News / OUR MOTHER -- POLAND [6]

To those who are or feel Polish, Poland should be like a mother. Our own mother may not hold a PhD. She may lack the looks, charm, poise and style of a well made-up Hollywood film star and the IQ of Condoleeza Rice. She may not cook as well as Martha Stewart and may be old, grey, creaky and a bit rough rough the edges. But she's our mother and we love her all the same!

News / RADICAL PRO-COMMUNSIT PORTAL CLOSED DOWN IN POLAND [7]

Poland's radical pro-communist portal Lewica bez Cenzury (LBC -- Uncensored Left) has been closed down by its creator Michał Nowicki, the unaborted son of rabid pro-abortion agitator Wanda Nowicka. He apparently was afraid of possible legal action and decided to call its quits, although no official steps against his group had been taken.. Earlier this year, the Polish authorities closd down an openly pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic portal Redwatch.

Polish law bans the promotion of both Naziism and Communism,.
LBC had promoted not only a radical brand of communism but also advocated violent reprisals against opponents, including death threats sent to journalists who publicly criticised the group.

They called on Polish soldiers in Iraq to turn their guns on their own commanders, much the way Soviet propaganda leaflets addressed to Polish troops had done in 1939.

Some observers have noted that, while neo-Nazi Redwatch was shut down by the Polish authorities, few serious attempts had been made to curtail LBC's blatant communist agitation. For some reason, in Poland and elswehrere in Europe, there exsits a tendency to be "soft on communism" -- a system that destroyed many times more human lives than Naziism and Fascism combined. Any comments?

Life / Youthful drinking in Poland [6]

A few years ago Gazeta Wyborcza ran a survey asking whether the legal drinking age in Poland should be lowered from 18 to 21 as in the USA. Believe it or not, a majority (about two-thirds if I recall) agreed.

That might suggest that many young Poles are pressured into drinking by peer pressure because that is supposedly cool, neat, trendy, in, etc. and ingest more alcohol and often than they would like largely out of a need to belong rather than personal preference.

At present many 15-16-year-old get wasted regularly because they can get 18-year-olds to buy booze and beer for them. But (as borne out in the States), a 21-year-old is far more likely to consider buying booze for a snot-faced 15-year-old as being below his dignity. He might do so for his 18 and 19 year old mates...

News / Ireland referendum bails Poland out [7]

The Irish referendum saved Poland and otehr EU countreis from an endlessly expanding bloated Brussels brueacracy which was taking over more and more decisons from EU member states. Three years ago French and Dutch voters scrubbed the EU Constitution in similar referenda. If Poland had done so, there would have been no end to the furious attacks and insults hurled at Warsaw in the spirit of super-frog Chirac who said Poles should sit down and keep their mouths shut. Fortunately, his country's voters as well as those of the Netherlands and most recently Ireland helprd bail Poland out. Now the Eurocrats will have to think up a away to repackage the old, rejected Lisbon Treaty as some new initiative. They did it before, repackaging the EU Constiution rejected by the French and Dutch as the "all new" EU-reforming Lisbon Treaty the Irish rejected on Thursday.

News / Polish nationals get first crack at adoptions [3]

Some time in the mid to late 1990s a major change took place in Polish adoption procedures under UN pressure. The gist of it was that the nationals of a given country are to have the first choice of adoptable orphans. That means that the proverbial blond, blue-eyed baby boy is all but unattainable to foreigners.

Foreigners have access to the leftovers -- the physically and mentally handicapped, older youngsters (preadolescents and teens) and in some cases siblings. Someone willing to adopt 3 siblings (something few Poles can afford) have a better chance.

Polish ancetsry is a boon to the judges who rule on adoptions. If Polish is not spoken at home then at least Polish customs are seen as an asset as is membership of Polonian organsiations, parishes, etc. or other ties to one's Polish heritage.

Life / FAVOURITE POLISH POP/ROCK GROUPS? [18]

What are your favourite top five Polish pop/rock groups? What kind of music do they play: pop, rock, heavy metal, punk rock, techno, hiphop, discopolo, reggae, hybrids of the above, other?

What type of people (age, eudcaitonal level, occupation, subculture) would tend to listen to them?

News / WAŁĘSA DEBATE RAGES ON... [9]

For weeks a national debate has raged in the Polish media over the role of
Lech Wałęsa as an alleged communist secret police informer in the 1970s..
Evidence, opinions and accusations, as well as counter-evidence, opposing
opinions and counter-accusations have piled up making it difficult to sort
things out and ascertain where the truth lies.
Composer Krzysztof Penderecki recently said on all-news channel TVN24:
"His indiscretion could easily be forgiven in view of what he has done for
Poland. His main mistake was denying it and destroying some of the
evidence."
Actress Anna Dymna said: "Just because someone had picked his nose in
nursery school doesn't mean he can't grow up to be a great person!"
Welsh historian Norman Davies believes destroying a legend on the basis of
incomplete evidence is harming Poland's international image.
Is Wałesa a hero, former SB spy or a victim of circumstances? Does that
really matter anymore? Should the turth be suppressed so as not to harm the legend of Wałęsa and Solidarity? 60% of the Poles surveyed said even if such an episode had occurred in Wałęsa's youth, it should be forgiven in view of his later accomplishments.

Language / POLISH LANGUAGE CONTRIBUTIONS TO ENGLISH [11]

POLISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO ENGLISH are not very numerous but they do exist.
Among them are:
SPRUCE - seamen shipping timber from northern Poland in the Middle Ages were asked in Britain what they were bringing. They thought they were being asked where they were from and repleid "Z Prus" (from Prussia), and that gave created the English name for the coniferous tree and timber.

OGÓREK, possibly also Russian OGOREC - went into German as Gurke and English and gherkin
DROSHKY - an open horse-drawn carriage known as a dorożka in Polish
VOIVODESHIP, also VOIVDSHIP - from województwo (province)
POLONIA - the Latin word for Poland came to mean Polish emigre communities
POLONIAN - a member of such a m=community, an emigre Pole
POLONISM - a Polish lingusitic infleunce
(TO) POLONISE - to impart Polish linguistic or cultural influence to sometthing
POLONIUM - an element discovered by Maria Skłodowska-Curie and named after her homeland
REVERSE POLISH NOTATION - a mathematical concept said to have paved the way for comptuer science
POLISH STRIKE - the original sit-in used by workers in the 1930s who downed tools but remained in their workplaces (more difficult to remove by police or security gurads than picketers otuside the works gate)

SEVERAL SPECIES OF DOGS : Polish Lowalnd Sheepdog, Polish Scent Hound, Polish Hound, Polish Greyhound
KONIK POLSKI - a primitive small horse species akin to Przewalski's horse
POLSKI - name given in UK to the Polski Fiat (4-door saloon and estate car) exported in the 1970s

Life / JERZY OWSIAK - PRO AND CON? [8]

Jerzy Owsiak - pro and con? His annual Great Holiday Orchestra fund-raiser has outfitted and supplied many hospitals and saved many lives. At the same time, his annual summer rock festivals are awash with 15-year-olds as well as younger and older underaged youths bombed out of their minds on joi9tns and brew who demolish traisn to and from the venue. Some critics say he saves the lives of newborns so he can deprave them when they make it into their teens. What do you think?

Life / COMMERCIALLY DRIVEN SUBCULTURES? [14]

Do many Polish young people know the subcultures many of them so eagerly ape are created and systematically modified and expanded in Western corporate boardrooms and design studios to get gullible youth hooked on this or that type of pricey duds, music, artefacts and assorted gadgets for which they pay through the nose usually with their parents' money? Do they believe they are making some individualistic ideological, cultural or fashion statement? Or are they simply fulfilling a need to belong to some peer group and want to go with the flow?

How would you compare young people in the West with their Polish counterparts in this regard: more, less or just as naive?

USA, Canada / PHONE CARDS FROM POLAND to N. AMERICA? [2]

In N. America Polish food shops and delis sell phone cards which are unbelievably cheap. Thery vary in price but some cost only $5 and you can chat from a land-line phone for hours. I'm not sure if the signal isn't beamed by satellite to some cheap off-shore Caribbean site and then re-directed to Europe.

My question is: are similar cards available in Poland (Europpe) for cheap phone calls to N. America?

Language / Popular Polish transcription depends on Anglophone's speech [3]

Eschewing the phoentic transcription that uses diacritical marks and using only popular phonetics, would you transcribe the pronunciation of pączki for the benefit of non-Polish-speaking Anglophones as PONCH-key, PUNCH-key or PAUNCH-key?

The choice largely depends on the English speech of the recipient.
For instance, if for an American you transcribe the Polłish word for cat as "kot", he may end up pronouncing it "kaht", so something like "kawt" might be preferable.

The most difficult is approximating ś and ć as opposed to sz and cz. In English both are popularly transcribed as sh and ch.
Any suggestions on this?

News / First rabbis since WW2 ordained in Warsaw [4]

Dear Sirs/ Madammes,
>
> Today a breakthrough event for the Jewish history in Poland has taken
> place. The graduation ceremony of the Chabad Yeshiva has taken place at
> Hilton Hotel. Yeshiva is a Talmudic school of higher education for future
>
> rabbis.
>
> Please find more information in attached documents and pictures (Word,
> txt).
>
> Best regards,
>
> Marta Tybora
> Press Office of the Chabad Lubavitch in Poland
> Mobile: (48)723 287 394
> e-mail: prasa@chabad.org.pl
>
> Milena Szyc
> Press Office of the Chabad Lubavitch in Poland
> Mobile: (48)603 200 485
> e-mail: milena@chabad.org.pl
> chabad.org.pl
>
>
>

Genealogy / MARZEC, ŚRODA, NAWROCKI WERE OFTEN CONVERT NAMES [5]

Many Poles whose surnames are the same as the days of the week or months of the year trace their roots back to an ancestor who converted ,and the day or month of that conversion became his surname.

Often these were Polish Jews who accepted Catholicism for whatever reason (belief, marriage, business, politics, coercion, etc.). But it could also apply to Arian, Lutheran, Calvinist, Eastern Orthodox and other religious dissenters.

This is also true of names containing the nawrot~nawrat root (from nawrócić się - to convert) such as Nawrocki, Nawrat (Czech influence), etc. This may have occurred so long ago that today's bearers of such surnames no longer have any inkling of not being of 100% pure Polish ancestry and Catholic tradition.

Life / WHO OR WHAT IS JOE POLISH? [11]

Anybody know who Joe Polish is? The name has been bouncing about in cyer-space for a while. Even the homeless can make money legally on the net -- says one pitch. Is this an advertising gimmick, joke or ethnic slur?

Food / Polish bread = 40% rye, 60% wheat. Chewy crust? [NEW]

There are all kinds of Polish breads, but the most typical - the kind most families regard as their staff of life and make a steady diet of contains roughly 40% rye flour and 60% wheat flour. It is made with sourdough rather than yeast. It should have a shiny, crackly crust which may be sprinkled with poppyseed, caraway or black cumin, and should have a rather firm, dense and springy body. Also it should have a whiff of unmistakable rye aroma when smelt. Since white wheat flour is now cheaper than rye (used to be the other way round!), commercial bakers are systematically reducing the rye content to around 25-30% where the loaf looks almost like a white French or Italian bread.

In general, Polish bread has deteriorated in recent years. Most bakers are now using bread improves (a packet of chemicals designed to increase yields) which create a texture closer to the cotton-fluff stuff widely eaten in Anglo-Saxon countries, although it's not quite that bad. Yet! But who knows where things are headed. Probably not towards wholesome, natural nutrition but higher profits and that means more chemicals and automation. Still, Germans come to shop in Poland and rave about how good the Polish bread is. So things there must be even worse!

Related: Polish rye bread - the secret to get a thick and chewy crust?


The "secret" is a very hot oven. Preheat oven to 270C or 500F before you put the doe in it. Works every time for me... Try baking with steam (put a pan with water at the bottom of the oven).

Life / WIELORYB AND FEMINISM? [7]

The Polish word for whale WIELORYB is a misnomer, because it incorrectly suggests the whale is a big fish, when in fact it is a mammal. Similarly, FEMINISM de-emphasises such traditionally feminine features as gentleness, caring, selflessness, thoughtfulness, patience, devotion and a strong sense of responsibility, and instead attempts to make women over in the he image and likeness of males. The so-called feminists try to portray the image of tough, two-fisted, hard-drinking, foul-mouthed individuals, highly reminiscent of the egoistic, self-assertive male concerned mainly with his own self-fulfilment, self-enrichment and self- aggrandisement. So rather than persisting in this bit of linguistic folly, they should rename themselves MASCULINISTS in keeping with the macho-style image they are trying so hard to convey.