#Poland's reforms

[chicago-geniza]

Trying to find one of those salacious, period-typical sex position guides from the 1920s because I don't know what the straight sexual imaginary was doing beyond the basic missionary/doggy/cowgirl trinity. I have, naturally, a sex manual for young adult women from interwar Poland, but it's more a Facts of Life guide than a latter-day kama sutra, ya dig. Want to write a couple of scenes for this fic but realized I have no idea how straight people fuck, let alone how they fucked in a much more conservative and convention-bound past, but a past that was in some ways more "liberated" by virtue (or vice) of its relative innocence, that is to say, ignorance. Some things were so new they were just novel, they hadn't been socially codified as Good or Bad yet, or they simply weren't mentioned in polite society, so there was no basis for comparison. Idk why Downton Abbey made my brain fixate on "how people fucked in the past" but I'm interested, as I said, like, epistemically and phenomenologically, if that makes sense

[rudegoose]

currently googling “how to survive thanksgiving dinner with my dad’s polish-jewish family and my mom’s italian (sicilian)-catholic family”

[chiaracqueen]

anytime y'all scream about "abolishing the juries" in the name of "original, creative songs" i can't help but think about the fact that the public placed spain last and poland eight.

i know y'all like to think you would reward originality. but you wouldn't

[theshatterednotes]

Rosa Luxemburg

[bakerstreetdoctor]

Considering the latest damage to undersea cables in the Baltic sea, I propose a European initiative to block western Russian ports. No more sea access via Petersburg or Królewiec. Hell, throw in a blockade of the Barent Sea if winter won't do it for us.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Reformed Evangelical Church in Warsaw, Poland

Polish vintage postcard, mailed in 1917 to Paris

[witekspicsbanknotes]

POLAND - design of a commemorative banknote, 100th anniversary of money reforms in 1924 by W. GRABSKI.

[marietheran]

There is a known letter by Tolkien that starts with “The news today about ‘Atomic bombs’ is so horrifying one is stunned" etc, and it really got me thinking about the reaction common people (or not common per se, but not heads of state either nonetheless) throughout history would have had to its unfolding. Because it struck me that I cannot imagine what it waking up and learning that humanity now has the power to level cities with one push of a button — and yet, for a million people, this was their reality.

Or, since I've been reading a lot about Catholic-Protestant relations recently... my country holds the distinction of not having been the scene of much religious persecution at the time — that said, if you read into historic record, there is a lot of evidence that it must have been a period of strong unease, given that a significant portion of the nobility had converted to different protestant denominations, and were at times even trying to convince the king to follow in the footsteps of his neighbours in rulership. And that is enough for simmering disquiet, but then you realise that people connected with the court must have also known about all the horrors happening elsewhere in Europe, and — it was a different period so perhaps they were not as appalled as I am, but to them it was happening now. And how many of them thought "For now we are more or less tolerated, but how long shall this last?" or "Well, if they come to power, won't it be exactly like in England?". Did people pass themselves in the halls of the Senate with murder in their eyes, knowing that they would want the other person dead if only the situation allowed for it?

[magnusraydar]

Idea that the Batfam all have a weird talent that isn't really vigilante stuff.

Bruce- is oddly good at remembering dates (hey, Bruce, what's today? "Todays September 27, the day where New York first passed a bill for housing reforms in 1920" ...how do you know that?)

Dick- Really, really good at crocheting, specifically birds, he randomly gifts them out to everyone.

Jason- Can identify any car just by looking at it, doesn't even need to see the logo, he just knows.

Tim- knows at least 13 languages, his parents decided he needed to know them for family and chose other languages so he could take over Drake Industries.

Steph- Speaks perfect pig latin, the one thing Tim can not correctly speak. She's also weirdly good at naming types of random items correctly.

Cass- She's awesome at naming different types of dancing. ( That's a dance from Poland called Oberek. " Have you seen it before Cass?" No.)

Damian- really good at identifying different animals. (No, Todd, that's a borzoi, not a greyhound, you fool.)

Duke- He's really, really good at riddles, puzzles, and overall mind games, and it freaks people out. He's able to solve a rubiks cube in under 15 seconds.

[niveditaabaidya]

EU’s Von Der Leyen Praises Amazing Pace of Ukrainian reforms. eu #nato #...

[dragoneyes618]

During Hitler's first five years in power, the Nazis did a great deal to make the lives of Jews miserable. They revoked their citizenship, ejected Jewish students from German schools, boycotted Jewish stores, and banned Jews from a large number of professions. On occasion, individual Jews were sent to concentration camps; the Nazis, however, had not yet created death camps and, remarkably enough, people were sometimes released from concentration camps and allowed to go home.

On the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Nazis' discriminatory policy toward the Jews changed to wholesale violence as they carried out the largest pogrom in the history of the world. The official pretext for this action was the killing in Paris of a low-level Nazi diplomat by a seventeen-year-old Jewish boy, Herschel Grynspan. The boy's Polish-born parents had been deported several weeks earlier from Germany back to Poland. The Poles, however, refused to accept Grynspan's parents, along with seventeen thousand other Polish-born Jews deported by the Nazis. These unfortunate Jewish refugees were left to rot, penniless, in the no-man's land separating Germany and Poland. Cut off from contact with his parents, Gwynspan shot the German official in retaliation. When the man died, the Nazis decided to punish all of German Jewry for Grynspan's deed.

The pogrom that ensured became known as Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass. On that night, the glass windows in almost every German synagogue, and in most Jewish-owned businesses, were shattered. Shattered, too, were the lives of almost all German Jews. Ninety-one Jews were murdered during Kristallnacht; thirty thousand more were arrested and sent to concentration camps, where hundreds of them died.

World leaders denounced the Nazi pogrom, and American Jewry reacted by forming the United Jewish Appeal, which soon became the greatest fundraising organization in Jewish history. The Nazis scoffed at the protests. They announced that Kristallnacht had been carried out in honor of the birthday of Martin Luther, the sixteenth century antisemitic religious reformer whom Hitler greatly admired. The Nazis also announced the imposition of a one-billion-mark fine against the Jews; they would be forced to pay for the damage the Germans had inflicted on their synagogues and property.

German Jewry now knew that their situation was hopeless. While large numbers of them had left Germany during the first five years of Nazi rule, half of the community of 600,000 had remained, hoping that Nazi antisemitism would moderate. After Kristallnacht, they recognized that such thinking was illusory; between that event and the outbreak of World War II, less than ten months later, virtually every Jew in Germany tried to emigrate. Few countries, however, were willing to accept them. The British imposed a White Paper in Palestine to ensure that it not become a haven for Jews fleeing Hitler. Some of the Jews who tried to emigrate to the United States succeeded; most did not. In Canada a high government official was asked how many Jewish immigrants the country could accommodate. "None is too many," he answered.

It is no coincidence that Kristallnacht brought about the formation of the United Jewish Appeal, later to become a major financial supporter of Israel. More than any other event of the time, Kristallnacht converted large numbers of Jews into Zionists; the price of not having a Jewish state, they realized, was too, too high.

- Jewish Literacy, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, pages 390-391

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - June 20, 2023

🐕 - Meet Sheep Farm's Newest Employee: Collie Hired After Ejection from Car!

1. Border Collie ejected from car during Sunday crash found on sheep farm, herding sheep

Tilly, the 2-year-old Border Collie who was ejected from a car Sunday during a crash, has been found. He was found on a sheep farm, where he had apparently taken up the role of sheep herder. 

According to Tilly's owner, he has lost some weight since Sunday's crash and is now drinking lots of water but is otherwise healthy.

2. After 17-Year Absence, White Rhinos Return to the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) recently welcomed the reintroduction of 16 southern white rhinoceroses to Garamba National Park, according to officials. The last wild northern white rhino was poached there in 2006.

The white rhinos were transported to Garamba, which lies in the northeastern part of the country, from a South African private reserve. In the late 19th century, the southern white rhino subspecies was believed to be extinct due to poaching until a population of fewer than 100 was discovered in South Africa in 1895, according to WWF.

3. UK to wipe women’s historic convictions for homosexuality

Women with convictions for some same-sex activity in the United Kingdom can apply for a pardon for the first time, the Home Office has announced.

The Home Office is widening its scheme to wipe historic convictions for homosexual activity more than a decade after the government allowed applications for same-sex activity offences to be disregarded.

It means anyone can apply for a pardon if they have been convicted or cautioned for any same-sex activity offences that have been repealed or abolished.

4. Study shows human tendency to help others is universal

A new study on the human capacity for cooperation suggests that, deep down, people of diverse cultures are more similar than you might expect. The study, published in Scientific Reports, shows that from the towns of England, Italy, Poland, and Russia to the villages of rural Ecuador, Ghana, Laos, and Aboriginal Australia, at the micro scale of our daily interaction, people everywhere tend to help others when needed.

5. In a First, Wind and Solar Generated More Power Than Coal in U.S.

Wind and solar generated more electricity than coal through May, an E&E News review of federal data shows, marking the first time renewables have outpaced the former king of American power over a five-month period.

The milestone illustrates the ongoing transformation of the U.S. power sector as the nation races to install cleaner forms of energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

6. Iceland becomes latest country to ban conversion therapy

Lawmakers in Iceland on June 9 approved a bill that will ban so-called conversion therapy in the country.

Media reports note 53 members of the Icelandic Parliament voted for the measure, while three MPs abstained. Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, an MP who is a member of the Liberal Reform Party, introduced the bill.

7. The temple feeding 100,000 people a day

Amritsar, the north Indian city known for its Golden Temple and delicious cuisine, is also renowned for its spirit of generosity and selfless service. The city, founded by a Sikh guru, embodies the Sikh tradition of seva, performing voluntary acts of service without expecting anything in return.

This spirit of giving extends beyond the temple walls, as the Sikh community has shown immense compassion during crises, such as delivering oxygen cylinders during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the heart of Amritsar's generosity is the Golden Temple's langar, the world's largest free communal kitchen, serving 100,000 people daily without discrimination. Despite a history marred by tragic events, Amritsar continues to radiate kindness, love, and generosity.

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That's it for this week :)

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Also don’t forget to reblog.

[potato-lord-but-not]

I know this has gotten mentioned a few times on your blog, but I recently did a deep dive on the headcanon that Noel is Jewish, and I didn't know if the fans of this blog would be interested so! Here it is!

I REALLY like it actually! And it does fit. It is very possible that Noel's parents came to the US during the large wave of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in 1880-1924. A large chunk of these immigrants settled in New England which places Noel where we need him to be. According to the wiki, Noel was raised in Harper's Hill which is a town in Massachusetts. Perfect. We are golden. Additionally, many of these Jewish immigrants were from the Russian Empire which held a great deal of Poland, aiding in the co-headcanon of Noel being of Polish decent. Noel also would have been able to find a LOT of comradery when he moved to become a detective in New York. Due to this placement in history and where he likely came from, it's the most probable for Noel and his family to have been Reform Jews which stepped more into blending Judaism with the current culture around them. Additionally, there is more of a focus on ethical laws rather than ritual laws. They began a new life in the areas that they immigrated to, finding their local worship as a part of the divine plan and shifting away from hoping for a Jewish homeland (at least in the present). I think this fits Noel quite well. We don't see these high levels of piety with his character which I see associated with Orthodox Judaism. Rather there is very much a theme of justice and forgiveness with him which goes hand in hand with this headcanon. Additionally, if Noel had lost faith in God during his time in the Dreamlands, much of these focuses would still come out of his identity as a Jewish person apart from the religion. Anyway! This is my little deep dive into this! I hope you all enjoy it!

IM EATING THIS ACTUALLY THANK YOU FOR THE FOOD ABSORBING THIS INTO MY NOEL HEADCANONS

[mariacallous]

A month after Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1940 presidential election, he called for legislation to ramp up military aid to countries fighting Nazi Germany. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941. Within months, Britain and the Soviet Union were pounding Adolf Hitler’s forces with U.S. weapons and other equipment.

Now that Americans have voted to return Donald Trump to the White House, the situation risks flipping into reverse: After Jan. 20, 2025, the United States may abandon its European allies to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s fascist war machine.

During his campaign, Trump said he will “not give a penny to Ukraine.” Part of his plan to end the war “in one day” is that he would “tell [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky, no more. You got to make a deal.” But if Russia is allowed to conquer and subjugate Ukraine, it would only be a matter of which democracy gets colonized next by a neighboring dictatorship: Poland, the Baltic States, Moldova, or Taiwan.

Thus, over the next 75 days, Congress and the Biden administration face an urgent historic mission to help Ukraine get as many weapons as possible before a possible withdrawal of U.S. support.

U.S. President Joe Biden has directed the Defense Department to draw down all remaining Ukrainian security aid that Congress has appropriated by the end of his term. It’s not clear if the Pentagon could supply much more weaponry than that by Inauguration Day, even if it received additional funding from Congress.

Instead, the way to promptly fund more arms is to bankroll Ukrainian procurement of U.S. weapons. Specifically, Biden should request, and Congress should pass, another supplemental funding bill on a similar scale as the one in April, which included $60.8 billion for Ukraine. The new supplemental should authorize the administration to spend any amount of the aid—up to the full amount—to cut a massive check to the Ukrainian government with the stipulation that Ukraine use the funds to purchase U.S.-made weapons.

Sending Ukraine $60 billion to spend on weapons would be entirely consistent with the strategy that the Biden administration had been preparing in case of a Trump win. One of Biden’s main initiatives has been to push the G-7 to give $50 billion in frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, deliberately structuring the transfer to get out the door before Jan. 20 so that Trump cannot stop it. Biden originally wanted to seize and give to Kyiv all $300 billion of Russia’s frozen money, but the Europeans could not be convinced. The administration has also shown its willingness to throw U.S. budgetary resources into the mix: When the $50 billion was blocked by the Hungarian government, the White House engineered a clever way of guaranteeing the money through the Treasury Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The key political challenge, however, could be getting House Speaker Mike Johnson to support this legislation during the lame duck period, when he will probably be preparing to run for another term as speaker. This may require some hardball maneuvering by some of the many pro-Ukraine Republicans in the House. It would be much easier, of course, if Trump quietly goes along with it, like he did with the last supplemental.

The United States would not be the first government to fund Ukrainian arms procurement. Denmark paved the way this year with a grant that finances contracts between Ukraine and defense manufacturers. Denmark and Ukraine developed a transparent set of financial controls that include factory site visits, validation of delivery, and auditing processes. All sides regard this pilot program as so successful that other allies are pulling out their checkbooks to join in on the action.

Americans’ tax dollars would be safely held by the most credibly reformed and reputably led wing of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry: the defense procurement agency. In the early weeks of the full-scale invasion, when Russian forces were bearing down on Kyiv and heavy Western weapons hadn’t yet arrived, Ukraine’s desperate Defense Ministry called up illicit intermediaries, begging them to help buy up old stocks of Soviet-type munitions on the notoriously opaque and fragmented international arms market. But over the following months, as Western aid started flowing, Ukraine’s strategy shifted to building a clean, transparent pipeline for buying weapons straight from producers.

Established in August 2022, the defense procurement agency is now run by Maryna Bezrukova, a seasoned reformer who previously cleaned up procurement at Ukraine’s national electricity company. To be her deputy, Bezrukova hired Ukraine’s most reputably independent corruption investigator: Artem Sytnyk, the former head of the state National Anti-Corruption Bureau. With these sheriffs in town, the surest way for even the most powerful Ukrainians to go to jail is to try to corruptly make money off weapons acquisitions.

Under this reformist leadership, the defense procurement agency is aggressively cutting out intermediaries by contracting directly with arms manufacturers. The clearest sign of success is that excluded arms dealers and their cronies are attacking Bezrukova with threatening messages, smear campaigns, and doxing on Telegram. Most recently, these intermediaries tried to sideline Bezrukova by getting Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov to merge her agency into another one—and fire her in the process. That announcement triggered such strong pushback by NATO and Ukrainian civil society that the minister canceled the planned reorganization. Instead, with support from Ukraine’s allies, the ministry formed a new supervisory board of reputable experts to oversee the procurement agency.

Any U.S. legislation that funds weapons contracts arranged by Ukraine’s defense procurement agency should come with one additional condition: Before Kyiv receives any money, it must enact legislation mandating the existence of the agency, safeguarding the independence of its supervisory board, and most importantly, prohibiting the defense minister from firing the agency head without a concurring decision by the supervisory board.

Beyond the strategic benefits, this approach could create jobs for Americans during Trump’s second term, largely in states that voted for him. Unlike military aid provided by Europe or allocated by NATO, U.S. funding would come right back home: to Northrop Grumman’s gun truck production line in Arizona, General Dynamics’ artillery shell facility in Texas, Raytheon’s missile factory in Alabama, and Lockheed Martin’s F-16 plant in South Carolina.

To prevent the Trump administration from using executive authority to block the export of weapons procured by Ukraine under the program, Congress should insert one exemption to the Buy American requirement: If the U.S. government ends up blocking exports, Ukraine would be free to redirect the funds to non-U.S. arms manufacturers.

Just as vital as the original Lend-Lease Act, this legislation could be called the Buy American Weapons Act. And it would keep the United States on the right side of history against the imperial armies that are once again on the march.

[zarya-zaryanitsa]

Protective household demons in Polish folklore

Belief in protective household demons was in all likeliness widespread among Slavic peoples from time immemorial. We do not know how those demonic creatures were imagined and what forms of cult were associated with them in the distant past, since the first sources on this subject we find in confessional literature of the late Middle Ages. In the XV-th century sermon fragment mentioned in previous chapters we find words of disapproval towards folk practice of „feeding” the protective spirits of the house called ubożęta (singular: ubożę).

”There are those who do not wash the dishes after dinner on Great Thursday and holy day, so as to feed the souls that they call vbosshe (ubożę) and others, believing stupidly that spirits need corporal things, when it is written that the Spirit does not have flesh or bones. Some purposefully leave the remains of dinner on their plates, to thus feed the souls or a certain demon that they call vbosshe, but this is completely ridiculous, because they often think, foolish and naive, that what they have left is food for the aforementioned vbesshe, since they care for it to attract good luck, but very often it is a dog that comes without them realizing and devours the remains.”

- Anonymous sermon, XVth century Poland, translation from „Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religion”, red. Álvarez-Pedrosa

The same problem was also touched on in two other works, the XVI-th century „Postępek prawa czartowskiego przeciw narodowi ludzkiemu” (roughly translates to „The Progress of Devilish Deeds Against the Human Nation”) and XVII-th century „Czarownica powołana” (roughly „The Witch Appointed”), whose authors were critical of the common practice of the housewives leaving a special, separate evening meal to the protective spirits of the household. P. Gilowski in his XVI-th century „Wykład katechizmu Kościoła krześcijańskiego z pism świętych” (roughly „Explaining the cathechism of Christian Church from holy scripture”) counted protective household spirits among satanic apparitions and wrote „… there are various sorts of devils, earthly skryatkowie (the modern word would be „skrzaty”), domestic ubożęta…”. According to B. Baranowski on the territory of central Poland in XVII-th and XVIII-th century „the belief in all sorts of protective deities remained exceptionally deep. Quite often they were some sorts of household spirits. (…) One was supposed to leave them a little bit of food in the corner of the hut or in the hall and they would then ensure good luck and wealth of the house. Other creatures of this sort were said to live in barns. For this reason one of the boards in the roof of the barn would be left loose, without nails or a small hole would be made in it, and thus it was ensured that the spirit can enter the barn at will.”

The aforementioned ubożeta, skrzaty and other related protective house spirits, similarly to atmospheric and natural demonology, were included in the family of devilish beings during the Counter-Reformation. On this basis, completely new images of domestic demons were formed, such as the diabeł-latawiec (a character combining elements of an atmospheric demon, a protective household spirit and the devil) or a diabeł-chowaniec (devil-familiar). Both of these beings were credited with activities aimed at securing abundance and prosperity on farms. As a consequence, this led to the formation in the minds of the rural people of the dual nature of devilish beings, that could be either dangerous and harmful or good and caring. The latter group included, among others, guardian house demons.

Concurrently, in the second half of XVIII-th century Catholic clergy started their own varied efforts towards broader dissemination and popularization (especially in rural areas and small towns) of the cult of angelic beings in particular guardian angels. To the latter they would assign very specific protective functions which were supposed to result in complete erasure of traditional beliefs in household spirits that were still present in the popular consciousness. The Church doctrine of that time stated that every person has a God-assigned guardian angel whose task is to guard their charge from all kinds of dangers and temptations. An interesting aspect of that protection was the constant war guardian angels and devils would wage over the salvation of human soul. This concept also found it’s reflection in the developing folklore, for example in an eschatalogical piece „Przemowa Diabła i Anioła przy łożu Umierającego” (translates to: The Speech of a Devil and an Angel by the bed of a Dying Man).

- Polska demonologia ludowa by Leonard Pełka, amateur translation by Zarya-Zaryanitsa

[postcard-from-the-past]

19th-century Evangelical Reformed Parish in Warsaw, Poland

Polish vintage postcard, mailed to Rotterdam, Netherlands