News / Poland building an empire (instead of a nation)? [67]


Yes. Money, like literature, is a promise of some substantiality beyond its accidental currier.

But what is that promise? What is the believe? What is this kingdom that people want to reach by it?

News / Poland building an empire (instead of a nation)? [67]


piece of literature, but instead of letters you write it in digits, mostly zeros at the end and one at the front.

News / Poland building an empire (instead of a nation)? [67]


Ferdinand de Saussure's terminology originally applied to Linguistics. If you want to impress us then coin your own terms.

News / Poland building an empire (instead of a nation)? [67]

Consumptionomics: Asia’s Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the Planet, by Chandran Nair

...Throughout the book, Nair evinces an angry disdain for western-style capitalism, which he regards as setting the world on a path to destruction by its devotion to the ideology of markets and its voracious appetite for finite resources. He’s none too complimentary either about its media cheerleaders, including this newspaper [The Financial Times].

“The biggest lie of all is that consumption-driven capitalism can deliver wealth to all,” he writes. “In Asia it can only deliver short-term wealth to a minority; in the long term, it can only deliver misery to all. This is the intellectual dishonesty at the heart of the model the west has peddled to Asia.”...

News / Poland building an empire (instead of a nation)? [67]

Whistling in the wind?



Consumption has been the fuel that has driven the engine of global capitalism. The recent financial crisis has seen the West's leading economists and policy makers urging Asia to make a conscious effort to consume more and thereby help save the global economy. This is a view shaped by conventional wisdom which conveniently refuses to acknowledge both the unpleasant effects of consumption and the limits to growth. Consumptionomics argues that this blinkered view needs to be replaced by a more rational approach to the challenges of the 21st century. If Asians aspire to consumption levels taken for granted in the West the results will be environmentally catastrophic across the globe. Needless to say it will also have significant geopolitical impacts as nations scramble for diminishing resources. Asian governments and leaders find themselves at a crossroads. They may either continue on the current, unsustainable path of Western-style consumption-led capitalism, disregarding the evidence, or they may realize that they hold the unenviable responsibility of leading the world to a more sustainable path. The solutions will entail making sensitive political choices and adopting certain forms of government to effect such a fundamental change of direction. This will all fly in the face of current ideological beliefs rooted in free market capitalism. But if Asia is willing to take on this responsibility it will help to save the planet whilst reshaping capitalism.

ft.com/cms/s/2/ef1ff21c-2a62-11e0-804a-00144feab49a.html#axzz1DDlGiIGF

What are your views?

Love / Arabs: "Polish women are easy and stupid" [132]


Other special aromas which are the identifying signatures of slavic and not so slavic people?

News / Poland building an empire (instead of a nation)? [67]


The purpose of reading is to connect the ideas on the page to what you already know. If you don't know anything about a subject, then pouring words of text into your mind is like pouring water into your hand. You don't retain much.

The Warsaw Voice article: Polish and Ukrainian Leaders Discuss Development of Strategic Partnership

Love / POLISH GIRLS... wake up and prove you are respectable.... [135]


Would you rather they made out with very clean... who?

News / Poland building an empire (instead of a nation)? [67]

Poland building an empire?

Empire?

I think empire is like war. It is a recurrent human practice. Indeed, it's still with us in various forms, though we may be unaware of it. While we may hate war, we should hate war, we still want to study it, we need to study it, and the same applies to empire. It's difficult, it's often horrible, it's deeply contentious, but that is precisely, why we need to look at it more. More knowledge, less ignorance.

I do not understand why this constant talk about Poland being an empire comes back again and again. Throughout the history of Poland there were no homegrown empires. If you refer to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it was a republic with a king as its head; democracy, however limited to one class, that is szlachta - roughly 10% of the population; and with Latin as its official language.

If you compare Poland to any colonial empire, say, French or English, you should take into consideration that they may be some day persuaded to pay the reparations to African countries for the destruction of that continent. So do not put Poland in the same club. Poland was not an imperial power, but people living in Poland were very much victims of imperialism transferred to Europe during the last war. Do not forget about it. Now you can feel how the imperialism tastes.

News / Poland goes bankrupt? [110]

There are two threads one above the other:

"Poland could emerge as new European and world power.
"Poland is going bankrupt"

Which one is true? Maybe both?

"I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet"

Stanisław Lem

History / Poland obliged to make war reparations to Austria and Germany after WWI. Why? [119]


You will find them in the book.

History / Poland obliged to make war reparations to Austria and Germany after WWI. Why? [119]

Adam Zamoyski is a British historian not Polish. So he is objective.
adamzamoyski.com

History / Poland obliged to make war reparations to Austria and Germany after WWI. Why? [119]


No, he is not. The Polish folk proverb says:
Czyj chleb jesz tego piosenkę śpiewasz.

News / Die Welt-Poland and Germany are the economic driving force of Europe [239]


Be more creative. There are more -izms than are dreamt in your philosophies.

You can add -ism to practically any word. Try it, and you will see that there is lots of space between trivial ideologies of today.

News / Die Welt-Poland and Germany are the economic driving force of Europe [239]


Do not bother.

Po polsku / Polak/Polka stulecia [32]


A Skłodowska Curie!!! Dwie nagrody Nobla? Żaden chłop nie dostał nawet jednego Nobla w naukach ścisłych. Chłopy dostały Nobla tylko za jakąś babską poezję czy prozę, ale i tu Szymborska była ostatnią z wielkich.

History / How Polish history is viewed by other countries textbooks [124]


Frogish?

History / How Polish history is viewed by other countries textbooks [124]

If you can play some Chopin on the piano, is it easier for you to play, knowing that he was French or Polish? A stupid question? I need a wise answer!

History / How Polish history is viewed by other countries textbooks [124]

Mickiewicz used to write foreign names in Polish spelling: Childe Harold figures in his poetry as Czajld Harold, Cicerone as Cziczerone. Similarily Donna Giovanna became Donna Dziowanna and so on.

With regard to foreign names, the Polish language follows the rules of the language from which they are derived, and would thus appear to be more tolerant than the English.

History / How Polish history is viewed by other countries textbooks [124]


Full Polish Spirit!

History / How Polish history is viewed by other countries textbooks [124]


For where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also

History / How Polish history is viewed by other countries textbooks [124]


O tem że dumać na paryskim bruku,
Przynosząc z miasta uszy pełne stuku,
Przeklęstw i kłamstwa, niewczesnych zamiarów,
Za poznych żalów, potępieńczych swarów!

Biada nam, zbiegi, żeśmy w czas morowy
Lękliwe nieśli za granicę głowy!
Bo gdzie stąpili, szła przed nimi trwoga,
W każdym sąsiedzi znajdowali wroga,
Aż nas objęto w ciasny krąg łańcucha
I każą oddać co najprędzej ducha.

What can be my thoughts, here on the streets of Paris,
when I bring home from the city ears filled with noise,
with curses and lies, with untimely plans,
belated regrets, and hellish quarrels?

Alas for us deserters, that in time of pestilence,
timid souls, we fled to foreign lands!
For wherever we trod, terror went before us,
and in every neighbour we found an enemy;
at last they have bound us in chains, firmly and closely,
and they bid us give up the ghost as quickly as may be.

History / How Polish history is viewed by other countries textbooks [124]


Watch the video. Here goes an interesting part of the presentation:

Let's look at why at the end of the nineteenth century Lithuanian nationalism develops.

Who spoke the Lithuanian language? It was spoken by the peasants. At the end of the nineteenth century, you've suddenly got all these Lithuanian intellectuals and grand dukes and priests and various people saying, "Wait a minute. We are Lithuanians and happily, the Lithuanian peasantry has saved our language." The last Lithuanian duke who spoke Lithuanian died before Columbus discovered America, Tim Snyder informed me. Some may say, "These Lithuanian peasants, we won't treat them anymore as the scum of the earth. They have preserved our language for us." Suddenly, you have poets writing in Lithuanian. It's no longer a disgrace to be seen as a Lithuanian. One of these poets, a guy called Kudirka, who died in 1899, he recalled when he was in school as a smart Lithuanian kid, he said, "My self preservation instinct told me not to speak in Lithuanian and to make sure that no one noticed that my father wore a rough peasant's coat and could only speak Lithuanian. I did my best to speak Polish, even though I spoke it badly."

Kudirka's story (continuation):

"When my father and other relatives visited me, I stayed away from them when I could see that fellow students or gentlemen were watching." He was embarrassed to be basically Lithuanian and the son of a Lithuanian peasant. "I only spoke with them at ease when we were alone or outside. I saw myself as a Pole and thus as a gentleman. I had imbibed the Polish spirit." By the end of the century he sees himself as a Lithuanian. He is one of these people who are pushing Lithuanian nationalism and it is embraced. How does this physically happen? You don't wake up and say, "I was Polish yesterday and a subject of the czar, because Poland is divided between Prussia, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. But if you were in the Russian part of what they called Congress Poland, then suddenly today I'm Lithuanian. How does that happen? Because Lithuania is next to Germany. This is also something that will make you again think of what I said about the Enlightenment..

History / How Polish history is viewed by other countries textbooks [124]


Not only that, my dear friend! He invented the concept himself and put it into practice.

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7a6j17VWhBc

...national identities are constructed. They're invented. They're, in a way, imaginary. One of the most interesting sort of historical things you could do as an historian is to try to figure out, from where do these identities come? Language plays a lot of it.

History / How Polish history is viewed by other countries textbooks [124]

Oh yes, he was:

O Lithuania, my country, thou art like health; how much thou shouldst be prized only he can learn who has lost thee.

News / Die Welt-Poland and Germany are the economic driving force of Europe [239]


The Kingdom of Heaven!

History / How Polish history is viewed by other countries textbooks [124]


So they couldn't stand to be German and French. Why did they prefer to be Polish? What is so attractive in being Polish? If you answer that question successfully, you will find the key to promote Poland abroad.

Language / Are the languages of Russian and Polish similar at all? [94]


Look! There is no mistake.

Language / Are the languages of Russian and Polish similar at all? [94]

1. (Russian понедельник (poniediélnik),
Bulgarian понеделник (ponedelnik),
Polish poniedzialek,
Czech "pondělí"

Common to all slavic languages since the times of two saint brothers: Cyril and Methodius. Saint Cyril and Methodius's work in Moravia became the foundation of Slavic civilization in eastern and south-eastern Europe.

2. Slavic languages samolot/samolet for airplane represent a clear-cut case of loan-translation. Other slavic languages have other words, eg. in Serbo-Croat an airplane is called avion: a loan-shift (Latin, avis, aviarium), the same as in French.

3 mozna/mozhet

One of many words common for all slavic languages. Words of the same origin in other, non-slavic languages:

- magan - Gothic, Old High German, Old Saxon and Old English languages;
- may - English;
- mogen - Dutch;
- mögen - German;
- må - Swedish.

4 morze/more - an "originary word":

O.E. mere "sea, lake, pool, pond," from P.Gmc. *mari (cf. O.N. marr, O.S. meri "sea," Du. meer "lake," O.H.G. mari, Ger. Meer "sea," Goth. marei "sea," mari-saiws "lake"), from PIE *mori-/*mari "sea" (cf. L. mare, O.C.S. morje, Rus. more, Lith. mares, O.Ir. muir, Welsh mor "sea," Gaulish Are-morici "people living near the sea").

5. noc/noch - - an "originary word":

O.E. niht (W.Saxon neaht, Anglian næht, neht), the vowel indicating that the modern word derives from oblique cases (gen. nihte, dat. niht), from P.Gmc. *nakht- (cf. O.H.G. naht, O.Fris., Du., Ger. nacht, O.N. natt, Goth. nahts), from PIE *nok(w)t- (cf. Gk. nuks "a night," L. nox, O.Ir. nochd, Skt. naktam "at night," Lith. naktis "night," O.C.S. nosti, Rus. noch', Welsh henoid "tonight").

6. chleb/hleb

Common for slavic and german languages (present-day word brot/bread is later):
- Gothic - hlaifs
- Old Norse - hleifr
- Old English - hlaf
- Old High German - hleip
- German - leib
- English - loaf

The old English hlaf is present in today's word lord, originaly hlafweard, i.e., "one who guards the loaves," from hlaf "bread, loaf" + weard "keeper, guardian, ward."

7. czlowiek/chelovek - a word common for all slavic languages.

Probably a composite word *kil-o-woik-o-s - adult, being of mature age, of whole age. Source: Bańkowski etymological dictionaray.

8. uszy/ushi "originary word":

"organ of hearing," O.E. eare "ear," from P.Gmc. *auzon (cf. O.N. eyra, Dan. øre, O.Fris. are, O.S. ore, M.Du. ore, Du. oor, O.H.G. ora, Ger. Ohr, Goth. auso), from PIE *ous- with a sense of "perception" (cf. Gk. aus, L. auris, Lith. ausis, O.C.S. ucho, O.Ir. au "ear," Avestan usi "the two ears").

Po polsku / Młodzi polscy prozaicy - kogo polecacie? [66]

Nic nowego, sam antykwariat. Oto pozycje z lamusa:

Sól ziemi Józefa Wittlina i Szkice piórkiem Andrzeja Bobkowskiego. Trochę historii i bardzo dobra literatura.