Polish not part of Olympic welcome
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John Kass
 
May 16, 2007
 
Chicago's Olympic committee -- the political group hoping to lure the 
2016 Olympics here for the everlasting glory of Mayor Richard Daley – has been running newspaper ads with official foreign languages of welcome.
 
"Welcome to Chicago" the copy reads, in Spanish, French, German, 
Arabic, Italian, Swahili, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Chinese, even Portuguese, 11 languages to welcome visitors if and when Chicago wins the Olympic bid.
 
They had 12 languages, but the Chicago's 2016 committee dropped Greek 
from their most recent ads because, committee spokesman Patrick Sandusky said Tuesday, they couldn't agree on how to say "Welcome to Chicago" in Greek.
 
The Olympics were born in Greece, so how moronic is the excuse that 
they couldn't agree on a proper welcome? All they had to do was call my mom or city Corporation Counsel Mara Georges to find out.
 
But today's controversy involves the Poles.
 
The Poles are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Chicago area. But 
the 2016 Olympic committee decided not to include Polish among their 
officially recommended languages of welcome.
 
Swahili and Portuguese, yes. Spanish, yes. Italian, yes. German, yes.
 
But Polish?
 
Nie. (No, if you're speaking Polish)
 
Oxi. (No, if you're speaking Greek.)
 
"What about the Poles?" demanded Spartacus, the young reporter of 
Polish descent who helps me with the column and who just received his 
Ethnically sensitive nickname.
 
"Well," Sandusky, the spokesman for the mayor's 2016 Olympic committee,
answered on Tuesday, "We didn't have room for everybody."
 
We didn't have room for everybody? That's something the bloodthirsty 
Cossack Taras Bulba (Yul Brynner) might say after he lopped off a few Polish heads in the old days of the Polish-Cossack wars. It's been said there are almost as many Poles in the Chicago area as in Warsaw. But Chicago's City Hall doesn't have room for the Poles?
 
Given all the languages, it looks like they had room for almost 
everybody, except the Poles (and, of course, the Greeks).
 
And that surely won't cut the kielbasa (or the flaming cheese) in this 
town.
 
Some of you may wrongly rush to blame Daley. But please, understand 
that he didn't do it. His underlings did. The underlings spilled the mayoral czarnina and let it hit the fan.
 
But isn't it foolish to exclude Polish to welcome foreigners to 
Chicago?
 
"No Polish? No Polish?!" shouted Spartacus when he hung up. "This town 
is full of Poles. And we're being DISCRIMINATED AGAINST, AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN."
 
Spartacus' lament was so piercing in its melancholy that it could be 
plainly heard on the east side of Czestochowa, perhaps even by two crazed soccer fans quaffing cold Zagloba beer.
 
As someone who embraces diversity, I like all the languages mentioned, 
And someday, perhaps even English may be recognized. But first Greece was slapped, and now Poland, and recompense will be demanded.
 
"More than anything, [the 11 official languages, after they dropped 
Greek, the original Olympic language] are a representative sample 
demonstrating the wide variety of languages and cultures that will come here," Sandusky said.
 
Obviously, City Hall doesn't think that Poles can make it to Chicago in 
time for the Olympics. That would surprise Daley, a rabid White Sox fan, who has cheered for Polish athletes all his life.
 
Namely, Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski, and first baseman Paulie Konerko 
and even the utility man Rob Mackowiak. Sox fans of yore won't forget Moose Skowron and Ted Kluszewski. Cubs fans still have nightmares about the Cardinals' Stan "The Man" Musial.
 
And what about the Yankee's Whitey Ford and Eagles quarterback Ron "The
Polish Rifle" Jaworski and the Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski, who in 
1967 became the last player to win baseball's elusive triple crown?
 
Tribune Olympic writer Phil Hersh sent me a message saying that 
Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz, a Pole, won Olympic gold in the pole vault in 1980. And the great track champion Irena Kirszenstein-Szewinska, Poland's "Queen of the Track" and daughter of Holocaust survivors, won seven Olympic medals for Poland, including three golds, competing into her 30s.
 
So as reparation for the sins of the Chicago 2016 Olympic committee, I
recommend that my young apprentice, Spartacus, be given the exclusive 
rights to sell pierogi on a stick at the Olympic venues, including O'Hare International Airport.
 
I've already applied for the Kass Celtic Corn/Gyros/Budweiser stands at 
the Olympics, so why can't the city "reach out" to my aggrieved legman and let him make a fortune with his "The Polish Spartacus' Pierogi on a Stick" franchise?
 
Cashing in on Chicago's Olympic glory shouldn't be a sport reserved 
only for kings.
 
Spartacus and I will say "Eat up" in English. Or "Jesc" (eat, in 
Polish); or "Kali Orexi" (good appetite, in Greek.)
 
As for Chicago's Olympic committee, we'll make a special delivery of a 
dish best served cold.
 
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jskass@tribune.com
Copyright (c) 2007, Chicago Tribune