September 30th, 2009 by Hoopleton

- At a certain point you begin to think that you’re doing something wrong, you know? Like you’re the one bringing all this down on yourself. Like you deserve it.

+ You tell it brother!

- How do you not start seeing patterns? Especially after the third time, or the fourth, or Christ, even the fifth. Is it all women or just the ones I meet? Is it relationships? Is it human nature? Are we that vile? That ugly? Are we so hateful and spiteful that we actually get off on hurting people? Hurting people we love? Or claim to love?

+ Love ‘em and leave ‘em, that’s my philosophy.

- This one, I found out, cheated on me with one of my oldest friends, had a kid with him and neither one of them had the guts, the sense of decency to tell me. Were they ashamed or just that reprehensible? Granted, he was always an utter piece of shit. He’s no man at all. But I expected better from her. I expected some respect.

+ It’s a dog eat dog world that’s for sure.

- I’m not really angry over it. I was over her years ago and him, well, we haven’t really been friends in years. I’m just disappointed, you know? Every time I have hope for people, every time I give them the benefit of the doubt, every goddamn time I think that my misanthropy is misplaced or that my cynicism is baseless my deepest darkest thoughts are confirmed.

+ Give people enough rope they’ll hang themselves with it, truer words were never spoken.

- I’ve met people with real beauty in their hearts. I have people I can count on in my life. But most of these water sacks walking around are petty, manipulative, selfish little parasites who’d sell you down the river if there was a new nickel in it for them. And it hurts me to think that. It pains me to see it. It’s absolutely devastating to have that notion confirmed time and time again.

+ Praise be to hellfire and the coming of Judgment Day!

- I deserve better. We all deserve better. Let the bastards who want to destroy eachother have eachother. Let them rule the world and spread their bile everywhere they go. But this isn’t for me. Not for me. I won’t surround myself with them. I won’t love them or trust them. I’ll find my own piece of the globe where happiness isn’t synonymous with power. Where to make it I don’t have to pile the corpses up above my head.

+ Can’t live with ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em.

- Have you heard a single word I’ve said?

September 29th, 2009 by Hoopleton

So the economy is still shit and the weather is getting frigid in an awful hurry. It’s the season of swine flu and manic depression. Luckily for us television is here to the rescue! No seriously. Once you dig through the intellectual paralysis that is reality infotainment and the plethora of nauseating primetime soaps (Grey’s Anatomy *cough*) there are actually things worth watching on the old idiot box. To help sift through the muck I present to you this short list of of the best shows on television –drama edition.

1. House. Dying of an incurable, extremely rare medical condition and need it cured in forty-three minutes you say? All right, so House is hardly the most believable medical drama on television. God knows it’s no Grey’s Anatomy. Am I right? But Hugh Laurie is fucking awesome so just shut up you mean stupid bastard. Now entering its sixth season on television House may be the exception that proves the rule, something popular can also be good. That’s not to say I’m admitting defeat. In fact I would argue that some of the best episodes in the series were those that suffered some of the worst ratings. I’ll go even as far as to say that season five, which saw Dr. House losing his mind and which also happened to see the show drop down to 19^th place in its time slot, was by far the best year in the show’s entire run. Season six may have started off with a whimper (come on, House in the loony bin? Talk about some missed opportunities), but it’s still early yet and I doubt that our intrepid atheist, drug-addict has gone soft just yet. As long as the writers are willing to take ever greater risks with their material and their star, House promises to deliver year after year. Who knows? The way things have been going maybe the best is yet to come.

2. Dexter. Now beginning its fourth season on Showtime, this one-hour drama about a sympathetic serial killer has certainly been better. The halcyon days were probably those back in season two when Dexter Morgan (played by Michael C. Hall), the prolific killer who butchers Miami-based bad guys, spent the entire season within a hair’s breath of being found out by the hapless police force that also happens to employ him. Oh Doukes, we miss you. Sure, the run wasn’t perfect that year. God knows Lila (played by Jaime Murray) was irritating beyond words, but overall it was an exceptionally strong follow-up to the debut. In many ways the show surpassed expectation. So it was perhaps not surprising that despite some thrilling moments and a great turn by Jimmy Smits season three came out to be bland and in the final verdict disappointing. The age old question applies: how can you keep a serial killer story from becoming overly repetitive? Fortunately Dexter is one of those shows that’s just too good to give up on. Despite the fact that Dexter is now a dad (a recent annoying television trend that makes me think most industry writers just turned thirty) season four looks somewhat promising with the addition of John Lithgow to the cast as the “Trinity” killer. Lithgow may not be as creepy as say Christopher Walken, but in this role he’s certainly somewhere in the ballpark. Besides, it’s Dexter, a show about a deviate mass murderer who’s living right next door, and you know what? You find yourself rooting for him every step of the way. Take that moral ambiguity!

3. Damages. Yea, I know, you’ve never heard of it. Most people haven’t, which is why the critically acclaimed “legal drama” from the cable network FX, now entering its third season, was nearly cancelled despite having won several Emmys including two by the show’s star, Glenn Close. Yes, Glenn Close. TELEVISION IS A PERFECTLY RESPECTABLE MEDIUM! The show revolves around the brilliant and ruthless, nay, Machiavellian, New York lawyer, Patty Hughes (Close) and her equally brilliant although not nearly as ruthless (but she’s getting there) protégée Ellen Parsons (played by Rose Byrne). That’s the tip off, from there the series spirals out of control into a veritable firestorm of political intrigue, betrayal, murder and corporate greed. Coming into the show midstream may be a bit disorienting given the layers upon layers of twists and turns not to mention the nonlinear narrative that binds the whole thing together, but to watch it from the beginning is to feel gobs of guilty satisfaction and a strange desire to finally pursue that law degree. Damages is good drama but that depicts human fallibility, strength and corruption across the full spectrum. One episode’s villain may be the next episode’s hero and in the end it’ll only really make sense when the entire puzzle is filled in.

4. Fringe. Hey, do you remember when The X-Files was good? You know, back before David Duchovny got all fat and someone saying “the truth is out there” didn’t make you want to vomit? Well imagine a show like what The X-Files used to be except in which all the stupid alien bounty hunter crap is actually believable and the cast is way sexier (sorry Scully). Now entering its second season, FOX’s Fringe follows the efforts of FBI agents (and their assorted collection of consultants) as they investigate “the Pattern,” a series of unexplained, often ghastly occurrences which are happening all over the world (though mainly in New England), leading to what, we cannot say. Despite being created by J.J. Abrams the series features an assortment of interesting characters most notable among them special agent Olivia Dunham (played by the alluring Anna Trov) and mad scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble). So far this show has done a fantastic job of weaving sci-fi mystery without giving too much away. Of course how long can you keep pushing the envelope of reality before the whole thing becomes a ridiculous farce, nearly even becoming a parody of itself? If The X-Files is any indication, up until the moment that the star of the show marries Téa Leoni. A frighteningly real possibility since she came back on the market not long ago. You’ve been warned. On the plus side we may get another Bree Sharp song out of it and a return performance by Robert Patrick as Doggett. Come on, who didn’t like Doggett?

5. Caprica. Okay fine, the show won’t actually debut till January, but I miss Battlestar Galactica so frak off. The prequel to Syfy’s groundbreaking, dark and twisted reimagined Battlestar, Caprica follows the path of humanity toward the apocalypse. Billed more as family saga than space opera the two-hour pilot premiered in April to rave reviews, serving as backstory to a series with huge expectations and even larger potential. There’s not much to say about the series yet, but it’s going to be the greatest thing on television ever. What? You don’t agree? Well then why don’t you go back to Soviet Russia comrade, we don’t need the likes of you around here. Now if you excuse me, I need to go watch the pilot again, and again, and again, and again, and again…

6. Mad Men. At first glance this much talked about, highly acclaimed AMC original series now in its third season seems to move along so slowly that you begin to wonder how anyone in our insta-world can possibly stay focused on its subtly unfolding plot turns for longer than five seconds. Then you realize how utterly brilliant the show is and you start to wonder why more people aren’t watching it. Then you realize most people are idiots. Then you start craving a cigarette. The show, which follows the highs and lows of life for Madison Avenue advertising executives (well, actually that of pretty much anyone tied to the profession) and their families in the 1960s, does a masterful job of depicting life during a period of unprecedented social upheaval in this nation’s history. Whether it’s the constant smoking, rampant alcoholism, institutionalized racism or casual adultery it’s hard not to marvel at how much things have changed in the last fifty years, and also how much they’ve stayed the same. The subject of gender is central to Mad Men, not only in it’s frank look at the shifting role of women and the changing ideal of femininity, but also the deconstruction of the masculine. Through the eyes of the impressive cast, but most notably, of course, Don Draper (played by John Hamm so effectively you’d think he was brought to Hollywood in a time machine) the series is social criticism built upon the study of human weakness. As far as pure entertainment value, the series reveals new shocks and twists with every episode. Just as you think you’ve got it all figured out someone gets their foot sliced off by a lawnmower. Mad Men is a show that only seems to get better with each season and it remains, for now, the benchmark for every other dramatic series on air. With the Cuban Missile Crisis behind us and the assassination of JFK weeks away, there’s never been a better time to pour yourself an Old Fashioned, light a Lucky and tune in.

September 27th, 2009 by Hoopleton

The primetime soap Grey’s Anatomy is much like a two-dollar wine cooler. It’s pink, bright and in single doses leaves you completely empty and unsatisfied. Overconsumption will invariably lead to nausea, vomiting, an inability to operate machinery or motor vehicles and in the long-term force you, the viewer, to finally realize what a cheap, easy whore you really are.

But wait, you say, why so negative man? Just because something’s popular doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Well, first of all, that’s not true. If something popular isn’t bad right out of the monkey factory it invariably becomes bad as a direct result of its popularity. Remember how good Weeds was before people started watching it? Dexter? Remember how bad everything on the CW always was and always will be? And look at the flip side. Notice how consistently awesome Mad Men is despite the fact that four of us ever tune in? How The Wire never lost its edge? Popularity is like snake venom, it spreads slowly but without antivenin can cause paralysis and increasingly bad writing, eventually death.

Second, the popularity adage was most certainly coined by a television executive at some forth-rate network (say ABC), who was hoping to preemptively defend himself against the inevitable charge of crimes against humanity that will be brought against all television executives in the not-too-distant future for their culpability in the destruction of human culture.

At this “trial of the millennium,” as I’m sure it will come to be known by a traumatized and fearful global population, prosecutors will play hours upon hours of sitcom footage, reality TV shows, and of course, reruns of Grey’s Anatomy.

“There were worst things on television,” the chief prosecutor will say, his eyes heavy, his brow twisted into knots, “but few other programs did as much harm.”

Now that the show is in its sixth season I often wonder what it was like all those years ago when Grey’s Anatomy was being conceived.

So okay, we have a group of superficial, mean-spirited, emotionally stunted, self-absorbed assholes and all they do is fuck each other’s brains out in a hospital. Can some of them be lesbians?

And… scene!

It’s one of those shows that’s very hard to critique in any rational way as even after watching every season it seems like the episodes just blend into eachother until eventually everything becomes consumed by the gallons of oil pouring out of Patrick Dempsey’s hair. And so instead of forming constructive thoughts you find yourself sobbing in a corner wondering if Izzie will ever win her battle with cancer, if Cristina will finally let someone into her heart or whether Elizabeth will just settle down already. You find meaning in the show’s pop-philosophy/Oprah brand self-help “this is what life is all about” narration. And life changes. People become more beautiful and you feel less obligated to care for anyone other than yourself. It’s nice to live in a universe where women stop maturing past their teens and all men are just boys with a fetish for lip fuzz. Fuck any sense of mutual morality, I’m a heartless douchebag with great hair.

Hey look! That woman they gave that face transplant to is hot now too! Better go buy some of the music I heard on the show and go to the park where I can snicker at the ugly people, cause God knows if someone doesn’t fit into a McDreamy/McSteamy classification system they just aren’t worth my time!

God, like I totally agree! Do you have forth period lunch? We can go give one another handjobs in the parking lot.

Wait, where was I?

Why am I in a lab coat and why are my pants gone?

September 25th, 2009 by Hoopleton

Every morning and every afternoon, four days out of the week, I take the train to work. The station is fairly large even by Chicago standards. There are the usual things you expect. Turnstiles, ticket machines, a control booth, a donut shop. The one thing that stands out is a slab of concrete, colored in graffiti with a plaque in front. On the plaque is a short description. This slab of concrete, standing just about ten feet, is a section of the Berlin Wall.

Once a part of the line between Democracy and Communism this fragment from the Cold War now gathers dust in a train station in Chicago, Illinois. Granted I live in a heavily German neighborhood, but consider the oddity of such a relic in such a place.

Some East German laborer worked on this segment of wall. DDR guards, I’m sure, patrolled at its base. At one point perhaps someone even tried to scale it. Tried to escape. This slab of concrete represented oppression, slavery, absurdity and today, twenty years after it was taken down it stands silently, removed entirely from its context, made harmless by its amputation. It’s no longer a living barrier, but instead an artifact from another world long since dead. And of all the places that this section of the literal Iron Curtain could have landed, it stands here, in a train station. Not in a museum, or a memorial park. It stands in a train station.

The rails above thundering. Swarms of people rushing in and out on their way to work, school, or play. The rush of business and labor. Ready cash and free expression changing hands all around. The terror of the city sweeping in and out in waves.

Who would have thought fifty years ago? Who could have even conceived of it? Was this part of the grand plan? A section of Wall standing here, crumbling in the furnace of capitalism?

Every morning and every afternoon, four days out of the week as I take the train to work I watch people walk past it. I watch them ignore it. Commuters are an ignorant bunch, they never see much past the time of day. If someone does occasionally stop chances are they have no real comprehension of what they are seeing. It’s just a chunk of concrete with some incomprehensible graffiti layered across its surface. It has no real meaning. No voice with which to speak. Devoid of all the power that once made it menacing. That once made it cruel.

Maybe it’s as it should be. Maybe these old objects just need to break away to dust. Memory is imperfect anyway. Remembrance never served us right. All museums can become street museums and eventually after years of wear their artifacts can be melted down into useful things like fillings and bathroom fixtures, wedding bands and the wiring for nuclear bombs. And with each explosion those materials will disintegrate taking with them every piece of concrete on this Earth. Every fragment of Wall and the train stations that house them.

September 22nd, 2009 by Hoopleton

In my current state I can’t write. I can’t seem to do anything. My pulse is slowed. My breathing swallowed. All I see are glimpses of myself among the pillars of the city. Distractions without voice. A muted subway platform. An iron bridge exploding with rainwater. In each snapshot I’m deformed. Powerless. A bebop urban cowboy without a samurai sword.

The most consistent images are of a flower opening itself in a pool of green water and my hands grasping for anything within reach as I fall. These things form the context. They are the substance for everything else. Beauty and powerlessness and beyond and above always the city. Suffocating. Hostile.

The frustrating part is that I know what I want to write. I see the words forming on the page. I have entire chapters constructed, edited, polished. But it’s not there. Not enough. Never enough. We haven’t the vocabulary for these things. To plug in, Christ, I’d like to just plug in. Maybe it take hours instead of minutes but out of the chaos of my neurons there might be entire tomes. And just as easily it might be nothing. No words. Nothing but generational angst and some unforgiving desire to be relevant.

Christ is right my friend. Still younger than Jesus and nothing to say. Or, more accurately: still younger than Jesus and no way to say it. He suffered from that little shortcoming to you know? What the fuck is a mustard seed anyway? I for one have never been confronted by anything like it and if I have I might die never having known if I in fact had been.

The most disturbing snapshot so far has been that of me standing on the top level of a parking structure watching from the other side of a glass wall as someone I only casually know literally pulls his own hair out. I mean bloody clumps and the sound of scalp tearing. I don’t know why this particular glimpse came to me today. Yes it was today. I can guess as to what led me there, but that would be an irrelevant gesture.

I don’t know why I can’t write. I don’t know what these images mean. There’s just silence, the occasional high note and the mystery of the mustard seed. Well, that and the sensation of falling. The city rising above me. Always the city.

September 14th, 2009 by Hoopleton

Life stops all at once and the things you thought unlikely just a day earlier become more real than you ever imagined. As some doors close others are thrown open and for a moment you ponder the very real possibility that everything you wanted is suddenly within reach. As it should’ve always been. An embrace, a kiss. Clarity. The ultimate opiate is another body wrapped in yours. The physical desperations you didn’t know you ever had find lodging in the temple of wisdom and beyond the thick walls there exists the prospect of sun. And so perfection is found in the silence between conversations. The scent of damp hair. The line and curve of the abdomen. The electrical current passing between hands. Silence.

I’ve stood here before. Long ago. Before there were houses built in this place. When I saw her walking down the beach toward me, her shoes in her hand, that past flooded back. I don’t remember what I said. I don’t recall if I smiled. That doesn’t bother me now.

Wait. Do you mean to tell me that you’re actually happy for once?

There was a snide quality to the question and instead of answering I decided to tell him about my reaction to the death of Patrick Swayze. He responded with a movie quote. It was the perfect way to entrap someone from the MTV generation. He’d be caught in the loop for hours. No more venom dripping from his teeth. Just silence.

Okay, back on point.

It’s never what you think. It’s never what you expect. You’re walking along the dock one day with a newspaper in your hand, an eye on the crossword and not a soul to the horizon. You expect things to continue on as they have, as though the routines you’ve set for yourself have somehow become engrained in your genetic code. The boardwalk seems to stretch on forever, although you know that sooner or later you’ll hit the ocean. The trick is to stop at a bench and have a seat now and again. Take in the air. Listen to the birds. Watch the people that pass by, getting on with their lives, or so they say. Plenty of better men have said that they’re getting on with their lives only to end up floating face down in the creek water.

For now I’ll take happiness and the feeling that I can accomplish just about anything. I like the view from here. It reminds me of long ago, sitting on the beach. I’ll put my feet up and chat about Patrick Swayze for hours if only as a distraction. I’ll enjoy the scent of her damp hair and the feel of her body in my arms. Maybe it’ll last a bit longer this time. A lifetime or two would be nice.

September 13th, 2009 by Hoopleton

Between the prospect of moving, taking a few mini vacations and preparing another round of grad apps there’s been little time to write and even less time to post. That should change very soon. If not by pure force of will then certainly by the sheer power of the changing season.

Stay tuned.

September 7th, 2009 by Hoopleton

In the Dark Ages the Catholic Church ruled over the European continent with an iron fist. The Holy Inquisition terrorized women, intellectuals, ethnic and religious minorities with torture and murder. Clergymen stole from the poor and gave to themselves. The Church at times even assumed temporal authority, establishing its own governments, armies and states. The rationale for such tyranny was protectionism. The Church saw itself as a bulwark against the forces of darkness, mainly those external, but also those manifest from within.

The issue is not whether or not the Catholic Church acted cruelly. Several popes have apologized for the conduct of the Holy See. The history is well documented. The real issue, perhaps, is whether in some, murderous, blind, intolerant way they may have been right. Stripping away the deep layers of vile sexism, anti-semitism and general bigotry there is the sense, and ultimately the argument of most religions, that people need protection from themselves. That we are a species ultimately incapable of natural morality or empathy. We are born of sin and will revert back into our natural state if even given half a chance.

There is an argument to be made in defense of this utterly pessimistic worldview. One needs only to crack open a history book or tune into a twenty-four news network to see who we are as a species. Murder, torture, even genocide are served up daily as has been the case for ten thousand years. We often seem in desperate need of saving from our base instincts, from our seemingly inexhaustible ignorance. From fear itself.

America’s recent decline is a case study in the human capacity to do the wrong thing. Whether we talk about the greed that led to our current fiscal mess, the spectacle that is the healthcare debate or the general ignorant bile that is our politics, we exist now in a perpetual state of self-interest. America crumbles not because of crime or poverty or the Democrats or Republicans, but because we look to our own selfish needs ahead of those of our neighbors. Myopic colloquial concerns become the only concerns. Selfishness and greed are good, to some even becoming the very testament of God. As we become more polarized and inward gazing we also become increasingly incapable of reason, and where there is a lack of reason there is also a lack of good.

We are selfish, brutal animals and so all that remains is to impose brutality upon us. Such was the reasoning of the Church, as well as Machiavelli and many a Russian Czar.

But human beings are interesting not because we are inherently evil but because we constantly strive to be good. Instead of just accepting our nature we fight against it constantly. We erect religions, we codify laws, we write happy endings. We are obsessed with justifying our actions, with being regarded, remembered favorably. The most evil men in history did evil only after convincing themselves that what they were doing was just.

So perhaps given the chance we claw our way into the light, or, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, we do the right thing after exhausting all other possibilities. If this is true than maybe in the history of civilization we were simply never given the chance to prove our capacity for natural morality. We’ve been imposed upon for millennia. By religions and rulers, by financial systems and racial/gender divides. Perhaps, just perhaps our natural state is just something we’ve never trusted ourselves enough to develop.

September 3rd, 2009 by Hoopleton

God used to speak with man directly. He did it all the time. Burning bushes and the like. Wives turned to salt. Strange how the banter seemed to dry up as soon anti-psychotic medication was developed. We lock up our saints now. Electroshock and straightjackets. If Jesus appeared one morning chances are the Feds would be tearing through his compound. That’s if he ever would’ve made it out of foster care. We praised our mad. We made gods out of them. And what would have passed as insane long ago is the status quo today. The world is run by madmen. Each and every one of them crazier than the last. I think it’s why our foundations are crumbling. We built asylums just so the inmates could don white coats and run the wards. But I digress. It was an accidental sadness that got us here. We went too fast into the media stream and came out dirty the other end. They say that our generation may live forever. It makes sense. Our technology advances at the rate of one hundred times per year and apparently we’re getting smarter. It’s enough to want to kill yourself for the sheer comedic value of it. Conscience downloaded into a virtual world indistinguishable from the one we know. Maybe we’d program God into the simulation, though probably not. He was the beta version and we’ve perfected realism since then. Of course this could all be make believe. Pixels unlike any that our virtual world has ever dreamed. It’s the allegory of the cave. Ancient meets future once again and in the void only the artificial memory of what came before. Consider this: what if this is the only present there ever was? Follow me here. Every life we’ve lived until now just a preamble to the last destructive act of the human race, the premeditated murder of death. Somewhere in a previous version God is laughing. Maybe the saints could help if they weren’t pumped full of designer drugs. Wait a moment. Just hold your fucking horses for one damn minute. Do you mean to tell me that this and every thought I am experiencing is the limit of reality? Somewhere in the next room I think I hear a teakettle whistling its head off. I knew a girl named Paulette once. She spoke to God. He told her to start fires, which may seem like a cliché until you consider it all in the purely Biblical sense. Maybe it’s just the programmers fucking with us again. Perhaps. But God did used to speak with man directly. That’s what history says. And yes, maybe we’ll recreate the whole thing again, better and in only five days this time, but if we do, maybe we can get more than just the flicker of shadows. Maybe we can get a burning bush or two again. It seemed simpler when there was a divine plan instead of focus groups and marketing strategies. I dare say it seemed better. Such is the comfort of a padded cell.

September 1st, 2009 by Hoopleton

Westerplatte, a small peninsula just off the coast of the Polish city of Gdansk, incidentally the city of my birth, appears at first glance to be of little significance. Not much exists there anymore. Crumbling cement bunkers stand silently under a thick canopy of leaves. Broken stone and shards of twisted metal little the ground. At the center of the complex is a tiny museum packed into a couple of longhouses that look as though they may be wheeled off at any moment. Nearby there are some graves. Not far away a large monument built during communist times. There’s a gift shop of course.

Tourists wander the grounds silent, reverent. Tour guides keep their voices low. At this point in time it is still not all that uncommon to see an ancient veteran of the last good war staring out toward one of the pockmarked cement pillars, his eyes filled with memory.

For many Westerplatte is holy ground. A place to commemorate loss and betrayal. A place where one of the bloodiest chapters in modern history was written. It was there that World War II first began.

Seventy years ago, on September 1st 1939 at precisely 4:45 am local time, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, which had been sitting in the port of Gdansk (then known as the independent city of Danzig), suddenly and without provocation opened fire on the Polish garrison stationed at Westerplatte. This was then followed by an attack by some 3500 German troops.

Despite being greatly outnumbered and having virtually no ammunition or supplies, the 180 Polish soldiers of the garrison managed to hold off the Germans for seven days. When the commander of the garrison finally decided to surrender, his German counterpart, Gen. Eberhardt, allowed him to keep his sword. It was considered a great sign of honor.

The attack on Westerplatte was part of Hitler’s Case White, the operation to invade Poland. Just as the Schleswig-Holstein opened fire in the north of the country, the German army crossed Poland’s borders from west and south. Despite a newly signed Alliance with England and France, no one came to aid in the defense. Then, on September 17th, the Soviet Red Army, under the auspices of a secret military pact, crossed into the eastern half of the country. Over the next six years Poland became a sort of biological laboratory for the Germans and a killing field for the Soviets. A state without identity, a mass grave.

Today commemorations were held at Westerplatte. Wreaths were lain. Politicians spoke of improving relations. Often the phrase “never again” was repeated. Veterans saluted. The band played.

It’s funny that wars often end the same way that they begin. Political bluster. Talk of unification. Nationalism on display.

“Never again.”

In recent months the Polish government has been on the defensive. Jewish groups in America had begun implying that Auschwitz and other notorious death camps were built by Poles. More recently the Russian media has claimed that Poland provoked the Germans into the Second World War.

It’s not all that surprising. In another fifty years Poland will be the arch villain in the story. Hitler will be remembered as misunderstood. People will still commemorate the events of seventy years ago, but the tone will be different even if the speeches are the same.

And at Westerplatte there won’t be any ancient veterans anymore. In time the cement bunkers will crumble. People will forget. Only a monument, museum and some graves will remain, also left to crumble away one day. Maybe the gift shop will still be there.