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.