News / Priests are paid by the Gov't in Poland. [86]

Ping back to you. Other than that, tell me which part of that was inaccurate. I may learn something useful.

News / Priests are paid by the Gov't in Poland. [86]

I wanted to add this:

Pawian, I am not really that much interested in this subject, nor I am educated enough to help much here or to get too much involved either in this discussion, or in the search. However, even I can easily see that you are jut spinning fairy tales about self-supporting Catholic Church and about lack of any form of donations from the State. This is unfair: If people ask you serious questions, you should give them serious answers - or at least give them some good pointers.

Tell them a little bit about Concordat, and about "Fundusz Kościelny" (Church Fund) - as a informal way of annual compensation for church property taken over by the State, tell him about "Kościelna Komisja Majątkowa" (Church Property Commission) that supposed to finally sort out and close this issue forever and to dissolve the Church Fund. Tell them about the criminal affairs committed by some of the members of the commission and about trials taking places now. Tell them how State was blindly robbed as the result of this. Tell them that the Church Fund still exist for no good reason, as some form of State donation to Church.

Tell them about all other various donations:
- social insurance
- social-education donations
- financing of repairs and conservation of some church properties
- financing of Church universities
- financing of religion lessons at schools
- special donations to parishes at North-West Poland
- financing military, prison and hospital chaplains
- non-taxable donations from state run business organizations, such as KGHM Polska Miedź S.A.

Now tell them something about income of church:
- collection ("TACA")
- extraordinary collections
- income from real estate
- income from various businesses
- income from rentals
- payments for graves in parish cemeteries
- sale of Christmas wafers
- donations from citizens and organizations (another black hole)
- payments for the First Communion

And about personal income:
- "IURA STOLAE": wedding, baptism, funeral
- "kolęda" - officially removed, but practically still in force.
- mess intentions
- praying for the dead on November 1 and 2
- parish farms

Taxes and Duties
- income and real estate taxes for church institutions are so low, as practically non-existent. The only taxes in force are "podatek rolny" (farm tax) - related to monastery farms and seminary farms.

- personal taxes are in the form of lump sum based on number of parishioners (yes, including those heretics). The PIT option is there but no churchman was stupid enough to take it yet.

- farm tax must be paid if a priest owns a farm.

Duties
Donations related to cult, charity and social-education are duty free.
Printing shop related materials (machines, paper) are duty free.

NOW, tell them them about new proposal of giving 1% of personal income to a church.

Do not ask me about details, I just summarized a big article from Racjonalista: racjonalista.pl/kk.php/s,2728. I judge that website reasonably balanced.

History / Polish Military Medals, WWI era found in Detroit [9]


Are you an expert in Polish militaria, skysoulmate?
If yes, what is your opinion on the statements like this:


home.golden.net/~medals/stopfakes.html

or this, coming from user group Getleman's Millitary Interest Club


gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/49866-fakes/

History / Do polish people know that some of them fought a war against the United States? [60]

There is plenty of hearsay on this topic and it proliferates over Polish web pages like European purple loosestrife over Canadian waters. There is always somebody, who knew somebody, whose grandpa was a pilot of MIG-17 shooting down American bombers over Laos. Many people want to become instantaneous heroes, but many such stories would not pass any careful scrutiny.

1. Pilot stories have no sense on the technical basis. Polish pilots could not be integrated into North Vietnamese Air Force for various reasons: poor or non-existing encryption of their radio communication (no Polish language could be used over radio waves, because Poles really wanted to appear neutral), impossibility of integration with the Vietnamese radar and AA sites for lack of language skills, and many other ones. Yeah, some 18 of them volunteers supposedly went there and one of them was Wacław Ciara, who shoot down one F-100 and one B-52. The problem is that the B-52 used to operate not earlier than in 1972, while F-100 were flying there only in 1966-67. So Mr. Ciara would have to be in Vietnam twice: in 1967 and five years later. But his grandson Piotr Ciara spins his tale on internet telling everyone how Russian code phrases were used to communicate with Vietnamese fighters in his squadron.

2. Special forces stories - "we were there, we did and saw plenty, but we actually cannot say anything because of the official secret act", or whatever it is called in Poland. Yeah..

3. Involvement of Poles in Vietnam-USA war is shrouded in mystery but everyone and his niece knows that Polish intelligence officers were the consultants to the Vietcong army and gathered information about US equipment. Possible, but I have not seen any reliable data yet.

4. Volunteers. Vietnamese papers claimed that during the French war "hundreds of foreign friends" from over 30 countries fought on VPA side. Many of them became highly decorated and reached high officer ranks, up to Lieutenant Colonel rank.

5. Deserters from the Foreign League during the French-Vietnamese war. One is known as sergeant Stefan Kubiak, who switched sides in 1948 and fought for Viet Minh for six year - finishing the war as highly decorated captain in 304 artillery division. Such individual stories are very possible - after all the neutral Canada had to cope too with its 30,000 volunteers and 110 Canadians killed in action in Vietnam.

Some stories do make sense though and are well documented. For example, Polish ship "Jan Kiliński" was used for evacuation of Viet Minh soldiers and civilians from the South to the North in 1954-1955, in cooperation with French units. But that was all legit, as a result of Geneva Convention. The estimated numbers are: 85,000 people, 3500 weapons, 250 tons of ammunition and several elephants. The following paper provides very detailed and reliable information:

vietnam.ttu.edu/events/2002_Symposium/2002Papers_files/kilinski.htm

There is a very interesting, well researched paper, about Poland's role during the first International Commission for Control and Supervision (ICC), consisting of Poland, Canada and India, during the years 1954-1963. The Commission achieved very little, perpetually stalemated between Warsaw and Ottawa, with neutral New Delhi performing a delicate balancing act as chair. However new Polish secret cables have been made recently available, which stress how paranoiac Poles were in order to appear neutral. Judging by that, Polish soldiers in Vietnam - aside from those on official peacekeeping duty - would not be welcome sight by Polish authorities. Poland and Vietnam, 1963: New Evidence on Secret Communist Diplomacy and the "Maneli Affair".

Another source is an interview with a Polish interpreter, who took part in the second ICC mission, set by Paris Agreement in 1973. Canadians, Poles, Hungarians and Indonesians were involved this time. He recalls "tugs of wars" between Polish-Hungarian side vs. Canadian-Indonesian side in relation to reports of "cease fire infraction events". What one side considered insignificant, the other one wanted to investigate in-depth and immediately. Other than that Polish officers were drunk all the time and have sex with the locals. After half a year Canadians had enough and refused to participate in the circus, so the Iranians took their place instead. When asked about standing on guard against CIA intelligence he responded that much worse problem than CIA were sexually transmitted diseases.

Genealogy / Bursztynowicz history name [4]

From German name for amber: Bernstein, literally: a stone that burns;
to Polish name for amber: Bursztyn [Other Polish names of this fossil resin are: jantar, amber];
to a surname Bursztynowicz, very likely given to a Jew from North-Eastern part of former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, such as today's Lithuania or Belarus. Alternative surname Bursztyński would be given to someone from Poland proper.

Generally the suffix "-ow" suggests Russia, "-icz", "-owicz" - Lithuania or Belarus, "-ski", "-cki" - Poland. There are many Bursztyński and Bursztynowicz people in modern Poland - some of them are well known and some even have their own entries in Polish Wikipedia.

History / Do polish people know that some of them fought a war against the United States? [60]

Yes, and some of them also fought on the side of Confederacy during the Civil War - estimated 1000-1500 vs 4000-6000 Poles on the Union side. For comparison Czechs were fighting mostly on the North side (**). Garibaldi's Italians , like the Poles, fought on both sides.

jstor.org/pss/20147693
JSTOR: Polish American Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Jul.-Dec., 1965), pp 99-106

page 99:


This is followed by a description of the first official casualty of the War of Succession that was yet to begin. The 18 years old Thaddeus Strawinski was on duty in the Columbia Artillery at Fort Moultrie, when an accidental discharge of firearms seriously wounded him. He died on Ianuary 26, 1861, and the Charleston Mercury carried in its obituary of Ianuary 28, Strawinski's last words: "Friends, Oh! how sorry I am you are to attack Fort Sumter without me."

(*)Mn Uminski, a former PAHA vicepresident and currently an associate~editor of Polish-American Studies, read this essay at the Twenty-first Annual Meeting of the Association, Dec. 29, 1964, at Washington, D. C.

(**) Josef Skvorecki, a Czech-Canadian author, in his novel "The Bride of Texas" describes a little known fact of history: the formation of militia by a motley band of Czech immigrants who fought under General Sherman on his famous march to these. The novel has few interesting Polish threads as well.

Love / Does your Polish partner suffer from disposophobia [46]


Look, you read me wrong, I am just trying to be as precise as possible. Why should I be aggressive against you? But in my world, hearsay does not count. Yes, perhaps you should have used a conditional guard "In my opinion", rather than jumping to the unconditional statement, as it were. Now let me explain, what I had in mind asking you about some statistical data.

Let start with this UK site, mentalhealthy.co.uk/news/775-hoarding---an-often-undiagnosed-mental-illness.html, where they show some USA pertinent estimates:


This is actually a lot.

Another UK site talks about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which can be categorized as:

Checking, Contamination, Hoarding, Rumination/Intrusive Thoughts.

They give here a total estimation for all four cases in UK:


This is confirmed by another site:


So there are some scientific statistics available, and perhaps if I spent much more time on the subject I could come with something even more valuable.

I tried to find similar estimates for Poland, but I failed - perhaps because lack of any serious research in this area? But if you want to give it a try yourself, then here are the Polish keywords you may wish to use for searching:

- Chomikowanie (hamstering). This word is the oldest one used to describe hoarding. Unfortunately it is mostly used nowadays for internet related activities - such as file sharing.

- Syllogomania
- Patologiczne zbieractwo (pathological gathering)

The bottom line however is that hoarding is an international trait. Statements like this


are simply ridiculous, as they go against statistics I quoted.

Love / Does your Polish partner suffer from disposophobia [46]


Show a link to statistical data of any sort, supporting your claim, otherwise I say you just lie. :-)
[I put a smiley here because I really do not care that much about the topic of the discussion. I just dislike that people twist facts to match their weak hypotheses.]

Did you actually care to look at the images I posted? Did you see those terrible examples of hoarding, captured on camera? That's USA, not Poland.


Irrelevant and frankly - not anybody's business. You know nothing about me in this respect. One of the arguments used here before was that hoarding is a habit of older people. So I have known many of them, like my parents, aunts, etc. and I can draw my own conclusions. And I know many young people too - both in Poland and in here. Besides, the topic mentions "Polish partners" not "partners in Poland".

On a personal note: I have visited many houses of my friends over the years - both Canadian and Polish, 100 places maybe? And that includes not only their living rooms, but also recreation rooms in the basements, and work areas with tools with work benches. Only three of them would qualify as hoarders - all three are Canadians.

And I resent putting me into hoarders category by definition of being Polish. Don't you dare. :-) I am one of the birds (as opposed to bushes), changing homes every so often, and reducing amount of electronic equipment, computers, papers, books, and furniture during every move.

Love / Does your Polish partner suffer from disposophobia [46]


The original topic is stupid, and because of it - your answer here is not very logical, I am sorry to say.

My direct answer to the OP question: "Does your Polish partner suffer from disposophobia" would be definitely: NO. But he is not interested in NO answer, all he wants to hear is the YES answer. So this question is loaded and poorly stated. Man, I am sorry to hear you have problems with your hoarding partner, but implying that this is something Polish-specific is wrong. I already gave a clear explanation in my previous message.


Well, this is just your hypothesis, and quite acceptable too, I agree. Problem is, it is not general enough. Apparently:


tvhowl.com/tag/hoarders

Love / Does your Polish partner suffer from disposophobia [46]


Yes I do. Hoarders are international breed, nothing Polish-specific here, so your generalizations are wrong, and your reaction to "grubas" response is just funny. There are people that call themselves collectors, but they are actually compulsive hoarders

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding

Here in Canada we call them hamsters. Some of my (non Polish) friends readily admit to be such. They "collect" old magazines, old useless electronics, old useless toys, old useless manuals. In most cases this is just a funny habit. In other cases it becomes an annoying custom. There are also dangerous types of hamsters. I quite often read about some old ladies somewhere in Toronto "collecting" cats - 20-30 of them, living in terrible disgusting conditions. I am not even trying to describe the photos posted often by Humane Society, or similar organizations.

Others pose fire hazards by collecting junk in apartment buildings. Just in September last year one of the Toronto Housing Community Corp. buildings (subsidized apartments) caught fire caused by a resident flicking the butt of his cigarette off the balcony to the balcony below. The guy below was a hoarder: "bundles of newspapers, an air conditioner unit, plastic bags, plastic containers, shoes, cardboard, tarps and bikes - crammed on his balcony. The debris was stacked 24 inches (61 centimetres) above the balcony railing."

"More than 1,200 residents, many suffering physical and mental health ailments, were displaced from their homes for weeks and months."

For your viewing pleasure google has a collection of the images appropriately called "HOARDERS"

Life / Multiracial Poles [154]

You are all wrong; I just learned the real truth about the races. It is described here:


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermatism

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermatyzm

Crow's Pannonia stories are not even close to this! :-)

The sad thing is that he was a very talented artist, who lost all his immense collection of works in Poland in 1939 - through NAZI bombing and thievery of his countrymen. Whatever was left was never returned to him by Polish communist governments, notwithstanding his multiple approaches to Polish museums, Ministry of Culture, Artist Union, UN agencies, friends and Polish Embassy in USA. He died in 1987, in considerable poverty.

His American friends, acting in agreement with his friends and family, scattered his ashes and his wife, Joan Lee on Easter Island.

Language / Spend more time on Polish verbs or nouns? [8]

Which lexemes are more frequent: verbs or nouns? NONE. Below is a proof by example. :-)

There are many lexical frequency analyzers for most world languages - both amateurish and professional - including Polish. I just picked one from PWN, korpus.pwn.pl/stslow_en.php

Word frequency in the demonstration corpus - top 200


Shown here are only the first two dozen or so lexemes, to give you some idea how it works. This is a simplified presentation. Each triad is made of: (rank frequency lexeme). Original list shows both combined inflected and individual inflected forms. Here are shown just the combined forms. The first noun on the list is "rok" (including "r.") - appearing not until the 21st rank. "Być" (3) and "mieć"(16) both precede it.

The list of most frequent verbs is quite interesting since most people would agree that they are the most important verbs: być, mieć, móc, wiedzieć, mówić, chcieć, musieć, powiedzieć, zostać.

The similar list of nouns looks to me almost random: rok, czas, człowiek, praca, pan, przykład, dzień. I could probably go away without half of them here. :-)

In conclusion - by being professionally skewed "functional programmer" (as opposed to "object oriented programmer") - I vote for the actions, the functions, the VERBS. :-)

============

(1 120000 w) (2 95966 i) (3 78003 być) (4 76694 się) (5 65960 z) (6 62634 na) (7 56899 nie) (8 53257 on) (9 43683 do) (10 41122 ten)
(11 37244 to) (12 31640 że) (13 28656 a) (14 24090 który) (15 23882 o) (16 21693 mieć) (17 18572 jak) (18 16497 tak) (19 16388 ja)
(20 16160 co) (21 15730 rok)

.... continue but ignoring anything but nouns and verbs:

(26 11975 móc) (38 7965 wiedzieć) (41 6941 czas) (42 6941 człowiek) (44 6567 praca) (47 6459 mówić) (54 5662 pan) (65 4973 chcieć) (67 4880 musieć) (74 4650 powiedzieć) (75 4644 przykład) (77 4613 dzień) (79 4461 zostać)

FILTERED:

Verbs: (3 78003 być) (16 21693 mieć) (26 11975 móc) (38 7965 wiedzieć) (47 6459 mówić) (65 4973 chcieć) (67 4880 musieć) (74 4650 powiedzieć) (79 4461 zostać)

Nouns: (21 15730 rok) (41 6941 czas) (42 6941 człowiek) (44 6567 praca) (54 5662 pan) (75 4644 przykład) (77 4613 dzień)

History / Księga Elbląska (the Prussian city of Elbing legal document) [8]

Mods: should not this stuff go to History section, rather than to Genealogy, Ancestry?

Galloglaich:
Thank you for your explanation of Landfried.

Yes, I realized that value of coins change with time and locality - but not that much as 1 grzywna=3 skojec vs 1 grzywna=24 skojec. There must have been some other reason for such difference. And then I remembered that Copernicus was trying to reform money in Prussia and in Poland. So I searched.

I think you should be pleased to find several writings on money by Nicolaus Copernicus, at copernicus.torun.pl
The archives are translated from German/Latin to Polish/English and transcribed to Latin. Unfortunately there are some mismatches between Polish and English archives, so you probably need to study all his 3/4 writings to figure out where the stuff matches.

I started with the Polish version of "Modus cudendi monetam", and it quickly shows discrepancies between old "grzywna" and the "new" one. The simple reason is this: less silver, much more copper. The corresponding paragraphs where this explanation starts are shown below: in Latin(1) and in Polish(2).

boletus
=======
1. Modus cudendi monetam - Zasady bicia monety (1519-1522) - Polish section, Latin transcript


2. Modus cudendi monetam - Zasady bicia monety (1519-1522) - Polish section, Polish translation


3. Modus cudendi monetam (1519-1522) - English section, Latin transcript
This seems to be exactly the same as 1 above

4. Modus cudendi monetam (1519-1522) - English section, English translation
But this seems coming from completely different source.

History / Księga Elbląska (the Prussian city of Elbing legal document) [8]


Actually I am not sure whether it was a coin at all. I saw a picture of "grzywna" that looked like an elongated silver ingot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grzywna_(unit). It was basically a unit of mass, approximately half a pound. I saw it ranging from 189 grams (Chełmno, Kulm) to 280 grams (Moravian and Viennese), depending both on locality and time.

On the other hand, there is a nice article about early Polish coins, where they clearly state that:


As you see, here is a source of another numerical confusion.


I am not going to take any credit for the factual data, because I know very little about the subject. I am only a facilitator. And a confused one sometimes. For example, as you will see below, I remain confused about "skojec" ("szkojec"), as two different sources give thwo different values for it: 1/24 vs. 1/3 of "grzywna". Someone must have made horrendous mistake, I think the error was in translation of "Najstarszy Zwód Prawa Polskiego."


As you will see from the second part of my post, the fines were actually smaller than nominal and the judges were often quite lenient.

Punishment for rape
[Polish text below uses the word "zniewolona", which directly translates into "enslaved", but it actually mean "raped", I think.]


During this period, the normal punishments for most crimes, as prejudicial to the good of the individual, were only private ones. Public punishments were the exceptions. However, it is believed that during Middle Ages, the protection of women was increased, in the sense that they enjoyed the blessings of the "mir" (peace) concept, which introduced public punishment alongside the private one. In this case, it would be a personal "mir".

(*) trzysta = 300 in Polish. See explanation below

Explanations regarding penalties:


The speculation here is that the offender could be even killed by her protectors, unless he made some sort of payment or married her.

News / Polish Independence Day-Beware? [59]

Is this the same country, are these the same people as those morons in Warsaw?

Gdańsk: gdansk.pl/galeria?f=21170

Poznan: gloswielkopolski.pl/fakty24/wielkopolska/471381,poznan-tlum y-na-obchodach-swieta-niepodleglosci-zdjecia,id,t.html

History / Księga Elbląska (the Prussian city of Elbing legal document) [8]


Check wikipedia - both English and Polish version. The latter has more specific details regarding various mass units and monetary units named "grzywna". Today Hryvnia is the monetary currency in Ukraine.

[For the sake of simplicity I only use singular names for coins, never plural]
As the currency in some countries of Western Europe, known as a "mark":
1 grzywna (Mark) = 4 wiardunek (Ferding) = 24 skojec (Scot) = 60 szeląg (Schilling)= 720 fenig (Pfennig)
1 grzywna (Mark) = 20 grosz (Groschen) = 60 szeląg (Schilling)

From one weight "grzywna" 60 coin pieces were beaten in Prague, or 48 "praski grosz" a.k.a. "czeski grosz" (Prague or Bohemian Groschen).

Grzywna also means "fine" in Polish,
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grzywna_(prawo)

I'll later translate more fragments about rape since you are evidently interested in the the subject. You will find it amazing how small the fine was when peasant woman was raped.

Life / Polish dubbing in movies; why is it so that on polish television all the films are dubbed? [135]


There was no other choice but subtitling for several generations of Poles after WWII : Russian war movies, European classics, American Westerns... Some European movies would be dubbed but never Westerns. That would not be right; imagine a Native American waving his tomahawk and swearing in Polish from the silver screen..

History / Księga Elbląska (the Prussian city of Elbing legal document) [8]


I do not know anything about English translation, but here is what I have learned about it.

Apparently, the manuscript of "Księga elbląska" was lost during World War II.

This document, however, has been printed in 1959, as "Najstarszy Zwód Prawa Polskiego" wyd. Józef Matuszewski, Warszawa 1959. (BTW, "Zwód" means "Spis" in Old Polish)

You can find the book in worldcat,

[Generally some of the world cat books can be downloaded, some can be bought, some can be borrowed. Check it out] . This is just a quick pointer:


There seem to be quite a lot of fragments of that book on internet. For example, here is an article about a rape, which cites the article 17 of "Księga elbląska":


(*) grzywna, an ancient silver coin, worth several denarii, used in Poland and other countries of Europe

Another bunch of articles can be found here: racjonalista.pl/kk.php/s,1367

There are 1,830 references to the book on internet, so you might be lucky to find exactly what you want, even an English translation. I can help you with some fragments if you really need it.

History / Pole, Hungarian, two good friends [58]


I watched some folk dances during Polish Days, last summer in Toronto. One of the ensembles, “Biały Orzeł”/ White Eagle Polish Song and Dance Ensemble of Toronto presented a Gypsy dance, which somewhat resembled a dance shown in your video.

But it was danced by both men and women. It was very dynamic and lasted quite a few minutes. Men - wearing heavy boots (as in your video) - were stamping loudly every few bars or so. Women were dancing bare feet, weaving around those boots. I was so scared for them, but they managed to avoid major injuries. That's an art!

History / Pole, Hungarian, two good friends [58]


Yes, I knew I forgot something really big. Thank you.

History / Pole, Hungarian, two good friends [58]

Playing a devil's avocate a bit. There were few unhappy moments in Polish-Hungarian relations. Luckily, there were only so few that nobody cares to remember them. But to be true to the History, I'll list them here:

1. In 12th c. Hungarian influence also penetrated beyond the Carpathians into the Ruthenian principality of Halich, whose Latinized name first appeared in 1189 as Galicia. It was in that region that Hungarian and Polish interests clashed, although the usually friendly relations quickly led to some compromise. The solution was simple: Andrew II, Leszek II and Leszek I ("the White"; 1194-1227) agreed on it. The second son of the Hungarian king, Kalman, Prince of Croatia at this time, married Salome, daughter of the Polish king. The young couple ruled Halich, thus a dynastic intermarriage solved the problem once again (1215).

2. Korwin, or Matthias Corvinus, (1458 - 90) supported by the Catholic-German faction in Bohemia, became Kazimierz's (Kazimierz IV Jagiellonczyk (1427-1492)) most dangerous rival. Korwin occupied Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia (1468) resulting in an eight-year war. When Podebrad died Kazimierz's eldest son, Wladyslaw, was elected king of Bohemia (1471) and came to a diplomatic agreement with Corvinus in the Peace of Olomouc (Olmutz, 1478); Korwin would keep the territories he had conquered whilst Wladyslaw would rule Bohemia proper. When, in turn, Corvinus died (1490) Wladyslaw was elected king of Hungary (after a brief contest for the crown with his brother Jan Olbracht which soured Polish-Hungarian relationships).

3. Traditional Polish-Hungarian friendship got into controversial issues, when Protestant-spirited revolutionary Hungarian nationalism, sometimes even with Turkish aid, turned against the Habsburgs, and occasionally, Poland appeared as a military aid on the Habsburg side. In the Thirty Years War the faithfully Protestant Gabriel Bethlen (1580-1629), the greatest Prince of Transylvania, and elected king of Hungary, one of the greatest person of Hungarian history; (1613-29) almost occupied Vienna (1619), but his final victory was prevented by George Homonnay, a candidate of the Habsburgs, who appeared in Nothern Hungary with Polish and Cossak troops.

4. It was also paradoxical, that in times when Poles and Hungarians were still looking at each other with traditional sympathy, another great Hungarian and Protestant freedom fighter, Imre Thökö1y, even used the aid of Sultan Mohamed IV (1649-87) to conquer Vienna. Austria was saved by John Sobieski (1674-96) in 1683.

Check this: Andrew Haraszti B.A., B.Ed.,M.A., Eleven Hundred Years of Common Polish-Hungarin History, Polish-Hungarian World Federation Chicago, 1982,
hungarianhistory.com/lib/haraszti.doc

Language / Czego, Czemu, Co, Kto, Jak, Dlaczego? [64]

Take it easy. This was just a joke reflecting on some Polish social realities. :-) So forget it - these are not extra cases. But for the heck of it you may wish to translate from Polish to English those funny "cases": Intymnik, Wygryźnik, £apownik. How would you translate it? Sounds like a fun assignment. :-)

But seriously, aside from your tremendously good attitude to studying Polish grammar, which I very much applaud, you may find it useful to switch sometimes to much simpler methods and follow some fun rules devised just for kids. There are plenty of books and brochures invented to make it easier for primary school children to cope with some grammar or orthographic rules. One of them is here: bibliotekawszkole.pl/inne/gazetki/77/index.php

With all due respect to your sophisticated approach - in order to handle complexity of the grammar rules it is sometimes easier to memorize things using kids' rhymed stories. It may sound stupid, but it is quite useful. For example, I always refer to this little rhyme when I try interpreting the bloody sky colours, when sailing:

"Kiedy słońce krwawo wschodzi,
w marynarzu bojażń rodzi.
A gdy czerwień o zachodzie,
wie marynarz o pogodzie."

The English version is:

"Red sky at night,
Sailor's delight;
Red sky at morning,
Sailor's warning."

There are plenty of useful little rhymes to help coping with Polish grammar rules. For example, the "h" versus "ch" rule is rhymed here:

Kłopotliwe samo "h"
Dość szczególną skłonność ma;
Lubi hałaśliwe słowa:
Huk, harmider, hałasować,
Heca, hurmem, hej, hop, hura,
Hola, horda, hejnał, hulać,
Hasać, halo, hop, wataha..
W tych wypadkach się nie wahaj!

Language / Czego, Czemu, Co, Kto, Jak, Dlaczego? [64]


Bad news. Polish grammar has been recently enriched by three new cases:
Intymnik: Kto? Z kim? Za ile?
Wygryźnik: Kto? Kogo? Za co?
£apownik: Kto? Komu? Ile?

(I hope you have not heard it before)

News / Monument gets erected when a clique rules in a small Polish town [29]


Let me try it again. This latest issue I posted has nothing to do with the Kaczyński's bust in the city of Wołomin. This is about an art exhibition in the city of Toruń. I brought those two issues together to demonstrate the common running theme: the unfair appropriation either of the public space (Wołomin) or the public institution (Toruń). In the first case the people in power disregarded the rules of the city council decision making. In the second case the curator used the artists works under false pretence to illustrate his own private political views, contrary to those of the artists.

There is also a case of General Petelicki, the former commander of the Special Operation Force GROM, who found himself - without his prior knowledge and agreement - a member of a Honorary Committee of so-called Independence March to be taken place on November 11, 2011. Although he is a general supporter of youth patriotic movements, he does not like to have his name to be used for political reasons. Accordingly, he wrote a letter to the March organizers demanding this:


So the common theme at those three cases is: misappropriation of power, misappropriation of intellectual property, misappropriation of a good name.

News / Monument gets erected when a clique rules in a small Polish town [29]


That might be so. :-)
Stanisław Lem, in his "Jak ocalał świat" (How the world was saved), had similar opinion about the world of scientists. :-)


I do not get this. Do you mean you do not like his art as a whole, or you were just irked by this "devoted to the astral myths, problems of celestial bodies"? I am not that particularly fond of the latter expression too, but then who am I to judge the artists? People consider computer art to be art as well, many images artificially created look like "problems of celestial bodies". :-) Look at the output of nonlinear equations, chaos, fractals, and all of this.

In either case, none of the above disqualifies the original these: "Do not mess with my works unless I give you my permission".


Oh by the way, here is his portfolio, English version: robakowski.net/portfolio_ang.html

News / Monument gets erected when a clique rules in a small Polish town [29]


As long as you stay away from insults I am fine, the machine is off.

Blabbering? Let me see who is blabbering, Big Mouth. You need a little lesson in humility, which I am attaching below. Check the facts before opening your mouth. These people do not need any government sponsoring, they are well known and they are fine on their own. I admit, I did not know all of them, but I at least knew about Berdyszak, Bednarski and Robakowski. You, on the other hand, voluntarily admitted to complete ignorance about contemporary art in Poland. But that did not stop you from expressing your blabbering opinion. Here, I said it.

No other comments, other than I would be pissed off too if someone tried to twist my work to his ideology without my permission. And it does not matter, whether it comes from right, left, or from some other sect. I do not try to stop the curator of that museum from believing in his little green space beings, or whatever. This is not about his personal believes. But again, you did not care to read my text with comprehension, you just like to talk.


Marcin Berdyszak,14 exhibitions, professor and currently rector of Poznań Art Academy (ASP):

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcin_Berdyszak

Krzysztof M Bednarski, a sculptor, lives and works in Warsaw and Rome, about 24 individual exhibitions 1978-2008 in Poland and abroad, 14 permanent exhibitions in most Polish Museums, culture.pl/baza-sztuki-pelna-tresc/-/eo_event_asset_publisher/eAN5/content/krzysztof-m-bednarski

Hubert Czerepok, a visual artist, 21 individual exhibition, 40-50 collective exhibitions in Poland and abroad:

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Czerepok

Ryszard Grzyb, a painter, a poet, a graphic designer, 6 exhibitions in Poland and abroad:

culture.pl/baza-sztuki-pelna-tresc/-/eo_event_asset_publish er/eAN5/content/ryszard-grzyb

Józef Robakowski, Professor of PWSTViT in £ódż, art historian, photographer, author of movies about art, author of videos, drawings, installations, objects, conceptual projects and initiator of many important events and artistic activities. Presents a series of photographs devoted to the astral myths, problems of celestial bodies. He deals with the analysis of the media, their use for art. Associated with the avant-garde.

16 collections in Poland and abroad, 8 experimental short documentaries, 5 photographic cycles, 6 installations and objects, 5 documentaries about art.

culture.pl/kalendarz-pelna-tresc/-/eo_event_asset_publisher/L6vx/content/jozef-robakowski-fotografia-astralna

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Józef_Robakowski

Aleksandra Ska, forms of expression: the object, installation, photography. Several exhibitions

culture.pl/kalendarz-pelna-tresc/-/eo_event_asset_publisher/L6vx/content/aleksandra-ska-siedmiomilowa-kura

Marek Wasilewski is an artist, editor and writer.Marek Wasilewski is a graduate of Fine Arts in Poznan (1993) and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London (1998). He is currently Professor of Fine Arts in Poznan. He has lectured at universities in the United States and Great Britain. The British Council Scholar (1997-98), Fulbright (2000), Minister of Culture (2002), the Kosciuszko Foundation (2002-03). She practices the art of photography and video. He is currently editor of Czas Kultury and Zeszyty Artystyczne journals published by the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan.

culture.pl/kalendarz-pelna-tresc/-/eo_event_asset_publisher/L6vx/content/marek-wasilewski-gracze

News / Monument gets erected when a clique rules in a small Polish town [29]

This "bust affair" was an example of unfair, or even scandalous, appropriation of public space.

Here is even more drastic example, when not only the public space is being appropriated but also a public institution. To make a long story short here is an open letter from six artists:

Open letter to Paweł Lubowski, the Director of the Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) - Signs of the Times, in Toruń, and Kazimierz Piotrowski, the curator of the exhibition "Thymos. Art of Wrath ",

We the undersigned artists, participating in the exhibition "Thymos, Art of Wrath 1900-2011" in Toruń's Centre for Contemporary Art - Signs of the Times, wish to protest against the unfair use of our work by the curator of the exhibition Kazimierz Piotrowski. Knowing his achievements as a curator and art critic we agreed in good faith to participate in the exhibition organized by him. We have not agreed, however, for the exhibition to serve as a pretext for uttering conspiracy theories related to both world of art and politics. We do not want our participation in this exhibition to be understand as a support for the views expressed by the curator. The interpretation of the exhibition presented by him violates, in a drastic means, the autonomy of the artistic works, which is particularly important for the works of the diseased artists.

Respecting all kind of different views and supporting freedom of their expression we oppose using our works for proclamation of unambiguously political and xenophobic theses.

Undersigned:

Krzysztof M. Bednarski
Marcin Berdyszak
Hubert Czerepok
Ryszard Grzyb
Józef Robakowski
Aleksandra Ska
Marek Wasilewski

Excerpt:
The guide says: "When we examine the causes of the tragedy in Smolensk on 10 April 2010, one of the images which we see, is a secret network of relationships and interests, the alliance scrutinized and waiting for the scrutiny, the alleged activity of special services - in a word, the operation game of dossiers and agencies.

- Do you think that President Kaczynski was killed as a result of a conspiracy?

- I belong to a group of suspicious beings. I believe in the theory about the assassination, that most pessimistic scenario. The Toruń's exhibition wishes to show the scale of anger that was born after April the 10th - to present that it is still alive. You can of course discuss whether I am right. I encourage you to do so.

News / Polish hero pilot lands 767 without wheels. (Warsaw) [191]


Slightly off-topic: Chuck Yeager says many times in his autobiography, that one of the reasons they had to dump fuel on approach to dry lake beds, was to avoid crashes due to flimsy landing gear of their Bell X-1.

News / Poland Parliament elections in October 2011 [944]

Yes, but Lec was actually a good poet. Do you want to hear a sample?