation that claims to be 1000-years old and whose inception started with the baptism of a king would need an independence day.  Well, it celebrates its independence from Germany, Austria, and Russia, which was secured on November 11th, 1918 (yes, the end of World War I), ending a partitioned rule of 123 years.  Next, you might ask why I would care at all since the Poles don't really have any super-fun holiday extravaganzas.  From what I've heard, Independence Day is just a day everyone stays at home and the military holds some token parades.  Meanwhile, the people in the States hold raucous parades for just about every holiday they can (Memorial Day, Thanksgiving Day, the Fourth of July, Veterans Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter.)  Well, I've just never seen it, and I really wanted to see it.  Unfortunately, I was recalled to the US (on tragic circumstances) and spent the day (Veterans Day) hearing from veterans describing the free meal they got from Applebee's.  On the flipside, I did get to spend the Fourth of July in the States, instead of Poland as I have or the past couple of years (mostly by drinking a few beers and watching Gettysburg.  There's nothing more satisfyingly patriotic than watching the Confederates' dreams and hopes crushed on the battlefield.)

My journey to the States was surprisingly uneventful; everything went as smoothly as could be.  I flew Air France, and every flight was on time.  The layover in Paris was short enough and on both flights I didn't have to sit next to any horrible miscreants.  Even my passage through Customs was swift.  (Not that I'm plugging for Air France.  It was almost two years ago when they cancelled my flight from Paris to Warsaw on Christmas Eve and couldn't get me out until Christmas Day.  Then, they left my baggage in Paris.)
The trip from Boston to Rome (I flew Alitalia on the way back) was a different story.  The lass at the ticket counter  squeezed me up to seat 11A on account of the flight being full, which I immediately fantasized that I was bumped up to Business Class or the mythical First Class.  Unfortunately, I was relegated to the first seat of economy.  It wasn't all bad: there was no seat in front of me that would recline backwards and I got to exit rather quickly, plus I could stick my feet up on the partition.  The bad thing was the family across the aisle (and whose fat grandfather sat next to me) with the noisy toddlers.
I've never had a problem with kids on an air plane; if anything they're usually better than the horrible adults that usually ruin my flight.  The babies cry during takeoff and landing, but then quiet down after ten minutes and sleep the whole time.  These little brats didn't sleep at all and did nothing but talk really loudly and cry.  I mean, they. would. NOT. shut up.  Meanwhile, their loving parents proceeded to ignore them and continue to watch their movies.  The mother saw fit to change one of their diapers in the cabin instead of the bathroom, where there are perfectly good accommodations for changing a shit-filled sack from little child.  Also, they turned on a DVD player sans headphones so the rest of us could enjoy the crappy kids movie.  And another thing: when I first arrived at my seat, I was greeted by the grandmother playing with the two kids in my seat.  She then went, "Oh, you're the one sitting here." and spent ten minutes picking up toys and uncooperative kids to clear out and let me sit down (meanwhile backing up the line for people waiting to get on the plane.)  Did she just think that someone wasn't going to sit in that seat on an over-booked flight?
The flight from Rome to Warsaw was fine, but I was picked out by Customs for inspection, who scanned my bag.  The guard then spent a few minutes writing something down and said I could go.  Why the need to write down something when nothing happened?  They feel the need to note anything of importance and whatnot.  It's like when a few years ago I got off a late train and headed for the benches under the walkways in Centralna to wait for a friend.  Two policemen followed me and took down all my information in a little book then let me go.  Doesn't really make sense.

Bureaucracy, Bureaucracy

Some of the first thoughts that usually cross people's minds when they think of communism are of long lines, empty store shelves, and the occasional purge.  In this day in age, where information is processed and sent in fractions of a second, where people are plugged into the Internet around the clock, and where everything is supposed to be over before it even began, bureaucracy still brings everything to a crawl.

Most people hate places like the nefarious DMV (I never had a bad experience there, just for the record.  I know many people would rather be castrated that going in there again.)  The boredom of sitting in the office for untold amounts of time, counting the ticks of the clock, only to be harassed by some grumpy clerk.  This is the true definition of damnation.

When I was in college, I thought bureaucracy couldn't get worse.  I thought (and still hold the idea) that the entire administration of the school ought to have been fired wholesale and replaced with people who: A) gave a shit, B) didn't defend their worthlessness and prop up their antiquated system.  I was constantly hounded them for not paying fees and was only vindicated by showing them cancelled checks (and then, I was often given an excess check for overpaying.)  The amount of hoops I had to jump through could have supplied several circuses, and everyone there was an asshole to boot.  Form after form was completed, signed by the proper authorities, rejected because of a misunderstanding, re-filled out, re-signed (after haggling to get an appearance), handed in to be mulled over, ended up in a 50% chance of being rejected again.

When I was in Germany, there bureaucratic system was deeply ingrained into everything.  I came away feeling that the Germans loved nothing more than bureaucracy with its stamped and approved forms, meetings to address matters of negligible importance, and the waiting times they entailed.  The Germans, however, were very good at it and everything sped along quite rapidly.  For example, my passport was supplied with a visa in a little over a week.  There were hang-ups (I never did get my student ID), but I did kind of like how they firmly stamped my forms ten times with gusto.

Now, I am in Poland and the bureaucracy here is like nails on a chalkboard.  It's not so much the forms I have to fill out, but the waiting.  Unlike Ned Flanders' description of the post office (where he explains that it's the only thing he hates.  He even had nice things to say about mosquito bites and fluorescent lighting) where everything is rush, rush, rush, the post office here is slower than cold molasses.  Picking up a package will result in a five-minute scrutiny of your documents, then the postman will ever so slowly get up and wander about, shuffling through huge piles of folders and packages, looking for the one that's yours.  Mailing a letter takes even longer and most of it is due to the ant's pace of the workers.
Right now, I happen to be waiting for a work permission, which has taken about three months.  Every so often, I'm notified that I have to collect some other piece of information and have it sent off.  It's next to torture.

The Ł

One of the things of having a Polish professor who:  A) studied at MIT, B) speaks Polish, Russian, Slovak, and Yiddish, C) has a keen sense of history and linguistics, is that you learn a lot of interesting things about the language.  For instance, take the Polish letter Ł: it's an L with a slash through it, but pronounced like W, a sound that (I'm pretty sure, please correct me if I am wrong) no other Slavic tongue has.  The thing is, is that Ł used to be pronounced like the Russian Л (transliterated as L.  This L should be pronounced like the L in girl or Polish, not like the L in look or fabulous.)  When reading Old Polish, one should be aware of this to pronounce it correctly.  The problem arising with Ł is that it's a hard phoneme to learn, especially for children.  Gradually, Polish and Poland did away with this guttural sound and replaced it with the more fluid W sound.
Now, if you don't believe me, just ride the subway.  At Stacja Ratusz Arsenał, listen to the announcement, which pronounces it like ArsenaL.  I presume that the name is preserved for historical reasons.

How to Piss off the English

Now, an American like myself has run into quite a bit of resistance to forcing people to adopt the American way of saying things.  (I've had enough of lorry and pronouncing schedule like shed-yoo-all.)  Why not rattle their chains a little?
So, a few years back a Polish girl was pontificating about how British English was superior to American English because it sounded more royal, affluent, and historical.  It was the dialect of Shakespeare, of the Queen, of Hugh Grant.  Except…  it wasn't.  I pointed out firstly that there are many dialects and accents of British English and the best dialect outside of the US was the Irish Brogue followed by the Scottish Brogue.
More importantly, today's British English is NOT the language of Shakespeare (or so say the linguists.)  We have become accustomed to actors in movies speaking with modern British accents and actors on stages fudging with terrible British accents.  But did Shakespeare really speak with a modern British accent?  Probably not.  He probably spoke with an accent closer to the Carolinian accent (much like Stephen Colbert used to.)  The Carolinas (North and South) were colonized about 400 years ago and were buffered from many linguistic influences unlike, say New York or Boston or even Minnesota.  So, to be more historically accurate, those actors should try to emulate Lindsay Graham's way of speech Hugh Grant's.
Also, the English learned how to write from the Irish (ooooh, doesn't that just make their blood boil?!)

Polonia Seeps Into Everything

I have just come back to Warsaw on the best plane trip I can yet remember.  The seven-hour flight from Boston to Madrid flew by (pun intended.)  Maybe it was because I was in a good mood to be escaping the heat wave on the East Coast, maybe it was because I had an entire four-seat row to myself.  In any case, the hop from Boston to Madrid, then from Madrid to Warsaw went as smooth as can be.

I was Stateside for a wedding (one of the best I attended.)  Even though it was an American-German wedding (the bride was from Germany), I found little parts of Poland.  For instance, I recently purchased a mug for my mother.  It was traditional Polish pottery, hand-painted, etc.  While we were guests for the wedding, I found a mug in the cabinet that was not only the same type (same shape) of mug that I had gotten my mother, it was from the same set!  It was painted with the same design of flowers and such.  Further inspection, and inspection of the groom's cabinets, showed plenty more of these Polish mugs.
In both Boston and New York, there are statues to some of Poland's national heros: King Wladyslaw Jagiello and Tadeusz Kosciuszko.  It seems that Polonia (the name for the Polish Diaspora) has left its mark all over the place.  At least in the places I visited in ten days.

While in Boston, I met numerous people who all reacted in the same few ways: "I'm of Polish heritage."  "I just spent the last few days with Polish people."  "Warsaw?  Where is that?"  It's nice to be able to connect to people in such a way.

While in New York City, I really thought about the differences between the largest city in the US and the largest city in Poland.  Poles not from Warsaw often complain that Warsaw is fast-paced, dirty, the people unwelcoming, the traffic terrible.  Compared to Manhattan, Warsaw is a green, quaint, sleepy hamlet.  Manhattan is dirty; the roads are shitty; the traffic is unbelievable; the amount of homeless is depressing.  The cramped, traffic-clogged roads of Manhattan are a far cry from the relatively broad, seemingly-empty roads of Warsaw (NOTE: This does not apply to the Old Town.)
Brooklyn is has the neighborhood of Greenpoint (where, the brother of this author lives.)  It's been described as the Polishtown of New York, with the signs being in Polish and everyone speaking in Polish and ignoring those who actually speak in English.  My brother summed it up as: "It's the only place where I've seen a man stumble out of a bar cannot-stand-up-drunk at like three in the afternoon.  On a Wednesday."  (Plans to upload pictures of Greenpoint are presently stalled.  They will be uploaded later.)

Statues to King Wladyslaw and Kosciuszko in Central Park and Boston Commons respectively.

The Polish Consulate in New York City.

Stateside for the 4th

A bit 'o news:  I'm spending the 4th of July in the States for the first time since 2007.  I'll be heading back to Poland pretty soon, but I'm glad to celebrate this holiday proper style (food, beer, fireworks.)

Pic related: it's the hamburgers I made in 2007 (inside-out cheeseburgers.  They each have about a pound-and-a-half of meat.)

The New Hot Thing: Shale Gas

Everyone is bulging in their pants talking about shale gas (at least that the idea I get while cruising the Interscape.) But it's not just those blogging on the Interbutts or politicians giving sound bites, there is real action going on.

The big news is that companies such as ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil have bought leases to explore potential new gas sources in Poland. The natural gas exists in beds of shale, not just in a porous material. The rock is fractured to let the gas escape and be extracted by a well. It was, up until recently, not very economical to extract gas this way; however, newer techniques, such as horizontal drilling, have led to an explosion of exploitation of shale gas reserves. Shale gas has been mined in the US for some time now, and it's looking to export the expertise to the rest of the world.

As the cost of oil climbs, natural gas is almost constantly getting cheaper. Europe has a ravenous appetite for natural gas, which it uses for heating. Europe is particularly at the mercy of Russia, which exports most of its gas that way through Ukraine. Every winter, it seems like, Ukraine and Russia play a game a chicken, where Russia threatens to shut off the gas (which it did in the winter of 2008-2009) unless Ukraine pays higher prices and stops stealing it for their own use. Countries in Central and Eastern Europe are particularly vulnerable to Ukraine and Russia's game over energy. States such as Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania are usually the first feel the pinch when the valves close.

Since Russia can be a pretty big dick about it, Europe is constantly looking for new energy supplies. Pipelines through the Caucus Region and through Turkey are particularly prized. It would be even better if Europe could produce the gas themselves. In steps the USA with its massive energy companies who have been doing this thing for some time now. The companies are looking beyond US borders for even bigger prospects in places you might not think.

Poland will be the first to start seeing if it has what every sovereign state covets: a massive energy supply sitting under their pasty, white tushes. Ukraine, seeing that its neighbor is expecting a windfall right near the border, is positively euphoric about the possibility of finding one of their own. No more having to bicker with Russia about gas (or bicker as much, as these gas finds probably won't fulfill their needs.)

The whole thing is though, is that no one really knows if there is gas there and how much. Everyone knows that Poland has coal (coal and gas often go hand-in-hand) but coal is dirty, can be dangerous to mine, and isn't the moneymaker that gas can be. Natural gas is used in industry, for heating, used to generate electricity, is used pumped into oil wells to force the oil up, and can help enrich fertilizers. To be short, gas is gaining importance rapidly, and Poland could (or could not) become a player in the field.