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Current Events, Perspective, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political

Nouveau Neighbors

This is typical of the things that happen when people move into a neighborhood thinking that all must change because they’ve arrived.

It happens in Upstate New York quite a bit. People move into rural areas expecting picket fences and the scent of roses. What they get is electric fences and the scent of cows and horses.

Then they decide to do the neighborly thing – they bring complaints and lawsuits against the farmers, who have been there since the 1800’s.

Jackie Briguglio of the Chicago area moved in across from a PNA youth camp that’s been active for 72 years and suddenly she’s owed peace and quiet 24/7. Alice May who has lived in the area for 43 years gets it. Ms. Briguglio only understand litigation and the police state.

From The Chicago Tribune: Community clash puts damper on Polish camp

Upset neighbors cite rising crowds, noise

Everyone seems to agree that the Polish camp near Yorkville is a quiet neighbor most of the summer, with kids splashing in the swimming pool and families attending Sunday mass in an open-air chapel, then picnicking under the trees.

But the dances and special events grated on some nerves. Polka beats thumped, cars crowded River Road and, one weekend last summer, 7,000 visitors came for a glimpse of the World’s Strongest Man, a stubble-headed Pole capable of carrying a refrigerator.

So this summer, Kendall County in effect exercised a pocket veto of the Polish National Alliance Youth Camp’s special events, failing to approve permits until it was too late to schedule, camp spokesmen said.

The county said it takes time to work out conflicts between the camp and some neighbors.

Either way, the result has been a summer without the four or five fundraisers that usually keep the camp in business, and a sense that times are changing for the 72-year-old camp and the Polish community that sustains it.

As Kendall county has grown — it was the nation’s second-fastest growing county from 2000 to 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — it has gone from rural to more suburban, leaving camp
officials feeling unwelcome.

“We were there before everybody else,” said Chicago attorney Chris Nowotarski, who represents the organization, “and now we’re being pushed out.”

There’s even talk of selling the property and moving elsewhere.

But some neighbors said big-draw weekends bring in rowdy crowds, and the county had to deal with the problem.

The camp is affiliated with the alliance, a Polish fraternal organization. Jointly established by the alliance’s North Side and South Side districts in Chicago, it is a place where generations of
immigrants could escape the city and celebrate their culture in the country.

…

Jackie Briguglio, who lives across the street from the camp, said the music at dances is too loud, though the camp insists it doesn’t exceed county decibel limits. And special events, particularly the
visit of the strongman, have become a nuisance for the neighborhood, with reports of people urinating in Yorkville yards.

…

Some neighbors shrug off the occasional crowds. Alice May, a retired businesswoman who has lived across the street for 43 years, said she charges people to park in her yard during special events. Her children learned to swim there, and she recalls an old-country naivete among some visitors.

…

But Briguglio, the neighbor, has saved a newspaper story that invites the public to attend. So she’s not taking any chances.

“I already called the police,” she said, “and I’m going to be out of town that weekend.”

Current Events, Perspective, Political

…and our economy is based on

From the Christian Science Monitor: Why teens have a tough time finding summer work

Many are enrolling in summer classes or doing community service while others are squeezed out by adults competing for the same entry-level jobs.

Boston – This summer is shaping up as a tough one for many of America’s youngest job seekers.

Camps still need counselors. Ice cream shops still need young arms with a knack for alternating between a scoop and a cash register. And the nation’s job market is strong.

Yet teen employment rates haven’t rebounded from the recession of 2001. Instead, these numbers are at historic lows.

The reasons include positive forces, such as the rise of new opportunities for summer education and community service. But the trend also reflects more competition from older workers for a shrinking pool of entry-level jobs…

While many are cheering the American economic dynamo, others ask, what, when, why, where, and how about me.

As the article points out, entry level jobs provide a training ground for young people entering the job market. In part, the share of jobs available to young people is decreasing as older, experienced workers compete for those jobs.

I’d ask why? Are older workers interested in shuffling hamburgers, cashing out sales to pre-teens, and doing janitorial work at the mall? Is this their motivation/career path, or is it simply their way of paying the bills?

It is regrettable in that our talent pool and experience are being wasted. It is regretable that our economic model relies on low paid service jobs. It is regretable that the division between rich and poor grows as uncle Bob and aunt Mary, formerly employed in their profession of choice, serve dinner at Red Lobster.

Current Events, Perspective, Political,

He just doesn’t get it…

Some statements from President Bush on Independence Day, 2007From the Washington Post in: President Defends War on July 4th: Bush Compares Iraq To Revolutionary War.

“We give thanks for all the brave citizen-soldiers of our Continental Army who dropped pitchforks and took up muskets to fight for our freedom and liberty and independence,” Bush said. He added: “You’re the successors of those brave men. . . . Like those early patriots, you’re fighting a new and unprecedented war.”

New and unprecedented because it was created in the mind of Mr. Bush’s neo-con advisers, those who push the commander-in-chief’s buttons. New and unprecedented because we are fighting against people who did nothing to precipitate our invasion, did not seek our help, and perfectly well don’t want us there. They want us less than the Colonists wanted their King George.

You cover your abuse of our citizen soldiers, who you are using as your personal hamburger, with faí§ades of glory. To the extent that we are involved in foreign adventures in Iraq, Kosovo, Korea, or elsewhere, our soldiers bear no resemblance to the resolute ideals of our Founding Fathers. Our founders fought for hearth, home, and self-determination… kind of like the folks in Iraq, fighting against our ill conceived venture.

Perhaps our citizen soldiers would be better successors if they were home, protecting our borders, or helping us in natural disasters.

Now for the fear mongering:

“If we were to quit Iraq before the job is done, the terrorists we are fighting would not declare victory and lay down their arms. They would follow us here, home”

All of them? Now how many Iraqis are there? Perhaps a few, perhaps one or two (I’m sounding like Dr. Seuss).

Of course they have no right to be ticked, our supporting Israel above all things (even ourselves) and our little jaunt through Iraq, leaving the country poor, in debt, with its infrastructure destroyed, its Christian population killed-off, with neighbor against neighbor, a puppet regime in place, and, and, and…

No Mr. Bush. No freedom for the Iraqis, no illusions, no allusions to our experience. No Mr. Bush, just criminal incompetence seeped in blood.

You cannot compare yourself or your adventures to anything the Founding Fathers did on that day in Philadelphia. At best you can compare yourself to a drunken and abusive father.

Current Events, Media, Perspective, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political

Please – fear your physician next

You would think that Michael Moore’s Sicko would have instilled a fear of American medicine in everyone’s mind, but no.

Now we have to ramp up the fear mongering – fear of all those overtly foreign physicians that staff our hospitals. You know, the ones you see to get your Lipitor or Viagra… They are poisoning you and they are going to blow you up.

From the Washington Post: Bomb Plot Suspects Are Foreign Physicians

LONDON, July 3 — Police investigating last weekend’s failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow on Tuesday questioned foreign-born doctors who are suspected of plotting the attacks, while a suspicious piece of luggage at Heathrow Airport forced the evacuation of thousands of travelers and the cancellation of more than 100 flights.

All eight suspects now in custody are believed to have worked for Britain’s National Health Service, seven as doctors or medical students and one as a laboratory technician, according to officials and British media reports. One of the eight is being held in Australia. The suspects are said to have earned their medical degrees in Iraq, Jordan, India and other countries before immigrating to Britain…

Of course folks here in the U.S. of A. never overgeneralize. We are never led by the media into painting anyone who is foreign born with broad brush strokes, lets say í  la today’s articles regarding the Simpson’s movie promo…

For instance, from the San Francisco Chronicle: Please to be enjoying a promotional gimmick.

We laugh at foreigners when its easy, fear them when we need a scapegoat. It is easier to fear the Arabs, Indians, and Pakistanis then it is to know them.

It’s easier to ask, ‘Why are they here?’ then to ask our President: “Why are we there?”

Of course the Rev. Andrew Greeley pegs it in Ethnic biases stronger than ever.

It’s all about nativism. We never threw out that bigotry. We exercise it with every ethnic joke and by our mimicry.

As the 19th century turned into the 20th, Americans began to worry about the stability of their society and its culture. Strange languages were spoken on the streets, strange-looking people in strange clothes were shopping in our stores. Strange smells percolated in certain neighborhoods. Strange customs were appearing on strange holidays. These strangers were pouring into our country. They threatened our democracy, our way of life, our culture, our religious beliefs, our economy, our blood stock. Why didn’t they stay in their own countries?

The answer is they were caught in a demographic transition — the birth rate had increased and the death rate had fallen. A population explosion was driving people out of eastern and southern Europe.

In the decade before the beginning of the Great War, the government established a commission, presided over by Sen. William P. Dillingham of Vermont, to recommend restrictions of immigration from Europe. Many of the immigrants were of inferior races, as 19th century ”scientific” racialism defined inferior. It was evident to explorers that Asian and African races were inferior to the ”white” races. However, all one had to do was to observe eastern and southern Europeans to realize that they were inferior too. Indeed, the most successful of the races were the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Surely they represented, along perhaps with the Germans, the greatest progress in human civilization.

Therefore, the Dillingham Commission informed the country that it was patent that Italians were an innately criminal race, that the Poles had very limited intelligence, that Jews were incapable of honest business dealings and that the Irish were shiftless, superstitious and incapable of ambition. Such individuals could never become good Americans. On the basis of ”science” like this, the commission recommended draconian limitations on immigration. The country sighed with relief.

These ”racial” stereotypes persist — not as vehement as they once were, but still part of the national unconscious. ”The Godfather” and ”The Sopranos” fit perfectly. So does the film ”The Break-up,” in which Vince Vaughn plays an insensitive oaf. He is subtly labeled “Pole” by the huge Polish flag, complete with the Polish eagle, on the wall of his office. The lazy, alcoholic Irish laugh all the way to their hedge-fund manager.

A Mexican-American high school sophomore sent me an e-mail asking why other Americans hate them so much and tell so many lies about them. My answer is that Dillingham is alive and well. They don’t want more people with somewhat darker skin who can never become good Americans.

Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington has argued that Mexicans do not want to acculturate into our Protestant political and social system. Don’t tell me, kid, that you can refute all the “facts” they propound to establish your inferiority (you’re second generation, but you have no right to the educated prose of your e-mail). The bigots (less than a third of the country) who hate you know in the depths of their souls that you and your kind are an inferior people who are trying to take over their country and ruin it. We don’t need no more Mexican flags at soccer matches and certainly no more statues of Guadalupe parading down our streets…

Current Events, Perspective, Political,

Pardon thy iniquities Mr. Bush

The Young Fogey links to: Bush lets Libby off the hook and posits:

What’s really disturbing is Libby’s bosses will get away with what they did.

To me it’s kind of like reflecting on the Paris Hilton story (thank you, thank you Mika Brzezinski), but reflect I do.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney will never face a war crimes tribunal or be held to account – getting away with it. But conscience is not so easily satisfied.

I know that it is easy to paint people black and white. Mr. Bush and his cohort are certainly in the black end of the scale – fear mongering, do whatever it takes to get what we want, who cares who dies types. At the same time, I do not think that those caught in the grips of perversion are without humanity and souls.

Unless they are truly mentally ill (I don’t think so) and devoid of humanity, like a fictional serial killer, the pangs of guilt eat away.

Mr. Bush may ask himself: ‘Can I let the Scoot man (I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby) suffer for what I and my people have done?’

Certainly not! Mr. Bush has shown remarkable loyalty to those who do his bidding.

Other Presidents would have cut Rumsfeld loose long before Mr. Bush did. Messrs. Gonzalez and Cheney would have been long gone as well.

But, in Mr. Bush’s world, he is the decision maker. He holds on to a fading illusion like a drowning man gripping sand. All he has, and will have left, are those glimmers of conscience for the dead servicemen and women he has refused to honor, the neo-con fascists he remains loyal to, and those whose sentences he will commute (and later pardon).

Know for a certainty, however, that whatever your hands or the hands of the infidels have wrought will never, as they never did of old, change the Cause of God or alter His ways. — Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, CXIII, 12

Current Events, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political

EU Summit and a bad choice of words

If you have followed the press on the recent EU summit you probably heard that the Polish President and Prime Minister raised World War II issues in their negotiations.

The response to their raising these issues was less than positive. It’s kind of like the response a person receives when they raise a notion that no one else wants to acknowledge. “Can’t they just be quiet?”

The EUObserver notes in Polish twins accused of bad taste in Brussels:

The most controversial Polish tactic was its attempt to leverage German World War II guilt. When Jaroslaw [Kaczynski] talked ahead of the summit about using EU voting to repay Poland for the millions of Poles killed by Germany in the 1940s, it seemed like just another populist faux pas.

But Lech [Kaczynski] brought up the idea again at the EU leaders’ dinner in Brussels, in a move that may have contributed to chancellor Merkel’s threat to call an intergovernmental conference without Polish approval. In post-summit interviews, the twins kept the same line.

“There are no reasons to censor the past,” Lech said, regretting that he himself was too young to have fought the Germans. “I’m sorry, but today we still have to remind people who was the executioner and who was the victim,” Jaroslaw said in his interview.

Commenting on the rhetoric, Polish liberal MEP and historian Bronislaw Geremek told PAP that “the EU was based on the idea of putting an end to the war era…[the Polish government] tried to open wounds that have not yet fully healed.”

The German press was less kind. The biggest selling paper, Bild, called the twins “poisoned dwarves” and referred to their “sickening double game…”

Speaking of ‘poisoned dwarves,’ probably a bad choice of words for the German Press.

Among Mengele’s favorite experimental subjects were Jewish dwarves and identical twins.

From The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments by Baruch C. Cohen at Jewish Law Articles.

— or —

Many people with disabilities became the subject of medical research both before and after their deaths and were used to enrich the profits and prestige of medical institutions, doctors, and German and Austrian universities and researchers. Corpses of patients that had been marked before gassing as being of potential “scientific interest” were separated out and delivered to a nearby autopsy room. Young German physicians performed autopsies on these corpses to earn academic credit. Many organs from murdered disabled victims, brains in particular, were recovered for scientific study at medical institutes. Researchers sent lists of desiderata to killing centers requesting the brains of dwarves and people suffering from “idiocy” and rare neurological abnormalities, presumably with the belief that such disabilities would be scientifically interesting. Although many organs were harvested, the brains of murdered victims were the ones most utilized. Some of Germany’s most prestigious institutions benefited from this hideous use of the body parts of murdered people with disabilities, including Breslau University, Heidelberg University and the medical schools and psychiatric departments at Bonn, Cologne, Berlin and Leipzig.

From Forgotten Crimes – A Report by Disability Rights Advocates.

But then again, Bild is not exactly about journalism…

Christian Witness, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political

Against the priest politician

From the Catholic News Service: Stop politicizing homilies, Vatican nuncio tells Catholic Polish clergy

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) —“ The Vatican’s ambassador to Poland has called on Catholic clergy to stop preaching politicized homilies.

“I wish liturgical services in Poland would not turn into public rallies and just dispose people to be more human and more Catholic,” said Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk, the Vatican’s ambassador, or nuncio.

“We need priests, not politicians —“ and if politicians, then politicians of God’s word,” said the archbishop, whose sermon was carried by Poland’s Catholic information agency, KAI. “We also need evangelists, not economists —“ we have enough of those already in Poland to do the job. Let’s work on their spirit and conscience so they’ll become true professionals in serving all society. This is the mission of a priest…”

To which my friends in Poland, going to church and looking for spiritual sustenance would say, Deo gratias.

Current Events, Perspective, Political

Of Joe and Paris

…or it’s all about being handled.

I really don’t have much to say about the whole Paris Hilton saga, but…

I felt the typical outrage as I saw a system that’s supposed to be relatively blind kowtow to money, sex, and celebrity.

Not that I’m so naive to think the system isn’t played on a daily basis (OJ with that thought anyone) by those with money and a cult of celebrity. Nevertheless, I still believe that some semblance of what is core to the civil justice system will prevail and am disappointed when it doesn’t.

More than the outrage at a corrupt system, for me, it was really the utter disgust at the thought of all the pre-release crying, wailing, psycho mumbo-jumbo and the sheriff’s tie in to his feelings on those matters.

I understand dear, here’s a pass.

Of course that doesn’t apply to the prostitute they arrested while he or she was trying to make enough to feed their crack habit, or the petty thief who hears voices and sees visions.

Ask anyone in the criminal justice field and they will tell you that the majority of the incarcerated are drug addicted and/or mentally ill. They are welcome to partake of ‘state services’ or worse yet, contracted out state services (jails being a big industry in the U.S.).

The whole post-release breakdown thing appeared to be a reaction, not to the sentence or the process, but rather to the lack of handlers. Mom and Dad, no help. Makeup artist, couldn’t find ’em on one minutes notice. Clothing, not runway chic. Paris lost her security blanket.

It took about two days for her handlers to overcome the shock. Then we had Barbara Walters and the whole I’ve found God mockery going on.

I don’t know, a night in jail and her catechetical learning was resurrected? Oops, none of that back there. Her cellmate, a black woman from Louisiana, she brought Christ to Paris? Oh, that’s right, no cellmate. Maybe the Gideons left a bible for her?

My daily blog reads have worthy comments on the whole Paris issue. From the Young Fogey see: Picking on Parish Hilton and from Fr. Martin Fox’s Bonfire of the Vanities see: Reality is a harsh mistress.

On to Joseph Lieberman, Senator for the State of Connecticut.

The press typically places an “(I)” after his name to denote the fact that he is an “independent” i.e., not a Democrat or Republican. Well, independent would be an oxymoron in his case. I’m thinking that “(I)” stands for Israeli stooge.

The Senator found himself in the hands of the handlers this past weekend. He knew just how to look, and just what to say. The script was clear – threaten Iran with a military strike. Interestingly enough:

Over the weekend, Israel officials indicated that a strike against Iran was an option being considered if diplomacy fails.

You can read the whole sorted tale at the Christian Science Monitor in: Talk of attacking Iran escalates tensions.

I’m just wondering when, and if ever, the handlers are going to get a grip on reality.

There’s plenty of money in reality.

Earn it in helping the mentally ill, the incarcerated, the addicted. Rush to the front lines in defense of our borders, not Israel’s or Albania’s, or Korea’s, or Sudan’s, or…

The handlers are at heart cowards, afraid to step into the light and even more afraid of taking a stand. They live in hollow places that only God can fill. May God have mercy on us all and may He fill the vacuum in their lives.

Perhaps Judge Reggie Walton poked a little hole in their air filled arguments when he called on the handlers and the handled to step up to the plate on behalf of the poor and defenseless. From the Boston Globe see: Law scholars appeal to judge for Libby

WASHINGTON — A dozen of the country’s most respected constitutional scholars have leapt to the aid of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby , asking a federal judge if they could try to convince him about critical legal questions that favor letting Libby remain free while he appeals his conviction in the Valerie Plame Wilson leak case.

Within hours of Friday’s filing from the scholars, US District Judge Reggie Walton wrote back , granting their request . In a footnote, he said he was delighted to know that such a distinguished group was available to help argue on behalf of criminal defendants on “close questions” of the law.

Walton promised he’d ring them up soon when — instead of Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff facing the threat of incarceration — there might be poor defendants who need big legal minds to avoid imprisonment…

Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political

Dedication of the Victims of Communism Memorial

Regarding the Victims of Communism Memorial…

From the National Review: A Goddess for Victims: The Victims of Communism Memorial comes to fruition

A dozen years ago, Lev Dobriansky and Lee Edwards met with National Park Service official John Parsons to learn what it takes to build a public memorial in Washington, D.C. Parsons gave them a document that outlined a 24-step program – a long march that included congressional permission, site selection, design approval, financial commitments, and actual construction. The ordeal required the involvement of three federal panels and a D.C. neighborhood board. As if the point weren’t obvious, Parsons gave his visitors a crystal-clear warning as they headed for the door: “This is going to take longer than you think.”

Today, Dobriansky and Edwards are about to complete the 24th step: At a dedication ceremony on June 12, the Victims of Communism Memorial finally will become a reality. It intends to honor the more than 100 million people who died in a terrible ideology’s revolutions, wars, and purges – and it immediately will earn a spot on the must-see list of any conservative tourist who comes to the nation’s capital.

The idea for the project came to Edwards – once an aide to Barry Goldwater and now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation – two months after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. “I was having Sunday brunch with my wife and one of my daughters,” he says. “We were concerned that people didn’t seem interested in discussing the crimes of Communism, and that a general amnesia was settling in everywhere.” On a paper napkin, he jotted down “memorial – victims of communism” and stuffed it into his pocket. Before long, he was talking to his old friend Dobriansky, an ambassador during the Reagan administration, and together they approached allies in Congress. In 1993, President Clinton signed a bill authorizing a Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington.

The law stipulated that no federal dollars underwrite the project. The government merely would donate the land. Raising the cash would fall completely on the shoulders of Dobriansky and Edwards. Undaunted, they drew up grand plans for a $100 million museum, believing that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum might serve as a model. Then they put out their shingle and waited for the money to roll in.

Except that it didn’t. “We kept thinking that a billionaire would arrive and write us a huge check,” says Edwards. By 1999, however, they were enjoying about as much success as one of the Soviet Union’s five-year plans: The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation had raised less than half a million dollars. “We realized that we had to change our priorities,” says Edwards.

They downsized their ambitions, setting aside the lofty goal of a big museum and choosing to focus almost exclusively on the construction of a $1 million memorial. Their board debated various designs, such as a replica of the Berlin Wall, a Gulag prison, or a boat used by Cuban or Vietnamese refugees. In the end, they decided to build a bronze statue inspired by the “Goddess of Democracy” erected by Chinese students at Tiananmen Square in 1989. It not only brought to mind a relatively recent example of Communist oppression – the massacre of pro-democracy protesters – but it also could serve as a useful reminder that even in the 21st century, the world’s most populous nation remains unfree. Chinese diplomats expressed concerns about the design of the memorial to Bush administration officials, but to no avail.

From its toe to the tip of an upraised torch, the statue measures about ten feet – the goddess figure itself is just a bit taller than Yao Ming, the Chinese native and Houston Rockets center who is the tallest player in the NBA. The sculptor, Thomas Marsh, agreed to work for free. “When I saw the courage of those students at Tiananmen Square, I made a vow that I would try to rebuild their statue,” he says. He produced a version that now stands in San Francisco’s Chinatown and has prepared castings of it for other sites. The version that will appear in the Victims of Communism Memorial is an armature, which means that it’s derived from his original but also contains unique qualities. “It’s the biggest of the bunch and the facial features look more like the one the students made,” says Marsh.

Despite agreement on the creative concept, Dobriansky, Edwards, and their supporters still needed to push through Washington’s memorial bureaucracy. This is no simple task. The District of Columbia may seem cluttered with monuments of presidents, soldiers, and statesmen, but nowadays they’re difficult to build because each one requires an act of Congress as well as approval from three different bodies, albeit with remarkably similar names: the Commission of Fine Arts, the National Capital Memorial Commission, and the National Capital Planning Commission. The process is so cumbersome that only the best-organized initiatives survive. The last to succeed was a statue of Tomas Masaryk…

The dedication of the Victims of Communism Memorial will be held Tuesday, June 12th, 2007.

The official dedication will take place in Washington, D.C., at the intersection of Massachusetts Ave., N.W., New Jersey Ave., N.W., and G St., N.W., two blocks from Union Station and within view of the U.S. Capitol.

To make reservations for the day’s events and for further information contact Anne Meesman at 703-525-4445. Due to security considerations, advance reservations are required.

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