The 1000th Polish Police and Administrative Corruption post

Well, this is the 1000th post for the Polish Police and Administrative corruption page. What do you think about that? 1000 yellow stories about Poland and Polish misfits, con artists, swindlers, killers, body thieves, bilkers of old ladies, drunks, back stabbers, killers, bribe takers and of course those from the public trust and the football establishment who seem to always be ready to go the extra mile to keep things depressingly ugly in Warsaw. They say here in Belarus that Being Polish is not a nationality, it is a profession and I believe this completely. I mean, I have believed it since May of 2002 and hopefully, these 1000 stories will help convince others of the same.

Obviously, I have sort of stopped writing for this blog. I say sort of because in my heart, I am always here. Or maybe that was a bit flowery and it is just that I keep the newspaper happening and the PPAC going. But I thought to take advantage of the occasion and say a little something. 1000 is a big number. Maybe that number would have been bigger before I allowed myself this extremely bureaucratic one-story-a-day quota to fill. Once you start being bureaucratic in any endeavor, even malice and hatred, these things tend to become monotonous and inevitable. But nevertheless, it did take a while to build up a reserve of this size and in a way, I guess I could say that I am proud of it.

The reasons I seem to have stopped writing though are actually a bit delicate. On the one hand, the decision to stop had something to do with boredom and a feeling that I really and truly was wasting my time. As you might imagine, hopelessness can actually be rather depressing. But then there was also an idea that I didn’t want to get in the habit of writing about the people I was working with. I am talking here about the local education people and of course, the Pinsk police. I wasn’t thinking fear however, as I am sure everyoone’s first guess would be, but rather I was thinking more along the lines that I just didn’t want to talk about how ugly and corrupt my colleagues actually were (are). Sort of a “what you say here, stays here” stance which, probably somewhere in my delusional consciousness was meant to be an act of trust. Now however, with two full years having come and gone, I am not sure that I admire my decision on that all that much and actually, I really wish I would have taken the trouble to name a few names and spit at a few people who need being spit at. But I didn’t, and you know the page sort of died. Not the whole blog of course- I still have a steady flow of people coming through the newspaper and they do seem to be occasionally picking up a copy of the book on their way. That new stat counter by the way is reasonable close if a little low, so at least you can see for yourself what is going on. But yea, the story has become kind of lonely.

But even if I have not been writing here, this doesn’t mean I have not been busy because I have. I have been teaching English here and doing reasonably well. I have just finished a film script that I am trying to get around to showing people. I am working on picking up the pieces of a rather ugly break up with Tanya and seeing if we can keep her away from a new relationship before she kills us- her main talent in life, by the way. And of course there is thinking about next year, working on the apparently never-to-be-finished second book and, well, getting out to the beach as much as I can.

About the future though, I don’t really know. One would think that at my age I would have been dug in by now, but I don’t know that I am. I mean, I know the roads and where everything is, but I am I no way who I wanted to be when I came here. I am not saying that I wanted to be the mayor, but I did have an idea that it might be kind of cool to be a bit more in the mix socially. I have had my chances and it is not that I haven’t tried, but I don’t seem to have found the rhythm and obstacles or no, I can’t really brag about myself. I guess or I know that there is no one to blame for that but myself, but saying that doesn’t make it easier. So I am not satisfied with what I have and I need to get a bit more aggressive about making things better.

But in any case, as far as this blog goes, redundancy or no, I will keep trying and I guess I will just keep on putting out newspapers and adding to the corruption page list. I mean, I keep thinking that something will eventually give way somewhere and I’ll catch my break. I mean, have I got a story to tell yet? But even of I haven’t, maybe, if I can get back into the groove, I’ll do what I can to put out an interesting 1000 words or so a couple of times a week. I men why not? You go out of your way to make a little media spot for yourself, and hey, why not make use of it, right? I don’t really have a handle of what the theme is- maybe I’ll just leave this open for now, but I’ll see what I can do about getting some words on the screen, even if all it ever amounts to is a little mental exercise.

So this is the story. 1000 posts. That ain’t nothing. And really, it has always been about Poland and Polish corruption, greed, complicity, crime and social irresponsibility. And man, 1000 posts means there is a lot of it out there. And it’s all true. Take if from me. MY name is Adam Goodman and I am advising you NOT to go to Poland and offering 1000 reasons why not.

Cheers,

Hopefully, more soon…