THE EASTERN FRONT: POLES SHOW LACK OF HUMOR
FAUX NEWS YOU CAN USE
(November 2009, Gdynia Poland, Faux News) - US battleship
Ramage fired a round of shots at the Polish port of Gdynia during
a friendly visit to that port.
Despite the good-will nature of the visit and reports by the US
military that the shots, being unintentional, should not be taken
seriously, Polish authorities chose to investigate the incident,
in a show of stubbornness and lack of understanding reminiscent
of the Cold War era.
However, Faux News got access to the first provisional results of
the investigation which show that the shots were fired accidentally
by a sailor during routine maintenance of the ship’s artillery and
that USS Ramage ‘is home to three hundred of the Nation’s finest
Sailors who are proud of their ship and her role in defending the
United States’, according to a US military website.
Meanwhile in Poland, some local commentators argued whether
or not the incident was the latest in a series of Polack jokes which
have been popular in America since 1930s.
Culture analysts disagree on the origins of Polish jokes in America.
According to one school of thought, jokes about Poles came to the
United States via Nazi Germany, whose leaders believed it was
strategically important to portray Poles as stupid and dirty Slavic
tribe whose destiny is to service their white-European masters.
The other school argues that Polack jokes originated in America
where Polish immigrants often had to take menial and less clean jobs.