Life / Tell me about Northeastern Poland [29]


Some do go there, amd a lot of Warsaw people.

A beautiful place. Bohoniki and Kruszyniany are both very worth visiting.

I like that bit further west around Liw (where I'd happily live).

Life / Drugs in Warsaw [111]

An interesting article about drug use in pre-war Poland. Apparently ether was the drug of choice:
"The scale of consumption is revealed also by police data on smuggling. In 1934, Polish border guards confiscated 757 kg of ether. The following year the seized contraband came to 1,656 kg, reaching 1,670 kg in 1936"

medpagetoday.com/primarycare/obesity/90142

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


Capitalism has caused this.


Or just identifying a growing phenomenon.

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


Young male despondency has always been around; the internet has however enabled it to a new level.

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


The internet has proved to be an ideal festering ground for them to self-deine and organise.

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


The comedy and tragedy is that some of them probably believe the stuff they're coming out with!

History / History of Polish-Russian relations [186]

Very worth reading:
"This "politicised spam" is one of the most prominent features of Poland's domestic information landscape on Facebook."
fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/documents/sio_disinformation_polish_military_0.pdf

As well as this one:
"Polish extreme-right and pro-Russian political movements, the Russian and Polish media inspired by the Kremlin propaganda, as well as trolls on the Internet started using two new narratives during the electoral campaign before this year's elections in Poland. "

globallab.org.pl/2019/10/25/kremlin-narrative-during-polish-elections-jews-and-lgbt/

Life / Tell me about Northeastern Poland [29]

The seventeenth century Mosque in Bohoniki has just been restored. It looks great and is very worth visiting:
tvn24.pl/bialystok/bohoniki-zabytkowy-meczet-przejdzie-remont-5024102?fbclid=IwAR2InI8mAm-1AvnrWDZvAsixZOY-7t5TGqalYEqtZdqjONVcQUGiRX1Ww8g

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History / History of Polish-Russian relations [186]

"To top it all, Polish public television - TVP, which ordinary Poles dub "TVPiS" because of its control by the government - is little more than a propaganda machine, shamelessly stealing ideas from Russia."

ecfr.eu/article/polarus-in-the-making-how-the-polish-government-is-learning-from-russia/

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


A similar sort of psychology. More worrying in the young though.

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


If there's a market, somebody will fill it. It certainly isn't only women doing it either.


One thing that seems to characterise incels is a lack of humour and unhealthy level of introspection. The lockdown won't have improved this.

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


He told you wrong; it's always easily on offer with no strings ever attached and you don't have to buy them flowers.

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1050]


I have a request for you.

Life / Polish Music. [303]

Remonds me of this. Not Polish, but very good:

youtu.be/JoYPmACfOEw

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


Spot on. Everything that everybody does ever is a reaction to something that somebody else doesn't like,


Yes, however not everybody is called Pankhurst

Life / Polish Music. [303]

That is ******* excellent.

Poland won't throw out a Sufjan right now, it won't catch the synthesis with American rap that some west African artistes (Hamzo Bryn, Taleb Latimore, similarities with this) have, however there's an authenticity here and real quality. This is great!

There's finally a bridge between Lady Pank's Zawsze tam, gdzie Ty (which I like but some people think is ****) and something Now.

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


The war of the sexes...

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


Some don't. I've known some foul looking men who I'd not shag after 10 or more pints however their philosophy is that if they hit on 1000 women in a creepy way, they'll get at least one orgasm off one.

History / History of Polish-Russian relations [186]


Perhaps in some ways, true patriots...


Wanting the best.


You're a long way from being one of those.

Life / Paintings of artists from Poland? [192]


I keep looking back at that picture and know pwoplw here who look like that today. There's a bit of Greta Thunberg in that picture.

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


Good. They've been disempowered in most other ways so who can blame them?

Incels and other misogynists, that's who...


Probably.

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


That's what they want to do, blame women and make women feel bad. It's basically a psychological construct to describe a developing phenomenon. Stella Gibbons wrote about a character like that in her best known novel, back in the 40s. She described him as 'Lawrentian' (after DH Lawrence). An old lady in my village knew DH Lawrence when he was young (she was from the same place) and used to say that he was creepy with women and used to make her uncomfortable when he came into the shop where she worked if nobody else was in.

They can't cope with women being independent and not beholden to losers.


And it shouldn't.

Love / Incels in Poland [299]


I've seen this in action. The women run things in matriarchal societies while the men lie around chatting and smoking weed/cigs.

There's still a very codified male hegemony rooted in tradition and very strong. Several of my female undergraduates told me that they couldn't wait for their first divorce (in a country that has a near 100% divorce rate and strict rules about the first marriage) so they could go travelling and see other places.


Ever since I moved there for 3 years, I've had the strong feeling that if/when everything goes to sh1t, they'll be the resilient ones. I couldn't survive on nothing in a hostile environment (unless I copied them and got it right), and probably you couldn't either.

History / History of Polish-Russian relations [186]


You can bet your bottom dollar that some of his staff do. As do people who work in the dark for the PiSuarzy.

So do quite a few journalists and academics. Something from here once made its way to a foreign newspaper.

Life / Paintings of artists from Poland? [192]

Here's a painting by the abstract minimalist Robert Olszowski (1969- ). He's from Paczkow and it's possible to buy his works online.

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  d811f27390cde8c03f44.jpg
  

History / History of Polish-Russian relations [186]


China is the elephant in the room. It's the newly risen superpower, getting much more powerful rather than less (and this likely to continue for a long, long time), and has a long border with Russia.

History / History of Polish-Russian relations [186]


That's my feeling too.


They keep on throwing up wild-eyed prophets. Gapon, Rasputin and before even. Now there's this freak, Zhirinowsky and several others.

Food / Is brain-damaging vegan fad growing in Poland? [176]


Me too, however plant-based foods are not new, and when it comes to processed foods (which this is about in the shops), it's probably better to have something good rather than, say, mechanically separated chicken products.

Food / Is brain-damaging vegan fad growing in Poland? [176]

Looks like it's getting more popular here.

"Sales of vegan substitutes for meat products in Poland increased by 107% in volume and 138% in value last year. Meanwhile those of plant-based alternatives to dairy rose by 50% in volume and 44% in value."

notesfrompoland.com/2021/02/19/sales-of-plant-based-meat-alternatives-doubled-in-poland-last-year/

History / History of Polish-Russian relations [186]


It's a vast country with many people living wretched lives. It incubated individuals like that.


I wish I had your optimism. It's more likely to break up into fiefdoms like Bashkortistan.