Life / Is it worth returning to Poland in old age? [168]

Well, although I haven't returned for a visit for many years, I'm still
in touch with acquaintances in Poland and in fact, save for the local
bank or business for example, "Pan"/"Pani", along with the hand kiss,
is rapidly going out of style, unfortunately.

Despite not having gone back, I do manage to stay up to date as much
as I can:-)

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Again, post-War West Germany was chocked full of former Nazis,
often in the same posts as they'd held right before the end of the War,
Camp doctors, for example one Herta Oberhaeuser of Ravensbrueck!

She was actually re-admitted to practice openly in the small North German
town of Bad Segesberg until the late '60's and I had the rare chance to
catch her final interview or so on German TV. When members of the
studio audience in Hamburg were asked their reactions to a former
Concentration Camp physician being allowed to resume her post, one
woman replied, "Oh, but I think those victims were only Jewish children, or?"

The more times change, the more they stay the same.

Life / Problems adjusting in Poland [43]

Ron, speaking solely English in any foreign country is not a panacea!
Poland, much more so than either Sweden or Northern Germany, the Netherlands etc.
doesn't have a plethora of competent bilingual native English speakers. Therefore,
it's really imperative to know at least basic Polish in order to survive...even if you look
like Sean Connery LOL

Language / Use of "Pan/Pani" in Poland vs Other Countries [30]

Depends though, Maf!

Learning another language often means exploring stuff which native speakers might simply take for granted,
for example, how many native Anglophone know (or for that matter even care) that "Good bye!" derives from
"G-d be with you!"??

Same with Pan/pan and Pani/pani.

Off-Topic / A "humorous" aside to US 47th President [31]

I fail to grasp the immediate connection here, jon.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Tacitus is dead right, apropos a post of mine from several weeks prior. The Old Man
was indeed a most adamantly anti-Nazi Lord Mayor of Cologne during the critical years of
the 1930's.

It is ironic therefore that during his initial term in Office, he frequently selected
former top Nazis to fill key cabinet posts, among them, the infamous legal mind who
drafted the Nueremberg Laws, "Dr" Hans Globke. Theodor Oberlaender was also an
Adenauer appointee during the second phase of the Economic Miracle, if memory serves
me correctly. Oops, it might actually have been Erhard, my apologies!

Language / Use of "Pan/Pani" in Poland vs Other Countries [30]

"Pan"/"Pani" is merely a throwback to the earliest development of the Polish language.
What's confusing for foreigners learning Polish is simply that "Pan(i)" alone literally means
"Lord"/"Lady". It's really no more obsequious sounding than any number of European languages
such as French, German, Italian, Romanian among others, which employ a formal or distant
mode when addressing strangers, certainly authority figures.

News / France and Germany plan to flood Poland with illegal migrants. [199]

@Attaboy, jon!
@Joker, go kiss a fish!

News / France and Germany plan to flood Poland with illegal migrants. [199]

Trump wants to discard the establishment in his own way, having claimed oddly enough ever since he first ran for pres.
way back at the end of 2015, that he was always straight, button-down, conventional, as anti-60's as you can getLOL

Even if he never took a toke or smoked even a whiff of weed in his life, his crazed, rogue anti-conventional "business as
usual" approach to statesmanship couldn't be more anti-establishment if it tried.

My point is that Trump's Maga campaign is ever more quickly eroding the bedrock of American democracy, a sort of
nightmarish caricature of every extreme in US-culture on steroids!

Was watching a fascinating Q & A with Eddie Muller on one of my favorite noirs "Double Indemnity" (1943), during which
Muller basically said, paraphrasing liberally here, "Cain essentially boiled down the American personality to a bunch of quick-buck chasing mother f#$%*s who'd
gladly see their own mothers on fire if that were the only way they had of lighting a cigarette."

Kinda fits the current US president now, doesn't it?

News / France and Germany plan to flood Poland with illegal migrants. [199]

Meanwhile allegedly Trump is attempting to mend fences between BREXIT-Britain and
the EU, according to the NYT! The front page shows Tusk, Merz, Macron, and Starmer all
looking with guarded cautiousness into the camera.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

@Rich, as per usual, you're merrily missing the point!

If you ever bothered to read through the Weimar Constitution as compared
with the Nueremberg Laws, the change(s) would knock you cold. First off,
any scholar would tell you, as aforementioned, that for the first time in German
history, the concept of race was introduced into the body law of Germany.

Jews, Roma, homosexuals, political "undesirables" etc. were deemed unfit to
become or to remain German citizens and were therefore to be rendered
stateless, thus removing considerations on their behalf accorded regular
German citizens.

The Weimar Constitution by contrast was modeled on the US-Constitution by
Hugo Preuss, a German constitutional scholar, who among others believed,
perhaps in hindsight naively, that Germany was ready for democratic leadership.

How mistaken they were.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

For one thing, the Nazis completely re-wrote the law governing basic human rights to fit
their own warped philosophy, among them, self defense, since the Nueremberg Laws cf.
with their post-War Basic Law, was ideologically rather than ethically motivated.

News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]

You're projecting again, Joker et al!

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Self-defense is neither "right" nor "wrong", but rather instinctively justifiable.
Somebody comes as either me or my wife and family in order to harm or kill them,
it's either kill or be killed!!

Surely that's nothing I'm proud of any more than a fox is anything other than a fox,
a hippo anything other that a hippo, a human being anything on that what he or she is,
the way we were born.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Easy as victor or stronger power to defend brutal action or rationalize sadism or cruelty! It's ever so much hard to accept
personal responsibility.
Killing in true cases of self-defense might not be legally considered "murder" in the Constitutional or even Biblical sense,
though it's nevertheless wrong!!

News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]

All I'm saying is that it's never acceptable to spew hateful garbage in public, period!
What would have meant admittance to an insane asylum some sixty-seventy-odd years ago,
doesn't even seem to bat an eyelash nowadays.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

I agree with you completely on points #4 and #6.

News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]

@Iron & Rich,

From one "troll" to another, if it's fine to utter hate speech as free speech,
then we all might as well resign from the human race and rent/purchase cages
in our local zoo:-)

Off-Topic / Is Islam a threat to western society? [221]

There's a difference though between so to speak "traditional" Islam vs. "radical" Islam! My apologies for seeming to bandy
words, however, the distinction here might well be a concrete, not merely a semantic, one.

News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]

@Ironside,
According to the Internet, considering that its reportage is accurate (which I take it, much of it is), Braun
is outspokenly anti-Semitic, while apparently denying allegations that part of his family is Jewish.

All blind supporters of their elected leader will naturally claim "FAKE NEWS!" in spades, however, his
outbursts have done little for Poland's public relations any more than the AfD has done for Germany's.

Something to think about.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

In Mallorca for certain!
When I visited there during the late '90's,
much of Southern Spain especially was
loaded with rich Brits, most of whom seemed
almost proud of never having to know a syllable
of SpanishLOL

As with the proverbial "ugly American" right after the War,
most wealthy foreigners figure, however incorrectly, that mullah's
the sole international language! Flash a thick wad in someone's face
and you own them; the thicker, the better.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Except for the French, American, Irish and Italian National Revolution, Rich!

Neither Patrick Henry, Philip Nolan, Geo. Washington, Robespierre, Count Cavore, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Parnell or Eamon de Valera were Jews in
any way, shape or form.

You're merely fueling your ignorance further.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Ahemm, Richie, the Rockefellers, Melons, Carnegies & Morgan's got 'em beat by a country furlong, buddy boy!

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Whaddya expect?

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Oh, Alien! Pay Rich no mind. He's babbling again as usual.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Turkey might well play a decisive role as to whether the EU will let her
become a member state!
And that's not "gobbling", przelotnyptak, it's a serious statement.

Work / Self-employed American living in Poland? Is it possible? [54]

Yes, I gather.
However, as we say, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy!
When refugees first arrived on our shores after WWII, question, what did they leave behind? Answer: Everything
but their accent LOL

Work / Self-employed American living in Poland? Is it possible? [54]

Perhaps English is not his first language.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

The question is if!
The immigration issue in Germany is too good a performer to be taken off the table completely,
at least for the time being.