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Posts by jon357  

Joined: 15 Mar 2012 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 2 days ago
Threads: Total: 76 / Live: 25 / Archived: 51
Posts: Total: 25286 / Live: 15241 / Archived: 10045 		From: Somewhere around Barstow
Speaks Polish?: Not with my mouth full

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jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

tremble in fear, PiS, the end is nigh!

It certainly is.

To quote from the excellent article, which is one of the best assessments of the whole awful situation that has so far been published

(that 50-word limit is a drag, especially if there's something really worth posting that's, say, 70 words)

Law and Justice blends the religious and patriotic rituals of Poland's long history of resistance to foreign oppression with hostility to free-market capitalism and heavy dose of conspiracy regarding machinations of Poland's enemies.... supported by sympathetic smaller parties, ultra-Catholic media, nationalist youth organisations and an assortment of cranks and cynics

A quarter of a century after the end of communism, the alleged hold of communists over the Polish state is still being used as a pretext to deploy communist-era methods to take hold of the Polish state.

jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Law and Justice" is a reference neither to law and order nor social justice, but to the idea that the Polish state itself is lawless and unjust. If the state is illegitimate, the normal rules of political behaviour no longer apply.

When an MP from a party supportive of Law and Justice declared in parliament in November that "The good of the nation is above the law," he received a standing ovation from Law and Justice deputies, includin Jarosław Kaczyński.

One of the very best articles I've seen in the foreign press. From an independent source, very well-written and sums it up perfectly...

All the paranoia, the spite, the historical messianism and points out the anomaly that the person who actually runs the country holds no public office apart from being an MP.

Contempt for the rule of law; the identification of a minority faction with the interests of the nation; the separation of power from office by constructing extra-legal chains of command; demonisation of opponents and purges of state structures; an ideological re-interpretation of history: these are all legacies of communist rule.

theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/16/conspiracy-theorists-who-have-taken-over-poland
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

As has been said here before, don't rely too much on that particular poll.

You just don't want to face the fact that PIS are doing very badly and the situation has only worsened.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]

Like it or not, such is the teaching of the One, Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church

It isn't anything of the sort.

Though good that you wrote it, since it illustrates the sort of dreary rhetoric that has over the last decade caused the RCC in Poland to haemorrhage weekly communicants. That and the deeply unpopular teaching on family planning.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

That comes across like some PRL-era propagandist talking.

In fact PIS have declined in support and credibility since they were elected and Jaro/Macierewicz half stepped out of their shadows.

The election result is a good one and it does very much look like they'll be repeated country-wide.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]

I'd say that you would know Po, since sexual diversity is your favourite subject by far however in fact your knowledge of doctrine is as usual wrong here. That or you're simply trolling.

Focus on the thread, not the posters.
jon357   
15 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Rural voters are clearly not happy with PiS.

Good news and looks like it will be reflected country-wide.

The end of the beginning was a little while ago when they attacked the constitutional court - this is a further step towards the beginning of the end which will of course be the local election disaster.
jon357   
15 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Plus the televangelist TV station and other loss-making enterprises of which he refused to reveal the sources of funding, even at the cost of not getting on the digital platform.
jon357   
15 Feb 2016
News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]

Freemasonry (a long and rich tradition in Poland, by the way) has no organisational opinion on that or any other religious denomination and is not an 'enemy' of any group whatsoever.

Any hostility traditionally came from the other direction however it was refreshing to see the Vatican appoint a chaplain to one of the Italian grand lodges several years back...
jon357   
15 Feb 2016
Love / Valentines Day & Polish men [130]

@Mafektis, that's a very good point.

Anyway, restaurants struggle enough at this time of year with waiters laid off and a quiet time for restaurant suppliers too so no bad thing at all to have a celebration that involves going out and spending some money on a nice meal to lighten up an already miserable month.
jon357   
15 Feb 2016
Love / Valentines Day & Polish men [130]

" is not native to Poland

Nor are you for that matter, however the fact that a tradition originated elsewhere is not any reason at all to reject it. Dzień Kobiet is an example of an imported festival that is enthusiastically celebrated in Poland. Like Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day like your "Burns Night" is not native to Poland and so simply slapping it on the calendar

Who has been "simply slapping" anything "on the calendar"?

for Poles to have to put up with it.

The millions of Poles who celebrated Valentine's Day this year looked like they "put up with it" very very happily indeed.

That's OK. It's hard for some people to own up to the truth

Don't worry - one day you'll find your Valentine. Though evidently not this year...
jon357   
14 Feb 2016
Love / Valentines Day & Polish men [130]

enuine love doesn't need a date on the calendar

And winter "doesn't need" a festival with turkey and robins but we all like Christmas. Summer "doesn't need" a vacation, January "doesn't need" Burns Night, Spring "doesn't need" an Easter - people still choose to enjoy special occasions.

Valentine's Day is indeed trotted out as a way to celebrate heterosexual monogamy

Not only - in fact not at all by a long chalk. It's for anyone who is in love and who is loved. edited

So who really benefits

Spoken as only an unhappily single young person could.
jon357   
14 Feb 2016
Love / Valentines Day & Polish men [130]

The only real beneficiaries are florists and restaurants.

Spoken as only someone who is single possibly could.

to collectively express it.

Who "collectively expresses" anything?

Just a nice day to take one's beloved somewhere nice and very very popular in Poland.
jon357   
14 Feb 2016
Love / Valentines Day & Polish men [130]

allowing in tawdry, tacky, tasteless, plastic kitsch

Do you imagine that everybody (or even most people) of the many millions round the world who celebrate Saint Valentine's Day "wallow" in anything?

turned them into hapless. docile consumers of garbage.

The masses always need an opiate. It used to be religion but that's been going out of fashion a for some time now. Still no need to "wallow" in anything, especially not your "plastic kitsch" - there are much nicer ways to celebrate Saint Valentine's Day. And he in Poland, people like Saint Valentine"s Day.

Google the old tradition of "Cockle Bread" - that would be nice to introduce to Poland and fun for the bakers to help the fair damsels mould the roll....
jon357   
14 Feb 2016
Love / Valentines Day & Polish men [130]

yet another tacky, tawdry pop-culture gimmick designed to down-dumb the gullible

In what way is a festival, one older by the way than Poland itself, a "pop culture gimmick". Certainly a very long lasting "gimmick"

rather than broadening their intellectual horizons and enriching their life with genuine cultural values.

So people shouldn't have fun?
jon357   
14 Feb 2016
Love / Valentines Day & Polish men [130]

All days like that are invented and 'alien' even your Easter is imported

Quite. Easter has been celebrated long before Christianity was ever thought up and all traditions have to start somewhere. People like St. Valentine's Day (Halloween too) and no reason at all to avoid them simply because they're growing in popularity rather than waning.
jon357   
5 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Looks like you don't know too much about stock exchanges. Aside from the fact that very few people outside Poland trade WIG shares, anybody can buy shares on any exchange, including people in Poland who choose to invest in NYSE or LSE traded shares.

fail

A level of inanity entirely normal for PiS supporters.
jon357   
5 Feb 2016
Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

French keyboard

Very easy on an iPad - all you do is one flick for the keyboard language in question (if you want autocorrect and just press and hold a second for the diacritics.

I am waiting

And you'll be waiting a long long time, boy.
jon357   
5 Feb 2016
Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

It is as though they cannot stand to hear anyone speaking their language with a 'foreign' accent.

I think it's a mix of unfamiliarity in hearing the language spoken in a different way and a kind of xenophobic nationalism, treating it like a minority ethnic language rather than one spoken by people in 4 or 5 countries. Less common now in the big cities.
jon357   
5 Feb 2016
UK, Ireland / The "Paracetamol Myth" - Polish people hesitate to visit UK doctors. [51]

(in his view the nurse was in danger of infecting anyone and anything they come into contact w

I doubt she'd been doing personal care in an infectious diseases ward since she wore a uniform home. More likely weighing babies or giving diet advice.
jon357   
5 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

they are very dangerous - totally inexperienced, profoundly cliquey, confrontational and should not be let anywhere near the economy, education or infrastructure or foreign policy.

Spot on - and the effect on the markets shows how little trust people have in them.

stocks comprising the index are mostly foreign owned not Polish

I wonder if you know that the WIG20 contains only Polish stocks, traded only in Warsaw...
jon357   
5 Feb 2016
Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

The important thing is that Atch is right about speaking English (and also that native speakers of English are no better or worse at mastering foreign languages than others).

In Poland, people often assume that you don't speak Polish and even when you address them clearly in the language, reply to you in very broken English.

And Polish isn't even that difficult for speakers of English.

Now now, Poggers. You probably haven't met many people from abroad who've lived here - some of us speak Polish all day every day (and at a far, far higher level than your English).
jon357   
5 Feb 2016
UK, Ireland / The "Paracetamol Myth" - Polish people hesitate to visit UK doctors. [51]

do nurses wear their uniforms outside of the hospital

Not usually and if they went home in it they wouldn't be wearing it on the next shift.

An interesting point about different cultures @Mafektis. A few times I've looked online for symptoms that have been bothering me and have found a massive difference between American and British sites. Basically the American ones say "you have a serious medical emergency and need immediate treatment; there is also a possibility that a doctor has misdiagnosed you and you may have a case to sue" whereas the British ones say "pull yourself together, take a paracetamol and remember that your local hospital is busy and your GP has patients who are really ill"...
jon357   
3 Feb 2016
Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

Polish difficulty measured next to English, German for French, is based again on expectation of (in-)ability among foreigners to speak that language.

Spot on. One issue about English is that it's possible to communicate adequately using just a tiny fraction of the huge and subtle vocabulary. Communicating adequately is far from being the same as mastering the language. In Polish, a language with far fewer lexemes even than French, once one masters the morphology the rest falls into place.

As ever, when talking about a language being hard to learn, the question is always "hard for whom".
jon357   
3 Feb 2016
UK, Ireland / The "Paracetamol Myth" - Polish people hesitate to visit UK doctors. [51]

I don't recall ever being prescribed paracetamol by a gp - I think they would only do that if the patient was a bit of a hypochondriac. Perhaps it's down to expectations; GPs in the UK tend not to prescribe unnecessary medicines and someone who expects a yard long prescription of unnecessary items is likely to be disappointed.