Barefoot & Pregnant

If given the choice, 50% of Polish women would rather stay at home than pursue a career, says new survey.


[Complete Story]

Krakow gave birth to the Bagel

The next time you spread Philadelphia Cream Cheese on your morning bagel toasted or nuked - remember that it was invented 400 years ago in Krakow. At least there's pretty good evidence that it first appeared there in 1610.

Get the story from Polskie Radio
Bagel makes comeback in the City where it was invented

17th Century Poland Lives

17th century living history reinactment group; Go to Pan Zagloba's favorite tavern! Pan Zagloba is a sometimes-inebriated hero of With Fire Sword, Potop(’Deluge’)and the other classics by Nobel laureate, Henryk Sienkiewicz.

They are dedicated to studying and recreating the glorious and tumultuous 17th C. when the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth was the largest Empire in Europe. Join their hussars, cossacks, dragoons, artillery; and great ladies and sturdy peasants: we love 'em all!

Your are invited to join the conversation.



See a brief presentation:



Polish Hussar Supply Outfit Yep, they got all the goods!

Polish Chick & Her Groovy Grass

In ancient pagan Poland there was no such thing as a Polish Turf goddess. That's rather strange because most of Poland is grassy plains. But, today in the Christian era there is a Polish-American babe who holds the title of Turf goddess - at least by the members of her fan club called the Turf Heads.

Heather Nabozny who grew up in Brighton, Michigan is the head groundskeeper for the Detroit Tigers. She is the first woman to ever be the head grounds keeper in Major League Baseball. She started with the ball club in 1999.

I wonder if her favorite drink is the Bison Grass Vodka Zubrowka. If it is, maybe I'll join the fan club because I really have a thing for groovy grass.

The images for illustrativeative purposes have been changed to protect the innocent.

Poles top world 'web athletes'

A Polish team has become World Cyber Champions.

Of the million entrants of World Cyber Games in Milan, Italy, the largest tournament of this kind, 700 from 70 countries made it to the finals. There, after 5 hours of game, with thousands of fans watching them online, the winners finally emerged. Lukasz, Filip, Wiktor, Jakub and Mariusz formed a team that mastered the game 'Counter Strike' and managed to beat Sweden, the current champion for the past five years.

EU six agree to fight terrorism and illegal immigration

POLAND and the other 5 largest EU countries have agreed to work together on fighting terrorism, organised crime and illegal immigration after a two-day informal meeting hosted by the UK.

The interior ministers of France, Germany, Italy, POLAND, Spain and the UK – known as the G6 - met in Stratford-upon-Avon and agreed to crack down on tax fraud that could fund terrorism, to fight human trafficking, share more information about terrorist threats and make joint moves toward African countries to curb illegal migration routes.

"The important thing is to keep this at the top of the European agenda, because it is at the top of the concerns of the populations of every country which is represented here: organised crime, counter-terrorism, managed migration," UK home secretary John Reid said after the meeting, according to Reuters.

The ministers were also concerned about alienation of European Muslims and sought to engage Muslim minorities in the fight against extremism, seeking to counter anger at what they see as unfair treatment by the authorities.

The fears were highlighted by the overnight violence in the suburbs of Paris, where youths - many from immigrant families - set four buses on fire ahead of the one-year anniversary of major riots across France.

Wawel Style Kielbasa

Research shows that dinosaurs were contemporaneous to people.

All cultures have clear shared memories of them. The Scots - the Loch Ness monster, Poles - the Wawel dragon, while Marco Polo wrote that a dragon was harnessed to the emperor's carriage in China.

Maciej Giertych, MEP representing the League of Polish Families (LPR), at his lecture undermining the theory of evolution.

Reported by Fred Flintstoneski & Barney Rubblewicz


See Also: Evolution on the way OUT?

Pope JPII Money

The next 50 Zloty banknote you put into your pocket may be Poland's new banknote depicting the late Polish-born Pope John Paul II.

The note, worth about $19, portrays the Pope on both sides and is going into circulation presently.

Poles are overwhelmingly Catholic and hold John Paul II, who died in April last year, in huge regard. Many credit him with inspiring Poles to challenge Communism and with helping to bring an end to the Cold War.

The National Bank of Poland did not say how many of the new notes would be released on October 16, which marks the 28th anniversary of John Paul II's election as head of the Catholic Church.

Rice Stuffed Pierogi with Soy Sauce

Global giants Toyota, Sharp, Toshiba and Bridgestone are just a few Japanese companies planning to increase their investments in Poland. Last year Japanese conglomerates invested close to 300 million dollars. They intend to invest three times more this year. A domino effect of successive Japanese companies following each other to Poland has yet to reach its peak.

Investment analysts suggest that Poland is ripe for Japanese investment and that Warsaw has a competitive edge over Tokyo. “The Polish market is already flooded with Japanese products. Cars, computer laptops, notebooks, 60% are Japanese related. The Japanese interest in the Polish is already big and will get bigger. But some of those products could be made in Poland under Japanese brands. We can compete with the Japanese because in high tech we are more original, more creative than the Japanese.”

Egg drop soup goes good with these pierogi.

Evolution Theory On the Way OUT?

Poland’s deputy education minister has called for the removal of the theory of evolution from the country’s schools. Miroslaw Orzechowki, a minister in the League of Polish Families, branded the theory of evolution as “a lie, an error that we have legalized as a common truth.”
Orzechowski called for a debate on whether Darwin's theory should be taught in schools. "We should not teach lies, just as we should not teach bad instead of good, or ugliness instead of beauty," he said.

The theory of evolution is commonly taught as the explanation for the state of existing animals and plants, and is thought to conflict with the creation theory, whereby God created all life on the planet in it's current form.

“We are not going to withdraw Darwin's theory from the school books, he said, “but we should start to discuss it.”

9-11 (1683) Jihad against Poland and Europe Crushed by No Nonsense Sobieski

The 100,000 strong army of the Islamic Ottoman Empire invades the Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth, burning and murdering the whole towns and villages in the frontier zone.

Unable to break into Europe through Poland, the Ottoman Turks invaded Hungary and Austria in 1683 and swept all before them. 130,000 troops besieged Vienna and threatened to overpower Europe. Jan Sobieski, at the request of the Pope, immediately set off to the aid of Austria.




On 9- 12, 1683, Sobieski with his ruthless Winged Hussaria charged toward General Kara Mustafa's headquarters and mercilessly slaughtered all the Ottomans that he had at his mercy. Hearing the deafening fearful roar of thousands of wings, feeling the earth shaking under their feet made by 30,000 rushing horses, seeing the slaughter of their own troops being torn into pieces by long lances of the storming Hussars, Sultan Kara Mustafa and his army went into panic.

Tens of thousands of Mohammedans ran for their lives jumping into the Danube River, but even there the blood-thirsty swords and lances of the Hussars were reaching them.

The merciless slaughter of the Mohammedans by Husaria saved Vienna and completely crushed the army of Jihadists. The march of Islam on Europe was finally stopped. Since the Battle of Vienna, no army from the Islamic world has ever posed the thread to the West again.

But, what would Jan do with a nuclear Iran? Or, an army of terrorists?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1703230/posts

Commemorating the Poles at Jamestown

The American Council for Polish Culture will once again have an exhibit at the National Conference for Social Studies, scheduled for December 1-2, 2006 in Washington, DC.

http://www.ncss. org/

The Council's exhibit, "Polish Perspectives, " will inform teachers of the contributions of Poles to Western Civilization and America. Over five thousand of our nation's social studies educators are expected at the conference. In conjunction with the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the ACPC has produced a Teacher's Lesson Plan, "Democracy: The Polish Experience at Jamestown," which highlights the contributions of the colony's Poles:

http://www.polishcu ltureacpc. org/LessonPlan/ lessonplan. html

Contributions to the costs of the "Polish Perspectives" exhibit may be forwarded to:
Henrietta Nowakowski
23354 Longview
Dearborn Heights, MI48127

ciocianiusia@ aol.com

Original postin Polish American Forum at Yahoo Groups

Also from polishtoledo.com see:

http://polishtoledo.com/q03.htm "Poles Preceed Mayflower"

A Fuss Over Being Polish?

Thought you might find this article especially interesting regarding Polish identity.


Poland's in the Rockies

How I learned to stop worrying and love my identities
Written by Kinia Adamczyk
Canadian University Press Wednesday, 11 October


2006MONTREAL, QC. (CUP) - Twelve intellectually stimulating days. Eleven sleepless nights. A Newsweek senior editor, a Globe and Mail journalist, history, literature, politics, art scholars and 33 students. Friendship. And finally, some much-needed time to think about my identity as a first-generation Polish immigrant in North America.

The setting? Alberta's beautiful Rocky Mountains.We embarked on this journey to discover more about our common background at this second edition of a conference series named Poland in the Rockies. What we shared, beyond our interest in "things Polish," were questions about the complexity of identity. "I found out that I am not alone," said Eric Bednarski, a 29-year-old documentary filmmaker from Nova Scotia, "[and] that there are many other people like me out there (. . .) born-again Poles with a dual Polish-Canadian identity; educated and assimilated Poles that still have a strong connection to Poland."

We all held our breath as we got a first-hand account from Adam Szostkiewicz, a journalist and activist during the anti-communist Polish, Solidarity movement in the `80's. This former political prisoner now writes freely for Polityka, something of a Polish version of Maclean's. During Solidarity times, it wasn't unusual to get shoved into a truck and receive a good beating just for wearing the movement's pin.

Andrew Nagorski, a senior editor at Newsweek, said, "If (a program) like this had been offered at the time when I was a student, I'm sure I would have jumped at the opportunity. "

Between lectures, we sat on the grass in the shade, laughing at some of his reporting anecdotes from around the world. Nagorski gained international fame after Soviet authorities expelled him from the country in 1982 for his "enterprising reporting." He launched the Polish edition of Newsweek in 2001.

We shared laughs, but also feelings of sorrow, as we looked back at the past. Stan Oziewicz, a journalist at the Globe and Mail, told us the story of his father, a Second World War bomber pilot. After fighting under the Allies, Mieczyslaw Oziewicz felt, like hundreds of Poles, betrayed by the Yalta Agreement, under which Poland's faith was handed over to Stalin's Soviet Union.
"It was particularly painful and bitter for people like my parents," explained the journalist, "who, while Hitler's forces were storming through Poland's western frontier in September of 1939, were later rounded up from their homes in eastern Poland and sent by rail boxcars to Stalin's slave-labour camps in northern Russia and Soviet Central Asia."

Sweat was almost dripping from our foreheads as we tackled the translation assignment proposed by Bill Johnston, one of the leading translators of Polish literature in North America. We discovered the challenges he faces every day as he tries to preserve the cultural references of the works he translates whilst keeping them accessible to English readers.

"The focus on language and culture through the lens of Polish literature was a very interesting day of lectures for me, precisely because language and our definitions are so intricately tied with our identity," said Kasia Wisniewska, who recently graduated from English literature at McGill University.

The romantic in me thrived as we watched the only colour pre-war footage of Poland in the short film Land of my Mother narrated by Eve Curie, the daughter of scientist Marie Curie. Through her bright red lips and French-tainted English, Curie gracefully guided us through the still undestroyed monuments of Warsaw, Gdansk and Krakow, among others.

We watched in solemn silence as a participant of the program, Alexi Marchel, performed a dramatic reading of Inside a Gestapo Prison 1942-44: The Letters of Krystyna Wituska. This young woman, although condemned to death after being captured by the German secret police, was full of life, warmth and optimism.

"I am first a human being, and only then a Pole," wrote Wituska in one of her letters, which were translated from Polish by the author and researcher Irene Tomaszewski.

At night, we sat around campfires with the speakers, talking about the Kaczynski brothers, who are at the head of Poland now; about the Jagiellonian University's beautiful library in Krakow, which I would like to visit one day; and about the future of a country some of us haven't gone back to. Yes we sang songs and danced and laughed about our cultural idiosyncrasies.

The question of my identity is an interior battlefield I've been leading for the last 17 years. The seminar was not only an intellectual journey, but also an opportunity to accept my dual identity by discovering people who share similar experiences and interests. Who needs sleep when you're celebrating new-found peace?

# # # END # # #

I don't understand what is the fuss with this woman? Can someone help me if I am missing something she is trying to say? Is it that she lives in Canada where that part of the globe spins faster to make one more dizzy?

Anywhere on earth [including Brazil, Australia, U.K.] you can tell immediately if you're in a Polish home -- there are many tell-tale signs. Your investigative job is made even more simple if you see K+B+M chalked above the door, palms peering out from behind a Holy picture.

Maybe there would be no fuss if she participated in a good Dozynki, sat at a faithful styled Wigilia, had fun with Zapusty, or got soaked on Dyngus Day and launched a Wianki at Sobotka? Maybe there is just not enough garlic in her Kielbasa. Maybe she needs to listen to more Maryla Rodowicz and do a couple shots of Zubrowka. Maybe her babcia fell down on the job of passing the heritage, culture, customs, history and "secret handshake."

Looking for your "head" in the Rocky Mountains is so 1960's ish. I hear that pinching pierogi is therapeutic, though. Maybe someone should tell her.

Polish Info Babes

Who has the hottest looking TV News Anchor Babes - TVP1, TVP2 or TVP3?

My favorite is Miłka Skalska

Polish TV News Links

Nazi uniforms still made in Poznan

Remember a while back when England's Prince Harry younger of Princesses Diana's two sons was photographed dressing up in a Nazi uniform at a fancy costume party just two weeks away from the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz? The uniform was probably made in Poznan - Toledo's sister city.

According to the AP thousands of brand new Nazi uniforms are being stitched together each year in Poznan, Poland. There are a handful of garment manufacturing plants churning out these $820.00 WWII replicas.

A surprising business you might imagine in a country subjected to six years of brutal Nazi occupation that cost millions of lives during World War II.

These firms sell mainly to film companies and history buffs, although some people fear that uniforms he offers via the Internet may be falling into the hands of extremists.

One producer, Andrzej Frankowski, said, “I could also make Chinese uniforms, no problem, if only there were a demand for them."

The German invasion of Poland in 1939 started World War II, during which Poland lost more than 6 million citizens - half of them Jews. Today, bitterness toward Germany still resonates in day-to-day politics and among older Poles.

Also made are replicas of British, Polish, Russian and American army wear and are used in films and historical re-enactments, a popular activity for history buffs.

You could not make a historic film or perform a re-enactment scene without these uniforms.

The website of one such company, Hero Collection, says it has supplied uniforms for such movies as the Oscar-winning "The Pianist," the TV film "Hitler: The Rise of Evil" and the Italian movie "Karol, the Man Who Became the Pope."

New Facts on WWII Dirty Tricks

Recent actions of the present Polish government led to a startling discovery of tightly guarded communist secrets. Similarly, two journalists discovered traces of a special Fund collected in 1939 to help Polish military to buy arms just before the WWII - it ended up in communist secret services and "disappeared". It was thousands of dollars of pure gold in various forms. Also, it has been discovered that the communist secret agents were conducting special covert operations in the western Europe, robbing jewelry shops and getting the loot into the communist controlled secret vaults. Details of those unbelievable actions are still to be discovered and probed by Kaczynski's government.

http://www.wprost. pl/drukuj/ ?O=94565

http://tvp.pl/ 120,200609113934 17.strona

Stanko is a flight to Heaven

On Thursday, October 12 – Stanko takes stage.

Of the five human senses the one most responsible for launching our conscious and subconscious into the real or imagined ethereal plane is stimulation of the auditory cortex. That’s the place way down deep in the brain that processes sound.

Perhaps the most unique jazz trumpet player in the world will perform two shows at Murphy’s Place on the corner of Summit and Jefferson down under the northern wing of Fort Industry Square. The same complex that is home to the studios broadcasting the “Melodies of Poland” radio show Sunday mornings at 8 AM on WCWA.

Toledo landing as one of only 12 U.S. Cities on Tomasz Stanko’s tour is nothing short of euphoria.



Stanko was born in Rzeszow, Poland in during World War II. Rzeszow is the same city where the Polish Folk Festival is held and our local Echoes of Poland Song and Dance Troop performed there last summer. His father was a lawyer (and violinist) and his mother was a teacher. Tomasz decided to learn trumpet at age 16 after attending Dave Brubeck's concert in Krakow.

Four years later after formal music training he formed his first group called Jazz Darings, later described by German critic Joachim E. Berendt as "the first group in Europe to play free jazz". His earliest gigs were in the jazz cellars of Krakow, so one would expect Stanko will feel at home at our local venue.

To use the tired, trite and pedestrian phrase “Stanko is Poland’s Miles Davis,” is a disservice to an artist who stands on his own merit of originality, style and tonal grace. It’s easy to pass comment on antecedents and influences. The similarity ends with their choice of instrument. It’s all irrelevant except to get people to listen to the stuff.

Hearing Stanko is like discovering a whole new window in music. Very sensitive, deep and chilling. His impressionistic approach to music is no less than what Cezanne, Dagas, and Monet meant to the canvas.

Once Stanko recorded trumpet solos in the Taj Maha. The thought of that summons thoughts of mystical elegance and mellow psychedelics of pastel intonations and timbre. To hear Stanko, one might forget there is even one ounce of “brass” contained within his pallet of valves.

Play the Stanko Music Video below:



Stanko

Murphy's Place

Pigskin Comes to Poland

Futbol Amerykański

(Is your browser language option set to Unicode UFT-8 ? If not you'll get some funny looking letters on your screen!)

Say the work Futbol or Football in Poland and ¾ of the rest of the world and Soccer is what the discussion entails. But, now there’s another game in town, American style football, and it’s probably the fastest growing sport in Poland.

Polska Liga Futbol Amerykański has four teams this year: Fireballs Wielkopolska, Pomorze Seahawks, The Crew Wrocław, and the Warsaw Eagles. Soon the Polish American Football Association (PZFA) hopes to add teams from Kraków, Łomża, Łódź, Silesia and Szczecin.

Some people might guess that most of the players are Americans. But in reality, the vast majority of players are Poles.

Better to bite your tongue

Police in Poland have launched a nationwide hunt for a man who farted loudly when asked what he thought of the president.

Hubert Hoffman, 45, was charged with "contempt for the office of the head of state" for his actions after he was stopped by police in a routine check at a Warsaw railway station. He complained that under President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw, the country was returning to a Communist-style dictatorship.

When told to show more respect for the country's rulers, he farted loudly and was promptly arrested. Hoffmann was arrested and released on bail but failed to turn up at a Warsaw court early this week to be tried, and the judge in the case rejected an appeal by defense lawyers to throw the charges out.

A court spokesperson said: "Such a case of disrespect is taken very seriously." Instead the court ordered the police to start a nationwide hunt for the man, and interpol have been alerted.

What's in your wallet?

Poland is now Europe's 8th largest plastic money market. According to the National Bank of Poland, Poles had nearly 22 million credit cards at the end of the first half of this year.

In 2005, the value of the Polish plastic money market increased to $1.4 billion from $770 million in 2004.

The market is estimated to reach $4.2 billion in 2010.

A story we somehow missed from 2005.

Communion dress: $120.00; Traditional Polish wedding reception: $3,500; Heavenly credit - the Rosary shaped in the form of a debit card: Priceless.

Jewellers in Milan have started to offer the world a new line in heavenly credit - the Rosary shaped like a credit card. Out goes the traditional (but untidy) string of beads; in comes the card with embossed points, ready to lie snugly in your wallet between the Gold Amex and driving license.


The card comes in various forms: plastic for those who can afford to pay the least, brass or copper-embossed for middle-income earners (pictured) and a de luxe version in gold, studded with diamonds. The jewellers say that it will enable people to say their Hail Marys in the middle of a frantic world. According to The Times of London, the card is said to have the approval of the Vatican. Other sources close to the Primate claim he is so taken by the device that he won't leave Rome without it. (The latter claim remains unverified.)

Tex-Mex? No, Tex-Pole

Poles preceded the Mayflower's pilgrims to America by 17 years when they were part of the Virginia Company's settlement at Jamestown. Some attribute Jan z Kolno sailing to America before Columbus could raise "two-bits" from Queen Isabella.


But, the first purely Polish settlement in America wasn't in Pennsylvania, New York or Delaware. The symbol displayed here has one more flag than American Polonians expect to see.

For information on the facinating story of Panna Maria, Texas:

Czesc, Cowboy!

Pulaski in the Big Apple

You know it's the beginning of Polish Heritage Month when you see thousands of white and red flags dotting Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, when people line the street to watch the Pulaski Day Parade.

The group seen above literally believes a parade float should be able to do precisely what it's name implies - float!

Liga Morska - Sea League of America - is a Polish-American organization of sailors, seaman, scuba divers, fisherman, wind surfers, kayakers, etc. based in Brooklyn.

Showing their Polish pride, New Yorkers lined 5th Avenue for the 69th annual march. This year the parade honored Polish immigrants who have made a contribution to the United States.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was among the city and state leaders taking part in the festivities which honor the memory of General Casimir Pulaski who was the Father of the American Cavalry, led his units to several victories during the American Revolution and died in battle at Savannah, Georgia, where there is a huge memorial to his memory.

http://www.pulaskiparade.com/

http://www.ligamorska.com/

In contrast, here is the Pulaski celebration in Toledo, Ohio: