Travel / I discovered Poland - a nice country [62]

How about infrastructure? Can urban centers in Poland, e.g. Wrocław, Poznań, Warszawa, Kraków or Gdańsk compare, say, with Berlin, Paris, Stockholm or Milan??

I only know Szczecin and, while I'm sure things have changed, when I was there many years back (ca. '95-'96), having just come from Germany, Szczecin had pretty much a sort of backwater look and feel to it.

Again, first impressions aren't always correct:-)

Travel / I discovered Poland - a nice country [62]

@Atch,

I'd like something in the middle, either a modest improvement or perhaps at least a Bennigan's:-)
lol

Travel / I discovered Poland - a nice country [62]

I'm merely trying to set the record straight regarding Poland, that's all. Poland's plenty Westernized!! What more do you want? A Burger King on every corner???

Travel / I discovered Poland - a nice country [62]

Hi, Liz!

I agree mostly as far as the first part of your post. Although I was only in one medium-sized city umpteen years ago, I loved the Hansa-style architecture and the Old-World atmosphere of much of the Stare Miasto.

However, what pray do you mean by "..will become a Westernized nation."???? Poland is considered to be perhaps THE most Westernized of the Eastern European former Satelite nations from before the time of the former Soviet Union! If you mean "industrialized", there too, I beg you to disregard outmoded stereotypes about Poland.

:-)

Life / Your favorite Chopin piece / Chopin Competition in Poland [23]

To me, his nocturnes are Chopin at his most Polish:-)

News / Polish priest sacked by Vatican for being openly gay [54]

My point though, is that a homosexual may certainly pray in the same houses of worship as the rest of us. Becoming a priest?? In theory, sure. In practice?.......Still equivocating on that one:-)

Sorry for the fence straddlingLOL

News / Polish priest sacked by Vatican for being openly gay [54]

Indeed, but the "route" to that trade was usually hard won through slaughter:-)

News / Polish priest sacked by Vatican for being openly gay [54]

You seem to use Christianity for your own purposes, Vox. Why not use it for His??
:-)

News / Polish priest sacked by Vatican for being openly gay [54]

Sorry Vox! Christianity, according to Jesus and St. Francis, is about love, forgiveness and serious acts of sacrifice as well as kindness, and NOT about slaughtering innocents merely because they happen to be pagans.

What Hitler for instance did was to corrupt the meaning of Christianity by turning it into a sort of Baptism by Fire and Sword situation, which it never was intended to be.

If man submits to the subhuman elements of killing, ostracizing etc.. then man is no more HUman than a bear, wolf or any other wild beast who kills and has no conscience:-)

Christianity should never become a tool of convenience, useless as a moral force when meeting the "challenges" of certain times, i.e. when the going gets almost unbearably tough, yet somehow useful when "convenient" etc..

I shudder when I think of the hypocrisy being peddled right here in the US among various mega-churches, on the one hand calling themselves "Christian", simultaneously preaching rampant, unrepenitent homophobia, muscular solutions to psychological difficulties, even wife abuse.....

News / Polish priest sacked by Vatican for being openly gay [54]

Christianity though began differently. The Crusaders corrupted its meaning.

News / Polish priest sacked by Vatican for being openly gay [54]

True Polonius! However Hitler was a heathen at heart, and not a real Christian:-) Bad example.

Language / Czesc/pa vs. no czesc/no pa [18]

Thanks! Good to know.

An honest error on my part!

News / Polish priest sacked by Vatican for being openly gay [54]

@Polonius,

You really believe that the "authors"/"authoresses" of the Bible were divinely inspired??? Do divinely inspired humans instigate crusades, intefadas, jihads etc.. against those with whom they disagree, calling them infidels and other names and burn them at the stake??!

Those sound to me more like primitive fools and bigots. If that's divine inspiration, I want none of it. I'm only believer myself because I at least can distinguish between understanding the mere letter vs. the true spirit of the Scriptures:-)

Po polsku / Ilu "polanoglotów" na PF? [25]

Merged: Parada Pulaskiego na Alej Piatej w Nowym Jorku!

Jutro, w niedzielę, 4. października, odbywa się po popołudniu wielka Parada Pułaskiego ma Alej Piątej w Nowym Jorku.

Przydzie dużo gości z Ojczyzny?

News / Polish priest sacked by Vatican for being openly gay [54]

In what sense, Vox? Are you perhaps one of the moron millions worldwide who honestly believe gays aka alternative lifestyle genders any are less entitled to share their Christian faith than the rest of us???! Oh sure, you'll start spouting scripture at us right and left, ad nauseum :THE BIBLE SAYS CLEARLY.....

Well, uh, reality check there, dude! The Bible was written by humans beings, right? Humans are fallible, correct?
So there you have it! The Scriptures were the poetic, painterly interpretations of natural law by a bunch of well-meaning illiterates addressing most other well-meaning illiterates (...as, DUH.. few people in those days could read or write).

News / Polish priest sacked by Vatican for being openly gay [54]

Apparently certain members near the Holy See have as yet not headed his advice as regards the rights of homosexuals to confess their faith before G-d.

A sad comment indeed.

Language / Czesc/pa vs. no czesc/no pa [18]

"Cześć, pa!", also "Pa!" by itself, even "Pa, pa!" mean "Bye!", resp. "So long, 'bye!", and, like "Narazie!" (See you!), are ultra informal:-) Be careful not to substitute a jaunty "Cześć!"/"Witaj!"/"Witajcie!" for a more proper, 'boring' "Dzień dobry!", thinking that it makes you sound more casual, as for instance here in the States. It'll only sound somewhat rude, at best, slightly too forward.

Also, don't confuse "Cześć!" with "część" meaning "part" or "section". While the two are doubtless related, they no longer mean the same.

Life / Expats` opinion on alien immigration to Poland - for or against? [87]

Apparently, Poland and especially Hungary aren't the only countries getting antsy about migrants! Austria's Freedom Party, a "bequeath" of the late Joerg Haider (may he too rot in peace!!!), has been acting up again. Like the Pegida in Germany, the OFP is convinced of a conspiracy of "Muslimization" throughout Europe which poses a grave threat to "Europe's Christian culture" (quote from Heinz Strache, a spokesperson for the movement).

"Judeo-Christian" would have been a more apt choice of words, I think:-)

History / Stalin's Holocaust Against Jews And Poles As "Self Defense" [36]

Ever tried BOOKS??!

Don't be passive; never trust only one source:-)

History / Stalin's Holocaust Against Jews And Poles As "Self Defense" [36]

And you have the nerve to trust in a bleedin' computer, Mafketis???

For shame, sir!

History / Stalin's Holocaust Against Jews And Poles As "Self Defense" [36]

That's neither here nor there! So most kings and other potentates long before, during and after Hitler were either drunk, druggies or both. What does that prove? That they were substance abusers?? So what else is new?

News / Russo-Polish row over who started WW2 [34]

As usual, Poland was caught in the middle once again. The so-called "Polish Corridor" was strategically important to both the Germans and the Russians, but to suggest somehow that Poland instigated the march into Gliwice aka Gleiwitz is patently ridiculous trolling!

Hitler attacked unprovoked in Europe as did Japan in Asia. Maintaining otherwise yields nothing other than producing a lot of much ado about nothing. The facts of history speak plainly for themselves:-)

History / Stalin's Holocaust Against Jews And Poles As "Self Defense" [36]

Not a rosy picture, Ironside, but the truth! Ask many Russians of nearly any age group, and a majority will tell you they never lost faith with either their Savior, their Pope or their Church, despite Communism:-)

History / Stalin's Holocaust Against Jews And Poles As "Self Defense" [36]

Right about first part, Ironside! However, the Russians always had been devout Christians in their hearts and minds. The Communist atheism was merely a smoke screen, paying lip service to those aparatchiki who were indeed non-believers:-)

History / Stalin's Holocaust Against Jews And Poles As "Self Defense" [36]

Ironside, you don't think so, but don't forget, Russia was and remains overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox. The fact that Marx, Lenin, and others were dyed-in- the- wool atheists doesn't alter the facts a bit:-)

As regards sheer numbers of slaughtered, again, Hitler murdered out of purely ideological-biological reasons. All full Jews had to be systematically eliminated; Stalin murdered only those whom he saw as a threat. the result may have been the same, the modus operandi however, was different.

History / Stalin's Holocaust Against Jews And Poles As "Self Defense" [36]

@Ironside, let's first of all be quite clear; Hitler despised Christianity because he felt it "Jewish in spirit", furthermore, that conscience "was a Jewish invention"LOL

No surprise. Christianity derived from Judaism, hence Judeo-Christian tradition, right?
:-)

PS
Stalin believed himself and the rest of Mother Russia to be Christian! Hitler believed himself as well as the Germanic peoples to be essentially pagan in nature and spirit. Christian notions of the Divine etc. were deemed "Ungerman" in character. Man, not G_d became the measure of all things under Naziism and concepts such as "all men are created equal" along with other Enlightenment ideas were blithely, i.e. cynically, tossed out the window!

History / Stalin's Holocaust Against Jews And Poles As "Self Defense" [36]

@Delphi,

Stalin is the name. He was Georgian, not Russian (and certainly not Jewish)!! Every time a controversial person comes up, somebody tries to make him out to be Jewish, e.g. Achmoudzinishad! Chances are it's alot of hooey:-)

History / Stalin's Holocaust Against Jews And Poles As "Self Defense" [36]

For starters,Stalin was a Georgian, not even an ethnic Slav! Second of all, Jews per se, compared with Hitler, were far from his main agenda. He indeed did imprison and murder millions en masse, a number of whom happened to be Jewish, but if even the Jews (and FULL Jews!!) curried favor with Stalin and were willing to forfit their freedom indefinitely, then they could live perfectly comfortable lives under his regime:-)

Any similarity between Stalin and Hitler beggars comparison, if for no other reason than on sheer ideological grounds. Hitler was preeminently a racist who believed in racial superiority through attrition if absolutely necessary, preferrably through annihilation as the most "efficient" means necessary to protecting the Aryan race from racial polution by Jews, Roma, the mentally ill and others.

German-born and bred Jews who knew no other culture/country than Germany and who spoke no other language than High German, had served with distinction in WWI, had even penned patriotic ballades against England (Ernst Lissauer's "Hymn of Hate", for instance) ALL without exception were to be exterminated if proven that each of their grandparents of both parents had been Jews. Although certain "exceptions" were made for third or quarter-Jews second class etc.., Hitler's Einsatzgruppen combed the East for shtettls where the poorest of the poor Jews dwelled.

Stalin was to be sure a power-hungry maniac and a dictator to boot; he cannot be seriously compared with Hitler!!!

Life / Russian citizen wants immigrate to Poland [39]

Surely not, crow! The young man was simply speculating on the prospects of living abroad, but in a neighboring country with more or less shared Slavic roots, that's all:-)

Life / Russian citizen wants immigrate to Poland [39]

Paulina, in order to enter Germany, many Syrians are entering via Poland! I meant that Poland is a semi-way station for a large number of Syrian migrants, as for example, Hungary has refused to allow refugees into the country.