News / Future of Polish-Ukrainian relations [669]


Yes the three countries (Czech, Slovakia, Poland) are all better models than Russia


Not much in the ways of useful models there...

UK, Ireland / Ireland and Poland - ways of struggling for independence [43]


they self-identify as muslims but many others don't accept them as such (kind of like mormons and christianity or ahmadis and islam in pakistan)

my point was that islam sometimes appeals to or helps (at least temporarily) those who need strict guidelines in order to function...

my prediction is that this won't last for her and in a few years she'll move onto something else...

UK, Ireland / Ireland and Poland - ways of struggling for independence [43]


I liked her first album (at least the first I heard of) the Lion and the Cobra) was kind of meh about "nothing compares.." and liked a song or two she did since then..

But ever since the pope picture episode I assumed she was as nutty as a fruitcake (like many musicians)

UK, Ireland / Ireland and Poland - ways of struggling for independence [43]

I've been told that the Nation of Islam (the US group) has a good track record in shaping up members that come from damaged backgrounds...

News / Future of Polish-Ukrainian relations [669]


I don't foresee any major changes... lots of Ukrainians have worked and lived in Poland and seen for themselves that there is a non-Soviet non-Russian way of ordering a Slavic society.

Ukrainians generate remarkably little social tension and the countries are on about as good terms as is probable.
Once a people have learned they can change governments they're not going to be rushing back to Russian style authoritarianism.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


They had their faults (very many) but they were considerably more right wing economically than PiS....

Left and right in Poland most refer to attitudes toward social issues (and even then often indirectly)

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


who further no particular right wing goals and do further center-left goals.... mmmmkay.....


so engaged in pre-marital sex and drug pushing.... so very, very right wing.... if you didn't exist someone would have to make you up

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Admit it... in high school you used to begin essays with "Webster's dictionary defines X as...."

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


A rightwing party that it's favor of massive tax and spend welfare programs, infrastructure boondoggles (regional airport anyone) furthers no particular social conservative goals and oversees (comparitively) large scale migration by non-westerners.... yes. So very, very right wing.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Do you? Within Polish prawica means 'right wing' but that doesn't translate well across languages.

Right wing parties do not usually support entitlement programs like 500 plus or promise to increase infrastructure spending (like Jaki's hilarious subway plans in Warsaw). In any other European country PiS's economic platform would be considered center-left while socially it's kind of right wingish but has consistently failed to further traditional rightwing goals like restricting abortion rights (they are forced to periodically go through the motions but their heart is clearly not in it) or roll back gay rights or make it harder to divorce etc.

Even their refusal to go along with Germany's migrant dispersal program (one of the few things I agree with them about) was based more on traditional emnity against Germany than a principled stand in the war of civilizations. And at the same time they have overseen a very large increase in the non-western (including muslim) population in the country. A friend who was just in Warsaw at an expensive hotel said that the hotel employees who weren't Ukrainian seemed to be from the Indian sub-continent...

So right wing? Not so much. In the European context they are socially conservative Christian Democrats

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

@TWPOscar
yes, formal education says very little about functional intelligence (and a lot of the panic about populist parties like AdF is simple hysteria).

I'm neither left nor right wing, I'm in favor of arrangements that work over arrangements that don't and multiculturalism has a terrible track record and is clearly unworkable and so I'm against it. It's like socialism - it's been tried numerous times and always fails.

Dirk though has a lot of personal baggage in that he's insecure about his status as being Polish (he's more American than Polish but alienated from some aspects of the modern US) so it's hard to resist the temptation to poke him about it here and there and watch him yelp and try to justify himself.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


I've never claimed to be Polish (I'm perfectly fine with my American cultural identity, thank you very much). But I live in Poland and speak and read Polish and have more daily contact with Polish people in Poland than you do Signore Polonia.

Therefore I know that PiS is not 'rightwing' in any meaningful sense, they are essentially socially conservative socialists (with some neoliberalism around the edges) and I also know there is no real equivalent to anything like a strong/far right party in Poland with more than a handful of supporters (sorry, I know you long for an iron cross and a big man to bend the knee to).


I am not below your attainment (just take me behind the barn and give me the Old Yeller treatment the day I fall behind you....)

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Your guesses say a lot about you.... and nothing about me.

The young people I come into contact with on a regular basis are highly educated so I can see how that might confuse you....

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


how so? I don't 'hang out' with Polish youth, but I live in Poland instead of being an occasional tourist....


Which is clearly a lot less than JK was counting on...

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


How are right and left and centrist defined here? Traditionally prawica and lewica don't mean the same thing in Poland as they do in most other countries, there's no real strong right party that can cross the threshhold and hasn't been since LPR's bried heyday.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Did they? PiS is essentially back down to it's default levels (the diehard supporters who have nowhere else to do). Younger people flock to cities if they can and PiS did not do great in cities....

I know a lot more Polish youth than you do, and hardly any of them can stand PiS....

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Doesn't necessarily fit Marcinkiewicz as prime minister, if anything he was a likeable cwaniaczek (sneaky guy who always ends up getting what he wants through devious means) Jerzy Stuhr played a fair number of such characters (the lead in Miś too)

But after his split from his incredibly stupid and lazy second wife he just seems like a loser, when I see him on TV trying to make a serious point I think of the infamous video of him naked on the toilet yelling at her to get a job... his dignity is gone..... probably never to return.

I've noticed throughout the day on a couple of news portals that the idea that PiS has been weakened keeps getting stronger... IINM there's probably a game of thrones going on behind the scenes and I wouldn't be surprised if a number of high profile members end up out on their keisters, apparently Ziobro's becoming the scapegoal for Jaki's defeat in Warsaw....

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Depending on where that could be important. In the countryside where people would never vote for PO (can't blame them) when they're not happy with PiS the vote swings toward PSL.


She definitely connected with voters in a way that few (of any party) did. I think it might be (hypothesizing a bit...) she reminded people of that bossy aunt who drives everybody crazy but knows how to get things done and when all else fails will help you straighten out your messes (applying a few stern lectures in the process).

Marcinkiewicz was also very likeable. I didn't get it, but he also connected with voters in a way that no other figure did at the time, people liked the scrappy underdog persona (IIRC some British writer used the term 'cheeky chappy' to describe him - I don't know exactly what that means so I'm just putting it out there).

Interesting that PiS tends to downgrade those politicians who actually connect with voters - a kind of anti-meritocracy that's very PRLish.... does anyone actually like Morawiecki? He has some political skills and some of his ideas aren't the worst but.... he has a great face for radio as they used to say.... he's the guy that you hope his seat isn't next to yours when he opens the compartment door on the train.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

One takeaway from this (maybe, subject to further analysis). While PiS still has a lot of support in abstract (500+) terms, individual representatives tend to be deeply uncharismatic and/or disliked. Can anyone think of a PiS politician that people actually like?

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


At first glance it seems that maybe the old East-West divide is being replaced by a countryside-city divide, for PiS to lose in Lublin and Białystok is kind of bigger news than in Warsaw (capital) or Poznań (always the city with the least amount of support for PiS)

Life / Differences between Irish, British, Polish, American and other nations culture, tradition, music - loose talk [241]

I haven't heard all of Ireland's winning entries... but the ones I have heard are amazingly awful... I think they impressed the juries because they were sung in English (in a way that let the juries congratulate themselves for understanding the original).

But in terms of songs and performances, the dreary thing that beat Gorniak was a pile of moose dung...

Is that part of what made 'my lovely horse' so funny? recognition that even trying to lose (as I think may have been happening) Ireland kept on winning?

Life / Differences between Irish, British, Polish, American and other nations culture, tradition, music - loose talk [241]

Who could get irritated by eurovision? Isn't that taking it too seriously? I enjoy it as a one of a kind mutant cultural event (that is it's mutated into something very different than originally planned).

In that way it's a bit like another mutant cultural event - the Superbowl in the US (in which the actual football game is often the least important and interesting part...)

Life / Differences between Irish, British, Polish, American and other nations culture, tradition, music - loose talk [241]


They're hardly alone, lots of countries take Eurovision waaaaaay too seriously. On the other hand, I prefer gentle understated reactions to how weird it is to open mockery.

Life / Differences between Irish, British, Polish, American and other nations culture, tradition, music - loose talk [241]


What could have been....

As a bonus, the sequence here (from 1.15 to .1.56) captures what goes on in my head during interactions with students pretty well....

youtube.com/watch?v=rsISf1HW_nU

My all time favorite Eurovision song remains Bosnia's demented song from 2008 retro Jugoslav new wave?

youtube.com/watch?v=kIRDbmpC2PI

Last year's rapping and yodeling Romanians are way up there too.

Life / Differences between Irish, British, Polish, American and other nations culture, tradition, music - loose talk [241]


A. I lurves me some Eurovision (the weirder and more outlandish the better)

B. No. There's actually a very rich tradition that's been (sadly) abandoned. It's a little like collecting Soul music in the US (from the golden decade) there are always new and interesting things popping up.

Show some of that tolerance you keep banging on about and listen with fresh ears, you might be surprised.

Life / Differences between Irish, British, Polish, American and other nations culture, tradition, music - loose talk [241]


I saw a late 1960s (maybe early 1970s) musical variety show from Jugoslavija on TV Polonia that was primo stuff. Crow's crazy nationalism is maddening but I regret that Jugoslavija has disappeared - I liked it much better than the rag tag places that have taken its place....

I'm also into more folkish efforts. I stumbled onto this in the early 1980s and tried many times to find it in Hungary with no success and then it shows up on youtube...

youtube.com/watch?v=rUJUreiIJqM&list=PL5vf-xjy1OMVUcFbZkqUbS-oYgD0ljpDf

One of the things that made me interested in Poland in the first place was a friend who'd picked up some records (in Indonesia of all places) and gave them to me, there was a czerwone gitary and a compilation from Opole or Sopot (some year in the late 1960s) and "Piosenki o mojej Warszawie" which I loved and have never been able to find here.... though some of the songs are now on youtube , though not always in the versions on the record.... :-(

youtube.com/watch?v=CwgNF7I2Dao

Life / Differences between Irish, British, Polish, American and other nations culture, tradition, music - loose talk [241]


Tell me about it, I would love a vinyl record player. I go to an outdoor flea (and antique) market and see all kinds of interesting old Polish and other east bloc records I would love to digitalize... (yes I like Eastern European pop music from the 1960s through the 1980s..... sue me).

Also when I visit places like Hungary and Romania.... so much obscure weirdness, so little equipement to immortalize it with....

Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]


What would you suggest in its place? There's no other convenient word...

Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]


How do you decline that? It sounds very awkward for Polish....

kogo czego? kim czym? komu czemu?

Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]


Murzyn is a completely normal word and not at all the equivalent of n|gger, except for the ignorant, pejoratives for black people exist in Polish (czarnuch, asfalt and bambus being the most common)