Life / Czas honoru (Time of honoru) TV serial [38]

Tonight they showed the last instalment of the curent Czas Honoru series. It was a rather far-fetched plot about Polish ex-AK freedom-fighters outwitting and outshooting the NKVD in Warsaw. But still it's nice to see a poltical thriller set in Polish surroundings for a change instead fo all that banal Bondesque nonsense that surrounds us.

News / €80 billion for Poland new EU budget [166]

Someone on PF said that if the EU turned off the tap, Poland couldn't make a go of it. In that context an interesting and unusuallyl pro-Polish article appeared in

today’s German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. PAP quoted some excerpts which called Poland 'Germany’s strong neighbour' and France its 'weak neighbour'. The article refuted the claim that Poland got to where it is thanks to EU funds by saying that 'by 1995 Poland had trebled its real earnings and today EU funds account for only about one-seventh of the national budget... Over the past two centuries Poland’s dear neighbours prevented its development, but now Poles are doing what all Europeans do most eagerly – studying, working and buildings houses.” At the same time the paper referred to France as a country basking in its past achievements, but for quite some it hasn’t been doing too well in that department to mention only cafe au lait, democracy and unique-looking cars.'

Love / Polish couples living out of wedlock? [108]

Know of any country these days that is not a chaotic mess? Switrzerland? Liechtenstein? Certainly not Poland, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Mexico or the US!

News / Stiffer traffic rules in Poland? [32]

As I see it, speeding and tailgating (niezachowywanie odstępu) are the two main Polish offences.I won't mention drink-driving, because that's so obvious.

One way to deal; with it is to resist being bullied by tailgaters who want you to speed up. If I am going 70 in a 50 km/h zone and some bozo thinks that's not fast enough and is on my tail, I slow down forcing him to overtake. Also keeping a 1-car distance from the car ahead of you for every15 km/h you're travelling at is very helpful.

Food / How common GMO Food in Poland is? [25]

Merged: Farmers protesting v GMO

Several hundred farmers from all over Poland are demonstrating outside the presidential palace, TVP INFO rerpots. They want President Komorowski to veto a GMO bill which they say effectively introduces GMO seed in Poland. They argue the bill has been purged of the president’s own proposals and does not require seed producers to clearly label their seed as GMO-free. Last year Komorowski vetoed a GMO bill, but the Sejm later passed a modified version forced on Poland by the EU. “GMO sieje zło” (GMO sows evil) said one of the protesters’ placards.

What's your take on the GMO controversy?

News / Stiffer traffic rules in Poland? [32]

Years ago I heard it said: a Polish motorist doesn't drive -- he aims! Some attribute 'dynamic/aggressive' Polish driving habits to the swashbuckling spirit of a cavalry charge.

News / €80 billion for Poland new EU budget [166]

Of course Poland is a net recipeint, in fact probably the largest net recipient of EU funds. My qeustion was why don't emerging countreis like Lithuania get at least as much per hectare as Denmark and Holland so they can catch up after years of Soviet mismanagement, backwardness and poverty?

Also, as regards EU budget cuts, why don't they start with themselves: slim down the structures, boot half the eurocratsd out of Brussels and halve the salaries of those that remain. Instead, before deciding that the last summit was a fiasco, European government heads feasted on gourmet delicaices and washed them down with wine costing £120 a bottle (according to the Globe).

News / Stiffer traffic rules in Poland? [32]

Has anyone else noticed that many Polish pedestrians who have placed one foot off the kerb proceed to cross without bothering to look if any car is coming. Both pedestrians and motorists should fucntion in a mode of limited confidence towards road co-users.

News / €80 billion for Poland new EU budget [166]

Why is it that the EU bankroll W. European farmers at a superior rate than those tilling the soil in emerging post-communsit or post-Soviet countries? I've heard that Denmark, which has a highly developed, high-yield farm sector, gets more money than backward Lithuania. Polish farmers also get less per hectare than those in Germany and France. That doesn't sound like solidarity, does it?

History / Pokłosie (film on Jedwabne) [36]

Here is an excerpt of a private review of the film 'Pokłosie' by a fellow-Polonina. My own asessment is not as negative.

The movie is presented as fiction but also as a follow up on Jedwabne.I read a few reviews and they all seem to agree that Poklosie is even worse than "Neighbors". There are very few good reviews and the public seems to avoid the film. Like the Neighbors first chapter, the script for Poklosie seems to have been written by a Russian intelligence officer and not by Pisakowski. It is a propaganda film in the true Soviet tradition with gory details and mindless malice. You may wonder why the Polish Government with some help from the Russians funded such a film and is now promoting it...

No wonder that Wajda liked this film, since he was the director of the first successful Communist propaganda film "Diamonds and Ashes". In that film the Communist are portrayed as caring and well educated victims of Nazism and the AK as evil Nazi Collaborators full of hate and not caring about people. Wajda's film and Andrzejewski's book on which it was based was commissioned by Jakub Berman the head of UB (Polish clone of NKVD). One might ask who commissioned "Poklosie" and who commissioned Gross's book?

Food / Goose meat anyone in Poland? [20]

One tradiotnal Polish way is to stuff it with slightly undercooked kasza gryczana (buckwheat groats). another way is to stuff it with apples and prunes. The bird should be salted, peppered, sprinkled with marjoram and rubbed with 1-3 buds crushed garlic inside and out and left standing that way at room temperature covered at least an hour before roasting.inside and out. It can be basted with a cup of miód pitny and then with the drippings that form. Smacznego!

BTW, goose is a cholesterol-lowering meat.

I'll wager anything that all the frozen geese and duck at supermarkets in Poland are Polish-bred. The fact that there is Fleischente on the label (meat duck) only means that is the main export destination.

Martinmas is the English translation of Dzień św. Marcina just as Candlemas is Matki Boskiej Gromnicznej, Chrisitmas = Boże Narodzenie and Whitsun = Zielone Świątki. Co kraj to obyczaj!

Love / Polish couples living out of wedlock? [108]

Anglo-Celtic penury is a well-known fact: My taxes, my money, my penny-pinching this, that or the other thing...
But if we are to play that game, some Americans complain that their tax dollars are going to bankroll (male-bashing) gender studies, (Pole-bashing) holocaust studies and many other PC-slanted ideologies at state universities.

Food / Goose meat anyone in Poland? [20]

In fact, roast goose was so much a part of Polish Martinmas festivities that it formed part of the folk weather-predicting folk litrugy. If the leftover breast bone of the roast goose was white, that was said to foretell a snowy winter. One of many Martinmas sayings went: Na św. Marcina modna jest gęsina.

Love / Polish couples living out of wedlock? [108]

Nobody has to go to a Catholic school.

Love / Polish couples living out of wedlock? [108]

The concept of 'sin' aside, purely from the standpoint of the child's wellbeing, worth considering are the following:
**Informal liaisons (common law, concubinage, shacking up, whatever) are less durable and more likely to break up than a sacramental marriage, and sooner. That is nearly always a traumatic experience for a child.

**Those in informal relationships are more likely to cheat on their partners, increasingly the prospect of various fly-by-night 'wujeks' sleeping with mummy -- a none-too-edifying experience for the child.

**Another trauma can be expected when the child asks: 'Why can't I make my First Holy Communion like all the other kids in my class?' How do you answer that one: 'Because we failed to have you christened!'

Life / Please help me, with deciding a good Polish name for my baby boy :) [48]

How about Bogdan, Andrzej or Jędrzej, Zbigniew, Czesław, Maciej or Wiesław.

News / Poland's Guy Fawkes [88]

If Breivik had been ruled mentalily incompetent, they would have sent him to the looney bin. But if subsequent psychiartic tests showed he had recovered, he would probably be out such sooner than in 21 years.

However, a truly committed fanatic would not allow his pet ideology to be labelled insane.

News / Poland's Guy Fawkes [88]

What's your personal hunch about Brunon K. All the evidence is not in or at least not publicised, and the shrinks haven't examined him as yet (as far as I know). So what is your gut feweling about what Brunon tick?:

1, Szaleniec - madman?
2. A 'two weeks of media glory' type ego-tripper/megalomaniac?
3. Sane but fanatically committed to his ideology?
4. Some of all of the above?
5. Something else?
NOTE: Breivik, whom Brunon admired and tried to emulate or even outdo, was pronounced sane.

News / Poland's Guy Fawkes [88]

Anyone know the full surname of Brunon K:?

Life / Christmas in Poland - commercial, religious, family get together or what? [23]


podarować = to donate
dar = gift, donation

News / Pokłosie - should the film have received funding from Polish state coffers? [37]

The mistatement that 40 Jews were killed at Jedwabne apparently comes from one of two sources: 1) typo-wise the numeral 3 got lopped off of 340 , the official number of victims; 2) the author confused the number of victims with the 40 Jedwabne townsfolk put on trial after the war for their part in the massacre.

The notorious 'Gross lie' alleged that Jedwabne's 1,600 Jews were burnt in a barn by the Polish half of the town's population. Although that lie has long been overturned, that figure keeps popping up in vairous publicaitons to this day.

News / Poland's Guy Fawkes [88]

One cannot link to a link that's been remvoed. But, hey -- ask any of the moderators. If anyone knows what's been on the forum, they do!

And that was undoutbedly one of the most extreme utterances on a forum not known for mincing words.

News / Poland's Guy Fawkes [88]

Amomgst the many comments heard in the Polish media was one (I cannot vouch for its veracity) that this matter is being delierbately hyped and hotted up (press conferences, media sensationalising) to divert public attention from Tusk's probable shortfall in the EU budget area.

But anyone who has followed history knows that's how poltics works.

News / Poland's Guy Fawkes [88]

The point is that anyone who is not planning to screw his business partner, cheat on his wife, deceive the dole authorities, prey on minors, rob a bank or murder his mum-in-law, etc. really has nothing to fear. What good will someone's harmless, personal chit-chat do some government agency? Besides, shouldn't we all be willing to give up a bit of privacy when human life and destruction hang in the balance?

News / Poland's Guy Fawkes [88]

Harry a vast amount of information

As well as misinformation, deceptive advertising, nonsense and utter grabage. Wonder if anyone has studied the relationship of the one to the other.
A possible disaster was averted thanks to ABW net monitoring. Some people in the States resent monitoring by the FBI and CIA or restrictons imposed by Homeland Security (removing shoes during airport checks, etc.), but those things are being done for a purpose. Besides, anyone who's isn't sneaky or underhanded has nothing to hide. The Internet is a medium like all the rest, just another stage in the development of communication and should be subjected to all the rigours and restrictions legally binding radio, TV and printed press. It should not be given prefential treatment.