Poland’s Pulse in the Blogosphere · Global Voices
Jordan & Maria Seidel

Local Dancers in Poland's Lake District (Mazury) prepare for Sieja (kind of fish) Fish Festival – by Embe, WarsawDaily
Perhaps a Christmas footballing miracle has come early, as Kinuk reports on Poland's victory over the 4th-ranked Portugal last week:
Their victory surprised myself, N and my brother, P, who was texting us furiously throughout the game. If Poland had played like this during the World Cup and for the last few games, supporting them would be a whole different ball game, if you pardon the pun…Portugal had a bad night, but Poland had an exceptional one and they can walk away proud from their achievements.
Not to be outdone by athletes, the Polish judiciary offered up its own legal miracle by beefing up the critical punch of journalists when it comes to overly sensitive, and litigious politicos. Writes Traveling Life:
Poland's top court has taken a step towards defending the freedom of speech, saying that one can only be punished for defaming a state official under a current law if the statements are made while he is performing his function.
And not to violate the “law of threes,” another miracle is noted by Poland – IP law news and Resources – no, it's not that Poles have stopped their incessant complaining, rather:
…[the] IP [intellectual property] awareness and creativity of Andrzej Lepper is stunning. As I check trademarks in the on-line database of the Polish Patent Office it is clear that actually none of the sings [signs] including word “samoobrona” was registered for TU Agricultures Samoobrona.
Apparently, the much maligned A. Lepper has miraculously demonstrated (given the media contruct of him as an inept, oafish MP) an advanced understanding of trademark law.
Not to be confused with either an oaf or ape, both the beatroot and Our Man in Gdansk blog about the League of Polish Family Party's (LPR) incredulity towards the metanarrative of evolution. In an ironic postmodern, or Lyotardian turn, Poland's vice prime-minister of education is qouted as saying “The theory of evolution is a lie.” The beatroot reports further:
Members of the League of Polish Families (LPR) have started a campaign against the theory of evolution. Miroslaw Orzechowski (deputy education minsiter) said:
“The theory of evolution is a lie, an error that we have legalised as a common truth….We should not teach lies, just as we should not teach bad instead of good, or ugliness instead of beauty….We are not going to withdraw Darwin's theory from the school books, but we should start to discuss it.”
And if that doesn't send a chill down your homo-sapien spine, P3 wrestles the Polish preoccupation with catching cold:
The Poles I’ve come across all seem to be obsessed with two things: The temperature and health matters, or, to be more precise, with the link between the two…I’m not a biologist or a doctor, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the real link between sickness and temperature was that if you’re sick, then you should keep warm…
Temperatures were on the rise in the English-language Polish blogopshere over the murder (or assassination?) of Russian journalists Anna Politkovskaya. A personal friend to some, the recent incident highlighted to blogger Boo that:
…a political murder touched something in me… Maybe it's because the thought that a prominent journalist, whose articles uncovered crimes, corruption and violence, could be silenced forever so simply, so coldly, so finally.
The proverb (even in Klingon) that “Revenge is a dish best served cold” is well-known, but As the Warsaw Crow Flies invites us to ponder whether or not absurdity is an art form best photographed in the cold (with plush Disney figures). “Piglet in Poland at Auschwitz: Tasteless Tourism or Art with a Message?” Is this in fact a juxtaposition that merits attention (albeit created accidentally)?
The Warsaw Crow waxes:
All three Piglet pictures look almost superimposed but they're not. I'm quietly sure the young woman who took them isn't aware of the many layers of truth and emotion to be found in them. Doesn’ t that make them all the more richer?
Rich indeed we deem the beatroot's post criticizing the Nobel Prize for Literature …It's the most commented upon blog post of our latest blogosphere update and merits your attention, we invite you (and all literati) to join the debate!
And speaking of debate…In the Polish-language blogosphere emotions run high as the bloggers analyze the political scene. Within last two weeks the leaders of (now defunct) coalition keep astounding the onlookers.
The govermnent is in the process of closing down the WSI – a military branch of the Polish secret services. This institution, whose employees have never been through a proper verification process after the 1989 transformation, used to be often accused of influencing politics and being linked to many affairs. For a long time there was no political will to do something about this. The current leaders finally decided to take action – unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons, it seems.
In the wake of the recent accusations against them, they accused the media of “being inspired, and/or manipulated by the WSI.” Soon the government-friendly newspaper published an article accusing a high-ranking TVN employee (the station that highlighted the government wrongdoings) of being a registered informer. All that based on the supposedly confidential report. As Radetzky commented, after PiS reforms:
we’ll have MacService, that also serves everything up on a tray…
Kaczynski brothers and their close associates have a particular grudge against secret services ever since the early 1990s, and the fall of the last “truly” right-wing government in Poland. They have long since claimed that these events were a result of their political opponents’ using secret services to invigilate and destabilize their party. Now they managed to find evidence. Opening an archive dubbed for the media “colonel Lesiak cabinet,” they’ve proven that indeed, circa 1993, when they were in the opposition, a government official used the secret services in an illegal manner, to gather all possible compromising evidence (i.e. corruption) against them. Franciszekszwajcarski notes that these latest revelations might not, however, benefit PiS as much as they tought:
I don’t understand how – being in a state of war with most of the media in Poland – can you try to improve your political standings by publishing documents that clearly state that PC [previous Kaczynski brothers’ party] accepted bribes…
In the face of inability to form a majority coalition, PiS will be finally forced to quit stalling and agree to an earlier elections, despite a risk of loosing. However, some moves on the political stage may indicate that – for the sake of keeping power – the prime minister contemplates taking Andrzej Lepper and his party back in, despite all the reasons he had for kicking them out before.
What will Kaczyński do? Will he attempt a Heraclitean walk twice into the same river? Or will he take a gamble in an early elections? Maybe he should look on the net for supporters? Jah observes the phenomenon of politicians utilizing such resources as MySpace and wonders:
The seed has been planted and now we can just wait until various presidential or parlamentary candidates set up their profiles on Grono or other (Polish) service, to tempt potential sympathizers, volunteers, voters with their virtual virtues. Unless you should outlaw such forms of campaigning beforehand. Stop political propaganda on the net? Is it even conceivable, and acceptable?
That’s the Poland blogopshere update! Until next time – Do widzenia i powodzenia!