m-fronc-blog

[m-fronc-blog]

Another priest molested a teenager in Poland. Bishop Jan Szkodoń of Kraków is yet another pervert that hasn’t yet seen justice.

[m-fronc-blog]

Moving out of Tumblr

I'm moving my stuff over to write.as. Write.as isn't creepy because it doesn't invade your privacy. The interface makes much more sense as well, since you can actually focus on writing stuff, unlike here.

Here is the blog. This address should also work. I decided against using a custom domain for now, but that may change in the future. I'll be crossposting posts I write there to this tumbler, however I recommend you stop using this place -- you deserve better.

[m-fronc-blog]

Polish education superintendent thinks masturbation’s unlawful

Barbara Nowak, the provincial education superindendent for Lesser Poland, doesn't like sexual education implemented in 2018 in Gdansk, at the other side of the country.

The conservative former school teacher, headmaster and later Krakow's city councillor tweeted last weekend that "the LGBT communities know very well that their programmes are against the curriculum and Polish law. They hide ideological gender content under the disguise of pro-health programmes." She goes on to claim "they" lie, cheat and deprive, and then calls to act.

"Zdrovve Love" is a series of eight free-of-charge classes held in Gdansk's schools and financed by the city. With their parents' approval, kids can learn about things like family planning, STDs, anathomy, psychosexual development and hygiene, among other things. Masturbation was covered as well, described as something most people do, being "a normal and healthy manifestation of sexuality." Which it is.

It's not clear which article of the Polish law the programme is supposed to be breaking -- logically, none (yet). However, hateful commentary is typical for the officer, who has been aligned with the ruling Law and Justice party at least since the local elections in 2010. Her change towards the populist right was apparently ignited by the fateful Smolensk Crash, which happened that year (its fallout in domestic politics is a story of its own).

When Warsaw's liberal mayor Rafal Trzaskowski signed the LGBT+ declaration in February 2019, she said the mayor is promoting peadophilia. The declaration is anything but -- edited by the "Love Doesn't Exclude" Association, it requires the city to provide essential services for the queer community, such as an intervention hostel, where the folks can stay if they're thrown out their home.

Barbara Nowak interviewed by media in November 2019; YouTube/Barbara Nowak

There's more. In early 2018 she called on the Auschwitz Museum to only offer guides led by Poles approved by the National Rememberance Institute, a government agency tasked with fighting crimes commited by the Nazi and Communist regimes in Polish territory, among other things. She claimed that "a foreign narration" rules the place, which Jews leave with the impression that Poles were responsible for the Holocaust, too.

That was disproved by the Museum itself, as well as one of the Polish guides. He cites the Polish-Israeli agreement from 2006 (so, signed during her party's rule), which divides trips in the museum into two -- regular trips, on which Israelis are like any tourist -- and delegations, which are essentially educational trips for schools, as well as public officers. It divides the latter into two parts -- Auschwitz, where a Polish guide and an Israeli head of the trip lead the guide together, and talk through the parts regarding Poles and Jews, respectively. Then the delegation goes to Birkenau with the Israeli only. Some claim the Museum doesn't highlight Polish suffering enough, but as somebody who's actually been there, I'm hellbent on disagreeing.

She's also openly against separation of state and church. As reported by Polityka weekly in March 2019, she claims that students need to be raised respectful towards Christian tradition. This doesn't seem terrible out of context, but in the very next sentence she brags to travel about the province, where she sees the schools' functions begin "where she likes" -- in the church, and that "touches her," while she disregards the fact education and the Church don't go well together. Not to mention the problem.

Barbara Nowak is what happens when the Polish right's ignorance and pettiness meets ambition. After becoming Krakow's city councillor for Law and Justice, she couldn't serve as a head of a local school, and opted to stay as its day room teacher. It's after that she assembles for the school a model of the governmental plane that crashed in Smolensk. For long, the accident had been the core of the party's identity; it's only in the last 1-2 years that the subject took a nose dive down the priorities' list, as its political use couldn't be held on life support anymore. Unlike it, Ms. Nowak continues to be the star of Krakow's cuckoos.

[m-fronc-blog]

The wrong Amazon is on fire

The Amazon Rainforest has been on fire for almost a month. We have to dismantle the corporations that destroy our home.

A hundred of corporations cause 71% of the world’s pollution.

While, yes, 80% of the Amazon Rainforest’s deforestation is driven by cattle pasture, it’s wrong to move the responsibility to individuals who eat meat. It’s giving in to corporate propaganda that the world is made of irresponsible consumers, which ignores structural causes of the Climate Crisis.

It’s not the Brazilian working class weakening their country’s environmental protections. That’s the doing of the fascist president Jair Bolsanaro. He’s the ugly example of what numerous politicans are doing — the difference being that he’s in-your-face about being a fascist.

As Pavel Šplíchal writes for Poland’s Krytyka Polityczna, the ‘ecology without ideology’ adopted by many Green Party’s members, focusing on personal restraint, can only go so far, and will eventually stop within the system, but with more recycling, or lead to a political confrontation between two ‘rational solutions’: economically rational tax cuts for the fossil fuel industry, and an ecologically rational closure of it.

Of course, it’s a good choice to buy ethically, from ecological farmers, and other entities whose actions respect nature. Nonetheless, the real power for structural change lays with the world’s richest. We’ve to remember that ecological food tends to be less affordable, and victim blaming the poor for their apparent irresponsibility has the same effect of asking why don’t they just eat a cake. Emmanual Macron’s fuel tax that sparked the yellow vests’ demonstration is a great example of such approach.

At the end of the day, you may stop buying plastic bottles, but they’re still being produced.

[m-fronc-blog]

Poland’s vice-minister of justice and trolling

Łukasz Plebiak, Deputy Minister of Justice in the Law and Justice government, apparently farmed trolls to discredit the chief of a major judge association.

Yesterday’s astonishing report by Onet.pl led to his resignation today.

As Onet’s Magdalena Gałczyńska writes, his campaign of disinformation focused on Krystian Markiewicz, a lawyer and head of “Iustitia”, Poland’s largest judge association. He’s also an outspoken critic of the Law and Justice (PiS) government.

In June 2018, Mr. Plebiak apparently received a document containing rumours on Mr. Markiewicz’s private life, mostly his contacts with women, and his way up the ladder as a judge. He’s said to had seen it before, and started cooperating with an Emilia (full name not published) — a Twitter troll who gave it to him that June — to propagate it among journalists, and members of “Iustitia”. She also sent it to Mr. Markiewicz, whose contact details she received from Łukasz Plebiak, as an apparent sign that he should know that they know. Onet estimates she sent 2,500 anonymous letters and e-mails.

One rumour alleged Krystian Markiewicz persuaded a woman to have an abortion, which is a taboo in Poland.

Their communication, published by Onet, shows discussions on journalists who could be useful. A message from Mr. Plebiak wonders whether one brave enough exists. Ms. Emilia, in response, suggests a known state TV journalist (name not publicised), promises “to do her best,” but “hopes she won’t land in jail.”

Łukasz Plebiak replies that “we don’t jail for good deeds.”

Krystian Markiewicz wasn’t the only member of “Iustitia” to fall victim to the couple. They reportedly also stand behind a report about a member of its Warsaw branch and his internet romance. It was aired on state television’s investigation programme “Alarm!”, on May 25, 2018, and focused on judge Piotr Gąciarek’s fraud case against his lover. The programme claimed he won by using his position and connections.

The now former vice-minister of justice plans to sue Onet for slander, but Warsaw Prosecutor’s Office already declared to have started an investigation into his supposed crimes.

Talking to Onet, Emilia admitted feeling shameful of her doing “that could lead to harm of at least twenty judges.”

The affair comes after years of attacks by the Law and Justice on independent judiciary, which both came as the controversial reform, and as an antagonistic rhethoric that judges are a caste biased in their own favour.

[m-fronc-blog]

Don’t fetishise my country

Poland is a beautiful country, but it’s not a tool for your culture wars.

Poland is a country rich in culture and history, but also a complicated one, wherein lives a nation that both fought nazism, and chose a president that openly celebrates Nazi collaborators.1

We’ve created beautiful universities, film posters, and inspired several revolutions. Every time we rose up is because we felt the immediate force of an actual, mortal oppression. A death of one German soldier cost a hundred Polish lives, a bread for a Jew took a Polish family that gave it. One uprising, a whole city.

Every foreign occupation caused by an alpha-male-wannabe like you was immense tragedy for countless families. Those tragedies many of us are still trying to heal from, and they’re not for you to use to own the libs.

Not only our public figures and media are opening the wounds afresh with their fascist apologia and rhetoric, but so do you with your perverse feel of victimhood.

Perverse, because your “oppressed traditional values” are neither oppressed nor values. Hate isn’t a value, and you unabashedly honor it.

Some even kill in the name of it.

History of Poland isn’t ideally good or bad. But if you were right that Poles are inherently heroic, and you hated minorities — Poland wouldn’t be your fantasy. Poland would be your nightmare. The good folk who rised against Nazis, rised for free Poland — against people like you.

1 To summarise: The Holy Cross Mountains Brigade was a WW2-era underground militia that — according to the Home Army intel — received weaponry from the Germans, and cooperated with Gestapo, mostly fighting communists. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda will patronise the anniversary of the Brigade’s creation on August 11.

[m-fronc-blog]

Refugee: world’s rewardless record-breaker

There are 71 million refugees worldwide, today’s Gazeta Wyborcza daily reports. That’s the worst since World War 2, twice more than a decade ago, and it may get worse.

Last Wednesday, the gazette says, Tunisian fishermen saved four men from Mali, one of which later died in hospital. Their boat, which capsized killing 82 other people, went off from Libya, a popular port to Europe for asylum seekers from Middle East and Africa. But many don’t even make it past the shores.

Through a deal with Libya, EU reduced the number of migrants that reach Europe. However, the people do not disappear still. They stay in Libya.

Refugee centers in Libya are an epicenter of human rights abuses, and offer conditions no better than prisons in a typical Global South country. Human trafficking is rampant — a slave costs $400 — as well as bloody violence. 53 people died in a recent bombing on a refugee center in Tripoli. Security shot at those who tried to run.

As often, the Global North does the best it can to stay away from the crisis. Turkey, Pakistan, and Uganda host the most refugees — 3.7, 1.5, and about a 1 million respectively. Only 16% of refugees land in Europe. Germany stands out like a sore thumb with another million refugees with a change.

300 million people may be forced to leave their homes due to floods, droughts, and hurricanes. A drought is an indirect cause of the war in Syria — one heavy enough to create an economic crisis moved people to protest in 2011. Some African refugees confirm that agriculture work in Africa isn’t only hardly enough to make ends meet — it’s getting harder to feed family.

A handful of the world’s biggest corporations — established mostly in the rich countries — destroy the climate, while the whole world pays. They’re creating another problem we’ll be blind to, and — if need be — blame the victims.

[m-fronc-blog]

Sudan’s body in the Nile

Jacobin published a great summary on the recent, bloody terrifying events in Sudan.

At dawn on Monday, June 3, paramilitary forces raided the sit-in opposite the Army General Command in Khartoum, Sudan, raining fire on protesters and bringing an end to six months of a largely peaceful uprising. Soldiers broke through the demonstrators’ barricades, burnt their tents to the ground, and shot at and beat protesters. Witnesses spoke of soldiers shooting indiscriminately, throwing bodies of slain protesters into the Nile, and raping two of the medics at the sit-in.

Over a hundred died within next two days. Soldiers entered hospitals to shoot wounded protestors. At one hospital, they shot at and arrested a doctor who took part in the peaceful sit-in that demanded the military steps aside in favour of a democratic, civilian government.

It does seem that Sudan’s going the Egypt’s way, where a general took power after deposing an elected president (one backed by the Muslim Brotherhood nonetheless).

It’s shameful that European Union cooperates with this brutal regime and their cronies to stop migrants. It should stop, both because it’s a punishment to migrants for escaping poverty and poor governance — their incredible, but natural choice — and because it’s immoral to back blood-thirsty authocrats.

The military regime cut off the Internet so the world would never find out, as if the Streisand Effect didn’t exist. So, please care about massacred Sudan as much as you cared about an empty church that caught fire. ⇒ Massacre and Uprising in Sudan, Shireen Akram-Boshar and Brian Bean for Jacobin.

[m-fronc-blog]

Thoughts on #iPadOnly

A short read on how an iPad Pro replaced my computer, and it became the best thing in my digital life.

My laptop broke down over two years ago. I didn’t fix it. I didn’t feel like it.

Instead, I took my 2016 9.7” iPad Pro I received brand new in 2017. I unwrapped my Apple Smart Keyboard, and have never looked back.

To be fair, I’m not a power user. I don’t edit films outside of short vacation videos. I don’t code. I read a ton — I have over 3 GB of e-books. I write blogs (in Bear), which I publish on Medium and Tumblr. I edit photography as well — mostly using Afterlight 2, which I adore. I watch a show or two (on Netflix, of course).

My iPad will be two this August. It works like new — a result better than any computer I’ve owned in my life. And it’ll have iPadOS this fall.

It still has limitations. Tablet Safari behaves like a phone Safari. Editing videos is a pain in the ass without a mouse, even though iOS’ iMovie supports keyboard shortcuts. Can’t stick in a memory card either, which is why I haven’t considered using an actual camera instead of a phone with a good camera. I’ll not be buying a new computer for the sake of photo syncing — I prefer Google Photos.

Poor quality of Apple’s accessories — in my case Apple Smart Keyboard, and a lightning cable, both bought new — is another drawback. The keyboard doesn’t respond anymore, and its shell breaks down, so, after over a year, it’s essentially a glorified tablet case. Original lightning cable I received with the tablet gave up two weeks ago.

But the size and usability pay well for all that. I can put the tablet, and a wireless keyboard, inside my rucksack, and forget I have it there. If I want to read a book after finishing up a class assignment, I just rotate the device and open Apple Books. And it’s going to last some 15 hours on one charge, unlike a bulkier, less comfortable laptop that would only allow for similar activities, just on a bigger screen.

My productivity didn’t skycrocket, but thanks to Screen Time, it has definitely gotten better. I started reading more, and picked up Italian (classes + Duolingo). I more often listen to podcasts (Urban Dharma, The Europeans, and The Art of Manliness in particular). Social media still get the best of me when I’m on my phone, so I’m disappointed to hear my Samsung Galaxy S7 will not be updated to Android Pie. I definitely consider an iPhone as my next device because of that.

Still, some of the discipline I learn on the iPad, is flowing into non-digital parts of my life, which now grows against my screen time — a notable change in my lifestile. My thoughts don’t rush once I put it away, as if I realised I ran out of drugs. I’m more present in life — iPad’s best impact on it.

If I had a demanding, media-heavy job, I’d probably get myself a proper computer. I may choose a Windows machine, because I start missing gaming (the one on iOS isn’t the same). But as long as I can focus on writing, media consumption, and light photo edition, I’ll stick to iPad, because it works for me.

[m-fronc-blog]

Poland: No enemy like a liberal

2019 European elections are another example that the Civic Platform (PO) and its allies can’t win if they don’t get over themselves.

Polish liberals like to cast a lot of blame. Most of the time, correctly, they take shots at Law and Justice (PiS), our ruling party of thieves, liars and insecurities. PiS is the nemesis, our national pain in the ass.

But who the liberals also despise are the ruling party’s electorate, who they deem as stupid, backwards and — essentially — illiterate. In fact, the counties that vote for PiS should just secede, because their pseudo-patriotic chauvinist fallible minds can’t comprehend our enlightened cities of glass and culture. Such tends to be the narrative among mainstream centrist parties, and their supporters.

Polish Republican think-tank “Jagiellonian Club” recently published an excellent article (in Polish) — “The end of Polish transformation.” It argues that PiS gave Poles a reason to believe we don’t have to catch up to the West anymore. That — after 30 years of neoliberal policies that produced a huge progress, but terrible inequalities — we are the West, and can finally loosen up the belt.

That, of course, isn’t fully correct. Despite being Europe’s wunderkind for almost 30 years, we’re still much poorer, on average, than people in Western Europe. But, to PiS, it isn’t the point to say things that are correct — it’s to say things people want to hear. And they are tired of hearing that they have to keep being poor for the sake of potential future wealth.

The article starts up with a simple question: “are PiS voters blind or stupid?”. It’s banal — they’re neither. They aren’t voting for PiS’ destruction of democracy, or the international humiliation the party brought upon. They vote for PiS despite of those. They vote for their own interest — as short-sighted as it might be.

PiS, emboldened by their result in 2015, said ‘revolution time!’. The idea’s but very simple — with social welfare programs like 500+ (€125 per child every month), the government gave people a feeling of dignity. The nerds who were bullied for three decades are finally allowed into the cool guys’ party house.

Of course, the money isn’t quite so free, and it’s not even well spent. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki argues the state budget will make it because “all it takes is for thieves to stop stealing”. The government did, in fact, patch up much of the tax black hole, but there aren’t enough thieves to support PiS’ welfare state, and the economy won’t be doing well forever. Some experts say that social elevation of the poorest would only take 1/8th of the €5 billion PiS spends on welfare every year.

The pseudo-patriotic, chauvinistic propaganda that runs at state-ran media isn’t the clue to the government’s power. It’s been a useful tool, yes, but what Law and Justice’s electorate sees first is the better spending power it has now, compared to what the life had been outside big cities before 2015. The “standing up proud” narrative is to help the party’s clumsy solidarism — not the other way around.

What the liberal opposition lacks is a proper answer to that solidarism; for most of PiS’ rule, it has seemed their whole raison d’être is to be anti-PiS for the sake of it. The Civic Platform and its allies in the European Coalition can’t seem to realise that Poland doesn’t end at the seemingly liberal islands of Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw and Gdansk. A majority of Poles lives outside Poland’s 10 biggest cities, which — like everywhere in the world — tend to offer much better quality of life than the countryside.

That’s one part of the problem. Another is the arrogance many liberals show towards those who don’t think like them. The electorate sees it, and PiS plays very well on that. With the classist statements — like this disgusting comic posted by actress Krystyna Janda — that say struggling Poles are essentially whores who’d vote devil into power if he gave them money, we’re playing into Kaczynski’s argument that the bloody liberals and rotten leftists1 don’t care about the true Poles’ wellbeing. Instead of destroying the monster with a better version of its weapon — building long-term opportunities for the poorer folk — we’re feeding it with our own bodies.

And while many members of the left — chiefly of Razem and Wiosna parties — point out the liberals’ patronising tone is a major problem, we’re accused of shooting own goals. That we should, instead, just join the Coalition, and focus on winning the elections, and talk about solutions later. In PO’s language, that seems to mean purely taking shots at PiS, not creating opportunities, because with such antagonising attitude, no Siekielski’s documentaries, nor yet another corruption scandals will ever help us win.

1 leftist ideologies and liberalism are often used interchangebly by the Polish right, just like by the right in the West. It is known to me that socialism or anarchism and liberalism aren’t the same;

[m-fronc-blog]

Set the Church on fire

The ’Tell No One’ documentary by Polish journalist Tomasz Sekielski (and his brother Marek) is another evidence that there’s no place for the institution of the Church in modern society.

The documentary, of which a full version I embedded below (English subtitles available), tells the tale of several Polish priests who sexually assulted children, and escaped consequences of their actions with help of their mother institution — the Catholic Church. They were moved, and their victims disbelieved — both by the clergy, and often by other believers — a typical gaslighting in such cases, proved by the work of Boston Globe’s Spotlight team in the early 2000s, and numerous similar instances in Poland and abroad.

This isn’t the first peadophilia case among the Church’s ranks, and it’ll not be the last until we abolish the institution as a whole — not only in Poland, but globally.

Arc-bishop Gądecki — the head of Polish Episcopate — has issued an apology yesterday morning, but this isn’t enough. The clergy either issues meaningless apologies — that aren’t followed by a plan to stop the problem — or attacks the critics, saying that they‘re anti-Catholic, so also anti-Polish. This is both insulting to good Catholics, and Poles, but mostly to the victims of peadophilia, who deserve nothing less than justice. Both of those reactions aren‘t justice — they’re a spit on face of all of us.

The Church is emboldened by the lack of pressure from the current government — but also the previous ones. Polish political elite has always been in cahoots with this criminal institution, cementing each other’s power.

The film was precedessed by an arrest of a Polish artist Elżbieta Podleśna, who appropriated an icon of the Virgin Mary‘s halo with the LGBT rainbow colors. She‘s facing charges of ‘offending religious feelings’, a criminal offence in Poland, and was largely condemned by members of Poland’s ruling party. Some members of the ‘liberal’ opposition also distanced themselves from her, but the arrest was mostly, and correctly, criticised as bogus.

It isn’t the first time Law and Justice party sided with the Church. Their rule is widely inspired on a supposed connection between Catholicism and Polish patriotism, and its rhetorical and material support of the Church is infamous, as seen in the multimillion grants a redemptorist Tadeusz Rydzyk receives from the state, and in the conventions the government holds with him every year.

The Church is the world’s oldest corporation, responsible for a mountain of crimes — e.g. the Crusades, the witch burning and peadophilia. It‘s a criminal entity that has no right to claim representation of the believers. It’s only representative of its own power-grabs and the hurt they‘ve been causing for a millenium. To Christians, it only gives a bad name, and to its victims, senseless hurt.

[m-fronc-blog]

Is a 3-year-old smartphone a good camera? On mobile photography with Samsung Galaxy S7

Six years into mobile photography, half of it with Samsung Galaxy S7, I’m sharing my ideas on shooting pictures with the phone.

2019 is the year that Samsung likely stops the lifeline of Android updates to the used-to-be flagship. At the same time, it’s a relatively cheap, yet fast piece of hardware — in Poland, a new unit goes for approximately €300.

Is but the camera any good?

Yes — mostly.

Like most contemporary smartphones, it does excellently in well-lit environment. I find the pro mode to help with sharpness (compared to auto settings), and thank luck that it’s there. Here are a few examples.

The photo of Bahrain’s Tree of Life was made using automatic settings. The colorful street of Manama, Bahrain, and the garden — using manual settings.

The difference is hard to spot at first, but easy to tell once you zoom in.

Pictures are still great at evenings, as seen on those photographs of Dubai Marina:

However, logically, at a point you must raise the ISO or shutter speed. The overall quaility will still be good, but the sharpness is going to suffer. I raised ISO to 250 in the first photo just below:

In the other photo, I left ISO at 50, but raised the shutter speed to 1/15. Both pictures turned out okayish, but the latter ended up a little bit shakey (tripod saved it), and the former is noisy.

The quality of nightly pictures is mixed, and varies from okayish to mediocre, as seen here:

I cannot speak for long-form videos; yet, short clips I’ve been sharing on Instagram Stories let me say the videos — which I record in 1080p to save space — do generally match the stills‘ quality. Image stabilisation works well enough with a cheap tripod I bought second-hand.

The experience

Samsung Galaxy S7 currently rides Android 8.0, which means it’s well endowed in software means.

I use Google Photos to sync my works to my iPad Pro, on which I largely edit the photos. It’s seamless, and free unlimited storage is a huge advantage of it; the quality sacrifice isn’t noticeable to most eyes.1

The camera.app interface is also seamless. The markings are clear and the switches cover the necessary options. Here’s its interface:

Is this a good camera?

Newer iPhones and Samsungs will beat it with their eyes tied. However, it’s great for the price and age, and I’ll keep using it until it dies. The phone still lasts over 10 hours on one charge, it never stutters, and connects where it has to. One thing that keeps bothering is the Samsung bloatware, of which the prime example is Samsung Pay; it’s unavailable in Poland (I use Google Pay instead), yet I can’t uninstall it.

As hideuos as a dead rat is TouchWiz, Samsung’s default phone interface until it introduced OneUI. Luckily, it can be changed, and I use Nova Launcher Prime ever since I have the phone.

1 photos count against your Google Drive’s storage if you sync them in full size;

[m-fronc-blog]

I find Notre Dame to be a beautiful monument of Europe’s culture and history, and unforgivable that the right used it in their toxic ‘culture wars.’

Now the Yellow Vests are using the fire for an argument, yet I can’t help but agree with them, at least to some degree.

Don’t get me wrong—there should be money to preserve our precious history and culture.

At the same time, there are still inequalities — both in France, and across Europe — that somehow the elites are having a hard time solving. When you’re poor, and, e.g, must face the brunt the costs of climate change because a rich politician said so, it sticks on your eyes like a dead fly on a happy cyclist’s teeth — it’s annoying, and the bad taste stays with you even after you clean it off. France’s egalitarianism isn’t as material as the myth may tell, even as the Republic is one the world’s richest countries.

[m-fronc-blog]

An excellent article on LobeLog about climate change-induced future in Bahrain, Middle East’s smallest country that I hold so dear. It’s as frightening as it gets. Here are some quotes:

Rising sea levels could submerge between 27 and 56 percent of Bahrain—already the smallest country in the Middle East—by 2100. The loss of that land would devastate the island country’s economy, its water supply, and the natural environment.

As everywhere here is close to the coast, that’s at least a third of approximately 1,6 million inhabitants, or over 500,000 people. That’s a major city under water. Permanently.

By 2025, shortages of water may affect as many as 30 percent of Bahrainis. The World Resources Institute expects Bahrain to become one of the world’s seven most “water-stressed” countries by 2040.

‘Water shortage’ may sound ironic in an island country, but — as the article states — that’s the future for Bahrain. Already, drinking water has to be bought in 5-gallon bottles, because tap water isn’t good for consumption.

Speaking of environment, I’m also forever dumbfounded that countries like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia aren’t making use of the ridiculously hot climate for power generation. I’d spent four years here before, I‘m around again since January, and have only seen a handful of Toyota Prius hybrids. Amongst the locally-beloved V8 American cars, I’m yet to see a full electric, or a wider use of solar panels at home/workplace. Air pollution is as bad as Poland’s, and all-year-round, but nobody seems to care.

[m-fronc-blog]

What is love? ‘Christian’ responses to the Notre Dame fire

As the tragic fire of Notre Dame tones down, Internet shows once again that it can be a very toxic space.

Response to the seemingly simple event — in the end, it’s likely an accidental burning — turns out to be overtly complicated. Real people believe the Russian troll’s narrative1 that it’s possibly a false flag by Emmanuel Macron. If it’s not that, then it’s the end of the West, Islamic terrorism and God’s punishment for laïcité. Do not forget that the ashes will now make space for a mosque — so says Magdalena Ogórek, a journalist and a former politican (Ms. Ogórek is a story in her own right).

Sadly, some of the international left was cheering because of French colonialism, to which Notre Dame, a 12th century building, doesn’t even have a link to.

Robert Winnicki, a Polish nationalist, a head, and the only MP, of ‘National Movement’, claims the fire “is a symbol of a fading Europe of gay-bars, demolished monuments and churches.” Tomasz Terlikowski, a conservative Catholic journalist for RepublikaTV, said the signs are to be read, and “if we don’t convert, we’re all going to burn.” In the eyes of Poland’s Minister of Entrepreneurship and Technology, Jadwiga Emilewicz, “Burning is the France that isn’t there anymore”. Adam Andruszkiewicz, PiS’ nationalist Minister of Digitization, tweeted that “there’s hardly any more telling symbol of the Western Christianity’s fall.”

In the case of the Polish internet, the worst vitriol originates from the right (predominantly Catholic) — as seen in the last paragraph, conservative politicians and journalists use a language no better than that of an anonymous troll. Seemingly, that is the group who should be the most saddened at the loss of such a beautiful church. Ironically, there seems to be a spark of happiness in their words, as they’ve gained an argument against “the rotten West” (or so they might think). Most major conservative voices haven’t offered pure empathy or help to Paris — Christian values — even as they’re the first to claim that Christian morals are under attack.

There are but voices across the spectrum that call for sensibility. A Jesuit father Grzegorz Kramer said on Twitter that any Christian who says the Notre Dame fire was a punishment for France’s secularism “doesn’t know the gospel”. Kazimierz Bem, a Calvinist pastor and theologian, tweeted that “God isn’t a right-wing arsonist. The Notre Dame fire is an enormous tragedy for Christians. After the Great Friday is the Easter. Pray for there to be no victims and for good will to rebuilt it!”.

The reality, in the end, doesn’t end so grim. Emmanuel Macron, France’s President, pledged to rebuild the landmark. On Tuesday, Paris’ major mosque appealed to all Muslims to contribute to Macron’s fund for Notre Dame’s reconstruction. And a historian mapped the whole thing in 3D.

Notre Dame will live, and so will France and Europe, none of which will collapse because of gay-bars, secularism or Muslims. If at all, it’ll be because of the toxic attitude of those who claim to hold it so dearly.

1 just to be clear, I’m referring to PartisanGirl, not Dov, who’s actually a very cool Lithuanian. I recommend that you follow him.

[m-fronc-blog]

Social life in Arab Gulf shopping malls

“Informality is often not depicted to take place in »sanitised« places such as malls, but the reality is that people use these spaces in different ways, and for some, a mall has a social meaning […].”

A great, interesting post about social significance of shopping malls in Khaleej, or Arab part of Persian Gulf. The example is Dubai Mall, one of the world's biggest shopping malls, but—from my own observation—I can say it's relatively similar to other Arab states around the Gulf.

[m-fronc-blog]

Poland’s teachers go on strike

Marek Suski, Polish Prime Minister’s current chief political advisor, said in a Monday interview that a qualified teacher’s pay — ‘5,000 zl with a change’ a month gross — doesn’t make the job much different to that of a national Member of Parliament, whose base income ‘is 8,000 zl a month’. The statement, which he apologised for later that day, is problematic on several levels.

Back in December, Teachers’ Association of Poland announced it is planning a widespread strike this year. Teachers call for a raise of at least a 1,000 zł (€232), to be added to the funny income of 1,600-2,600 zl a month (according to self-declared numbers). It is less than national median income, which — according to 2016 Main Statistical Office numbers — is 3,500 zł a month (€815, before taxes).

It is said — to amplify their message — the teachers would rise the strike in early April, during this year’s final exams.

Poland’s Ministry of Education claims that from 2018 to 2020, teachers’ pay will raise from 2,900 to 3,200 zl a month gross for a new teacher, and 5,300 to 5,800 zl for a qualified one. After the raise, teachers would officially make from €750 to €1360 a month gross.

This year's actual raise of the actual income? 5%.

Another issue with Mr. Suski’s statement is the assumption — shared by his party — that teachers are, in fact, more privileged than they should be, which as arrogant as it is ignorant. He’s even got his own income wrong! An MP makes much more that what Mr. Suski claims — 9,892 zł, or €2,300, is a base monthly gross income, but there’s 2,569 zł (€603) bonus for executing their mandate. A parliament commission head receives another 20% bonus. Such a head’s deputy has a 15% bonus. A sub-commission head makes additional 10% to his income. Therefore, an MP makes at least 12,000 zl a month gross, or €2,800.

If an MP serves several functions, his bonuses add up. That, however, can’t exceed 35% of their base income.

It grossly unfair and dangerous that one of society’s most important industries are so severely underpaid. We’re literally mincing money on our future. The system has other faults, but as teachers earn what’s essentially a non-income, there can be no expectation that they work in their full capacity, as teaching is an enormously stressful work; it is much more than summer holidays and the 18 hours a week a Polish teacher supposedly spends at their workplace.