Life / Why is Prostitution still legal in Poland? [106]

Although many will argue over whether prostitution should be legal or not, most people, I think, agree that it should be decriminalized. Sending women, or men for that matter, to jail for selling sex for money makes no sense. Incarceration is expensive and negatively impacts families & communities.

Travel / I'm half-Polish and I'm Planning a Trip to Poland - tickets, historical landmarks? [36]

Try the Pimsleur method. You can probably find the instructional CDs at your local library. One hour per day for a few weeks and you'll have the basics in Polish down pat.

Travel / I'm half-Polish and I'm Planning a Trip to Poland - tickets, historical landmarks? [36]

Regarding airlines, my girlfriend flew on LOT and wouldn't recommend it for her worst enemy. Late departure, poor service, etc. When I went to Poland I flew to Berlin and then took a train to Wroclaw...

News / Multi-culti (in Poland) -- roadmap to disaster? [344]

I was born & raised in a large, diverse American city and have always been a minority (so has everyone else actually). And guess what? It's not that bad. We have our problems, of course, but overall steady, controlled immigration brings many positives to our society. Plus, the food is better.

I don't think there's much of a chance of immigrant hordes overwhelming Poland. It's just not a magnet for migrants. But a little color wouldn't hurt either.

Love / Polish girls and American boys (who don't even know where Poland is located ;) [36]

I'm an American guy engaged to a woman from Wroclaw. Although I've dated woman from different ethnicities, my Polish significant other is certainly the most exotic, mainly because she hails from a different culture. Having said that, I've enjoyed learning about Polish culture & history, and love the food (she's an excellent cook). I've even learned basic greetings & formalities in Polish, which came in handy when we visited her family last year.

Olka11, why not try to expose your BF to your culture? He just might develop a new appreciation of you. Good luck.

USA, Canada / Moving from United Kingdom to USA. Is it worth it? [136]

I've traveled to 5 continents and know how lucky we are here in the USA. But having said that, unless you're very wealthy, our quality of life lags behind much of the developed world.

As others have pointed out on this thread, the problem is wealth inequality and the widening income gap. One percent of the US population controls about 24 percent of the national wealth, a number not seen since the late 1920s. Middle-class wages have been stagnant for at least a decade, if not longer.

Frankly, the mood in this country is downright scary. Many Americans are terrified of losing what little they already have. They've jumped onto the Tea Party bandwagon, even though this populist movement is manipulated & control by powerful business elites, who clearly do not represent the best interests of working Americans.

Despite the rhetoric of change & hope, President Obama has done little, if anything, to improve the lives of ordinary Americans. In fact, he's moved from the center to the right, and has allowed the Republicans to frame the debate on the economy, e.g., the current nonsense regarding the debt ceiling. Sure, the national debt is a concern in the long-term, but right now what is needed is job creation, a fact sadly lost on Republicans and most Democrats.

So, if I were an educated & skilled worker looking for someplace new to live, the USA would be the last place on my list.

History / Why did communism in Poland fail? [180]

Why did communism in Poland fail?

Perhaps because many, if not most, Poles were never fully onboard after 1945.

I recently watched (again) Andrzej Wajda's Ashes & Diamonds (1958). Although the film is politically ambiguous, I was shocked that it somehow got past the party censors. If Poland could produce a film like that in the 1950s, then communism as a state ideology was certainly doomed in the long run.

History / Poland and Orientalism [115]

I've read Said's Orientalism and enjoyed it immensely. The problem is that it spawned an entirely new academic field, i.e., colonial or post-colonial studies, that, while worthwhile, has denigrated into post-modern gibberish that essentializes the Other, a catch-all that includes every marginalized & oppressed class or group on the planet.

Another good read in this area in C.L.R. James's The Black Jacobins, an old-style Marxist account of the uprising & revolution in Haiti.

Back on topic: I can see how "exotic" Poland can be viewed from an Orientalist POV by the likes of the Prussian military state. But like others have already pointed out on this forum, even by 19th-century standards, Poland was the most Westernized of the Slavic nation-states, at least its urban class & intelligentsia.

Love / Good looking Polish women with ugly men [416]


I was merely being facetious with my post. Although my GF/fiancee thinks Polish men are "ugly," her first love was a young man from Gdansk, whom she described as "beautiful.". I saw a recent photo of him and he's very good looking...

USA, Canada / Moving from United Kingdom to USA. Is it worth it? [136]

The US economy is in the doldrums. Official unemployment is 9.2 percent but many economists & labor analysts believe the true number is closer to 16 percent. You might be better off in Canada or Australia...

Love / Good looking Polish women with ugly men [416]

I've spent time in Poland with my Polish fiancee. Polish women are indeed beautiful and I think the guys can be handsome, too, especially with those high cheekbones, but they don't do themselves justice with shaved heads and Addidas track suits.

FWIW, my fiancee thinks Polish men are ugly. Once she and her friend were in a cafe in Krakow when they noticed a good-looking guy sitting nearby. "That guy can't be Polish," they said, "he's too cute." Sure enough, he turned out to be Italian.