Cold Days Hot Nights

7 near-incidents that almost changed the course of history

2010-07-03T17:09:00.000-07:00

1. Somewhere on the Eurasian continent, the end of the Createceous period, ca. 65 mill years B.C.

Freddie Flintstone Kaczyński, the pre-historic forefather of a charismatic Polish Prime-minister, is sitting by a lake admiring a potato he came across the previous autumn which bears a striking resemblance to himself.

A happy young dinosaur in the carefree days before the appearance of the evil gnome.

What he does not know, immersed as he is in the spectacle of the pleasant-looking potato, is that an extraordinarily wise owl with a rare ability to look into the future has just issued a warning to the local dinosaur community: That seemingly harmless middle-aged potato-freak will produce a line of offspring that one day, tens of thousands of years from now, will cause unimaginable suffering and and lay waste an entire region of the Eurasian continent. The terrified dinosaurs decide to nip the evil in the bud: by eliminating their grumpy neighbour they know that they can save future generations from unspeakable horrors. They decide to hide behind some bushes and wait until Flintstone K. creeps out of his cave to engage in his daily potato-washing ritual by the river. The idea is simply to eliminate the vertically challenged human with one well-placed strike of a dinosaur foot.

Why did it fail:

Hypothesis 1: Unfortunately, a neurotic goat had been gnawing at the bushes the night before, so the vegetation was no longer extensive enough to provide a hiding-place for the giant proto-birds. Flintstone K., as always on the lookout for enemies, spotted a dinosaur tail sticking out of the bushes and immediately got suspicious. The over-sized reptile, panicking as she felt Flintstone K.’s fanatic stare penetrating her, jumped out of the bushes but failed to hit the diminutive human-being with her foot. Instead, her titanic tramping tool landed on Flintsone K.’s revered potato. The furious Flintsone K. decided to call upon all his followers and launched an anti-dinosaur crusade, which, in the course of an incomparably bloody 3-month dinosaur hunt, exterminated every single dinosaur and forever consigned this once great species to the skeleton sections of British Museum.

Polish professor

Hypothesis 2: The dragon of Wawel, who, as has been convincingly proven by a Polish professor, co-existed with human beings, was annoyed with the dinosaurs living upstairs of him and their noisy and endless tango parties that kept him awake at night. He got a whiff of the dinosaurs’ scheme to eliminate Flintstone K. and hurried to the human being's rescue, setting fire to the bush where the conniving reptiles were hiding. The dragon in tandem with Flintstone K. subsequently formed the Anti-Dinosaur Alliance – the first political party in pre-history – a single-issue party whose goal was to provide a final solution to the dinosaur question. Having achieved this goal and exterminated the gargantuan reptiles down to every last individual, Flintstone K. immediately set his eyes on his erstwhile political ally and paralyzed the Wawel-dragon by locking it up for life inside a fire engine, thereby securing complete control over his party.

2. Golgata, 33 AD

Jesus Christ is glued to his cross like a fun-loving gay person to his TV-set whenever the Eurovision Song Festival is on. Just when the Son of God's future prospects appear to be at their bleakest, William the Woodpecker appears and starts pecking away at the cross like there's no tomorrow. The freshly baptised woodpecker's brilliant plan is to peck the cross to pieces, enabling the saviour of mankind to escape death.

Why did it fail: Unfortunately for the avid woodpecker, dying was an essential plan of Jesus' resurrection plan, so he kindly told the bird with the turbo-beak to get lost. The disillusioned vertebrate disowned religion and was last seen head-banging at a Motley Crue-concert.

3. Munich, 1938
Yes, yes, he might have been a genocidal maniac with a breath so ghoulish that Mussolini's foreign minister Count Ciano was forced to take out the earplugs he always brought with him to Obersalzberg and put them in his nose instead. But Adolf's Vegetarianism was impeccable and the Austrian corporal hardly ever touched meat until his (at least to Vegetarians) premature death in 1945. So how come there was such a widespread resistance against Hitler in animal circles? Animal spokesmen emphasize how the entire German four-legged community was traumatized when a whole family of Berlin-moles landed on the street just for Hitler to have his underground bunker built. In an act of solidarity with the displaced moles, a hippopotamus, a parrot and a bagder devise a scheme to take der Führer's life during his annual speech in the Bürgerbräukeller to commemorate the 1923 beer hall putch. The plan seems flawless. Just as Hitler's speech is reaching it's climax, the parrot is to tickle the hippopotamus's gigantic nostrils in order to provoke the sneeze of the century: a sneeze so thunderous that all attention will be drawn away from Hitler for a few seconds. The badger will seize the moment and bite der Führer firmly in the leg, hoping that the loss of blood will finish the bastard off before medical assistance appears.

One of the homeless moles later emigrated to France.

Why did it fail: The hippopotamus, in his death-defying desperation to end up in history books, had failed to disclose his far from unblemished medical record to his fellow assassins, who were unaware that the hippopotamus suffered from severe allergy to leather. A beer hall full of 1923- veterans clad in leather boots was bound to trigger a premature sneeze from the hippopotamus and the plot subsequently folded. The hapless hippo was transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau where an eager Dr Mengele was waiting in his lab to produce the world's first blonde hippopotamus. Fortunately, the Sub-Saharan mammal managed to escape by passing as Herman Goering.

4. The Wolf's lair, East Prussia, 1944
A Polish moose, single-mother of 3 and pregnant with her 4th child, is dead tired of having her natural habitat invaded by German forces on their way to Russia. The deafening noise of Wehrmacht cavalry storming through the forest in search of lebensraum keep her little ones constantly awake and crying. Fired with maternal rage, the brave moose opts for the ultimate step: eliminate the person responsible for depriving her little ones of their sleep. Carrying a suitcase filled with explosives in her jaws and dressed up as an SS-lieutenant, her plan is to enter Hitler's headquarter's, discreetly leave her suitcase in Der Führer's lap, and finally escape through an underground tunnel constructed for her by an enterprising relative of the previously mentioned moles.

Why did it fail: The moose's swollen udders bursting with baby-milk belied her identity as an SS-lieutenant. In her pregnant state, she also had problems raising her leg high enough to perform a convincing Hitler-salute. The fearless moose was detained and sent to Theresienstadt, but later liberated by her uncles, who chose a rather more primitive strategy: Shouting savagely in Russian and running head-on into the concentration camp guards, jumping up and down on top of the unlucky SS-men until their lungs was so bereft of air that not as much as a feeble Hail Hitler could be uttered.

5. Mexico, 1940

The charismatic leader of the 4th International, Leon Trotsky, is desperately fleeing Stalin's international web of agents. His imminent death seems a foregone conclusion when the Russian emigree suddenly encounters a Marxist goat well versed in Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. Eager to help his ideological guiding star, the goat hands Trotsky his identity papers and help him set up a new NKVD-proof identity as a nomadic goat

Leon Trotsky just after acquiring his new identity.

Why did it fail: The reinvented Trotsky brilliantly escaped the clutches of NKVD. However, as a convinced Marxist he committed the cardinal error of ignoring all factors irrelevant to the class struggle. One of the facts he did not take into account was the goat's turbulent love life and numerous extramarital affairs. One afternoon the vindictive husband of one of the goat's many mistresses sneaked in on him in his study and stabbed him from behind with an icepick. (How a Mexican goat acquired an icepick has been a hard nut to crack for generations of historians. The currently most popular theory is that the icepick was given to the goat by a delegation of penguins, concerned that Trotsky's program of rapid transformation of Russia from an agrarian to an industrial economy would set off a dramatic increase in Co2-emissions. This in turn would trigger global warming and ultimately make the world inhabitable for polar birds.)

6. Dallas, Texas, 1963
A Californian squirrel learns from her cousin in Texas that Lee Harvey Oswald is planning to assassinate the American president. The audacious rodent's original plan is to eliminate Oswald kamikaze-style by crashing a fighter plane into his bedroom. Concerned about possible collateral damage, the heroic squirrel instead decides to throw herself in front of JFK in a desperate attempt to catch the bullet.

Why did it fail: Alas, the bullet went right through the squirrel's tail, the squirrel herself landing somewhere to the left of Jackie Kennedy's nose. The fresh-baked widow screamed with horror as she realized that not only had she lost a loving husband, but her carefully applied make-up was also a complete mess.

7. Prague, August 1968

Prague's canine community is seething with resentment after the Soviet invasion forces introduce a particularly tasteless meat bone substitute. One brave Dachshund takes the matter into his own paws and decides to set fire to himself to give their holy struggle a martyr.

Why did it fail: It so happened that the incompetent Communist authorities were also responsible for introducing matchstick substitutes. After struggling with the useless Socialist matches for about 10 minutes, the petrol-drenched Dachshund gives up and walks home with his tail between his legs. The disappointed dog was last seen working at a dry-cleaner's in Brno.

Cały kraj myśli o totalitaryźmie

2010-05-13T01:27:00.001-07:00

Czym jest totalitaryzm? Hannah Arendt, Karl Popper i inni wielcy już wypowiedzieli się, teraz polski intelektualista Zygmunt Niziński chcę dołączyć do debaty. W Gazecie Wyborczej pisze:

'...Tak rodzi się totalitaryzm, którego istotą jest to, że nie waha się sięgać po moralnie naganne środki, by dotrzeć do zamierzonego celu.'

Strzał w dziesiątkę. Akurat tym cechuje się totalitaryzm: zamierzony cel, moralnie naganne środki. Na przykład: Jest Wielka Sobota. Masz ogromną ochotę na gofra, umiesz gotować - ale akurat brakuje ci jajek. Wiesz, że sąsiad ma wyjątkowo płodną kurę. Sęk w tym, że nie chcesz sie przyznać, że ulegasz pokusom na słodkie. Więc pukasz do jego drzwi i z bijącym sercem i potem spływającym po czole pytasz go: Czy Pan ma może jakieś jajko? Bo jutro jest Niedziela Wielkanocna, cała rodzina przyjdzie,a śniadanie wielkanocne bez poświęconego jajka to wielka hańba.' Wzruszony sąsiad trzęsie kurą i z uśmiechem na twarzy wręcza ci świeże jajka, nie wiedząc, że on - razem ze swoją kurą - został bezwstydnie okłamany!

Ale niestety, nie tylko intelektualiści mają doświadczenie z tym zjawiskiem. Więc CDHN dumnie rozpoczyna kampanię 'Cały kraj myśli o totalitaryźmie', gdzie zwykli ludzie po raz pierwszy mogą się podzielić swoimi uwagami na temat totalitaryzmu.

Totalitarna fajka.

Zdzisław Golasiek, 36 l., fryzjer, Nowy Sącz
Totalitaryzm? Proszę bardzo. Niedawno miałem takiego klienta. Przedstawił się z resztą jako profesor estetyki. No, i ten profesor miał takie tłuste włosy, że nie można go było za nie chwytać, te tłuste włosy wymykały się cały czas. Potem spróbowałem z maszynką, ale maszynka się zepsuła ze względu na płynacy tłuszcz, który dostał się do środka maszynki . Jedynym sposobem było przepisanie klientowi środka na łysienie - te jego klejące włosy można tylko usunąć od środka.

Profesor estetyki

No, ale to nie wszystko. Po jego wizycie miałem palce tak otłuszczone, że byłem w praktyce niepełnosprawny. Czy Pan słyszał o palcach palacza? Wśród fryzjerów jest podobne zjawisko, palce fryzjera. Tego samego wieczora byłem umówiony z 18-nastoletnią praktykantką, którą uczę zawodu fryzjera. Ale czy można obmacywać nastolatkę takimi dłońmi? Najpierw zbiłem kieliszek różowego wina, a jak moje lepkie dłonie zaczęły się przesuwać po jej świeżym ciele, nastolatka krzyknęła do mnie: Odsuń się dziadu! To pierwszy raz usłyszałem coś takiego z ust kobiety. No może nie pierwszy raz, ale pierwszy raz z tego powodu. Takie palce służą tylko jako lubrykant, i właśnie z tego powodu tylu fryzjerów jest gejami. Oni lubią mieć lubrykant pod ręką, a nawet w samej ręce, aby mogli łatwiej wykonywać swoje wynaturzone praktyki.

Ludwig Gęgorek, 29 l., stolarz, Tczew
Ostatnio właśnie przeżywałem coś bardzo totalitarnego. Od dawna przekonuję żonę, by powiększyła sobie cycki. Jest mi to winna, bo ja się upiększam dla niej. Ostatnio na przykład zacząłem brać prysznic raz w tygodniu, wbrew tradycjom mojej podkarpackiej rodziny. Za każdym razem, jak sie myję żegnam się z częścią swojej cennej męskości. Więc ja się poświęcam. A ona? Upiera się, mówi, że jest zadowolona z samej siebie i swoich cycków. Ale co z tego, skoro to ja, a nie ona, jestem z nią żonaty. I ja jak najbardziej i pod żadnym względem nie jestem zadowolony. W końcu postawiłem jej ultimatum: albo pójdziesz do chirurga, albo możesz sobie zapomnieć o choince na święta. No i zgodziła się, bo ubieranie choinki to jej największa pasja. Dałem jej kasę na choinkę i czekałem aż wróci ze zmodyfikowanymi cyckami. Ale ta głupia krowa w międzyczasie urodziła i potem mówiła, że nie może mieć zabiegu, bo musi karmić niemowlę.
-A Pan nie wiedział wcześniej, że żona była w ciąży?
Ta maciora i tak jest taka gruba, że mogłaby mieć tam trojaczki i nie byłoby widać różnicy.
-Ale skoro żona już ma dosyć... rozległe rozmiary..... po co jej większe piersi?
Nie chodziło mi o rozmiary same w sobie, chodziło mi bardziej o ratowanie się przed zatonięciem. Teraz wszystko tam płynie, nie wiadomo co piersi, co brzuch. I piersi po slikonie są takie twarde, byłyby jak szalupy ratunkowe na tym oceanu tłuszczu. Ale ona wybrała totalitaryzm.

Oczy totalitaryzmu patrzą na ciebie

Ireneusz Piłsudski, 34 l., ksiądz, Warszawa
W mojej parafii jest taka kobieta, która ma niesłychanie totalitarne obyczaje. Ma przy sobie komórkę i podczas ceremonii pisze smsy. To mnie strasznie wkurza. Niejeden raz kazałem jej wyłączyć komórkę. A co ona na to? Mówi, że pisze do Boga. Ja jej tłumaczę, że może w protestantyźmie bawią się w bezpośrednie rozmowy z Bogiem, ale w katolicyźmie kategorycznie nie. Chrześcijanin odnosi się do Boga wyłącznie przez bezpośredniego przełożonego, czyli MNIE. Postanowiłem skonfiskować i natychmiastowo ochrzcić jej grzeszną komórkę, aby usunąć totalitarne protestanckie demony.

Krowa - gatunek w przeciwieństwie do człowieka odporny na totalitaryzm

Hieronim Chrystusiek, właściciel kawiarnii, Nowy Sącz
Jako właściciel kawiarni mam bardzo często do czynienia z totalitaryzmem. Prawie codziennie dochodzi w mojej kawiarni do karmienia dzieci piersią przez matki. Proszę Pana, ja prowadzę kawiarnię. Nasza specjalność to właśnie produkte mleczne. Mamy np. przepyszne mleko pochodzące od najzdrowszych polskich byków.
-Byków?
Ach, znowu źle powiedziałem. Ale to nie przypadek, bo tak mi ostatnio się kojarzy słowo 'krowa' - nie z samicą bydła domowego, tylko z tymi matkami, które przychodzą do mojej kawiarni, wnosząc własne mleko.
-Ze sklepu?
Jeśli Pan uważa kobiece ciało za jakiś rodzaj sklepu, to proszę bardzo. Może to trafne ujęcie, skoro coraz więcej kobiet zachodzi w ciążę przez prostytucję.
-Chodzi Panu o mleko z piersi?
Tak. W swoich wyolbrzymionych nabuzowanych piersiach te przetotalitarne kobiety wnoszą swoje ohydne matczyne mleko, znieważając moje wyborowe produkty mleczne. Zainstalowałem kamery monitorujące w toalecie i wiem, że matki i ich podstępne szczeniaki bezczelnie piją własne mleko. Dopuszczają się zbrodni mleczarniej. I to, proszę Pana, to zbrodnia totalitarna.

Nowy program Stronnictwa Demokratycznego: Noworoczny prezent dla polskiego narodu

2009-12-27T06:48:00.000-08:00

Tuskokracja czy Kaczogród? To jedyny wybór, jaki pozostał polskim wyborcom. Platforma i PIS podzielili polską scenę polityczną miedzy siebie, a wysoki próg wyborczy razem z ustawą o finansowaniu partii politycznych faworyzujacą największe partie, nie daje szansy innym na przejęcie władzy.

W tej dla polskiej demokracji groźnej sytuacji jedna partia zamierza przełamać polityczny pat. Odnowione nowo narodzone SD, pod przywództwem Pawła Piskorskiego, z Andrzejem Olechowskim jako kandydatem na prezydenta, wzmocnione o zupełnie nowy program, chce uchodzić za umiarkowaną, centrową partię. A czy nią w rzeczywistości jest? CDHN postanowił sprawdzić.

Cygara czy Wino? Jakie łapówki przynoszą najkorzystniejsze skutki? Na zjazdach SD ostro się debatuje.

CDHN: Witamy Daniela Świerzba, pośrednika nieruchomości wschodniopodkarpackiego SD i współautora nowego programu SD.
Daniel Świerzb: Dzień dobry. Niestety przewodniczący Piskorski nie mógł przyjechać bo miał się spotkać ze swoją matką na jakimś cmentarzu, czy w jakiejś opuszczonej piwnicy, nie pamiętam dokładnie.
CDHN: Premier Tusk zaproponował zmienić ustrój polski na bardziej kanclerski. Co SD na to?
DŚ: Zaproponujemy, by usunąć senat i zastąpić go Izbą Posiadaczy Ziemskich, gdzie miejsca będą przyznawane różnym partiom w zależności od ilości posiadanych nieruchomości.
CDHN: Krytycy tej propozycji mówią, że taka ustawa będzie faworyzowała właśnie pańską partię, która posiada nieruchomości o wartości 100 mill zł..
DŚ: A co z tego? Przecież zapraszamy wszystkie partie do kupienia nieruchomości od nas. Na wiosennym targu naszej agencji - przepraszam, na wiosennej konferencji naszej partii - będziemy mieli piękną wystawę poświęconą sprzedaży najekskluzywniejszych lokalizacji w Polsce.

Daniel Świerzb (po środku): "Odrolniłem swoją pierwszą działkę!"

CDHN: Zmieńmy temat. Czy SD uważa, że rząd podjął wystarczająco szerokie działania, aby zapobiec świńską grypę?
DŚ: Nie zrobili absolutnie nic! Grupa utrzymująca władzę po prostu zamieniła się w grypę utrzymującą władzę. To, że rząd naraził na szwank, czy może lepiej: naraził na śwink! - zdrowie i życie i szlachetną miłość do leków polskiego narodu jest po prostu nie do przyjęcia! Stronnictwo Demokratyczne chcę sprowadzać najlepsze farmaceutyki z zagranicy. Fala ciężarówek pełnych medykamentów przekroczy polskie granice. Darmowe lekarstwa dla wszystkich!
CDHN: Ale nie wiadomo, czy te nowe, słabo przetestowane leki są zupełnie bezpieczne. Było już parę przypadków za granicą, gdzie pacjenci umarli po stosowaniu takich leków.
DŚ: SD zapewni jakość sprowadzonych leków. Nasz kandydat na prezydenta Pan Andrzej Olechowski osobiście będzie sprawdzał wszystkie dostawy!
CDHN: Apropos Andrzeja Olechowskiego: kandydat pańskiej partii na prezydenta powszechnie uchodzi za leniwego i mało pracowitego. Sam się zresztą przyznał, że nie lubi wstawać rano i z tego powodu już odmawiał różne występy telewizyjne i radiowe. A okazało się, jak dokładniej przyjrzeliśmy się programowi zdrowotnemu SD, że tu tylko w małym stopniu chodzi o leki działające przeciw grypie. W o wiele większych ilościach ma być sprowadzona amfetamina. Amfetamina, która ma tą zaletę, że idealnie nadaje się do utrzymywania w przytomności i przeciwdziałania lenistwu pana Andrzeja Olechowskiego podczas kampanii prezydenckiej.
DŚ: Jak Pan śmie podważać aktywność Olechowskiego? To jest nadmiernie aktywny człowiek, któremu bardzo zależy na odrolnieniu - przepraszam - odnowieniu Polski.

Olechowski i Piskorski: Stawiamy na przejrzystość!

CDHN: Kilka miesięcy temu wybuchła sprawa hazardowa. Lobbyści z branży hazardowej spotykali się z czołowymi politykami PO na cmentarzu. W jaki sposób pańska partia chcę walczyć z korupcją?
DŚ: Usuniemy dzień zmarłych. Jak cmentarze są przeludnione, wiadomo, że tworzą idealne warunki dla lobbystów i korupcyjnych polityków, bo nikt nie zauważa lobbystów w takim tłumie. Na cmentarzach będą obowiązywały karty członkowskie.

CDHN: A ludzie którzy po prostu chcą odwiedzić zmarłych krewnych i osoby im bliskie?
DŚ: A czy to moja sprawa? Gdyby ci ludzie bardziej dbali o swoją babcię, może babcia nie trafiłaby na cmentarz w ogóle!
CDHN: Jakie jest stanowisko SD w sprawie przemocy wobec kobiet. PO chciała, aby mężczyźni którzy biją żonę byli zmuszeni do natychmiastowego opuszczenia mieszkania.
DŚ: Jesteśmy za, ale nie chcemy, aby mężczyźni trafili na ulicę. Tam też mogą przecież bić kobiety, na przykład prostytutki czy babcie sprzedające kwiaty. Nie, my chcemy ich umieszczać w hotelach dla nich przeznaczonych. Już mamy takie domy zbudowane.
CDHN: I fakt, że te domy znajdują się na obszarach nieruchomości posiadanych przez pańską partię, to czysty przypadek?
DŚ: A co Pan sugeruje? Wiadomo, że jak leniwe żony robią awanturę z powodu małego klapsa, to ktoś musi dbać o wypędzonych mężczyzn.
CDHN: W polskich mediach już było głośno o poparciu SD dla związków partnerskich dla homoseksualistów. Czy taka obyczajowo dosyć odważna postawa mieści się w programie rzekomo centrowej partii?
DŚ: To drobne nieporozumienie. Nie chodzi nam o związki partnerskie, lecz związki zawodowe.
CDHN: Dla homoseksualistów?
DŚ: Tak. Wszyscy pracownicy o wymienionej orientacji będą zobowiązani założyć związek w swoim zakładzie. Tam nie będą przeszkadzać zdrowym pracownikom i na dodatek lepiej mieć wszystkich zboków w jednym miejscu. Kiedy na przykład dochodzi do masowego zwolnienia, można zwalniać całą kupę gejowskich zatrudnionych en bloc.

"Chcemy tworzyć nową kultura polityczną w Polsce, opartą na otwartości, obywatelskości i merytoryczności. "

CDHN: Parytety na listach wyborczych: sprawiedliwość czy zamach na demokrację?
DŚ: Kwestia deficytu kobiet w polskiej polityce należy połączyć z ustawą hazardową. SD jako jedyna partia chce przeprowadzić stuprocentową liberalizację branży hazardowej. Wynika z różnych badań, że mężczyźni są znacznie nadreprezentowani wśród osób uzależnionych od hazardu. Jeśli - i to nasza propozycja - nie ingerujemy w działania tej branży, wręcz ułatwimy im działalność różnymi ulgami itd, wiadomo, że coraz więcej mężczyzn stanie się niewolnikami hazardu, nienadającymi się do żadnej pracy, nie mówiąc już o urzędach politycznych! W miejscu rozbitych mężczyzn wejdzie masa kobiet do władz partii, unowocześniając polską politykę!
CDHN: A SD naprawdę dba o równouprawnienie, a nie o własne nieruchomości, gdzie już w tej chwili budują się ogromne hale hazardowe.
DŚ: (śmiech) A skoro Pan jest tak zainteresowany naszymi nieruchomościami, może zainteresowałoby Pana to, że też jesteśmy w trakcie budowania podziemnego obozu dla kłopotliwych dziennikarzy i politycznych przeciwników. Tam powstaje też boisko do piłki nożnej, gdzie planujemy wsadzić Tuska i całą bandę jego grających w piłkę partyjnych kumpli. Tylko, że nie damy im piłki. Będą musieli grać własnymi jajami, hehe. No to spektakl!

"Będziemy pierwszą naprawdę obywatelską partią w Polsce."

CDHN: Twój ostatni apel do polskiego elektoratu?
DŚ: Chcecie, aby Polską rządziły skrajnie populistyczne partie napędzane osobistą nienawiścią i małostkową chęcią rewanżu, poświęcając polską przyszłość na ołtarzu krótkoterminowego sukcesu w sondażach? Jeśli tak, to głosujcie na nas!
CDHN: Na pańską partię?
DŚ: Przepraszam, źle mi to wyszło. Wtedy głosujcie na nich! Ale jeśli natomiast chcecie aby Polska była rządzona przez umiarkowaną, centrową, merytoryczną agencję - przepraszam, partię - to macie Państwo tylko jedną opcję: Stronnictwo Demokratyczne.

2009-10-01T05:21:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, this desperate cry for help reached us from an anonymous reader in Brno:

Brno, Czech Republic

Dear Uncle T!

I have often felt treated unfairly when being charged an extra fee for my bag on a buss, whereas some exceptionally corpulent human being next to me, a person whose formidable and majestic weight by far exceeded the total weight of my thin body and my bag, and who occupied way more space than me together with my bag carefully placed between my legs so as it should not be in the way for anybody, was not charged a single penny in addition to the regular fair fee.

The question which inevitably poses itself is - is the idea of fair fee based on the notion of weight or the concept of entity? If the latter is the case, well then the halftone heavy mother of the main character from the movie about Gilbert Grape (featuring Johnny Depp), would pay pay the regular charge whereas I still would be charged extra.

The fact that really small children are not charged by some carriers, suggests that it may may be after all the weight and size that is the decisive factor. But then, what kind of approach would be employed by the carrier if two remarkably small midgets occupied two third of just one seat hugging one another pretty tightly? Without any bag? Would they by the virtue of having the total weight equal to that of a thin person be charged just the regular fee?

And quite aside from that what about Siamese twins? And how about two Siamese twins on one bus -a fat one (or maybe ones - that is the question?) and a thin one? Would they be treated equally regardless of the weight differences, and if so would they pay the double price or not?
Or what would be the approach towards a whalelike fatso with split personality?

Questions, questions, questions...
What do you make of all that?
yours You Know Who

After months of pondering, we finally came up with an answer that we hope will satisfy our troubled reader from Brno:

Dear You Know Who,
We cannot help it. We instinctively attach a certain value to obesity. Some cultures – Sub-Saharan, for instance – attach a positive value to it. Men with bellies the size of Bill Gates’ wallet and chins as multiple as the passengers of Noah’s Ark are entitled to their own private army and medicine man. Women with bottoms the size of Zeppeliners are awarded an extra neck ring and given their own talk show to host on national television. Yet again, other cultures – the American, for instance – attach a negative value to obesity. They buy exercise equipment with ridiculous names like Stairmaster and study celebrity diets the way Medieval scholars studied the Bible.

Stairmaster

The net result of all these efforts is that Africans (that is, the ones who stayed in Africa, not the ones who left) are as skinny as tooth-picks, whereas America has to be divided into different time zones – if all her citizens stood up to sing the national anthem simultaneously on the 4th of July, there is a distinct possibility that the continental shelf would either fracture or at least start moving, possibly unleashing another earthquake.

Be that as it may. The point is that the concept of obesity is loaded with emotions. That is why the question raised by our reader from Brno can only be settled scientifically. To help us, we invited Ph.D. Vidkun Gandhi, head of the Institute of Cosmological Logistics at the University of Drammen, to formulate an answer to our dear reader. Here is what he wrote (soon to be published as a special supplement to Cosmopolitan’s Dieting Special 2010):

'First, in the name of terminological clarity: By fat, I don’t mean the ‘Oh no, one of my ribs is not visible’-type of fat in vogue with Eastern-European women. By fat, I mean FAT-fat. Like when you visit the zoo and a pair of homeless Rhinos feel like adapting you as their parent. Like when you have to leave one of your relatives in charge of your genitals because your access to them is blocked by your belly. Like when you collapse from exhaustion while shopping in IKEA and the IKEA management tries to market you as their latest water bed model. Like when you don’t wear belts to keep your pants from falling off, but to keep them from bursting. Like... well, why not just say it: Like when you are a citizen of The United States of America.

Example of Eastern-European woman

Why charge fat people more? As pointed out by your frustrated anonymous Brno-reader, passengers are often charged extra for luggage – bags, golf equipment, skis etc: luggage that is external to their body. But what about the luggage some of them carry around with them on a daily basis, like the fat dangling in greasy folds from their body? Is that not also luggage? And while your bag might contain essentials like toothpaste, Prozac or cocaine, what is there in pure fat which is not utterly useless and redundant?

A truly scientistic approach also entails factoring in possible distortions of perception. Notice that everything on an aeroplane is tiny. The seats are tiny, the paper cups and plates are tiny, the toilets are extremely tiny. Now insert a fat person into this setting. Will he not look even fatter aboard a plane than in a setting surrounded by objects closer to his own size – say, in the Grand Canyon or floating around in space somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn?

Aeroplane-toilet

Newton taught us that gravitation, i.e. what we experience as weight, depends on mass and distance. Einstein improved on his predecessor, adding energy and pressure, both of which add to an object’s (relativistic) mass, increasing its weight. Let us for the sake of argument assume that Mr Fatso’s (inertial) mass is constant. This involves a certain ‘scientific licence’, since fatties have a tendency to consume food non-stop. (This is particularly relevant on long flights, where there is a chance that Mr Fatso, having just invited a few Big Macs (I suppose they serve them on American flights) around to meet his digestive system, will have undergone significant spatial expansion by the time he gets off the plane. But let us leave that aside.)

Now, take distance. The pull of gravity decreases with the distance from the object you gravitate towards, in this case planet earth. In other words, gravity – read, obesity – is less strongly felt on an airplane compared to on a bus or a train. While having a large number of fat people on board might render take-off more difficulty – a phenomenon illustrated by the tendency to throw fat people off a collapsing air balloon – their weight will decrease with the distance from the ground. The upshot of this is that fat people should pay less for plain tickets, more for bus rides. On spaceships and similar devices, no extra charge should be levied on fat people at all.

The 3rd factor on Einstein’s list is energy, which adds to an object’s weight (or ‘relativistic mass’). Energy in this context basically means heat. There is reason to assume that slim people lead a more active – or energetic – life than fat people. Whether in the gym or on the mountain trail, slim people use more energy, thus producing heat, thereby increasing their weight. However, assistant janitor at Zimbabwe Agricultural College Lady Bronisława Churchill and others argue that exactly the opposite is the case. Because fat people enjoy the physical fitness of an asthmatic Blue Whale stranded on a run-down gas station in the Arizona desert, it actually costs them much more energy to, say, get up from the armchair to let in the pizza delivery man. The mere thought of having to cover the 10 meters to the fridge has the fatties sweating like pigs. As a result, Lady Churchill argues, they are actually in a more energetic state than slim people, thus adding to their weight. The jury is still out on this one, so CDHN will abstain from taking sides. But it might be a good idea to at least prohibit fat people from visiting the toilet or making any kind of movement while on the airplane.

Blue Whale

An additional problem that arises when a fat body accumulates heat is the profuse sweating that ensues. The corpulent individual is transformed into a veritable sweat factory hell-bent on drowning its surroundings in a foul flood of body fluids.

In other words, in an ideal world, the fat bastard should be handcuffed, tied to his seat and stripped naked to make sure no extra heat is generated.

Jack-in-the-box

Finally, pressure must be taken into account: A jack-in-the-box which is pushed down is heavier than one which is not, because it exerts an unreleased outward pressure. To return to the miniature setting of the airplane; the fatso has to squeeze himself into the aisle, not to mention perform all kinds of acrobatics to get himself seated. If he then makes a single divergence from his crooked position, the entire seat structure will burst; he would leave dead fellow passengers in his wake crushed under the weight of his blubber. In other words, Fat Man is just like a jack-in-the-box, exerting unreleased outward pressure, thus adding to his weight. This suggests the extra charge levied on fat travellers should be inversely proportional to the amount of space available. In settings where space is abundant – say, the National Conference of Polish Clergy against the canonization of John Paul II – the pressure factor can thus be disregarded.

As an extra bonus to your avid reader, I would like to divulge some very recent cosmological discoveries that he or she might find intriguing. At the University of Drammen, I am in charge of the course Elementary Physics 101. One of the first questions I always get from undergraduate students is: Can a human body actually explode from being too fat? Yes, I answer my flock, indeed it can. Once a body reaches its critical mass, i.e. once the proportion between fat and other body mass (muscles, bones etc) exceeds 10³º, it starts to grow uncontrollably, or, to use the correct terminology, it enters an inflationary phase with super-fast, exponential growth of body mass, eventually causing it to explode. This phenomenon is often referred to in Physics textbooks as a Super-Nowak, named after an unusually voluminous 16th century Pole (whose descendants later emigrated to the US) whose body reached such dimensions that it – just before it exploded - covered the entire market square of his local Silesian village. The effects of this cataclysmic event are measurable even today. In 1964, two American astronomists discovered a mysterious residual noise evenly spread out across the universe. Comparing their results to notes in the Racibórz church annals from 1578, where the local vicar reports a ‘hideous, devillish noise as though Satan has descended to earth in the incarnation of a pig undergoing castration’, Prof. Bjørnstjerne Hilton at the Kashubian Institute of Nuclear Physics concluded that this so-called cosmic background radiation actually is the residual effect of Mr Nowak screaming ‘kurwa’ from the top of his lungs as his body detonates.'
Ph.D. Vidkun Gandhi, West Drammen, 29.09.2009

Cosmic background radiation

Łap dziób Kaczorka - akcja reklamowa Orange budzi kontrowersję

2009-07-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

Patrzył na nas z billboardów, spoty leciały bez przerwy w telewizji. Gdziekolwiek się odwrociliśmy, widzieliśmy to samo: obraz zagubionego faceta ze złapanym nosem towarzyszący chwytliwemu hasłu 'Łap dziób Kaczorka'.

Zaintrygowani, dotarliśmy do szczególów:
'Odjazdowa oferta! Za każdy 'łap' (złapanie) dostaniesz darmowego SMSa. Zrób zdjęcie, jak łapiesz dziób Kaczorka. Wysyłając MMSa ze zdjęciem do Orange, dostaniesz darmowego SMSa. Nie przegap - łap!!!'

Akcja ruszyła i zrobiła furorę. Z całej Polski abonenci Orange przyjeżdżali do Trójmiasta, łapali nos 'Kaczorka', czasami wielokrotnie, i wysyłali MMSy do Orange, aby dostać swoją nagrodę: darmowego SMSa.

'Oszukano nas'. Beata E., biedna śląska matka patrząc na zaniedbaną ścianę pustym wzrokiem opowiada swoją historię. 'Słyszałam o ofercie Orange. Mam chorą córkę w szpitalu. Przestraszyła się, jak zobaczyła czarnucha na dworcu w Gliwicach i doznała szoku. Tylko dzięki SMSom utrzymuję kontakt z nią, bo muszę przez cały dzień pilnować męża alkoholika, więc myślałam, że to oferta dla mnie. Wybrałam się do Trójmiasta i zaczęłam łapać. I chociaż dostałam obiecane SMSy, czułam, że coś jest nie tak, bo stopniowo opróżniał się mój portfel!'

Paweł G., były ksiądz z Białegostoku zbankrutował po tym, jak zaczął łapać i wysyłać SMSy. 'Po 3 tygodniach wyjazdów do Trójmiasta i łapania dziobów byłem tak spłukany, że zostałem zmuszony do kradzieży opłatków z własnego kościoła. Przez to prawie nic nie pozostało dla wiernych, ktorzy musieli walczyć ze sobą o resztki opłatków. Moi drodzy parafianie zaczęli się bić przed moimi oczyma!' W oczach byłego księdza pojawiają się łzy i jego głos załamuje się.
'W każdą niedzielę opowiadam swoim wiernym o piekle, które czeka pedałów po tamtej stronie. Po raz pierwszy, widząc matki odbierające dzieciom opłatki, doszedłem do wniosku, że piekło może być tu na ziemi.' Paweł G. zdejmuje sutannę. 'Straciłem swoją wiarę. Wytoczę Orange sprawę sadową za utraconą pracę i utracony sens życia.'

Abonenci poczuli się oszukani, ale nie wiedzieli, dlaczego kasa znikała. Jolka J., sprzedawczynia jaj spod Lublina: 'Jestem prostą sprzedawczynią prostych, ekologicznie niedostosowanych jaj, ale to wcale nie znaczy, że jestem głupia. Moja córka jest prostytutką i ma błyskotliwego alfonsa, który skończył kurs wieczorowy z matematyki na Technikum w Pasymiu.'

Alfons jej córki, zachowując anonimowość, relacjonuje.

'Będąc od swojego dzieciństwa alfonsem, uważałem miesiąc spędzony w Technikum za stracony. Ale okazało się, że przez matematykę mogłem pomóc ludziom! Zasady są takie: w Orange jeden MMS kosztuje 40, a jeden SMS 20 groszy. Wprawdzie dostaniesz darmowego SMSa, ale to nie pokrywa kosztów - 40 groszy - za wysłanie MMSa. Za każdy MMS którego wysyłasz, tracisz' - alfons wyjmuje swój kalkulator - '40 minus 20groszy, czyli 20 groszy!. Poza tym trzeba doliczyć cenę biletu kolejowego do Trójmiasta.'

Jolka: 'Sama nie kumam tych matematycznych rzeczy, ale alfons mojej córki to tak mądrala i do tego taki dżentelmen!' Teraz ta niepozorna sprzedawczyni jaj stoi na czele kampanii 'Orange, oddajcie nam kasę i godność.' 'Wydawało nam się, że dziób Kaczorka został złapany.' Jolka potrząsa głową. 'Nie. To my, prości ludzie, zostaliśmy złapani - przez Orange'.

'Kontrkampania' Jolki już ruszyła w całej Polsce. Billboardy z 'Kaczorkiem' Orange niszczono - i nie tylko. Wybuchła prawdziwa antykaczorkowa histeria! 'Wściekli abonenci Orange weszli do mojego sklepu i spalili cały rocznik Kaczora Donalda' opowiada właściciel kiosku z Mogilna. 'Krzyknąłem, że ten kaczor nie ma nic wspólnego z akcją Orange, ale na marne. Teraz pozwę Orange i zażądam odszkodowania,' mówi nam pokrzywdzony przez Orange wielkopolski kioskarz.
Tak, Kaczorze, jest o co się martwić

A co z naszym bohaterem, facetem z billboardów, nijakim K. Valentino, którego nos został złapany?

'Miałem stać się sławny. Mówiono mi, że będę gwiazdą, że czekają mnie zaproszenia na ekskluzywne przyjęcia z koreczkami, ze kręcą film na mój temat z Georgem Clooney'em w roli głownej. Ale jedyne, co pozostało to mój mocno złapany i, skutkiem tego, krwawiący nos.' Pokazuje nam resztki nosa. 'I, jakby to nie wystarczyło, abonenci obwiniali mnie za ich straty finansowe. Ruszyła nowa fala ludzi do Trójmiasta, ale tym razem w innym celu. Chcieli mi obciąć nos! O mały włos, czy może lepiej, o mały nos, nie straciłem życia.' Drapie się po nosie. 'Tak, ja też pozwę Orange. Jak się traci nos, wiadomo jak się skończy. Patrz tylko na Michaela Jacksona. Takie zabiegi nie są tanie. Na razie stać mnie tylko na..' Wyjmuje czerwony gadżet z reklamówki. '..nos klauna ze sklepu z zabawkami.' Zakłada nos klauna i stara się uśmiechnąć, ale raczej bez powodzenia.

K. Valentino - ofiara czy sprawca?

A co na to kierownictwo Orange? Postanowiliśmy odwiedzić siedzibę Orange. Przedstawiwszy się jako oszukani abonenci, zwróciliśmy uwagę na nieszcześcia, które się nam przytrafiły z powodu akcji Orange. Nasze uwagi zostały nie tylko zlekceważone lecz także wyśmiane przez dyrektora marketingowego Orange w Starych Kiełbonkach. 'Głupie krowy! I owce! I kundle! Wiadomo, że cena MMSa jest wyższa od ceny SMSa. Ta akcja zaczęła się jako zakład między działem marketingowym a działem księgowym, ile ludzi dałoby się nabrać? Chcieliśmy przetestować granice głupoty ludzkiej. Okazało się, że granic nie ma!'

Nasza rozmówca nieco zmienił ton jak zdradziliśmy, że jesteśmy nie klientami, tylko dziennikarzami i, że mamy całą rozmowę nagraną. Spanikował. Zaoferował nam darmowe SMSy, darmowe MMSy a nawet ostatnią nowość - komórkę z funkcją samotworzenia ludowych antysemickich haseł. Ale nie daliśmy się przekupić. 'Nie, nie chcemy tego. Chcemy tylko jednego.' Kazaliśmy dyrektorowi pochylić się przed nami i wystawić nos. Przez nastepne kilka godzin drapaliśmy, wykręciliśmy i ciagnęliśmy w każdy możliwy sposób nos dyrektora Orange, upokarzając go na maksa.

Zakładamy, że kierownictwo Orange będzie się długo zastanawiać, zanim ponownie zabierze się za oszukiwanie klientów.

Nos dyrektora przekonał się w końcu do naszej racji

CDHN goes commercial

2009-07-03T00:53:00.000-07:00

CDHN - a beacon of unblemished integrity in an overcommerzialized blogosphere? Not any more. Today, CDHN features its first ever piece of advertising. With the CDHN crew just recovering from the 72-hour drinking binge it awarded itself after cashing in the check from Żywiec, time has come to reflect. As millions of people all around the world look to CDHN for advise on how to lead their lives, the question poses itself: Have we let down our faithful followers by short-sightedly succumbing to greed?

To prove that we are not adverse to self-reflection and criticizm, CDHN has invited 3 of today's brightest and most independent thinking minds to discuss the implications of CDHN 'going commercial'. In our expert panel, the following Polish pundits are ready to dissect our advertisement with their razor sharp intellects:

Joanna Kennedy Senyszyn - the black sheep of the Kennedy family. With her shrill voice and controversial opinions, she has laid waste more than one Boston garden party. In the words of Senator Ted Kennedy:
With JFK, Robert Kennedy and JFK Jr all having died young, it is common to speak of the curse of the Kennedy family. Commentators somehow fail to see what - or rather who - is the real curse of the Kennedy clan. Isn't it ironic that while cherished and loved members of our family drop dead like flies in November, the one Kennedy that we'd actually wish to see dispatched to an otherwordly existence, is not only alive, but stubbornly attends and spoils every single garden party given by the Kennedys?

Jan Jackson Rokita - Michael Jackson's unknown kid brother. In stark contrast to his brothers and sisters, who made glittering music careers, Jan renounced showbiz in order to develop his intellect, primarily by delving into classics from the Polish conservative canon. Evil tongues claim he's indirectly responsible for Jacko's lack of self esteem as he was consistently picking on his one year older brother for not using enough trisyllabic words. And, according to Jan's nanny, the fact that Jan did not miss an opportunity to point out the whiteness of his own skin compared to Michael's, left an indelible scar and might even have triggered the elder brother's fateful skin obsession. Lately, Jan Jackson Rokita made headlines after getting into a fight with the staff on a Lufthansa airplane.

Jacek Soros Żakowski - financial whiz and multibillionaire who to many people's surprise has become one of Capitalism's fiercest critics.

CDHN: The CDHN team are truly honoured to welcome such a distinguished handful of intellectuals whose opinions are...

Soros Żakowski: -Spare the flattery, Uncle T. Don't think you can silence me by sycophancy! It is true that Polish public debate would be void of substantial content without me raising my voice on every conceivable and inconceivable topic. But no distractions here. My sole question to you is the following: You have licked the asses of the mighty Żywiec corporation. Did it taste good?

Jackson Rokita: Grupa Żywiec might be owned by Heineken, but at least it has no German capital, or should I say Geld. At a time when Germany pursues a relentless campaign to ethnically cleanse Polish intellectuals from European airspace it is imperative that Poland says no to Herr Fritz and his various plans to subjugate the Polish nation.

Soros Żakowski: Says who? Says Der Dziennik's highest paid commentator and Herr Axel Springer's very own lackey. So, Mr Rokita, have you wrapped your lips around herr Axel's toes today? Oh, the sight of Führer Axel Springer in his lederhosen makes your heart beat just a little bit faster, doesn't it? Do you know that the anti-German commentaries you write in Der Dziennik are paid for by Mr Springer himself? I mean, how humiliating is that? You've become Mr Springer's personal clown. Ha-ha.

Jackson Rokita: In 1989 the footage from Peking's Tiananmen Square of one single individual bravely opposing a tank was shown all over the world as a unique example of human bravery. A few months ago, one Polish hero - modesty forbids me to point out that it was myself - defied the mighty Lufthansa, standing upright in the face of unspeakable offence done to me and my coat. In the inner pocket of my coat I always carry the original manuscript to my Prime Minister inaugurational speech, so I think we can safely say that my coat deserved to travel on 1st class. By violating the rights of my coat, Luftwaffe - sorry, Lufthansa - were vomiting on the entire Polish intellectual heritage. Such a crime against humanity could not be allowed to happen.

Young Jasio didn't make it to the photoshoot as he he had his nose buried in the collected writings of Roman Dmowski.

Kennedy Senyszyn: Comparing dick sizes again, are we? Your adolescent barking is just a sly attempt to distract from the heart of the matter here. The poor girl in the advertisement, probably underaged, has been brutally exploited by the marketing industry. All to satisfy the needs of the beer drinking segment, which is almost exclusively male, of course. Do you know that 96 % of all sexist remarks are made under the influence of alcohol?

Jackson Rokita: I know one or two things about being abused myself. Not only was I almost beaten to death by a group of kapos from Lufthansa SS, but I was also ridiculed by my brothers for wanting to nourish my intellect rather than practising on the latest Negro dance steps. They called me a book-worm and a failure. Little did they know that the family 'book-worm' was the future Prime Minister from Kraków!

Soros Żakowski: Jasiu, you never became Prime Minister. Tusk screwed you frontally and from behind and left you with your face in the mud. Face it, Jasiu, you are and will forever stay a nobody, an also-ran whose only raison d'etre is being Axel Springer's in-house clown. The village idiot of Der Dziennik, he-he.

Jackson Rokita: Liar, liar! Are you as actually blind as you are intellectually blind? You didn't see all those majestic billboards with 'Jan Rokita - premier z Krakowa' (Jan Rokita - Prime Minister from Kraków)? Look, I carry a photo of one of them in my pocket. This one is taken near a petrol station just outside Puck. See, 'Premier z Krakowa'!

Soros Żakowski: Fine, Jasiu, perhaps you should take a taxi home now so that Nelly can give you your medication? Returning to the advertisement, most of your readers probably associate Żywiec with a chilled pint on a hot Baltic coast summer evening. Some of you might even have fond memories from the day when an overabundance of the said beer brand helped you score your second cousin at Uncle Piotr's funeral. But there is another story, the untold story about
the Żywiec corporation, about a company that treats their employees with a degree of inhumanity that would astonish a laboratory rat at L'Oreal. Do you know what happened when one of their employees - a blind man with 5 deaf children who was just about to finish his 4th consecutive shift - attached the Żywiec label to the bottle upside down? The Żywiec management smashed his middle finger with a 1000 ltr beer tapping tank and mixed his pulverized bones into budget cocaine to be dumped on the Ethiopian market.

Laboratory rat

Kennedy Senyszyn: Shut your patriarchal snout, male pig. Yes, the Żywiec bosses are cruel and callous individuals, but from your male rapist-perspective you typically overlook the pronounced gender bias of their sadism. The male hyenas in charge of Żywiec had a report commisioned which found that by selling beer to children they could boost their turnover by up to 30%. In order to develop a beer ideal for children they approached impoverished Moldavian mothers with newly born infants. For a daily salary of $ 2, the hapless women were forced to consume 12 Żywiec cans per hour, in other words: the exact quantity needed to significantly alter the taste and alcohol content of the mother's milk. Speak of breast enhancement! Measuring the enthusiasm with which the thirsty and unsuspecting infants lapped away at their victimized mothers' breasts, the Żywiec corporation acquired all the data needed to devise a beer tailor-made for the kid segment. As we speak, this beer is being mixed into orange juice in Polish kindergartens to turn the toddlers into beer addicts at an early stage.

Jackson Rokita: It is indeed true that giving women access to alcohol is highly unwise. Since we are on the topic, I would like to sort out a tiny misunderstanding. The interview with Nelly in Viva where she seems to suggest that I am not the ideal husband was a deliberate misrepresentation of her true thoughts. Her real message - which is that she adores me for being Poland's and thus the world's foremost intellectual and that she chose me after having returned 14 truckloads of red roses from a lovestruck Adam Michnik - got distorted due to overconsumption of alcohol. You see, the creme de la creme of the Kraków intelligentsia were gathered in my apartment, their attentive ears finely tuned in to listen to my elaborations on the topic of 'Jan Rokita as an opinionmaker'. It so happened that I got so carried away by the fascinating topic that I simply forgot to lock my minibar for the night. My devious wife snuck out of the bedroom in the middle of the night and helped herself rather liberally from my whisky supplies. The morally crippled Viva journalists of course cynically exploited the opportunity. I am planning to take legal action against the magazine for abusing a woman not in command of her mental faculties. Moreover, I intend to place Nelly under my custody so that she will no longer compromise herself and her only achievement in life, i.e. me.

Soros Żakowski: Foremost intellectual, my ass! 3 words, Jasio, 3 words to remind you what a complete loser you are: Donald.. Fucking.. Tusk... Ha-ha.

Kennedy Senyszyn: It is hardly a secret that Nelly is in urgent need of psychiatric intervention. But giving Jackson Rokita influence over her is like entrusting the Neapolitan mafia with your smelliest garbage . A much better idea would be to send her to one of our Feminist run mental correction facilities for women led astray by Conservative ideology, where an adequate combination of feminist writing, carefree shopping and continued electroshock will nurse her back to health and make her renounce her disgusting political beliefs once and for all.

CDHN: My sincere thanks to our distinguished panel for sharing your invaluable thoughts with CDHN's readers. By way of finishing, perhaps each of you could say a few words about how you value CDHN's contribution to the blogosphere and to the public debate in general?

Kennedy Senyszyn: Take a group of bigoted, sexually deviant middle class males rapidly approaching their midlife crisis. Give them a computer and an internet connection and the irredeemable information sewage of CDHN is what results.

Soros Żakowski: Whenever I am forced to read your blog I can almost feel the stinky breath of corporate Capitalism seeping through the computer screen.

Jackson Rokita: If your blog was in paper form it could be used as toilet paper... for dogs.

CDHN: Thank you again and a happy summer to you all!

The 5 most shaggable women in world politics and how to seduce them

2009-06-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

Buttocks have been squeezed in all possible and impossible ways. Hair samples have been tested for silkiness in specially designed laboratories. Voices have had their sensuality measured using state-of-the-art phonetic equipment from the Linguistics Department at MIT. Panties have been sniffed by an experienced and dedicated team of Labrador Retrievers. In short: No boob has been left unturned as CDHN has taken upon itself the formidable task of compiling the definite and only scientifically sound ranking of the world's hottest female politicians.

1. Sandra Roelofs First Lady of Georgia
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili might be chased by KGB-agents, loathed by his own people and left with no other friends than fellow losers Wiktor Juszczenko and Lech Kaczyński. He might have played hazard with the lives of his own citizens by providing Putin with a long sought for excuse to chose Georgia as the 2008 destination for the Russian Army’s annual raping excursion. So what keeps this tortured man ticking? Well, after yet another day passed by that didn’t see him lynched or assassinated, he can crawl into a warm bed and snuggle up to his adorable Sandra. Those who think that Dutch-born beauty Sandra Roelofs chose Saakashvili for his fame and fortune couldn’t be more wrong. Back in the days when they fell in love, Saakashvili was just an opposition nobody from an ex-Soviet republic primarily known for furnishing the Russian state apparatus with unusually cruel individuals the likes of Josef Stalin and Lavrentij Beria.

The question remains though, how long can Miserable Mikheil keep his Divine Dutchess for himself ? Russia has a long standing reputation for sending out their top secret agents to seduce powerful politicians or their secretaries. And conquering Sandra must seem an infinitely more pleasurable challenge than, say, Werna Gerhardsen. On the other hand, most Russian men between 18 and 45 are either dead in Chechnya or half dead from alcoholism, so there might be a shortage of suitable candidates.

How to seduce her: Sandra feels nostalgic about the good old opposition days before Mikheil was corrupted by power and riches. Pose as a North Korean freedom fighter hiding in a cave in the mountains where Kim Jung Il is carrying out nuclear tests. Tell Sandra how you plan to abort the North Korean Dictator’s deadly experiments by physically throwing yourself on top of the nuclear missile. This will no doubt appeal to Sandra’s romantic idealism, and the prospect of certain death as Kim Jung Il’s sends his 1.2 million strong army after both of you will only heighten the intensity of the love making.

2. Yulia Timoshenko – Prime minster of Ukraine

Wherein lies Yulia’s undeniable appeal? Ukraine’s wannabe dictator exudes about as much human warmth as an average Russian tank factory. In fact, the only thing remotely human about her is the thing situated on top of her head. I hesitate to refer to it as a hairstyle. It might have started out as a hairstyle, but it has evolved far beyond that and has surely taken on a separate existence. Some astronauts even claim it is visible from space.
How to seduce her: Roses or poems will get you nowhere with Ukraine’s icy beauty. Do not appeal to her romantic feelings because they are non-existent. The only thing that holds any appeal for this woman is power, and power in this part of the world basically means Vladimir Putin. Claim that you have invented an elixir that will miraculously turn her into Mr Putin, whereas what you actually are serving her, is a kind of hormonical Red Bull that will transform this political predator into a sex-starved rabbit.

3. Segolene Royal Socialist Party candidate for the French presidential election in 2007 (where she lost to Nicholas Sarkozy)
Segolene Royal might be a socialist, but she is above all French. One can only begin to imagine what unspeakable depravities she has lowered herself to in order to climb (almost) to the top of a society as thoroughly perverted and morally unprincipled as the French one. There is some dissent within the CDHN expert panel as to whether engaging in licentious activities with individuals as mentally challenged as socialists can be defended from a moral point of view, and the Ageist fraction on our editorial board argue that at 55 she is past her sell-by date, but let’s not fool ourselves, gentlemen (and gentlewomen of the appropriate persuasion): presented with a naked Madame Segolene draped in nothing but the Tricolor all objections would be gone as quickly as a French army before a German onslaught.

How to seduce her: Invite her to dinner, presenting yourself as a journalist in possession of a photo where Nicholas Sarkozy is blowing his nose with the Tricolor. Smelling Sarko's blood and sensing an opportunity to finish off her arch enemy once and for all, Segolene will show up trembling with excitement. Treat her to an exquisite snail dinner and a bottle of wine, all the while waving the incriminating photo in front of the drooling Frogess. Only when the bottle is completely empty, you inform her that what she has been sipping was not a Chateau Margaux 1995, but in fact Argentinian wine. A shattered Ms Royal has committed the one sin more deadly to a member of the French elite than wearing cheap perfume: she has perpetrated the ghastly crime of consuming new world wine! Her relief when you tell her you will not let this potentially devastating transgression come to the knowledge of the French public, will be so overwhelming that you don’t even have to ask her: Ms Royal will rip off her expensive garments faster than a French General can say “Ich ergebe mich!” as what might possibly be a German uniform appears in the horizon.

4. Queen Rania of Jordan
One of the stated goals of desert hottie Rania is to ‘fight stereotypes against Muslims’. If this is really her foremost concern, one might ask why this member of the exceptionally exclusive group ‘Sexy Arabs’ is not shedding those long dresses in favour of something a little more slutty? A tantalizingly exposed nipple or two would once and for all convince world opinion that Muslim women are more than burka-clad domestic slaves whose only function is to serve as sperm receptacles when their criminally unshaved Taliban husbands need to unload some aggression.
How to seduce her: In Rania's part of the world, there is one thing people despise even more than razors and pigs, and that is Jews. Nothing tastes as sweet as forbidden fruits to a Rania that is probably bored to death from sitting inside her palace all day. Dress up as someone unambiguously Jewish like, say, Woody Allen or Leon Trotsky, and show up in Ranya’s bedroom singing klezmer songs, cracking Seinfeld-jokes and wearing nothing but your skull cap. Enticed by the prospect of forbidden love, the Queen will cast herself in the role of Juliet to your Romeo, and promptly lift that blanket to initiate a night of love making so unlimited in its sinfulness that Bill Clinton would be blushing.
Special advice: Love-making kosher style requires that you get yourself circumsized. You might have second thoughts about taking such a radical step. On the other hand, when King Abdullah's security guards catch you helping yourself from Queen Rania's cookie jar, they will chop off your genitals and feed them to the royal camels anyway, so it will ultimately not matter very much.

5. Mara Carfagna Italian Minister for Equal Opportunities and former showgirl

These days Silvio Berlusconi is suffering two personal defeats. His wife is leaving him and Milan has lost the Serie A championship to Inter for the 4th time in a row. What steps will a megalomaniac like Silvio take to compensate? That is, when he is tired of the 18-year old model he is currently satisfying his ego with? Minister in his government Mara Carfagna would be wise to place her well shaped behind on pinching alert. The former model and showgirl would fit the bill ideally as an aging Il Cavaliere is looking for solid physical evidence that he is not losing it.

How to seduce her: Let’s face it: You cannot compete with Berlusconi on his own terms. If you buy Ms Carfagna red roses, Silvio will buy her Kensington Gardens, have them disassembled, flown over and delivered to her address. Take her out to a fancy restaurant, and Silvio will dig a canal to her doorstep, fill it with vintage champagne and arrive sailing on his yacht. And I didn’t even mention the fact that Silvio is a more than capable singer. Berlusconi simply cannot be out-Berlusconied.

Your only option is to come across as the complete opposite of everything Berlusconi embodies. Present yourself as a homeless person and tenant farmer-turned-toilet cleaner whose one-acre farm was raced to the ground when Berlusconi suddenly felt the urge to extend one of his swimming pools. Be sure to look as shabby and unwashed as humanely possible and present her with your best Shane MacGowan-smile. After so many years in the social jet-set surrounded by glamorous people, chances are that Ms Carfagna just might find the idea of exchanging body fluids with a particularly smelly specimen of the lumpenproletariat an enticing challenge.

Shane MacGowan, former frontman of British-Irish folkrock group The Pogues

The officially authorized CDHN test: What nationality are you really?

2009-04-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

Always felt like an outsider? Doesn't anybody want to play with you? And why is it that all the clubs you ever join only have one member? Could it be that you're simply born in the wrong country? By taking this easy test, you can finally find out which country is your spiritual homeland and where to settle to meet individuals just like yourself.

1. Your country is invaded by another country.
a. You hide in a bunker with your pet dog and your collection of Wagner operas.
b. 'Great! More clients for my strip club!'
c. You know that the invading army will freeze to death or get stuck in the mud somewhere on the way to your country’s capital anyway, so you’re not really that concerned. But you send out a few millions of your fellow countrymen to die as canon fodder just to be on the safe side.
d. Your country is usually invaded by more than one country at the same time, so this is not so bad actually
e. You are surprised that the United Nations Human Rights Council ,Hamas and the entire continent of Africa are not here to defend you after all you’ve done for them
f. You don’t really care, because you beat them in football anyway

2. You find out that your father is gay
a. You write an opera about it
b. At first you are a little upset, but then you find consolation in the thought that so was Frederick the Great
c. You are angry with him for not coming out earlier before having a gay dad became as common as balloons at children’s birthday parties
d. You try to cure him with electroshock while he’s sleeping
e. You blame some neighbouring country where he spent his holiday and use this as a pretext to invade them
f. You tell your friends that as a guest worker in Britain your father was so shocked by the unattractiveness of the local women that he was given no choice

3. The Polish Pope dies
a. You’re angry because you have to cancel your weekend trip to Krakow
b. Great. Our guy is next in line!
c. You close down society for three weeks, mourn and weep and vail, and then die from heart attack from the shock you get when you learn that there is supposed to be some guy in the jungle of Botswana who didn’t really care that much about the Pope’s death.
d. The Polish one? He doesn’t really count
e. You start weeping because you mistake the Pope for Putin
f. You wonder if this qualifies you for some kind of welfare benefit

4. Your dog is seriously ill
a. You sell it to an animal-loving family with children as soon as you can without informing the new owners about its ailment
b. You conclude that its genes are inferior and start to apply euthanasia, but change your mind in the last moment when you recall Himmler’s words that the Germans are the only race that treat animals humanely
c. You ask your local priest if there is a patron saint for sick dogs
d. You go to your local consigliere to ask for advice
e. You think its disease might be psychosomatic and take it to your shrink, but only after you’ve made sure that the you will get all the costs refunded by the state
f. You blame its illness on imported Polish/Georgian dog food and call for an immediate boycott (followed by invasion) of those two countries

5. A foreigner actually takes the time and effort to learn your language and tries to converse with you in it
a. She tries to say ‘How do you do’, but it comes across as ‘Down with Putin’, so you have her sent off to a labour camp
b. You assemble a group of your friends and tell the foreigner to pronounce one of the most difficult tongue twisters in your language. Then you all laugh your asses off as the foreigner gets the fricative sounds mixed up
c. You start correcting her grammar.
d. You start speaking to her in your heavily accented English
e. You take advantage of her incomplete knowledge of your language to get her to sign a contract where she obliges herself to working full time in your strip club
f. The concept of foreign language is alien to you. You are convinced that your mother tongue is spoken by absolutely everyone apart from Americans, so you cannot really relate to this person

6. What object would it be most difficult for you to live without?
a. Your mafia membership card
b. A list of all the welfare benefits you qualify for.
c. The pickled cucumber you once bought that had the shape of a cross
d. A map of your neighbouring countries borders.
e. Your diploma from the Pimp Academy of Prague that happens to have Karel Gott’s signature on it
f. A complete collection of all the laws and regulations written down in your country since Frederick Barbarossa

7. A pedestrian tries to cross the street while you are driving your car
a. You mistake the pedestrian for a moose and pull out your rifle from your luggage box
b. You run him over deliberately, then hurl verbal abuse at him
c. You never drive cars, only tanks
d. You sue him because you heard him make a joke about your country’s army
e. You run him over by accident. Since he’s dead anyway, you figure you just might search through his pockets for some banknotes or a credit card or maybe some unused condoms
f. You try to run him over but your Vespa scooter gives him just a tiny scratch.

8. You find out that your neighbour is a Jew
a. You tell him to proceed to the showers for delousing
b. You beat him senseless with a cross
c. You have him deported to Siberia.
d. You transfer a pile of money to Palestinian freedom fighters so that they can fire rockets at his house or dress up as milkmen and blow themselves up inside it
e. You do your best to cheat him by overcharging for beer.
f. You hate every single one of your neighbours regardless of their ethnicity

Give yourself the following number of points for the respective answers:
Q1. a: 5 b: 1 c: 6 d: 4 e: 3 f: 2

Q2. a: 2 b: 5 c: 3 d: 4 e: 6 f: 1

Q3. a: 1 b: 5 c: 4 d: 2 e: 6 f: 3

Q4. a: 1 b: 5 c: 4 d: 2 e: 3 f: 6

Q5. a: 6 b: 4 c: 5 d: 3 e: 1 f: 2

Q6. a: 2 b: 3 c: 4 d: 6 e: 1 f: 5

Q7. a: 3 b: 4 c: 6 d: 5 e: 1 f: 2

Q8. a: 5 b: 4 c: 6 d: 3 e: 1 f: 2

8-13 pts: You are Czech

You love beautiful women, good beer and all the sweet pleasures life has to offer. Apart from that, you’re not really sure what is your historical mission.

14-17 pts: You are Italian

Your state-making skills leave a lot to be desired and your national tv is a cultural disaster, but who cares: You love art, opera and architecture and the dinners you cook are true culinary events.

18-21 pts: You are Norwegian
You have a constant craving for goat milk cheese, love skiing and walks in the forest and are proud of living in an egalitarian society. You send piles of money to Africa without quite knowing why, but you have a secret hope that it will somehow improve your tan.

22-27 pts: You are Polish
You’re hospitable, helpful and willing to sacrifice a lot for your ideals. If you’re a woman, you’re probably also attractive. You think pickled cucumbers are God’s gift to mankind.

28-32 pts: You are German
You are a true connosieur of sausages, an eminent philosopher, have a great organizational talent and your garden is always well kept. If you were better at marketing yourself, the world would also know that you’re great at making cocktails.

Above 33 pts: You are Russian
You have a remarkable survival instinct and a talent for writing epic novels. You are hospitable and fun-loving, but tend to drink a little too much at times.

’Oh no, I don’t know how to do this, why do I have to do the maths myself, why doesn’t it work like on Facebook where they find the answer for you, HOWL! HOWL! HOWL!’:
You are a useless facebook-addict with the intellectual sophistication of a kebab. No remotely civilized country would ever acknowledge you as their citizen, but you could try to apply for the post of finance minister in Zimbabwe.

The case against Vegetarianism

2009-03-26T01:07:00.000-07:00

Paper presented at the annual convention of Częstochowa Red Meat Lodge, March 2009

'Oh come on! Like there are piles of jobs waiting for us if the beef industry has to close down.'

It is legitimate to nourish even strong antipathy towards certain types of food. It is perfectly healthy to invest carefully accumulated hatred in a particularly detestable dish. I for one find Polish cuisine an affront to my taste buds and spend two hours with my face in the toilet bowl if anyone as much as mentions bigos. The question is: Do I build a weltanschauung on it?

In this in-depth analysis of the irrational but widespread phenomenon of Vegetarianism I intend to show that this is not merely a diet, nor a healthy lifestyle, nor a way of showing compassion with our four-legged friends. No, Dear Lodge Members. Vegetarianism is a pathological obsession that bears all the hallmarks of a religion. And not only is it a religion; the central contention of this paper is that Vegetarianism is a particularly unattractive and pointless religion embraced by anally retentive nuts.

The contrast is obvious in this photo taken on a picnic in the Bavarian countryside in the 1930s. The Vegetarian to the left - short, feeble, trying to make up for his sense of inferiority by growing a ridiculous moustache. The meat-eater in the middle - healthy, virile, excuding strength and masculinity, fresh from shagging Marlene Dietrich

The anally retentive character trait of Vegetarianism manifests itself in a preoccupation with titles. Whenever you pose a Vegetarian an awkward question, he or she will retort that this concerns only Lacto-vegetarians, Ovo-vegetarians, Lacto-Ovo vegetarians, Pescetarians, Vegans etc, ‘while I myself am a Pollo-vegetarian, so there you go’. This is indicative of mental instability for 2 reasons. First, meat-eaters don’t give themselves silly names based on the type of food they eat. You don’t have Porkarians, Beefists or Hotdogarians. Secondly, even if they did, they wouldn’t expect the general public to be familiar with these terms or even be bothered. Vegetarians are different. They are so fascinated with their own universe of hyphenated Latinates that they think the world around them care. Well, time for a reality check, soy-munchers.

So I hereby suggest a new and simplified Vegetarian typology, where we operate with three kinds of Vegetarians: 1. the smelly, greasy-haired Pacifist Hippie type with a horrible taste in music (read: Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Fairport Convention and other monstrosities that sprang out of the 60s folk rock scene) who thinks the world would be a more harmonious place without water closets. 2. The herb-munching tea-sipping health nut whose narcissistic obsession with his own organism (including its digestive capacities) borders on the perverse 3. Adolf Hitler / Morrissey

For simplification I will hereafter refer to members of any of the above groups as Veggists.
Veggists feel deeply inferior to meat-eaters. This coupled with a bizarre and extremely infantile fixation with food shapes has given us the Veggist line of wannabe-meat products. ‘Oh no, don’t think that you primitive carnivores have a monopoly on the sausage shape. My soy sausage can call itself a real sausage with just as much right as any sausage made from pork.’ Thus there will always be a certain asymmetry between Veggists and the mentally healthy. Quite simply because meat-eaters don’t expect their chicken legs to have the shape of broccoli.

'Yes, I know I should go to the barberer's, but not eating pork is my no. 1 priority at the moment.'

One of the many unappealing features that Veggists share with religious people is their demand for special privileges. 'Ok, so I might be the only Veggist here among 500 guests and I know arranging a wedding is stressful enough already, but hey, serve me that veggie burger NOW!' Note how Muslims and Veggists share an obsession with particular types of food. Zealous Muslims have no problems with grotesquely excessive facial hair, but try to serve them pork and they will hijack an aeroplane and crash it into your kitchen.

How to convert a Veggist

Some of you might – and I speak from personal experience – suffer the misfortune of having colleagues, family members, friends or even (gulp) sex partners who for whatever depraved reason succumbed to the doctrine of Veggism. The healthy contempt you instinctively feel for such pathetic individuals is overpowered by an irrational sense of loyalty and compassion with them. You see not a self-important moralist but a fellow human being in need. Your carnivorous nobleness compels you to come to their rescue. How to save a Veggist? Here are 5 strategies:

Veggism - no recipe for happiness, as demonstrated by these two miserably-looking German veggists from the 1930s

1. Appeal to his/her general desire to be happy
Veggism offers nothing: Islam gives you sex with 72 virgins after death. The Christian afterlife consists of something more diffuse involving angels and harps and probably boring as hell but at least peaceful. Nazism offers racial purity and blonde hair that doesn’t fall of when you’re 33. Communism offers the dictatorship of the proletariat and the chance to rape and loot the bourgeoisie for all they are worth. What does Veggism offer? Dying from boredom at 56! It is a creed completely deprived of attractions. Its main attraction is in fact its unattractiveness. The budding veggist reads about the complete humourless Veggist lifestyle and thinks to himself: This looks so bleak and life-negating that there’s got to be some hidden reward somewhere; Some Veggistan-heaven where a permanently nude Scarlet Johansson shares a soy enchilada with a peace loving lion.

2. Appeal to his/her empathy
Tell your Veggist friend that the soy bean has a rich and fascinating emotional life. Veggists already have inflated opinions of non-humans’ mental capacities, so they just might buy it. Without soy the whole foundations of veggist cuisine will be pulled away under their feet and Veggists will have to face a choice between starvation or a return to sanity. (Some might chose the first option, you might argue – all the better. This shows that Darwinism still works.)
Alternatively you can try the inverse tactic. Convince them that cows are plants.

3. Appeal to his/her sense of guilt
Invite a veggist for a dinner. When she has just licked her fork clean, tell her that what she just devoured so enthusiastically was not a soy beef but raw Panda meat. Veggists like most religious nuts react with panic to the mere suspicion that they have committed a sin. Being a veggist has lost its raison d’etre once and for all and the tormented veggist-sinner will be sent sliding down the slippery (especially greased with animal fat for the occasion) slope to a healthy colesterol-filled diet.
Yes, that's YOU 15 years ago, and that is no soy sausage!

If you don’t feel like wasting good meat, you can produce (Photoshop offers unlimited possibilities) a photo from your friend’s childhood showing the future Veggist engrossed in the consumption of a hot dog on the annual Constitution Day celebrations, her snotty face all smeared with ketchup and mustard. If necessary (most Veggist have probably repressed all memories from their pre-Veggist existence), make use of Freudian techniques like hypnosis to recreate the meat-eating experience in its full sensual dimension.

4. Appeal to his/her ability to over-generalize
Dress up as a cow (or another animal prone to appear on your plate in the company of french fries) and subject a veggist to a violent assault. The victimized veggist’s ability to identify with the suffering of the cow will suffer a severe blow and the next time he sees a group of cattle heading for the slaughterhouse, he will cheer them on enthusiastically. However, keep in mind that this might prove counterproductive. Being notoriously irrational individuals, Veggists may easily fall victim to the Stockholm syndrome and start treating cows with even more reverence than before. A safer but more time-consuming approach is to dress up as a cow and start stalking a Veggist by sending her love letters, putting up a tent outside her apartment, start fan sites on the internet etc. This will cure your Veggist friend of her fondness for cows once and for all.

5. Appeal to his/her sense of aesthetics
Loved by everyone in Poland, and not only for her artistic genius.

Veggists are firmly convinced that their lifestyle is more in harmony with nature. (Their spirits are somehow not dampened by the fact that none of the carnivores actually living in nature would ever renounce meat-eating for ideological reasons.) Show the Veggist a soy cotlet and tell him or her that this is nothing more and nothing less than the culinary equivalent of a silicone breast. Hardly natural.

6. Appeal to his/her dislike of Adolf Hitler (The ‘Reductio ad Hitlerum’ approach)

If, Dear Lodge Members, your Veggist friend stubbornly resists all your attempts to nurse him back to sanity; even if he or she is stupefyingly immune to reason; there is a last resort, an argument to which there is no riposte: Adolf Hitler was a Veggist. ‘Oh, but that is irrelevant. His vegetarianism had nothing to do with him killing millions of people and stuff.’ Wrong. It had everything to do with it. If you value purity (be it racial or nutritional) above everything else including human well-being there is but a small step to dabbling in mass murder. The only difference between Der Führer and your average Veggist is that Adolf was the dictator of Germany while your Veggist-misfit friend is still the odd one out on the annual Thanksgiving dinner, sitting by himself with his miserable soy pancakes while his cousins are bonding happily over a juicy turkey.

Real, calorie-packed meat - brings the family together.

The CDHN course in applied fertilization

2009-03-06T05:43:00.000-08:00

In an era where the youth of Poland are leaving in droves for the decadent West and the few remaining ones are brainwashed by homosexual propaganda into not having any offspring at all, it is all the more gratifying to come across men who know what it takes to be a proper Polish husband. The first Norwegian king, Harald Fairhair, made a vow not to cut his hair before the whole of Norway was one kingdom. Is it likewise the case that Krzysztof Putra, the Polish Parliamentarian, has made a vow not to cut his grand moustache until his wife has blessed him with a double digit number of kids? With 8 (some sources claim 9) kids already having catapulted out of his wife, the dawning of the day when Poseł Putra’s moustache can face a devastating encounter with a hedge trimmer is drawing ever closer.

Poseł Putra is a true living legend with unsurpassed achievements in the domain of turning one’s wife into a veritable baby-dispenser. Can I, a mere mortal, possibly compete with HIM, you ask yourself? Yes, you can, as Obama would have put it. CDHN is proud to offer you a crash course in how to beat Putra on his hometurf.

First of all, be a good Catholic. Adhere to the teaching of Pope John Paul II and never, absolutely NEVER use contraceptives. If your wife buys you condoms, find out where she stores them and poke holes in them. If your wife is too devious in seeking to flunk her breeding obligations - storing the condoms in a place you have never bothered to learn the existense of (like together with the cleaning detergents) - then have your penis pierced. This will make it difficult if not impossible to attach a condom to it. And for anyone steeped in the Catholic visual tradition, a piercing is more than just a needle: a colourful crucifix will liven up the dullest of penises.

Secondly, make sure that your wife is not taking any kind of contraception pills. Convince her that this type of pills causes a whole assortment of side effects, like cellulite, overweight, pimples and other things that women tend to get hysterical about.

Thirdly, learn from the dogs. Live for a while among stray dogs on the streets and internalize their mating habits. Dogs are notorious for possessing an unrelenting urge to penetrate everything with an inviting shape: table legs, human legs, trees etc. If cohabitation does not do the trick, seek a genetic biologist and have dog genes infused. You will be endowed with a constant erection and subject everyone and everything around you to a permanent assault.

Finally, keep your wife within a safe distance from the nearest labour office. It is imperative that she be available for insemination at all thinkable moments. If necessary, immobilize her, for instance by hiding all her expensive shoes. (No woman with a minimum of self-respect will leave the house in substandard footgear). Invest in new furniture to make staying at home a more attractive option. The combination of a flat screen TV attached to the ceiling and a comfortable sofa is a winner. In this way, your wife can watch ’M jak milosc’ lying on her back, a position that greatly facilitates impregnation.

FAQ
As a special service to our faithful readers, Assistant Dean Adolf Mandela from the Jozef Fritzl Department of Family Studies at the University of Salzburg answers some of the most common questions related to the mass production of offspring.

Q: Do I need to grow a moustache the size of Putra’s in order to become the father of 8?
A.M.: This is not a requirement, but it is strongly recommended. The danger exists that your wife will suspect that she married a rabbit and seek refuge in the basement as soon as she sees the ’let’s make babies’-look on your face. A generous moustache combined with a pair of dark glasses will serve to obscure your intentions and render it difficult for your wife to guess when you are planning to impregnate her. Besides, the presence of an intimidating bush in the middle of your face will make kissing and other forms of wasteful and non-reproductive sex (also called foreplay) less pleasant, enabling you to go straight to the point.

Q: If I have 8 children and each of them in turn have 8 children, I will have 64 grandchildren. How do I keep track of them?

A.M.: Experts recommend the time tested Michał Wiśniewski-method of child-identification. Make each of your sons and daughters colour their offspring’s hair with one and the same colour. All your daughter Bożena’s children will have red hair, all your son Zdzisław’s children will have blue hair and so on. If this method is too costly, paper hats are a cheap alternative. Yet another alternative, which can easily be combined with the previous 2, is to compile a list of your 64 favourite Catholic saints and make sure that each of your grandchildren is named after one of them.

The CDHN countdown of the 25 best tracks of all time. This week number 18.

2009-03-06T04:45:00.000-08:00

Notorious, Duran Duran, 1986

Words fail to describe the sheer talent of our heroes from Birmingham. So instead of stating the obvious – that they are one of the most brilliant bands ever to appear on planet earth – I will offer some tidbits of information that you might NOT know. For example that there is a link between Frank Zappa and Duran Duran and that his (apparently genuine) name is Warren Cuccurullo. If this name rings a bell, it might be because he is namedropped in Zappa’s classic ‘Catholic girls’. After playing guitar for Zappa for more than 10 years, Cuccurullo became a member of Duran Duran in 1989. While his period as a member was not their commercially (nor artistically) most fruitful, he did pen their 1993 smash ‘Ordinary world’. W.C. left the group in 2001 to devote himself to publishing pornographic material of himself on his own web site as well as manufacturing his very own dildo, ‘Rock Rod’. Following a life threatening illness in 2003, he had a spiritual awakening (how unpredictable) and removed all adult material from his site. W.C. is proud to be one of those nuts who think that 9/11 was orchestrated by the American government themselves, and as though this wasn’t enough, he belongs to that most despicable category of creatues; Yes, he is a VEGAN.

In other words, things have gone somewhat downhill with W.C., but in the glorious year of 1986 (before becoming an official member of the band), he played guitar on one of the classiest tracks of the 80s, ‘Notorious’. To hear white guys sound as funky as this is a rare experience, to put it mildly. (Even if they probably had more than a little help from producer genius and former Chic-member Nile Rodgers.) Enjoy!

A jolly good play - CDHN reviews 'Fiddler on the roof'

2009-01-25T05:49:00.000-08:00

The fiddler on the roof (Skrzypek na dachu), Teatr Muzyczny, Gdynia, December 2008

Arriving outside the theatre on this chilly December evening, I immediately sensed something was amiss. I could not contain the distinct impression that some of the guests did not arrive in limousins. Some even seemed to drive their own cars. Flustered, I asked my servant Zdzisław for an explanation. „We ARE going to the theatre, right? Does my lorgnette need polishing or does this place look like Paris just before the storming of the Bastille?” Zdzisław took my coat and assured me I would meet like-minded individuals inside, so with some foreboding I decided to take the risk and entered the foyer of Teatr Muzyczny in Gdynia. Safe and sound in my box in the theatre I again retrieved my lorgnette from my waist pocket and took a closer look around. Much to my satisfaction, Gdynia Yacht Club had a strong presence tonight. I also spotted some of the most venerated members of Ujeścisko Fox Hunting Society as well as Lord Ossoliński, head of the Wicket Department in Zaspa Cricket Association.

However, just as I was about to light my favourite cigar, a most hideous spectacle presented itself before my eyes. A shabbily dressed individual appeared on stage playing some kind of instrument that Zdzisław claimed to be a ‘fiddle’, apparently a close relative of the violin. Suffice it to say that if the violin is the racehorse among instruments, then this fiddle-thing is the run-down old nag you would put in front of a cart loaded with potatoes. My first thought was that the fiddling entity on stage was a Gipsy – somewhat to my puzzlement, since I had not ordered a Gipsy band to play. Quite frankly, I find them a little bit threatening, with their black hair and imposing manners. Some of my companions in the Gdynia yacht club seem to appreciate or at least tolerate their presence. I on the other hand always bring my flyswatter when I go to a restaurant. You have no idea how effiecient a smack from the flyswatter is! It is highly amusing to see the little vagabond musicians run for their lives with their ragged ‘clothes’ flying in all directions. My long term golf partner Henryk is a sworn follower of the slingshot, but I myself think a flyswatter does the trick. A slingshot might inflict more physical pain, but punishment meted out by way of a flyswater adds an element of humiliation that sometimes is just as effective. It sends a clear message to the Gipsy: ‘You are of no more standing than a fly, thus a flyswater is the only appropriate instrument.’

As the Gipsy demonstrated a lack of willingness to make himself scarce, I decided, as Gdynia Yacht Club’s most senior member present, to assume command. I resolutely approached the doorman with a polite but firm request to have this inconvenience removed. The doorman however just looked at me as though he was oblivious to my order. I sighed and showed him my membership card from Gdynia Yacht Club. ‘Could you please honour my request, you degenerate little lower class turd?’ To my complete bafflement, the impertinent creature still refused to act. I duly slapped his face and intended to proceed to the stage to remove the Gipsy plague myself, but suddenly I felt overtaken by an attack of dizziness. Sitting down in my arm chair I recalled my doctor’s orders from yesterday. ‘Your organism reacts negatively when exposed to elements from the lower spheres of society. Simply try to avoid them.’ Avoid? They are everywhere these days. I bought myself a villa in Orłowo in the vain hope that I would not have to suffer their company. As if! Hords of them come strolling along the beach promenade on Sundays, more often than not carrying their offspring with them. And yes, Dear Reader, I know we need them to do our laundry and clean our toilets, but do they have to be so... well, straightforward about their existence? Can they not just find themselves a hole in the ground somewhere?

Anyway, what was there to be done except follow my doctor’s orders? All the more since after a lifelong diet consisting exclusively of Filet mignon, vintage Cognac and Belgian chocolate my heart muscle has the vitality of a punctured football. So I leaned back in my chair, waiting for the gipsy to retire from the stage. Which he eventually did. Relieved, I sprayed my surroundings with air freshener in case some of the vile lower class stench had seeped into my box . Finally, I thought to myself, let me breathe some culture!

God, what misdeeds have I been guilty of to deserve such a treatment? For the Gipsy departed only to be replaced by what must have been dozens of his tribal companions. The stage was swarming with filth. They were all over the place, singing, shouting, jumping. I must confess, Dear Reader, that for a moment I panicked. I threw my arms around the gentleman in the box next to me, Zygmunt, the revered vice president of Ujeścisko Fox Hunting Society. ‘The revolution is breaking out!’ I screamed. ‘We are doomed!’ My fox hunting companion was also alarmed, but showed impressive calm in the situation. ‘All is not lost, my friend. What if I use my fox hunting skills to take them out?’ He retrieved his mobile and dialled a number. ‘I’m calling the assistant director of Ujeścisko Fox Hunting Society to send a shipment of horses and fox hounds to put an end to the turbulence’. ‘And my golf clubs might come in handy,’ I added, already imagining myself beating away at a member of the lower classes with religious fervour. Arkadiusz, a distinguished wine taster and tobacco plantation owner from Upper Sopot, joined us. ‘Do not despair, my friends! My recipe for stifling disorder is as follows: Get your cook to prepare a meal of the most exquisite filet mignon imaginable. The tattered insurgents will throw themselves over this meal like a pack of stray dogs over a bone. With glee they will devour the consummate meal – digging their own grave in the process! Because their digestive systems are only used to raw potatoes and rotten cabbage and will not handle culinary delicacies of this kind. While the subversive scum suffer the most brutal attack of bellyache, we will have plenty of time to crush the disturbances.’

Plotting the restoration of order, it suddenly came to our attention that the curtain had fallen and the Gipsys disappeared. What was this? A devious ploy from the lower orders to lull us into a false sense of security?

Apparently, as was explained to us by Stanisław Potocki, Honorary Director of Golf Park Gdynia, this signalled the break between the 2 acts and the underprivileged creatures on stage were not an insurrectionary crowd but – God help me – ACTORS. Yes, we were in fact watching a comedy, where real actors dressed up as lower class sewage were jumping around on stage to our amusement!

Golf Park Gdynia in Orłowo

With a mischiveous smile on his face, Zygmunt whispered something in his servants’ ear.
Just in time for the second act, his servant reappeared equipped with... 3 sets of monkey costumes.

‘I guess it’s ‘make fun of the poor’ day today!’ Zygmunt cheered. ‘Tally-ho, my friend! Here’s one for you too!’

It suddenly dawned on me what the naughty fox hunter had in mind. Hence, with the utmost haste I crept into my monkey outfit. 2 minutes later, Zygmunt, Arkadiusz and myself were dancing around in our monkey costumes on stage, engaging in orangutang acrobatics, making monkey sounds, pulling funny faces and generally pretending to be poor people. I hadn’t had such a jolly good time since uncle Jan let us kids watch the gardener being forced to cut the lawn with his teeth.

Ujeścisko Fox Hunting society - proud bearers of tradition

So, Dear Reader, how do I judge the artistic value of this particular play? Let me just say that I think our somewhat erroneous initial reaction testifies to the astonishing lifelikeness of it all. The filthy rags, the lack of diction, the greasy hair, the pig-like manners – it was a phenomenal display of lower class life at its worst – or should I say best? And if I may add one thing: Yes, I know there are differences between various fractions of the social elite; some of us prefer yachting, others golf while yet others again cultivate the fine leisure pursuits of polo, cricket, horse racing or fox hunting. But jumping around on stage making fun of the poor I realized how infinitely much more there is that unites us than that which separates us. This gentleman might be addicted to Russian caviar, the one sitting in the plush arm chair over there might prefer goose liver while that fine upper class specimen battling on the cricket pitch stubbornly refuses to eat anything but white truffles. Ultimately, however, we are all members of the same estate, the same class, united in our utter contempt for the working people. Last summer, we all suffered some terrifying traumas when the Orłowo golfers sued the Ujeścisko Fox Hunting Society for running their horses over Golf Park Gdynia and letting their fox hounds do their business in the holes next to the flags. For a while there, many of us forgot that whatever differences separate us, they are of a most trifling magnitude compared to the unabridgable gap that divides us all from the riff raff. The most wretched among us – the image of Count Zamoyski mistaking his poodle for his wife at one of the garden parties in Orłowo last summer springs to mind - is worth infinitely more than the most brilliant of their kind.

For new readers: Gdańsk Zoo revisited

2008-12-16T03:03:00.000-08:00

Read the groundbreaking and painfully honest report from the Gdańsk Zoo which earned me the Radom Zoological Society's 'Golden Gnu' prize for investigative journalism 2008. Originally posted on my previous blog on Motime in August.

CDHNs groundbreaking Christmas-modified First Aid course

2008-12-11T09:46:00.000-08:00

With Christmas coming up, innumerable perils present themselves. We get stuck in chimneys, overdoze on marcepan pigs, suffocate inside our Santa masks, and the persistent noise of sleigh bells cause our ear drums to explode. But first and foremost, Christmas is the one time of year when we gather to celebrate our blood ties. Uncles, nephews and grandparents pop up from everywhere, with all the extra conflict potential that this entails. Your grandfather has just added Septic Arthritis to his already impressive collection of ailments – and this year he’s determined to take it out on YOU!

To prevent yet another unresolved inheritance dispute emerging around the Christmas dinner table from having fatal consequences, it is our sacred holiday duty to brush up on our First Aid skills. So take a few minutes to read this – the life you save might be if not your own then at least your third cousin’s.

Is it safe?

1. Safety First

"Professional rescuers practice universal precautions when providing medical care to victims."

Often ignored. If your uncle Viggo has been subjected to a severe thrashing from your other uncle Torkjell, reducing the former to a blood-soaked pulp whose only sign of life are some idiosyncratic movements bearing an ominously close resemblance to final death spasms, we tend to rush to help him. But don’t let your eagerness to help get the better of you. First you make sure that the source of danger, in this case the fierce Uncle Torkjell, is removed. But how to accomplish this? Uncle Torkjell has been nursing a fierce hatred for Uncle Viggo ever since the latter made fun of his cowboy outfit at his 11th birthday party. He genuinely enjoys beating up the hapless Viggo and will not hesitate to deal similarly with anyone that seeks to put obstacles in his way. Here I suggest as the only possible remedy: immediate distribution of Christmas presents. Uncle Torkjell might be no spring chicken, but boys will be boys, and the idea of unwrapping his new Sony Playstation3 will dampen his sadistic impulses – at least until the novelty fades off.

2. Determine if the Victim is Awake

"Probably the biggest indicator of a serious medical emergency is an inability to wake a victim."

How to determine if your ‘patient’ is sleeping? Here, paradoxically, the otherwise annoying phenomenon of snoring lends us a helping hand. Uncle Viggo – fat, drunk, unkept; your archetypical snorer. However, the ability to snore is also influenced by the position in which you sleep. If you sleep on your side, airways are more open and you snore less. Hence, to release Uncle Viggo’s snoring potential, we must put him on his back. His airways will then be partially blocked, which facilitates snoring. If snoring ensues, you can safely conclude that the 'patient' is not awake.

Or can you? Alas, you must be alert to the possibility that the 'patient’ might be faking injury just to make a fool out of you. Could it be that all the other family members have planned a little practical joke at YOUR expense? How to distinguish genuine snoring from fake one? Easy, dear Reader. Your Aunt Gunhild is a certified snorer whose nighttime snoring reaches such giant volumes that her husband Kåre had to seek refuge in a mental hospital. Drop a sleeping pill in her aquavit and place her next to Uncle Viggo. Then observe whether Uncle Viggo’s snoring is affected by Aunt Gunhild’s snoring. If he is just faking, he will have substantial difficulties maintaining his own snoring rhythm. So if his snoring becomes synchronised with Aunt Gunhild’s, we can draw the conclusion that Uncle Viggo has subjected us to inauthentic snoring.

(It must however be added that the current field of snoring science has not reached consensus on this issue. Researchers from the snoring laboratory at the Nelson Mandela College of Nocturnal Health points to the well known fact the menstruation cycles of two women who live together will be synchronized. ‘The same applies to two adjacent snorers’, they maintain.)

What if the ‘patient’ is not your uncle, but your cousin’s sympathetic fiance Kasia? After choking on an almond, she is apparently lying unconscious on the floor. Or is she just observing the time-honoured tradition of female misbehaviour? If yes, you run the risk of ending up the laughing stock of the Christmas party by giving first aid treatment to a perfectly healthy person! Your duty as a first aid expert is to establish the truth value of her apparent lifelessness. Place both hands on her breasts and squeeze them firmly. Lack of reaction from the ‘patient’ points to loss of consciousness, and allows you to proceed to step 3. (Researchers from the First Aid Battalion at the Joseph Mengele University in Drammen, however, argue that it is still too early to proceed and that you should double check by touching other strategic parts of her body first. I will leave this to the discretion of the individual first aid expert, in the firm conviction that each will act in accordance with his or her conscience.)

3. A is for Airway and B is for Breathing

"If a victim is conscious, ask him or her to speak. The ability to speak directly correlates with an airway. If a person's airway is blocked, he or she can't speak."

A tricky one, as it poses no great difficulty feigning an unability to speak. How can we ascertain that we are not being made fun of yet again? A simple but effective method exists. Subject the ‘patient’ to prolonged tickling of armpits. If the idea of touching Uncle Viggo’s sweaty armpits with your fingers holds no particular appeal to you, I suggest that you uproot the Christmas tree and tickle him with it. The ‘patient’ will start laughing and beg you to stop, making it obvious for everyone that his so-called blocked airways were nothing but an evil lie.

If tickling does not produce the expected results, we might be dealing with a person whose airwaves are blocked. Place Uncle Viggo in the recovery position.

Again, if the prospect of dealing manually with Uncle Viggo’s obese body does not overexcite you, you can avoid direct body contact by putting on your Santa boots and try to kick your uncle into the recovery position.

Some individuals are not capable of producing coherent speech even if their airways are open, notably persons in a high state of religious fervour. If the sounds uttered resemble Arabic, we are in all likelihood dealing with a Muslim. If not, the God-fearing miscreation is probably a Pentecostal busying himself with speaking in tongues. The only way to deal with these deviants is to pull hard on their tongues with both hands until they come to their senses and realize that speaking in tongues is not protected by Freedom of speech.

4. C is for Circulation

"Look at the victim's color and feel his or her skin temperature to see if he or she has signs of circulation. If there is no breathing or circulation, start CPR."

The patient might need nutrition, so avoid spilling ketchup like the stupid person on this photo

How to administer CPR?

First, look around to see if there are any interestingly looking women (to whom you are not worryingly closely related) lying around who are also in need of first aid. Women have a longer life expectancy than men, so from the perspective of social and economic efficiency, there is a strong case for giving them priority. Uncle Viggo has only a few years left in the frozen food inventory at REMA1000, and so will only be a drag on the welfare state for most of the rest of his life.
If, however, after searching through the neighbouring farms you still haven't found any qualified female patient, you have no choice but to deliver CPR to your Uncle Viggo. But take precautions! Mouth-to-mouth is unhygienic and a recipe for transmission of diseases. Is lip contact needed at all? The Henry Rinnan Academy of Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Levanger argue convincingly that a bicycle pump does the same trick. This method has the added benefit that the victim can work the pump himself. As the main expert on first aid, you must always be in tip top shape and cannot exhaust yourself unnecessarily by sitting there pushing a bicycle pump like some kind of Reodor Felgen.

If you happen to be dressed up as Santa Claus, make sure that you leave the room in a discreet manner and remove your outfit completely before administering CPR. How can you expect your little ones to continue believing in the existence of Santa Claus after they’ve seen him do all kinds of weird things with uncle Viggo’s inanimate body? Two wrongs don’t make a right. It’s enough that you have one near dead family member lying on the floor; you don’t want a child’s broken heart on your record of Christmas-related crimes too.

5. While Waiting for the Ambulance

"As the ambulance is responding to your emergency, there are some things you can do to help emergency crews find you. Make sure to try to do as many of these things as possible to prepare for the ambulance's arrival"

With New Year’s Eve just around the corner, every family worth their salt has a basement full of fireworks, ideal for drawing the ambulance’s attention to your house. Let one of the kids fire up some powerful rockets so that the ambulance will locate you from afar. When the ambulance arrives, make sure to put away Christmas snacks, juleribbe and all the presents and hide your women from view. Ambulance personnel, severely displeased at having to work on Christmas Eve, might well conduct themselves like a unit of Red Army soldiers liberating their Eastern-European neighbours from the Nazis.

That’s it, dear Reader, 5 simple steps towards a casualty-free Christmas this year!

CDHN's very special Babórka-present to its readers: THE MINERS

2008-12-04T11:14:00.001-08:00

On the occasion of the annual Miners’ Day here in Poland, the glorious Babórka festivities, CDHN is proud to announce the publication of its first ever poem. The reading of the poem should preferrably be preceded by a toast and 3 times hurrah for our underground working class heroes!

THE MINERS

The fireplace roars, laughter abounds
Ten miners at Gunnar’s place
Perfect bodies, no abundant pounds
A mere pimple would be a disgrace

Well-built men in the prime of their lives
Gathered on Friday night
And no, they do not miss their wives
Amidst male buttocks so tight

Gunnar’s wife Astrid briefly appears
To leave a cookie tray
Gunnar commands her: ‘Bring more beers
And then be gone far away!’

For in the company of mates from work
Wives are but a waste of space
‘He who chases women is a jerk!’
Declares Truls with a dignified face

‘Kåre, let a log on the fire be thrown!’
Says Gunnar, unbuttoning his shirt
‘Behold, pitmen! See how my biceps have grown’
From digging out coal in the dirt’

Nine pairs of eyes in amazement stare
As the shirt is consigned to the floor
An immaculate chest all covered with hair
Can a collier ask for more?

‘I took evening classes in the history of art.'
Says Torleif, wiping sweat from his brow
‘Hence, I have knowledge to impart
If the company may kindly allow’

‘I’ve seen ancient sculptures in Greece and Rome
Of consummate beauty and grace
Yet, why did I stray so far from home
At perfect proportions to gaze?’

‘When my workmate’s body is a masterpiece
To which no sculpture can compare
Let fire swallow my books about Greece!
For the beauty I seek is here’

‘And I’, says Einar, ‘have read them all
the sagas the Icelanders wrote
But neither Rafnkjell, Egil nor Njål’ –
Einar pauses to clear his throat –

’Exuded such power, such vigour, such force
As Gunnar in topless state.’
Kjetil interrupts with a voice so hoarse:
’He resembles Alexander the Great!’

Kåre announces, ‘Kjetil, my friend
in the sauna you showed me your chest
Why not display it once again?
To its splendour I gladly attest’

Kjetil obeys, followed by Truls,
Viggo, Reidar and Finn
Sweaty miners, mighty as bulls
Eager to show some skin

Shirts discarded on wooden floor
But helmets remain on heads
‘Trousers’, says Viggo, ‘what are they for?’
And throws them on the bed

His thighs are the talk of the mining town
The mining season’s number one hit
The excited colliers gather around
Like they once did down in the pit

Last week in the mineshaft he flashed his thighs
For all his colleagues to admire
Legs worthy of the Nobel Prize,
Thighs that can trigger a fire!

Many a miner in bed that night
To that perfect moment return’d
Two muscular thighs; a splendid sight
Ah! How the miner yearn’d

Once more to lay eyes on such flawless limbs
To revel in their beauty anew
More muscular than anything seen at the gym’s
Legs to which eyes stuck like glue!

Today the prayers of men have been heard
As Viggo at last understands
With legs like his, it is indeed absurd
To walk around wearing pants

By his workmate inspired, with flames in his eyes
Kåre the driller bursts out
‘Underpants are shackles in woollen disguise
Not fitting a miner so stout’

‘Begone! Ye chains around my legs
I curse you in Scargill’s* name
My athletic body for freedom begs
It refuses to hide in shame’

‘We, Prometheans from the bowels of the earth
The noble excavators of coal
For cent’ries the upper class ignored our worth
Our bodies they sought to control’

‘By wrapping us in trousers, sweaters and socks
Our nakedness hidden from view
But now the collier, as strong as an ox
Nudism seeks to pursue!’

‘Soon, fellow miners, on the May day parade
We will march for the 6-hour day
Red flags, banners will all be display’d
But clothes will be put away’

‘Only our helmets will remain
Safety must come first
That apart: not even the heaviest rain
Can stop us; or may we be cursed!’

‘Indeed, the bashful days are gone,’
says Finn, ‘Let’s march down the street
With nothing but our helmets on
And give the public a treat.’

‘Let eyes feast on masculine flesh
Revel in our dangling jewels
Relish the sight of male meat so fresh
Adore our reproductive tools’

‘In triumph we will stroll down the street
And gain the people’s respect
But for our strategy to succeed
There is one thing we must not neglect’

‘Practice! Let’s commence without delay
To our boxers bid a last farewell
May we start rehearsals for that glorious day
When miners ring the victory bell!’

*Arthur Scargill, legendary leader of the British National Union of Mineworkers from 1981 to 2000.

The Catholic World comments on Obama

2008-11-14T04:33:00.000-08:00

Regardless of political sympathies, if Obama’s victory and his brilliant acceptance speech didn’t fill you with awe, then you have no sense of what constitutes a great historical moment and should seek employment in the Norwegian daily Dagbladet, whose main headline after the fall of the Berlin wall was an interview with a psychiatrist who thinks swearing is healthy for kids.

Obama’s overwhelming victory (including 43 % of the white vote) proved that the American political system has a capacity for change. Its sclerotic Italian counterpart has no such thing, but Italians are blessed with other talents. This gentleman and many others, armed with freshly printed white sheets of paper, took to the streets to defend the President Elect after Berlusconi made a joke about Obama being ‘young, handsome and a litte bit tanned’. In his eagerness to stand up for America’s future president, the sensitive Italian to the left did some interesting things to his face.

Trying to imagine what goes on inside this person’s head poses a challenge for the most imaginative mind. Was he trying to profit from affirmative action laws and get admitted to Harvard?

We know that the family is the cornerstone in Italian society and if you have seen the Godfather you know that family gatherings don’t include just Grandma and Grandpa, are treated with utmost seriousness and if you’re not up to the task it can have fatal consequences for you. Are we dealing with a dedicated family man who takes his role as Santa Claus on the annual Christmas family dinner so seriously that he regularly practices climbing down chimneys?

Or could it simply be Roberto Saviano, the Italian author who is hiding from the Comorra mafia, doing his best to conceal his identity so that the bloodthirsty mafia will not recognize him? Like he’s poking his nose at his persecutors: ‘Look, here I am, right in front of your noses, but because of my brilliant disguise you’re missing out on yet another chance to take my life.’

As so often in life, Donald Duck comes to the rescue. Our politically conscious Italian friend looks exactly like a citizen of Duckburg who has just survived an explosion. Is he a member of Brigate Rosse who has just returned from an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the Milan headquarters of Berlusconi’s media empire?

While we ponder our elusive Italian friend’s motives, let us move to that other Catholic superpower in Europe, The Republic of Poland. Artur Gorski, a parliamentarian from Poland’s 2nd largest party, PiS, shared his views on the American election with his colleages in the Polish Parliament, referring to Obama as ‘The black messiah of the new left’: "Obama is an approaching catastrophe. This marks the end of the white man's civilisation.”

This has had some coverage internationally, but most English-language media seem to leave out my favourite part.

In Obama’s office hang four portraits: Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court Judge, Muhammed Ali, the black boxing champion, Mahatma Gandhi, the great champion of peace, and President Abraham Lincoln, who crushed the American South and abolished slavery. Today, with the votes of his electorate, Obama, the black Messiahs of the new left, crushed the Republican candidate John McCain.

Mr Gorski, who has a doctorate from one of Poland’s Catholic universities, is doing his best to make the most cryptic Medieval scholastic seem like a model of clarity compared to himself, but what I think it boils down to here, is that Obama’s admiration for Lincoln should be used against him. Thanks to Mr Gorski’s attentive mind, the world now knows that Obama cannot be trusted on the vital issue of slavery. He might even be against it, like his idol Abraham Lincoln.

My only point of criticism to Mr Gorski is this: If you sat on this piece of information, why did you keep it to yourself until after the election? If the American voters had known that the Democratic candidate does not stand firmly behind the institution of slavery, they would have kicked Obama back to Chicago/Hawaii/Indonesia/Kenya where he belongs.

CDHN has a theory why. Two years ago, Mr Gorski headed a group of 46 parliamentarians who wanted to crown Jesus Christ Poland’s eternal king. However, this brave bill was rejected by the majority. Although this constituted no impediment in his political career - the industrious Gorski was duly given a second term by the voters in last year’s Parliamentary elections – it must have left him with a sense of bitterness. ‘I came up with this great bill and they didn't even pass it.’ Perhaps this lingering bitterness explains why he chose not to disclose information that could have saved the White Man’s Civilization from impedning doom.

Our final Catholic stop is Austria, who are struggling hard to improve their image after certain family-related incidents last summer. With this statement from Klaus Emmerich, the former news editor of their national TV station, they seem to be on the right track. Well done and keep trying, Austrians!

Klaus Emmerich (left) taking advise from Austria's new image consultant.

The All-time Top 25 Countdown: Number 19

2008-10-31T04:11:00.000-07:00

(for the previous entries on the list, see my old blog on motime, www.coldhot.motime.com)

We've only just begun-The Carpenters, 1970

If you are told to think of something repulsive, what mental image makes its terrifying appearance? A maggot? A man’s hairy bottom? A potato-sized pimple that changes colours every five seconds? The combined audiovisual impact of the singer Anastacia making you want to poke out your eyes and amputate your ears? While there is common agreement that these things are indeed vile, their obscenity pales in comparison with the latest universal object of disgust: The bank manager. The financial wizards who stole our savings. The kind of monsters that would never sell their grandmother: No, they would lend her out at an extortionate interest rate to make even more money on her and use her mohair beret to blow their cocaine-stuffed noses.

However, it is easy to forget that however much these degenerate monsters have tried to make our world inhabitable, they once created 3 minutes of exquisite, undiluted beauty. A person who can listen through The Carpenters' 'We've only just begun' without feeling almost intimated by its beauty, is a person whose sense of aesthetics has more than a little in common with that of a dung beetle.

Karen and Richard in the White House on behalf on the carpenters' trade union to conduct the difficult but ultimately successful annual wage negotiations.

What am I driving at? This divine song, dear Reader, started out as a commercial jingle for Crocker National Bank in California, before it was discovered by Richard Carpenter, who, together with his sister Karen, rendered it timeless. While the Carpenters certainly deserve the major part of the credit, this record would never have seen the light of day had it not been for the bank management’s degenerate desire for profit. Thus, our most evil instincts can inadvertently produce something beautiful.

What moral lessons can we draw from this? Are we suppose to consider financial asset managers human beings now? Like invite them to our birthday parties and let them marry our daughters and stuff? Of course not, they are wicked beasts capable of acts of such depravity that an award-winning serial rapist would recoil in horror. But something which is subjectively evil can sometimes produce an objective good. After all, without greed there would be no Capitalism, and without Capitalism we would still be living in stinking plague-infested mud huts together with our pigs and hens and half-dead grandparents and would have to get up at 4 in the morning to help the family cow get rid of its constipation. So while the financial sector (which by the way is not the entire economy, as some commentators seem to think) certainly needs to draw a lesson from the latest events, society should not try to abolish greed, which after all has given us both prosperity and the otherworldly beauty of ‘We’ve only just begun’.

Norwegian ‘hyttetur’ Russian-style

2008-10-30T05:25:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, Times London could report that Russian oligarchs are upsetting the real estate market on the French Riviera, by insisting on paying millions of Euros more for a house than the seller asks for, and arranging parties where they amuse themselves by throwing 500 euro notes up in the air while the staff wait patiently around to sweep the ashes. One mysterious unknown Russian beat all records by paying 500 mill Euro for one single property.

Those merry days seem so far away now, as the stock markets nosedive like a mole who mistook a Swiss cheese for a parachute and the financial institutions collapse like drunken cows on ice skates. Will the joyful Russians prevail through the crisis? And maybe even more importantly, will they continue to observe the grand tradition of reckless overspending? Will they continue to liven up French coastal life with their Euro-fuelled antics? Or will they be forced to depart with their spirit of mind-defying happy-go-lucky wastefulness in favour of a dull measly approach to money that bears more resemblance to Uncle Scrooge?

Only time will tell. However, what can we do to pay honour to the name of these fun loving oligarchs? I am directing myself primarily to the Norwegian readership , or anyone familiar with the Norwegian concept of ‘hyttetur’, ie ‘trip to the cabin’. (Of course, this phenomenon is by no means exclusive to Norwegians, but I think it is a more central part of Norwegian culture than for most nations.) Can a tradition created by Russians on the French Riviera be transplanted to Norwegian soil? More precisely, can we, packing our rucksack and sleeping bag to take our annual autumn trip to the family cabin, let ourselves be imbued with the cheerful spirit displayed by our Eastern cousins on the Mediterranean coast? What follows are a few practical suggestions on how to turn this autumn’s ‘hyttetur’ into a celebration of wealth worthy any Russian oil magnate.

Now that winter is approaching, the damp basement of your cabin is likely to be visited by mice escaping the cold. You employ a Bengal race cat to exterminate the annoying rodents. If the cat is not up to the job (a quite likely scenario since race cats are the feline equivalent of the nobility in the Feudal era, whose daily work consisted mainly of choosing which whig to put on), you leave a solid piece of Bjørsholm moose cheese, at $500 per 450g, in the mousetrap, which the little fourlegged cheese connosieurs surely will find it impossible to resist.

It is October and the season for moose hunting. You order a heat seeking missile from the States to take down the moose. If the stubborn beast refuses to die, you finish it off by strangling it with a Gucci tie .

Should the ‘King of the forest’ still show signs of resistance, you drag it by its horns to your $1 billion jungle reality park, where you have imported rain forest vegetation, snakes, monkeys and various endangered species to create an authentic jungle in the middle of the Norwegian forest. The Norwegian moose has never been exposed to a jungle climate and will struggle to stay alive for more than a couple of days. When it’s finally drawn its last breath, you dismantle the entire jungle park, because your wife claims it blocks the passage to the 'utedo' (a kind of shack used as a toilet).

The king of the forest - the laughing stock of the jungle

Although the high season for collecting blueberries might be over, you and your family don your rubber boots and go to the forest, equipped with 4 Louis Vuitton bags to gather blueberries in. It is advised that you stick some holes in the bags, this will help keeping the blueberries fresh.

Finally, Friday night arises and it’s time for you and your wife’s weekly sex sessions. Your youngest kid is a nuisance and starts to weep loudly just as you have placed yourself on top of her (i e your wife). At that point you charter a special luxury plane and have the 3 tenors (Pavarotti and the 2 other ones) flown in to sing lullabies for the little troublemaker, leaving your wife and yourself alone to ‘roll in the hay’ for 3 minutes until you have your orgasm and fall asleep immediately.

It’s the end of October, in other words, you can expect the first signs of snow. As the head of the family, you are the one responsible for snow removal, so that the family Lada doesn’t get stuck. What better tool to use for shovelling snow than the British artist Damien Hirst’s stainless steel construction Lullaby spring , which was sold for 14,2 million Euros at an auction in London last year.

No cabin trip is complete without a visit from your half-blind uncle Kåre. His favourite pastime is playing dart, so you place your Mona_Lisa original on the wall to use it as a dartboard. Due to his handicap, Kåre is not a skillful dartplayer. He gets himself drunk on homebrew and pukes all over the ‘utedo’. Alcohol is known to be a disinfectant, so you give your wife 5 bottles of 1990 Roederer Louis Cristal Champagne to clean the utedo with. Just make sure that the incorrigible Uncle Kåre does not drink it all before your wife has finished cleaning.

And with that CDHN wishes its cherished readers a nice cabin trip this autumn!