USA, Canada / Why are Polish restaurants not successful in the USA? [698]

Delphiandomine you are claiming that only lowbrow Polish restaurants are Polish because you are a hater of Poland.


My family lived in Poland for centuries before some of it emigrated to the USA. I have many relatives that still reside in Poland. You are merely a Scottish English teacher living in Poland and this makes your self-proclaimed stance as an expert on Poland laughable. You mention your residency in Poland in every post as if that will somehow mitigate the fact that your bitter pettiness is anything but Polish. You know nothing about what is essentially Polish, because that which is essentially Polish is noble, and understanding nobility is beyond you.

USA, Canada / Why are Polish restaurants not successful in the USA? [698]


The recipes Boletus cited are from country inns in Poland and similar dishes are served at Warszawa restaurant in the USA. These recipes are Polish. Delphiandomine is wrong.

USA, Canada / Why are Polish restaurants not successful in the USA? [698]


This thread is about Polish restaurants in America. This thread claims they are not successful, but myself, and others, have provided examples of successful Polish restaurants in the USA, and thus proven the thread's titular claim wrong. The Polish restaurant I cited, Warszawa in Santa Monica California, serves the very sort of fare that Boletus has given us examples of. These dishes are undeniably Polish and even if the majority of Polish restaurants, in Poland herself, don't serve such haute cuisine that does not make the food at Warszawa restaurant any less Polish. Restaurants employ people called chefs and some are better at their vocation than others. Many people on this thread believe they can condemn all Polish cooking just because there are some restaurants that do it poorly and these people are fools.

Love / Polish women USED TO BE much more attractive: [162]


I really disagree with this claim. I have known women who never did a lick of exercise but they were svelte. The true culprit in the Western world's growing obesity problem is processed foods. When people eat them they take in an abundance of calories, but they fail to receive the nutrients their bodies crave, and so they eat more, and more, in a futile attempt to satisfy this craving, and they thus consume too many calories and get fat.

Life / Racism and for what? (story of Egyptian guy's living in Poland) [149]

The odor of the cassolette depends on many factors but its overtones are related to haircolor and not any specific ethnicity, as for other human odors I suggest avoiding them.

Life / What is the reason for POLISH jokes ? [486]


That show was meant to reveal the stupidity of Polonophobia, and other irrational prejudices, by showing how ridiculous the prejudiced idiot character Archy Bunker was. The problem with the show was that many of its viewers, rather than seeing Archy for the fool he was, saw him as their hero who was unafraid to vocalize all the stupid prejudices that they themselves held.

News / Polish-Scottish American, Chris Ferguson, commands final Space Shuttle mission [49]


You know full well that he is an African-American whose ancestors were enslaved, perhaps by Scottish-Americans bearing the surname Ferguson, and that his ancestors may have adopted this surname upon emancipation because of their long association with Ferguson family. My post above explicitly mentions Americans "with European roots" and so I am rather disappointed that you would be so mistaken as to assume I was including Americans with African roots as well, that being said, knowing the proclivity of slave owners to force themselves upon their chattle, Kimbo-Slice may indeed have Scottish ancestry.

News / Polish-Scottish American, Chris Ferguson, commands final Space Shuttle mission [49]


The name Ferguson is still a Scottish surname that means "son of Fergus" regardless of whether or not its bearer ever goes to Scotland or wears a kilt. Americans with European roots do not have to have any contact at all with their ancestral countries for them to still be their ancestral countries.

History / Poland and Orientalism [115]

Hague-cameron, German stereotypes regarding Poles see them as more than merely econonmically less developed than themselves but also as disorderly, chaotic, and childish. These attributes which Germans, and not only Germans but other Westerners as well, ascribe to Poles are exactly the same attributes that are ascribed by Orientalists to other peoples from the from the East. Dismissive Orientalist attitudes towards Poles are still in abundance amongst people from the West and one need only peruse this forum to see this fact. Von Molte's describing Poland as one of the most civilized states in Europe in the 15th Century does nothing to change the fact that his fellow Germans, and even he himself, still had Orientalist attitudes towards Poles in the 19th Century. Orientalists have absolutely no problem acknowledging that the Arabs, for example, had been among the most civilized and refined people on Earth back in the glory days of the Caliphs when they kept classical science and learning alive while Europe plodded through its Dark Ages. This acknowledgement of past glories and civilizational triumphs does not prevent Orientalists from claiming that the Orient of the present is wild, disorderly, debased and in need of Western overlords to be properly governed, and Von Molte's comments acknowledging the past civilizational glory of Poland, several hundred years before he was writing, are exactly along these same lines.

History / Poland and Orientalism [115]

Perhaps this Von Molte didn't have an Orientalist attitude towards Poland but the example of one Prussian doesn't negate the fact that Poland, and the Slavic world in general, has been Orientalized by numerous other Germans. Hague-cameron, you asked in post #24 "Where in a sentence can you find Poland and Orientalism being used in the same context written by a serious scholar?" and I in post #60 provided an example from a serious scholar named Paul Kriwaczek who wrote of an imperial Austrian saying that states that the Orient begins on the outskirts of Vienna. I also provided an example from one C.J. Schuller writing a review of Paweł Huelle's book Castrop in which he writes "What gives Castorp its drive and resonance is his investigation of German attitudes to their Slav neighbours, towards whom they harboured an orientalising outlook that saw them, in contrast to German orderliness and rationality, as a force of disorder – and dangerous sexual attraction.' Castrop is set largely in Danzig and it elaborates upon the theme of Germans Orientalizing Slavs which Thomas Mann explored in The Magic Mountain. I highly suggest you read Mann's novel, or any of the Danzig trilogy written by Gunter Grass which also delves into the Orientalist attitudes Germans held towards Poles. I am quite frankly shocked that you seem to be unaware of the Orientalist stereotypes that Germans have projected upon Poles. Do you live under a rock? If you petulantly still refuse to believe me then I recommend you read Natasha's post #79 because she therein eloquently sums up the fact that Slavs, including Poles, have been Orientalized by the West in general and by the Germans in particular. Vato Loco above understands this fact and you should too.

History / Fascinating account by von Moltke-Prussian chief of Staff: Poland: A historical Sketch. [30]


This observation from the Prussian chief of staff points to an all too often overlooked truth about humanity, and heralds a day when anarchy will replace the silly political systems that currently exist. "Therefore the Master says: I let go of the law and people become honest." Tao Te Ching 57

News / Polish-Scottish American, Chris Ferguson, commands final Space Shuttle mission [49]

Oh, sorry. I see it was you, Wroclaw, that revealed the fact that he has Polish ancestry. I foolishly assumed reading the latter posts in the thread that his Polish ancestry was still in question as some posters seemed to be denying it, but I had forgotten that, for the deniers, people are not Polish unless British English teachers living in Poland say they are.

News / Polish-Scottish American, Chris Ferguson, commands final Space Shuttle mission [49]

poles.org/DB/Pol_Astros/Pol_Astros.html

"Several of individuals of Polish descents are invoved in the American program of space exploration as astronauts".

Chris Ferguson's mother's maiden name is Florkowski.

History / Has Polish king Sobieski become an idol of right wing extremists? [21]

There is a far-Right organization in America which calls itself "The Gates of Vienna" and the Norwegian mass murderer titled his manifesto "2083" evidently in referrence to the next centennial anniversary of King Jan's victory over the Turks, in 1683, before those very gates. Henryk Senkiewicz himself is not innocent of using the Polish hero as a mouthpiece for Islamophobia, when in Pan Wolodyowski he has the future king reject the Tartar villian's proposal to settle masses of Tartars in Poland's steppe boarderlands as a bulwark to defend Poland, because giving these masses of Muslim Tartar Polish citizenship would be introducing too much of an alien element into the Christian nation of Poland. I suspect that Sienkiewicz, being well aware of his own Tartar ancestors, was trying to show how definite their conversion to Christianity had been, and how much of a true believer he was himself. I wonder if this proposal had actually been real, and if it had been followed if new masses of Polish Tartars would've helped to save Poland, or if Torq's proposal in post #4 of an Polish-Ottoman alliance would've worked as well. We can never know, but in any event the fact that the Austria betrayed Poland by taking away Poland's sovereignty, when King Jan Sobieski of Poland had saved Austria's Sovereignty only a few decades before, will always make the far-Right propaganda value of the Battle of Vienna's "saving of Christendom" somewhat suspect, because who really needs Islamophobia when "Christian" nations treat one another atrociously anyway.

Life / Famous Polish music and musicians [48]

Pat Benatar's full name at birth was Patricia Mae Andrzejewski. Michael Anthony was the bassist for the rock band Van Halen and his full name is Michael Anthony Sobolewski. The guitarist for the even crappier rock band Bon Jovi is named Richie Sambora. The Vaisnava and and former lead singer for the band Live is named Ed Kowalczyk.

News / Polish-Scottish American, Chris Ferguson, commands final Space Shuttle mission [49]


The American General bearing that surname died today
cnn.com/2011/US/07/23/john.shalikashvili.dies/index.html?section=cnn_latest

it does look like a Georgian name but he was born in Poland and he sure looked Polish.

Love / Sigh... Polish girls have such pretty eyes. [51]


Prince Hamlet does: "I have heard of your paintings, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another." (Hamlet act 3 scene 1)

Love / Sigh... Polish girls have such pretty eyes. [51]

It only affects the hue of her irises. Her eye shape, lash length, lash density, presence or absence of stys, and other factors remain the same.

Travel / Traveling around Poland - our photo stories with very personal commentary [225]

Photographing abandoned tufts of dog hair in public parks isn't weird. It's an avante guard attempt to widen the boundries of acceptable subjects for vacation photos.

USA, Canada / Polish-American mutilation of the Polish language [75]


I live in the Orange County Southern Californian part of America and no one here forces assimilation on anyone, nor does a 'majority' think all people should assimilate. We have "Little Saigon", "Little Baghdad", "Little Samoa", etc. here and no one complains. We don't have any prominent Polish neighborhoods around here, but there is a Russan one in Los Alamitos near the horsetrack. I daresay this part of America is as multi-cultural as anywhere on Earth and it works out fine. Don't forget that the USA has no official language. There may be some advocates of assimilation elsewhere in America but I doubt they are a majority. If they were a majority, that cared so much about assimilation, don't you think Engish would be our official tongue by now?

History / Defying Germaniztion in 1901 Polish boy writes 'German girls are ugly' [128]

There was indeed one very large country that didn't recognized the partitions of Poland and it was called the Ottoman Empire.

History / Defying Germaniztion in 1901 Polish boy writes 'German girls are ugly' [128]


No one is putting me under their umbrella but you, an irrational poster who wont stay on topic and who engages in all sorts of fallacious nonsense such as falsely asserting only right wing racists use the term Polonophobia and I must thus be guilty of being a right wing racist. If you could show the posts wherein I have been right wing, or racist, you would have a point, but you cannot because I haven't made any such posts and so you try this idiotic guilt by association approach which, moreover, has nothing to do with this thread's topic. Neither this thread, nor this forum, is a place for cheap personally directed attacks of this sort, but it seems it is you that does not have an ounce of sense and so you continue to make them like a damn fool.

History / Defying Germaniztion in 1901 Polish boy writes 'German girls are ugly' [128]


I am different because I am not a right-wing racist, nor am I in Poland. I also doubt your assertion that the term "Polonophobia" is used exclusively by right wing racists in contemporary Poland. You should also be aware that you are taking this thread off-topic by making this assertion about the use of the term "Polonophobia" in contemporary Poland which is 110 years removed from the time being discussed. If you don't believe Poland existed in 1901 shouldn't you on principle refuse to post upon this thread which is after all in the "History of Poland" section of this forum?

History / Defying Germaniztion in 1901 Polish boy writes 'German girls are ugly' [128]


This thread is about Poles defying Germanization.


So you think that the world has a collective "mind" whose judgement regarding the status of Poland supercedes that of the Polish people, and that is why you are both delusional and Polonophobic.


I am neither right wing nor racist. I do not feel affection for any contemporary Polish political party, nor do I vote in Polish elections. This thread is about events that occurred in the school system of German occupied Poland in 1901 and my mother's grandparents were enrolled in that school system.

History / Defying Germaniztion in 1901 Polish boy writes 'German girls are ugly' [128]


The defiant Poles in the territory considered it occupied and rejected the legitimacy of its annexation, but it seems that in the Polonophobic poster's mind these folk were "no-one".

History / Defying Germaniztion in 1901 Polish boy writes 'German girls are ugly' [128]


I suggested that it would be foolish to assume that his patriotic feelings as a Pole in German ruled Poland did not color his opinions regarding German girls. I never said the boy's disdain for German girls' looks and his belief in their inability to love constituted defiance of Germanization. The defiance of Germanization that this thread's title refers to is the refusal of Polish youth, in his school, to pray in German.

USA, Canada / Why are Polish restaurants not successful in the USA? [698]


She was referencing the title character of the novel the dreamer Oblomov, an impoverished Russian aristocrat layabout who devises schemes for improving his estate but never acts upon them, whose appetite, the novel states, "only comes alive after the second course" or something like that. Its not such a famous novel in the English speaking world so I was surprised, and a little impressed, that Martha knew about it. She must be well read.

USA, Canada / Why are Polish restaurants not successful in the USA? [698]


My sister was once reading one of Martha Stewart's early cookbooks and she turned to me and asked "Who is Oblomov?" and I was quite startled because I have a copy of Ivan Goncharov's novel Oblomov in my library. Mathra had referenced it in her cookbook writing something like "dinner-party guests like Oblomov only come alive after the second helping", but alas, Plastic, the novel is a Russian, and not a Polish, classic.

History / Defying Germaniztion in 1901 Polish boy writes 'German girls are ugly' [128]


Your diagnosis foolishly dismisses his patriotic feelings as a Pole in German occupied Poland.

History / Defying Germaniztion in 1901 Polish boy writes 'German girls are ugly' [128]

Nathan, you should really read the whole thread. Therein you will find that Bronek did indeed live with Germans, as imported German settlers comprised some 26% of his town. Moreover, how can you claim to know from his remarks about German girls, which are disdainful rather than angry, that he wasn't also enraged by the forced Germanization in his school's religion classes?