News / US military hardware coming to Poland [76]

Merged: US to store heavy weapons in Poland

It just seems like we're sliding right back into the Cold War. Going backwards not forwards. They have to plan for a post-Putin Russia. He'll eventually either retire to be replaced with someone potentially worse or carry on to the bitter end like Stalin, Brezhnev and Chernenko only to leave chaos and a power vacuum.

The worst thing right now is the 'diplomatic' language they're using. Very, very serious.


Rest of story here: m.bbc.

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]

Plus military, scientists, humanitarians, artists, writers, politicians, monarchs...

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]

I think it's valid to mention that since it's very relevant - the pre-war period was (as in Germany until a certain point) a great flowering of tolerance and fashion - the war and its aftermath set back progress for human rights, opens and individualism a long way. Plus the role of the church (who meant well - they were just trying to hold together a complex and changing society) after the PRL fell.

Nevertheless the picture was neither all that bleak nor especially different from a lot of places in Western Europe (and far freer than some parts of the US). Poland did retain some plurality and there was a discreet LGBT commercial scene as well as established places to meet. There was even a Warsaw version of Polari, now almost dead.

News / Poland's fight against paedophilia [277]

The timing of this discussion is quite apt. The media have just this evening reported this about Archbishop Józef Wesołowski, from Poland:


m.bbc.

I didn't know about the child pornography charges. In the UK the bar is quite low for that. It just has to be an image of someone who the CPS (prosecutor) believes could credibly be under 18, you don't need to have downloaded it or clicked on a thumbnail, nor do you even have had to scroll down that far on the page as the people arrested in Operation Ore found to their cost. In the Vatican, I would suspect that possessing images does mean exactly that. Does anyone know what the criteria is in Poland.

Another thing is that the Vatican seems to be checking his computers even now. It isn't an easy process - the police remove the hard drives and mount them in an oscilloscope - they even go much further in serious cases (stuff with magnets apparently) since they need to keep a database of the all of worst images to investigate how they're shared.

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]

The Nineteenth Century had a lot to be blamed for, and again (and especially), the puritanism of the PRL and the equally puritanical reaction to it. Plus of course the religion bubble during the unstable years that followed.

News / Poland's fight against paedophilia [277]


Not as if he's infallible or anything, innit...

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]


Wrong on that one, and as usual a pleasure to call you out on it. If by your favourite subject of "sexual deviates' you mean people who are not heterosexual, you might have forgotten that the legal framework in Poland has for the most part been much more liberal than most other places and some of Poland's best known figures over the centuries have been LGBT.

News / Poland's fight against paedophilia [277]


30,000 in Poland; 400,000 in the world.

As for teachers, very unlikely, but "ballet dancers, hair dressers and interior decorators" - have you even one shred of evidence for that?

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]

Much shorter, unless Nineteenth Century Pietists had a time machine. Before that brief blip, Poland was also an oasis of freedom and tolerance as it is now.

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]


There is actually a very strong and valid parallel with the thread topic here. There's certainly no shortage of occultists in Poland and many hundreds of years' tradition of that. A nice link to some Polish witches here, though further discussion of this belongs in another thread: the-other.info/2014/witches-healers-spell-casters-poland

since there's very little LGBT crossover with the occult. Except to show that Poland has a long tradition of diversity and the whole Ciemnogrod thing with the more conservative factions RCC exciting its cold, dead hand was just a temporary blip. Poland's respect for human and civil rights as well as increasingly visible diversity is proof of this.

Poland is a country with a longer tradition of respecting freedom and differences (a very long history of an LGBT public presence) than the recent and relatively brief mono-cultural, theocratic period that achieved so little and is now waning, as we pass into the Age of Aquarius. Worth reading Hoene-Wronski - Polish, much underrated and due for a revival.

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]

The tolerance for differing viewpoints is very much part of Poland's liberal tradition; in fact it was a certain religious body which despised any diversity or any spiritual path they couldn't control, though as Polish society urbanises religion is now very much on the wane and diversity, freedom, tolerance and hedonism on the up. No bad thing.

The wonderful success of Saturday's Parada Równości shows that beautifully.

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]


The two are inseparable. Without one, you don't generally get the other. And in Poland's Centuries' old liberal culture, freedom is respected. Remember, this is Europe.

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]


Apart from the dogs and balloons, all true. In Poland rights re accepted and in Warsaw people tend not to moralise about others - they just get on with life. And the annual parade was a great success this year.

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]


What planet are you on? It's nice and shiny and not burnt at all. Pile of scrab (sic) iron, indeed!

The fictitious article (I won't quote any more Pol3, for the sake of your privacy and indeed to spare you further shame reads:

Work / Salary Expectation for HCL Senior JAVA Developer with 4 years experience in Poland [66]


Ignore at his peril more like. It's not bad at all for Krakow, and very good on Indian terms. Krakow, by the way, is a lovely place to live.

Dominic, you seem hell-bent on deterring people from coming to Poland.

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]


And where did you read it - on your palm, while picking the hairs out?

USA, Canada / Our Lady of Czestochowa - Polish church, Boston [4]

Not personally, however I'm aware of the scandal with Fr Andrzej Urbaniak.

Must be something in the water there. In one Pol-Am community over there, there are three parishes. In one there was sexual abuse, in another the parish priest was arrested exposing himself and in the third there was an embezzlement scandal.

Some awkward stuff here too: bishop-accountability.org/il_chicago/

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]


I'm not sure it was. There were 20,000 people enjoying taking part in the parade, some of whom spend a lot of time in the gym, not to mention all those female judo teachers and truck drivers - excuse the stereotypes - so nothing to fear from 30 or 40 pasty faced inadequates.


Sad but true. What sort of lives do those people have? What goes on in their heads? People just laugh at them.

Worth mentioning that thousands of people along the whole route, passers by on the pavement, staff and customers in shop doorways, people on the balconies of flats, football fans in town for the match wearing the national colours were waving, smiling and cheering us on.


I can tell you right now which of the two events the police prefer to be on duty for.

News / Poland's fight against paedophilia [277]

Not 'possible' but actual. He admitted it in court and was jailed. His current whereabouts are well-known and probably no accident that they put him out in the boondocks, where a man in a black dress is unquestioningly still a figure of authority and much more respected than they might be in Poland A. In a decent suburb of Warsaw, he'd be run out of town.

However the problem with Roman Kramek isn't just church cover-ups, and inadequate risk management. It's the fact that in small town Poland, the law is rarely evenly applied and people (whatever their trade or profession) can get away with more.

Study / Student from Nepal travelling to Poland with dependent for further studies. Any job? [87]

Indeed - and there are a lot of private schools. The 'Higher School of Cosmetics and Security Guard Studies' is probably too ashamed to take foreign students (bet they have plenty of parties though) however some of the out of town private ones will take anyone and are cheap.

Places like UKSW in Warsaw (church owned but state run) do have special programmes for overseas students and they are thoroughly acceptable. Places like Collegium Civitas are also a decent alternative to their equivalent in the students' home countries.

Do remember, DominicB that not everyone has the grades (or nowadays the money) to get into a top flight university, and for many students the whole experience of going abroad to do one's teacher training or whatever is key to it.

And someone from Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria faces challenges that you and I never have.

Study / Student from Nepal travelling to Poland with dependent for further studies. Any job? [87]

If indeed they have better opportunities. Remember that university courses in Poland which are conducted in English may not be the best, but they are cheap, under-subscribed therefore easy to get into and visas are given to students. It might not be the best opportunity for all, but for some it is appealing.

News / Poland's fight against paedophilia [277]


Actually, Pol3, the dioceses were not sued as the offenders' employers - if that were possible there would be far more lawsuits - but in cases where they'd admitted covering up crimes as an organisation, concealing offenders from arrest and instead of reacting, placing them back in other parishes to offend again.

I am unaware of the Ford Motor Company doing anything like that. I also notice with disappointment that Roman Kramek is in a rural parish in Poland, very possibly with unsupervised access to teenage girls.

Study / Student from Nepal travelling to Poland with dependent for further studies. Any job? [87]

It isn't just about studying, it's about getting somewhere better, especially when your knowledge of the outside world is limited. That's the problem. Full marks for those who try, and yes, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Cuba etc would be better. Just not an option for many, and for others they just don't know where to start looking.

Study / Student from Nepal travelling to Poland with dependent for further studies. Any job? [87]

If you live in a village in Nepal, your choices are limited to say the least. The airfare out is more than an affluent person's yearly income.

And Poland isn't a bad place to study at all.

Life / Migration To Poland - cost of living, work, safe for a girl? [20]

My feelings too - there are plenty of local students chasing the same crap work and not finding it. Nevertheless some overseas students do find work, however they are rare and they are lucky. Especially as so few speak Polish.

Study / Student from Nepal travelling to Poland with dependent for further studies. Any job? [87]

That and a combination of seizing any chance they have to find a better life and at the same time having very limited choices.

Life / Migration To Poland - cost of living, work, safe for a girl? [20]

There certainly are overseas students working in the major cities, mostly as bar staff or in ethnic restaurants, however they are very much the lucky ones, especially since unemployment is high. The language barrier is also a very real impediment to finding any work at all.

News / Poland's fight against paedophilia [277]

That's a. pure paranoia about your favourite subject, and b. off-topic.

Travel / Moving stuff from Krakow to Gdansk.. need to rent a van? Suggestions. [4]

Also try your local taxi companies. Many of the bigger firms have bagażówki and might be able to offer you a fixed rate.

News / Poland's fight against paedophilia [277]

That's in your mind. Unless you'd just prefer that the media didn't report on any scandals within religious bodies.

Also a distraction, since the problems there are proven and no longer as easy to cover up. What's interesting is when compensation claims (whether there's a religious connection or not) begin to snowball here.