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Rededication of the Statue of Madame Marie Skłodowska Curie in Cleveland, Ohio

Dedication of Sculpture of Madame Marie Skłodowska Curie in the Polish Cultural Garden, corner of St. Clair and East Boulevard, Cleveland, on Sunday, June 7th at 3pm. The featured speaker will be Marie Siemionow, M.D., Ph.D.

Marie Siemionow, was awarded her medical degree by the Poznan Medical Academy in 1974, after which she completed her residency in orthopedics, and then earned a Ph. D. in microsurgery. Since 1995 she has been Director of Plastic Surgery Research and Head of Microsurgery Training in the Plastic Surgery Department of Cleveland Clinic.

In 2005, she was awarded a faculty appointment as Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. Most recently, she received an honorary academic appointment as Professor of Surgery at the Medical University in Poznan, Poland.

Dr. Siemionow is the first U.S. physician to receive Institutional Review Board approval for facial transplantation surgery.

The bronze bust of Maria Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934), acclaimed scientist and a pioneer in researching radioactive substances, co-discoverer of radium and polonium, and Nobel Prize winner in physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911 —” was donated in 1949 by the American Polish Women’s Club. The Curie bust is the work of Frank L. Jirouch, and was originally dedicated on June 5, 1949.

The Cleveland Cultural Gardens is a unique American landscape located in Cleveland. It is composed of 23 sections that represent the cultural backgrounds of Cleveland’s diverse population.

The Alliance of PolesAn interesting historical note, The Alliance of Poles was initially a part of the Polish National Alliance (PNA or ZNP) but left the PNA due to their acceptance of non-Roman Catholic Poles. As with many fraternal organizations the Alliance has a declining membership. The Alliance is now affiliated with the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America. “Piast” Dancers will perform at a reception to follow the rededication to be held at the Parish Hall of St. Casimir’s R.C. Church, East 82nd and Pulaski, Cleveland. In case of rain, the entire program will be presented at St. Casimir’s. St Casimir’s Parish is scheduled to be closed … 🙁

Perspective, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political, , , , ,

Pounding the pulpit for the Polish vote

From the DAWN Media Group: Poland’s Roman Catholic Church urges followers to vote

WARSAW: Poland’s powerful Roman Catholic Church is urging it’s huge flock in the country to use the European Parliament election this week to pick lawmakers who reflect church values.

More than 90 percent of Poles are Catholic and Polish bishops recently called on ‘all faithful to choose people in the elections who fully represent the point of view of the Church regarding ethical and social questions, in particular the protection of human life, marriage and the family.’

‘In this way, each one of us can contribute to the renewal of the Christian face and culture of Europe,’ the top clergy said, highlighting their opposition to abortion, in vitro fertilisation, euthanasia and gay marriage.

‘Obviously the church thinks it is it’s obligation to take a position in the debate,’ sociologist Jacek Kucharczyk from the independent Institute of Public Affairs (ISP) think tank in Warsaw told AFP.

‘Nevertheless, many Poles who define themselves as Catholics do not accept the church’s involvement in politics,’ he added. ‘They don’t like to have priests indicate candidates that a Catholic should support.’ During Poland’s 2001 parliamentary elections, Poles voted en masse for the leftist ex-communist party and for ex-communist Aleksander Kwasniewski as president in 1995, instead of Poland’s Solidarity union legend Lech Walesa, a devout Catholic. Kwasniewski won a second term in 2000…

This is why the Roman Church in Poland is loosing adherents, most particularly among the young. Prof. Zdislaw Mach, Director of the Centre for European Studies, Jagiellonian University, concludes in The Roman Catholic Church in Poland and the Dynamics of Social Identity in Polish Society:

To sum up, it seems that the Roman Catholic Church finds it difficult to respond to new challenges which arise from the development of democracy in eastern Europe and of the desire of those countries to join European institutions. The Church still uses the discourse of conflict, inherited after communist times, when the Church built its unique position, at least in the Catholic countries like Poland. Moral monopoly and direct influence on the state and the law are still its main aims. The pluralistic model is not particularly popular among the Church representatives and, consequently, the result of their activities is creation of boundaries dividing the society along religious lines. On the other hand the Church is very slow in reforming itself in such a way that would be more flexible and better adapted to the rules of the market and ideological competition. Consequently the Church is loosing its popular support and its influence, and often relies on the old methods of ideological polarisation and the discourse of conflict to win its cause.

Among my friends and acquaintances in Poland, this rings true. Their children have no attachment to the Church. They see the Church as a force organized for the purpose of political gain. What they truly seek is an enrichment of the inner life of the soul, from which the fruitful decisions the Church advocates for will come. But that’s a long process, the building of a society from within. It seems easier to pound the pulpit and demand the vote under penalty of hell. Just the sort of thing Fr. Hodur and the Catholics of Scranton rallied against in 1897.

Perspective, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political, ,

The far right can’t get it right

It’s an older story, back from March of this year. I came across it because it has been making its way through the Polish Press in the U.S. of late. Note that the BNP is Britain’s far right political party.

From Lancaster Unity (also here): BNP use POLISH plane in campaign poster despite plans to ban East European migrants

The British National Party was ridiculed last night for fronting its anti-immigration campaign with a picture of a Polish Spitfire.

Its poster for the European elections, for which its manifesto includes a ban on Eastern European migrant workers, shows the Second World War plane above the slogan ‘Battle for Britain’. But Air Force history experts have identified that the aircraft was actually flown by the RAF’s 303 Squadron —“ made up of expatriate Poles rescued from France shortly before Nazi occupation.

BNP party chiefs defended their use of the image and insisted they knew all about the background. But John Hemming, MP for Yardley, Birmingham, ridiculed this claim. He also condemned the far-Right party for using the image of Polish heroism in a campaign that includes stemming immigration from Poland.

He said: ‘The BNP often get confused and this happens because they haven’t done their research. This is just another example of them getting it wrong. They have a policy to send Polish people back to Poland —“ yet they are fronting their latest campaign using this plane. It is absurd to make claims about Englishness and Britishness fronted by this image. It’s obvious they just picked an image at random and they are really clutching at straws if they say this was deliberate.’

The 303 Squadron was the most effective Polish squadron during the Second World War. During the Battle of Britain Polish pilots shot down 203 Luftwaffe aircraft which stood for 12 per cent of total German losses in the battle.

A Royal Air Force museum spokesman said: ‘The Spitfire in the poster can be identified as belonging to 303 Squadron of the Polish Air Force by the code letters ‘RF’ painted in front of the RAF roundel. 303 Squadron operated Spitfires from Northolt, Kirton- in-Lindsey, Coltishall and other RAF stations in the UK between 1941 and 1945 after flying Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain.’

No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron-song

I cannot say how proud I am to have been privileged to help form and lead No. 303 squadron and later to lead such a magnificent fighting force as the Polish Wing. There formed within me in those days an admiration, respect and genuine affection for these really remarkable men which I have never lost. I formed friendship that are as firm as they were those twenty-five years ago and this I find most gratifying. We who were privileged to fly and fight with them will never forget and Britain must never forget how much she owes to the loyalty indomitable spirit and sacrifice of those Polish fliers. They were our staunchest Allies in our darkest days; may they always be remembered as such! — Group Captain John A. Kent DFC, AFC, Virtuti Militari.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political, , , , ,

Soooo…. they’re not stealing ‘our’ jobs

In the no kidding department, a recent study published by the Immigration Policy Center finds Immigration Does Not Increase Unemployment:

There is little apparent relationship between recent immigration and unemployment rates among native-born workers, according to a pair of studies released May 19 by the Immigration Policy Center.

The reports analyze data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Census 2000 data . They are the first two installments of a three-part series, Untying the Knot, which seeks to —debunk the frequently misrepresented relationship between immigration and unemployment,— IPC said.

According to IPC, opponents of an immigration overhaul —frequently argue that immigrants ‘take’ jobs away from many native-born workers, especially during economic hard times.—

—We commissioned this report in order to take a serious look at whether or not immigration is in fact impacting unemployment among the native-born and what we have found is that scary rhetoric is not a substitute for good data,— said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Law Foundation. IPC is the research arm of AILF.

—These findings are in line with other long-term studies conducted around the world which have shown that immigration has very little impact on native unemployment,— Johnson said. —In order to have a serious policy debate, we need good, honest numbers and that is what we believe we have provided in these reports.—

Unemployment Rates Similar in High-, Low-Immigration Areas

According to the reports, if immigrants took jobs away from native-born workers, one would expect to find a high unemployment rates in those parts of the country with large numbers of immigrants, particularly recent immigrants who are more willing to work for low wages and under worse conditions than long-term immigrants or native-born workers.

However, —analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau clearly reveals that this is not the case,— IPC said.

—The level of unemployment in the U.S. is painful, scary and difficult—”so we shouldn’t belittle it,— said Dan Siciliano, senior research fellow at IPC and executive director of the program in law, economics, and business at Stanford Law School. —However, the very notion that immigration has anything to do with unemployment does just that. It belittles the challenge of unemployment,— he said.

Siciliano said the idea that immigration is causally linked to unemployment among the native-born is a —red herring distracting from the real causes of unemployment.—

According to the report, there is —no correlation between the number of recent immigrant workers in a given state, county, or city and the unemployment rate among native-born workers.—

For example, recent immigrants make up 8.4 percent of the population in the Pacific region (including California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii) but only 2.8 percent of the population in the East North Central region (including Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin). However, both regions have nearly the same unemployment rate, 10.8 percent in the Pacific region, and 10.0 percent in the East North Central region.

Another example cited in the report is between New Jersey, a state where recent immigrants make up 7.3 percent of the population, and Maine, where recent immigrants make up 0.8 percent of the population. Both states have similar unemployment rates—”8.3 percent in New Jersey and 8.1 percent in Maine, according to the report.

—Locales with high unemployment rates do not necessarily have large numbers of recent immigrants, and locales with many recent immigrants do not necessarily have high unemployment rates,— according to the report.

IPC said that on average, recent immigrants comprise 3.1 percent of the population in counties with the highest unemployment rates, which average 13.4 percent. Recent immigrants account for a higher share of the population (4.6 percent) in counties with the lowest unemployment rates (below 4.8 percent), the report found.

Immigrants Don’t Impact Minority Unemployment

Additionally, the report found that there was no connection between immigration and unemployment rates of native-born minorities, such as African Americans.

—On the question of race we find that there’s just no connection between immigration and unemployment,— said Rob Paral, senior research fellow at IPC and the principal of Rob Paral and Associates, a research consulting firm.

—The culprit when it comes to unemployment is not immigration,— Paral said.

In the 10 states with the highest shares of recent immigrants in the labor force, the average unemployment rate for native-born blacks is about 4 percentage points less than in the 10 states with the lowest shares of recent immigrants, according to the report.

Similar findings were found for the 10 metropolitan areas with the highest number of recent immigrants compared with the 10 metropolitan areas with the lowest number of recent immigrants.

—The absence of any significant statistical correlation between recent immigration and unemployment rates among different native-born racial/ethnic groups points to deeper, structural causes for unemployment among the native-born, such as levels of educational attainment and work skills,— IPC said.

As I have oft repeated, the people who complain most loudly about immigrants have other, more central issues, an animus against people of slightly darker skin tones, or against Catholics, or for a thousand other less well-informed/reactionary reasons. They’re the first to enjoy cheaper meals, lower cost construction, and the time and energy they saved not having to mow the lawn, plant the garden, or clean the house, all because José, Janek, Engjí«ll, Sonja, or Agnieszka did the work. They rarely speak against wage theft or the abuses these workers are subject to. They close their eyes, pay 10-20% less, and complain — Why can’t they just speak English?

Why? Because yes, they’re talking about you; your greed, laziness, and hypocrisy.

Huw gets it right in his I’m a bad Homosexual Activist and Californians and the Prop 8 thing… posts (thanks to the Young Fogey for the link). We stand to complain about high prices, high unemployment, unfairness from our comfort zone while the person working for us is getting squished. He says:

Making a —just for me society— instead of a Just Society is really rather sinful.

And I say Amen.

The PNCC, a Church founded by immigrants, understands the immigrant experience and honors people of all nations and cultures. The Lord asked us to go and preach to all nations because all are valuable in His sight. Human value is a totality and our call to value each person’s inherent dignity is absolute. That’s makes us, as Christians, as PNCC members, rather radical.

Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , , , , ,

Polonian events in New York’s Capital Region

Parish Festival

St. Michael’s Parish Festival, 20 Page Ave, Cohoes, NY

Polish American Food, Games & Rides, Freckles’ the Clown, Children’s Activities, Vegas Games of Chance, Raffle, Chinese Auction, Dancing to the Rymanowski Brothers Orchestra and Tony’s Polka Band, Polish & American Craft Vendors, and Dance Groups

Friday, May 29th, 5pm-10pm
Saturday, May 30th, Noon – 10pm
Sunday, May 31st, Noon – 6pm

For more information please call 518-785-9002.

Screening of Andrzej Wajda’s Katyn

At Proctors Theater in Schenectady, Friday, May 22, 2009 at 2:30pm, 5:10pm & 7:45pm

This Oscar nominated film follows the story of four Polish families whose lives are torn apart when, at the outset of WWII, a great number of Polish soldiers fall into the hands of Soviet troops and later brutally become victims of Stalinism along with citizens in the Katyn forest in 1940.

This war drama is not rated. This film is in Polish, Russian and German with English subtitles. This film has a total running time of 121 minutes. Tickets are $6.

Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , ,

Polish-Georgian veteran receives appointment as Admiral of the Polish Navy

Jerzy Tumaniszwili (Jerzy Trapper), an Oregonian living in Beavercreek, received a promotion to Rear Admiral from the President of Poland, the Hon. Lech Kaczynski. Admiral is the highest rank in the Polish Navy, equivalent to General in the Army. Admiral Jerzy Tumaniszwili is a distinguished WWII veteran of the Polish Navy, decorated with Virtuti Militari and other orders. He served as artillery officer on the Polish Navy ships (ORP) Burza, Krakowiak and Piorun, settling in the U.S. after the war.

_dsc1182_2The appointment ceremony will take place at the Polish Hall in Portland on May 31, 2009. The day’s events begin with an 11am Holy Mass for veterans of WWII at St Stanislaus Church followed by a reception and appointment ceremony at 12:15pm in the Polish Hall in Portland.

Jerzy Tumaniszwili will receive the appointment from the Polish Ambassador in Washington, Robert Kupiecki, and General Leszek Soczewica. Polonia is invited to the ceremony.

An additional note of interest is that Rear Admiral Tumaniszwili is a Pole of Georgian descent. The following video covers some of the history of Georgian officers in the Polish Army between World Wars I and II:

Christian Witness, PNCC,

The Hispanic market and the Church

Friend, Dr. Felipe Korzenny, Director of the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University, and Senior Strategy Consultant for the Captura Group, and Lee Vann, Founder and CEO of the Captura Group have several new articles out examining different ethnic/cultural groups in the United States and their use of social media.

In The Multicultural World of Social Media Marketing social media usage patterns are explored. The study notes:

We aggregated information to find out what ethnic/cultural groups are more likely to visit social networking sites. We found broad diversity in social media behaviors among different ethnic/cultural groups and that emerging minorities visit social networking sites more frequently than non-Hispanic whites.

We then broke out the data for leading social networks, MySpace and Facebook, to see if there are any groups leading usage of the most popular social networking sites—”again, minorities lead the way, with English Preferring Hispanics being twice as likely to visit MySpace regularly than Non-Hispanic Whites. The relative importance of emerging minorities as compared with the traditional majority points to a major shift in social influence…

The study goes on to state:

Culturally, ethnic minorities tend to be drawn to collectivistic values and often look to one another to help guide decisions and opinions. In addition, ethnic minorities are more likely to leverage social networks to communicate with groups of family and friends who are geographically dispersed. Social media facilitates such collective sharing of information and communication.

We can take this information and juxtapose it to the role of the faith as a key expression of these “collectivistic values” and as a centering point for leveraging social networks essential to communication and collaboration in the Hispanic community.

In Reaching Spanish Preferring Hispanics on Facebook the authors reiterate the cultural ethic — ethnic minorities tend to be more collectivistic and go on to note that there is a dearth of culturally relevant content online.. While a certain type of relevancy — that which is considered current and trendy — is not important in the faith context, the other type of relevancy — that which begins with understanding, and speaks the language of the heart — is important.

Bishop Hodur’s National model continues to be an effective means of communicating with those in need of God’s power and healing. God is best communicated, is most clearly understood, in a cultural, national, and linguistic context that relates.

Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Columbia University establishes Endowed Chair in Polish Studies

From Columbia University: Professorship will focus on research and education within university’s East Central European Center

Columbia University recently completed a $3 million fundraising effort to establish its first endowed chair in its Polish studies program at the university’s East Central European Center.

—The new chair in Polish studies reflects not only Poland’s historical contributions to art, literature and the sciences as the birthplace of such notable figures as Czeslaw Milosz, Frederick Chopin, Marie Curie and Pope John Paul II, but also recognizes its current prominent position as a member of the European Union,— said Nicholas Dirks, Columbia’s vice president and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences. —Students will benefit from the wide array of studies we offer that pay tribute to the remarkable achievements that Poland has realized culturally, economically and politically.—

Following an international search to fill the professorship, a scholar specializing in one of the social sciences as it pertains to Poland and its neighbors will join Columbia’s faculty.

The announcement of the endowed chair took place in Warsaw on Wednesday, March 25. A formal ceremony was organized by Poland’s Consulate General in New York and the Foundation for Polish Science. It was attended by Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s minister of foreign affairs, Bogdan Zdrojewski, minister of culture and national heritage, and Aleksander Grad, minister of state treasury, among others.

During the ceremony, Foreign Minister Sikorski thanked the institutional and individual donors and emphasized that he was personally —touched and proud— that a project that was so important for Poland was successfully completed.

—The Polish studies chair provides a marvelous and timely opportunity to engage our Polish and central European colleagues in the university’s planned worldwide network of Columbia Global Centers, which are designed to mobilize scholarship around the globe to address the multiple challenges facing us all,— said Kenneth Prewitt, vice president for Global Centers at Columbia.

John S. Micgiel, director of the Columbia’s East Central European Center, led the five-year fundraising program that culminated in a final transfer of funds last month.

—Our ability to reach out successfully to Polish business was the direct result of the engagement of Consul General Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk of the Polish Consulate General in New York, Professor Wlodzimierz Bolecki of the Foundation for Polish Science in Warsaw, and especially Polish Consul Dr. Ewa Ger,— said Micgiel. —Their connections and determination to make links between Poland and Columbia built on our earlier efforts to establish a Polish studies professorship among Polish-American institutions and individual donors.—

The Kosciuszko Foundation, which promotes Polish culture, education and history in the United States, was one of the original proponents of the Polish studies chair at Columbia and helped facilitate fundraising, along with Warsaw’s Semper Polonia Foundation.

The Brooklyn-based Polish Slavic Federal Credit Union, headed by Bogdan Chmielewski, was the first corporate donor to the project, contributing more than $500,000. The credit union capped off the effort with an additional check for $181,000.

—This is a truly historic and prideful day for Polonians and all Polish-Americans,— said Chmielewski, who attended the ceremony in Warsaw. —Poland’s visibility within the hallowed halls of U.S. academia will increase greatly. Furthermore, there will be heightened awareness of Poland’s vast contributions to world culture.—

Other major donors include the Warsaw Stock Exchange, led by Ludwik Sobolewski; The National Depository for Securities, headed by Elzbieta Pustola; ENEA, an energy conglomerate led by Pawel Mortas; Poland Energy Group, led by Tomasz Zadroga; the Special Economic Zones of Katowice, Warmia and Mazury, Pomorska and Kostrzyn-Strubicka, and the Malopolska Agency for Regional Development, with Piotr Wojaczek, acting on behalf of the regional zones; and the Bogdan Fiszer Silesia Capital Fund, led by Bogdan Fiszer.Antoni Chroscielewski coordinated fundraising efforts on behalf of the Polish Army Veterans Association.

Perspective,

Wilno, Vilna, Vilne, Wilda, Vilnia, Vilnius

From The Economist: Vilnius — Contested city

THE choice of name for the capital of present-day Lithuania—”Wilno, Vilna, Vilne, Wilda, Vilnia or now Vilnius—”shows who you are, or were. In the 20th century alone, it has been occupied or claimed by Germany, Russia, Poland and the Soviet Union, with only brief periods of Lithuanian autonomy.

Vilne, in Yiddish, was home to one of Judaism’s greatest rabbis, a saintly brainbox known as the Gaon (Genius) who gave his first sermon aged seven and kick-started the great Jewish intellectual revival in the 18th century. —Vilna is not simply a city, it is an idea,— said a speaker at a Yiddish conference in 1930. It was the virtual capital of what some call Yiddishland, a borderless realm of east European Jewish life and letters in the inter-war era. At times, the majority of the city’s population was Jewish. Their murder and the deportation of many Poles by Stalin meant that the city lost 90% of its population during the second world war. Present-day inhabitants of Vilnius may find much they did not know in Laimonas Briedis’s subtle and evocative book about their city’s history.

Poles mourn the loss of Wilno, one of their country’s great cultural and literary centres. Poland’s two great poets studied there: Adam Mickiewicz nearly two centuries ago, and in the pre-war years Czeslaw Milosz, a Nobel prizewinner. Yet both men saw their Lithuanian and Polish identities as complementary, not clashing.

…

In any of the dozen possible renderings of the city’s name, its roots evoke mystery. Wilda, its old German label, comes from the word wild. In Lithuanian come hints of the words for devil (velnias), the departed (velionis) and ghost (vele). That ambiguity is fitting. In its 700-odd years of recorded history, the city has been both capital city and provincial backwater. Outsiders have been struck by its filthy streets and shameless women, and also by its glorious architecture and heights of scholarship. Pilgrims flock to the Gates of Dawn, its most holy Catholic shrine. It has been the epitome of tolerance and a crucible of the Holocaust.

In a modern Europe Vilnius can seem peripheral. Mr Briedis, however, begins by noting that when French geographers recently plotted the mid-point between Europe’s cartographical extremes, they found the continent’s true centre was a derelict farmhouse just outside the city.

Foreign visitors have left few written accounts, but Mr Briedis uses them all as sources. A hapless papal delegation provides the first. In 1324 it tried and failed to persuade Lithuania’s great pagan ruler, Gediminas, to adopt Christianity. He showed no desire to forsake Perkunas the thunder god, berating his visitors for their intolerance. —Why do you always talk about Christian love?— he asked the pope’s men. —Where do you find so much misery, injustice, violence, sin and greed, if not among the Christians?—

Lithuania eventually adopted Christianity, along with a dynastic deal with Poland, in 1387. A cathedral was built on the pagan temple, the holy fires doused and the sacred groves felled. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania flourished. At its height in the 16th century it was a vast multiconfessional empire, stretching to the Black Sea, with no fewer than six legal languages, including Hebrew and Armenian. Even as that declined, the Vilnius style of Baroque architecture ripened in glory, a —splendid autumn— in one of Mr Briedis’s many well-turned phrases, that paid —a gracious farewell to its phantom golden age—…

Mr. Briedis’ book Vilnius: City of Strangers is available at Amazon.

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