About some of that time-travelling we're experiencing in Poland

Our deputy PM and Minister of education, notoriously infamous Roman Giertych decided to skip 20th century in his effort to immerse Poland in the darkness of the middle ages as he moves us straight to the era of penny black and Otto von Bismarck.

A new boys-only class is being formed in an elementary school in Świdnik. I wouldn't care much about that except that it's happening in a public school. Wonder whether those boys will also wear uniforms. Pupils were supposed to wear uniforms in Poland until the fall of communism. Even I had to wear it for a year. It was a smart way by country leaders to make some of the ground-school pupils into dissidents. Now, after 17 years our Minister of Education is encouraging schools to mandate children to wear them again. Combined with re-introduction of boys or girls-only classes it will surely erase the problem of drugs, violence and atheism in Polish schools.

For a whole collection of articles about uniforms in schools click here.

Newsweek Poland: "Ministry of Health will count gays and lesbians"

Marek Grabowski, Ministry of Health has already denied that allegation published by polish edition of Newsweek. Or rather rectified that this is not what he exactly meant. A quote from him:

`This help is targeted at people are hesitating whether to become homo or heterosexual, because they can still be saved.'

In case you were wondering the guy is a physician. A second level specialist in rehabilitation. At least according to Wikipedia. However since he has been recommended for this post by Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland you can never be sure of his diploma. When asked by some other journalists about this initiative he answered:

`Penal code authorizes medical treatment of persons with sexual disorders if they commit a crime. Thus we established a team that will take care of such people and these are mainly pedophiles.'

In Poland obviously all gays are pedophiles and even if they weren't convicted for a crime yet, they surely will. Now if you think he meant the guys from committee being pedophiles then I can't help you, he expressed himself in polish just as ambiguously.

The only positive aspect of this whole affair is what the head of that committee - Wojciech Kłosiński - answered when asked about the issue:

`We were not dealing with homosexuals, since homosexuality is not a disorder of sexual preferences, it's just another orientation.'

A bold statement to make by a government official in a country with high unemployment rate.

CBA can blackmail their informers during the recruitment process

CBA agents can shut their eyes to crimes committed by their informants, but also force the unwilling to secretly collaborate by using blackmail - the Dziennik Daily newspaper has found out.

'If CBA's operational instruction gives them such powers, it is a pathology' said general Adam Rapacki, former chief of Polish police.

The question on the contents of this secret CBA instruction has been posed yesterday on a hearing by Parliamentary Commission on Secret Services. The CBA chief Mariusz Kamiński reassured that the instruction does comply with law.

'CBA does not break the principles of a democratic state of law; the secret operational instruction does exist, however there is nothing in it that would breach these principles', he said.

According to Dziennik's interlocutors the possibility to use "incriminating materials" in order to recruit new informers is given to CBA's agent by a secret document - Operational Work Instructions. 'This a collection of techniques that can be used. It does not forbid the use of blackmail, it even encourages it. Also during the trainings we are told that we can use "hooks" to recruit informers' - explains one of Dziennik's interlocutors. His revelations have been confirmed by Dziennik at two other sources, including a high ranking official dealing with security of the state. What does the use of incriminating materials for recruiting process mean in practice?

'It can mean various things. The most banal example is when a drunk driver gets his driving license back [in return for information -- transl.]. But much more serious combinations can arise.' He provides an example: knowing that a physician performs illegal abortions, CBA agents can propose a deal to him. They commission him a task of luring another doctor into a trap by asking him to assist in an illegal surgery.

'And the next physician is taken to the CBA's office where he is provided with a deal: you will inform on your colleagues and you won't go to prison for participating in an abortion.' another interlocutor adds.

The CBA chief communicated to MPs yesterday that he cannot reveal the contents of the instruction, because it's classified by law. However this issue will remain ongoing. 'I can say that we will ask the minister coordinator to provide [us -- transl.] with this operational instruction. The use of such methods is unacceptable' - says ex-Minister of Internal Affairs, Civic Platform MP [and member of Parliamentary Commission on Secret Services -- transl.].

An ex-UOP chief and former Minister of Internal Affairs, Krzysztof Kozłowski simply says: 'Polish Secret Service did not have such possibilities since Służba Bezpieczeństwa [communist internal intelligence agency and secret police -- transl.]'. Biernacki reminds that there is a proposed bill on operational work techniques, common to all intelligence agencies, but he says that government is blocking all progress. As we found out, the Ministry for Internal Affairs already sees it necessary to create a single legislation. 'It would end all the pathologies in the secret services. I don't think that the openness of the techniques would harm the work of the officers. Just watch a good spy film to see everything' Rapacki thinks.

Author - Robert Zieliński

link to the original article: http://www.dziennik.pl/Default.aspx?TabId=14&ShowArticleId=48739

"I will not have a minority living without god telling me what I should do."

I will find out which teacher informed on me. I will punish her for sure. It's me the person with spiritual authority over the village.

In case you ever wanted to come to Poland and work here, please be informed that besides your contractual boss you will always have another one: the local parish priest. It's a whole parallel reporting hierarchy, above the local priest there are bishops and it goes all the way up to Holy See.

I case you wondered what it's all about - tomorrow it's Corpus Christi. In every city, town and village, you'll see decorated streets, an altar every several blocks and processions going between them lead by guys wearing dresses. They go along streets in the morning singing loudly and waking up any sleeping sinners. The thing is - all those altars have to be built by somebody. In Kroczewo in Mazowieckie Voivodship, one of the altars is to be built close to the school. And the altar itself is to be built by school teachers. They found out about it when they saw a note in teachers room in their school:

As Rector has assigned teachers to prepare the altar for Corpus Cristi, I assign following teachers to this task [list of five teachers].

The note was signed by Barbara Łubek, the school director. The deputy school director said in an interview, that they could not refuse since rector has asked them to do that. When asked what about the non-believing teachers in that school she answered:

It's impossible. After all this school is named after John Paul II.

Don't expect any comment from me, I'm at a loss of words.

What's in the news this passing week?

Top news from Poland for this passing week.

Telletubbies
You might have already heard about Tinky-Winky being accused of promoting homosexuality by Polish children rights watchdog mrs. Sowińska. When I checked on google news yesterday there were over 300 articles from English language news outlets on the web. Amongst them Washington Post, Euronews, Daily Mail, New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, USA Today. CNN seems to have ignored the issue. Poles will be eternally gratefull to CNN for this omission ;-)

Prime minister and his bank account (or lack thereof)
That's right. Prime minister of a 40 million large nation in the heart of Europe does not have a bank account of his own. However he doesn't need that much money anyway - he lives with his mother, so she probably cooks for him. He doesn't spend much on fuel - BOR takes him to work and back home and when he needs to get somewhere further, he gets a ride on the fastest flying passenger airplane in the world TU-154M (at least since Concorde is grounded). I will not link to all those nasty newspapers that reported this magnificent piece of news, you can have a look at this instead.

A strange way to promote Polish culture
Pupils in Polish high schools will probably be freed from the burden of reading potentially subversive novels by such famous writers of Polish origin as Gombrowicz, Witkacy, Joseph Conrad. They will leave school libraries in first class company - Goethe, Kafka, Dostoevsky have also been assessed as unnecessary.