The BEST Guide to POLAND
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Posts by Des Essientes  

Joined: 6 Feb 2010 / Male ♂
Warnings: 1 - O		 Last Post: 10 May 2015
Threads: Total: 7 / Live: 0 / Archived: 7
Posts: Total: 1288 / Live: 386 / Archived: 902

Displayed posts: 386 / page 11 of 13
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Des Essientes   
1 May 2011
Life / Polish movies with English subtitles [87]

anyone know of any medieval movies of poland with eng subs like teutonic knights or the start of poland

There is a recent Polish movie with english subtitles on Youtube called "When The Sun Was A God" that fictionalizes the lives of the progenitors of those that would found the Piast dynasty and Poland.
Des Essientes   
1 May 2011
News / John Paul II's Beatification [134]

Despite ostensible Christianity, Germans had always worshipped pagan gods and Hitler played on those sentiments.

I don't know about "always" but C.G. Jung, for example, saw Nazism as a resurgance of the older faith as his essay Wotan argues.
Des Essientes   
29 Apr 2011
Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [95]

Tuyshegoun Lama

Yes this personage was especially fascinating. Ossendowski portays him as a sort of super-spy. I wonder if Beasts Men And Gods will be made into a film as Rawicz's book was. I don't know if there are any Kalmuk actors working in the film industry that would be up for the task, but it would be very interesting to see this Lama portrayed by one of the popular Asian action stars.

So much for the facts.

There is a biography of Baron Ungern Von Sternberg called The Bloody White Baron which portrays the Baron as a virulent Anti-Semite and so I was surprised by Ossendowski's claim that the Baron was well disposed towards Jews, but I ascribed it to his not having spent much time with Von Sternberg. Ossendowski surely wasn't trying to whitewash this bizzarre warlord in the rest of his account.

And thank you for the link to Don Croner's project, boletus. I am quite excited to learn more about the amazing super-Lama.
Des Essientes   
24 Apr 2011
Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [95]

Antoni Ferdynand Ossendowski

Here is a link to an English translation of his book Beasts, Men and Gods [librivox.org/beasts-men-and-gods-by-ferdinand-ossendowski/] I highly recommend it both as an account of the tumultuous Red vs. White war in Siberia and Mongolia and also as a rich first-hand account of a Pole coming face to face with the magical shamanistic and Buddhistic East.
Des Essientes   
22 Apr 2011
Life / Do you think that Polish people are rude? [951]

English, the idea is not to offend the person, as far as I understood the intention of that practice, right?

Yes I think that the frequent use of euphemisms ostensibly stems from the British aversion for confrontation. Although in many cases the English speaker doesn't really care if they offend but they keep to the practice because of cultural conditioning.

Idea behind that manner of speech is different. Here it is disrespectful to talk like that to the interlocutor, it is usually interpreted as a way to mislead or deceive.

Indeed as E.M. Forster wrote "Suspicion is the sin of the East and Hypocrisy is the sin of the West."
Des Essientes   
22 Apr 2011
Life / Do you think that Polish people are rude? [951]

I was thinking about this characteristic of English language. Compared to German who's cousin it is, it is less open and clear.

English, perhaps due to the Danish and Norman conquests of England, has a larger vocabulary than most languages. An English writer, whose name escapes me, in order to demonstrate this linguistic abundance once described all the dishes offered at a huge banquet and then redescribed them all without repeating a single word. this plethora of words does indeed allow for alot of obfuscation.
Des Essientes   
22 Apr 2011
Life / Do you think that Polish people are rude? [951]

Does the level of politeness in Poland vary from region to region? Here in the USA it does. A young lady attending my university was from the Midwest and upon arrival she greeted and introduced herself to the first people she met on the street and they were quite bewildered, and even contemptuous, because such amiability towards perfect strangers is completely alien to Santa Barbara, where scowls and furrowed brows are very much comme il faut.
Des Essientes   
18 Apr 2011
Life / How is red hair viewed in Poland [37]

I read a translated Lithuanian short story wherein the author claimed that red-hair is extremely rare in that country. If true this seems strange because one would expect countries with many natural blondes to also have many natural red-heads. Has anyone reading this been to Lithuania and noticed a dearth of red-heads?
Des Essientes   
15 Apr 2011
USA, Canada / Are there any Polish people in Florida? [311]

Fisherman49 nevermind Delphiandomine he is the resident troll and his life under the bridge has embittered him.
Des Essientes   
6 Apr 2011
Life / Do you think that Polish people are rude? [951]

This is one Polish American who would rather the Poles be known for something better than thinking rude is a good trait.

You mean "than thinking rudeness is a good trait".

Losing business is stupid.

Being true to oneself is more important than being a faux friendly fake for a few more coins. These Poles are above conforming to the inane "have a nice day" cultural paradigm, and you should be proud of them. Check yourself Stosh. Have you become a crypto-Calvinist? Maybe these Poles are rude to you because you are patronizing without any having any real merit and they see through you.
Des Essientes   
6 Apr 2011
Life / Do you think that Polish people are rude? [951]

If you are third generation Pole and still want Socialism go back to Poland because it isn't going to happen in this country without a war.

Socialism is the most humane system of government on Earth and it will come to all the world eventually and this includes the U.S.A. my country. Don't tell me where to go. You can go to Hell.
Des Essientes   
5 Apr 2011
Life / Do you think that Polish people are rude? [951]

They still want Socialism to take care of them here.

I am a third generation Polish-American and I would like Socialism too. Why have a damn government at all unless it is based on helping the society.
Des Essientes   
29 Mar 2011
USA, Canada / Why are Polish Americans mocked in the American media? [226]

Why are Polish Americans mocked in the american media?
The Polish Americans mocked in the American media are exclusively male. Polish American women are portrayed as desirable such as Kelly Kapowski on Saved By The Bell. Decades ago the ridicule may have been due to Jewish media people getting a bit of revenge for the slights their parents, or grand-parents, suffered at the hands of rude Poles back in Eastern-Europe on market days, but now the Polish-American male as strong and virile, but dumb, is conventional, and it is doubtful that many authoring such depictions are doing so out of Semitic malice. We do tend to grow quite tall and robust here in America. Our vigor is bound to cause some jealousy.
Des Essientes   
24 Mar 2011
Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

might be a slight misspelling when ur ancestors came to America (immigration people did that often)

Immigration people never touched my unpronouncable surname, unpronouncable for English speakers at least, because both pairs of my paternal great-grand-parents immigrated illegally into the USA via ships that docked in Baltimore, and you know what else? I'd sneak into another country too if it suited my fancy, because I don't give a crap about any goddamn laws that say what I can and cannot do. I am the Liberum Veto made flesh!
Des Essientes   
15 Mar 2011
History / Polish pirates [58]

However as we know the biggest pirates in Mediteranean were Berbers and Greeks

The United States of America fought its first overseas war against the Berber pirates from 1801 to 1805.
Des Essientes   
14 Mar 2011
History / Polish pirates [58]

I wasnt allowed toy soldiers or army guns,but,could have toy knights and cowboys and indians and cowboy guns

The school my niece attends bans all toy guns and once one little boy was even sent home for the day because he pretended a bent stick was a gun and "shot" at his classmates!
Des Essientes   
14 Mar 2011
History / Polish pirates [58]

This took me back to primary school,and the assemblies when for some bizzare reason teachers thought it was appropriate for 6 year olds to sing "15 men on a dead mans chest" and "What do you do with a Drunken sailor?".........

My niece attends a rather hippy-ish private primary school here in California and it bans pirate costumes from its Halloween celebrations because pirates still exist, especially in South-East Asian waters, and they are brutal murderers.