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Results For "Month: July 2006"
Bread
Bread in Europe is real bread, you might say. Not this fluffy, soft, completely devoid of all nutritional value nonsense sold in most grocery stores in the States.
To get real bread, you have to find a real bakery.
Only then will your wife be happy.
Recent Reads
The funny thing about working as a contract technical writer/editor for a company that makes air and water purification systems is that you get excited about finding the most unimaginably dull titles in the local university library:
- Oxygen, Elementary Forms and Hydrogen Peroxide by Michael Ardon.
- Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry by Daniel Jacob.
- Residential Air Quality and Energy Efficiency by Peter du Pont and John Morril.
- “Cryptosporidiosis-associated mortality following a massive waterborne outbreak in Milwaukee, Wisconsin” in American Journal of Public Health.
- Carpet Monsters and Killer Spores: A Natural History of Toxic Mold by Nicholas Money.
Learning Polish
From my journal, ten years ago.
I’ve been working with my host mother on the basic Polish sounds and I have hit a real break through in [the] pronunciation of sz and rz. It’s great!
Earlier in the evening I was trying to pronounce one of the many “sh” sounds and after several failures I finally threw out a last attempt accompanied by a significant amount of spittle, and she cried “Tak!” with great delight.
Learning Polish was unlike learning Spanish and French for me because it occurred in Poland out of necessity. Survival even. And so the result is that I know much more Polish than I ever did French or Spanish, and I have an understanding of linguistic subtitles that escaped me in high school and university.
And I can finally say “chrząszcz” without drowning my conversational companions.
“The New Polish Potatoes”
Ah, those Kaczynski boys, they’re a crazy pair:
[Prime Minister] Marcinkiewicz resigned just days after President Kaczynski, 57, canceled a “Weimar Triangle” summit meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Jacques Chirac of France.
These summit meetings were first started 15 years ago, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union to forge closer political, economic and security ties between the three largest countries in the European Union but also to break down decades of suspicions and tension between Warsaw and Berlin.
Kaczynski’s office canceled the meeting with very short notice, officially because Kaczysnki had become ill. But senior Polish diplomats and opposition politicians said the real reason was a satirical article published in the German daily Taz newspaper that described the Kaczynski twins as “the Polish new potatoes.”
Anna Fotyga, Poland’s foreign minister, publicly complained to the German Foreign Ministry and demanded a formal apology. After Berlin said it would not comment since it supported freedom of the press, Fogyta said the lack of response was “shocking” and compared the article to the language used in Der Stürmer, a propaganda weekly during the Nazi era. Former foreign ministers accused the government of damaging Poland’s national interests. (IHT)
I think if this had happened during recess, the Leck or Jarek would have just smacked the editor.
Maybe that would have been less damaging for Polish foreign relations.
God in the Aisle
I sometimes go to Mass with my wife for companionship, and today, I was certainly glad I did. Before I get into the reason why, some theology.
Catholics of course believe in something they call the “Real Presence,” which is the belief that the bread and wine are the actual body and blood of Jesus. It’s based on an Aristotelian concept of accident and essence — what a thing looks like and what it really is. So the Catholic explanation of why it still looks suspiciously like bread and wine is that the outward appearance has remained, but the essential reality has changed.
This is why there’s all the genuflection in churches and especially before monstrances, because if that really is God in the flesh flour, then it only makes sense to bow.
This also goes a long way in explaining the controversy about how a parishioner can take the host: standing, kneeling, on the tongue, on the palm of the hand. I think the variety is strictly American. In Poland, the issue is vastly simplified: stand or kneel. There’s no way a priest will give it to your hand in Poland.
“Real Presence” also explains why some might be a little uneasy with the idea of anyone other than a priest handing out the host. In the States, members of the congregation hand out the blood and wine (though the priest has consecrated it and all that). Again, this is probably a completely American thing.
All this is to explain the significance of why I’ve always wondered what would happen if someone tripped and — whoosh — there’s God, all over the floor.
At this morning’s Mass, my question was answered.
An elderly woman, serving as Eucharistic minister, was heading back up to the altar (and so her chalices were probably almost empty) when suddenly there was a stumble, shuffle, and crash. I saw the whole thing out of the corner of my eye, and I immediately directed all my attention there — as did everyone else in the basilica.
The priest kept right ongoing, but not many people were giving him their undivided attention. Everyone was looking at the aisle, watching the lady pick up the hosts as another Eucharistic minister helped her. Then a deacon came with a cloth that had been dampened, I’m assuming with holy water, and wiped the spot.
The woman was obviously quite shaken. She said some words to the priest, and he sympathetically comforted her. Returning to her seat, she muttered something to her husband, and that was that.
It highlights how atypical Catholicism is in modern culture, where all sense of the sacred has disappeared. “And so much the better” many of us would add, but sacredness fosters a certain respect that I’m not sure you can get any other way. It’s simplistic to explain it, “Well of course it’s respect — born out of fear, a terror that some deity will toast you.” There’s certainly an element of truth in that.
Communism tried to foster some sense of the sacred — the working masses were the vessels for salvation. The working man is the communist messiah. Marches, songs, flag-waving, speeches — all these things to foster a sense of the sacred in the people. Yet it didn’t work. My wife grew up in that culture, and it was all a joke for everyone. Why?
It lacked mystery.
Without mystery, without an element of the unknown and inexplicable, nothing can be sacred. Indeed, sacredness could be defined as a sense of mystery about something thought to be of divine origin. If you see the little old man putting together the wizard show, hanging the curtains, preparing the control panel, it is only through an act of supreme wishful thinking that you can put your faith in the Wizard.
“Come on, just once!”
“Come on, Larry. Just once! Let’s just see if she’ll notice. I swear I won’t do anything with her.” How many twins have uttered something like that to their identical sibling, trying to convince the sibling to let him go on a date with his brother’s girlfriend?
What if the twins both held public office, only one was much higher in rank? Say Jeb and W were twins — wouldn’t you think that Jeb would try, just once, to convince his brother to let him make some kind of address as the president? “Come on, Georgie! We ain’t talkin’ about a State of the Union address. It’s just a little chat out in the Rose Garden. They’ll never notice!”
We’re fortunate that Jeb and W aren’t twins, because they seem just, well, lacking-in-seriousness enough to try it.
Such a situation is not inconceivable in the near future in Poland, though. Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz has resigned and the ruling party, PiS (Law and -Order- Justice — Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), has indicated that they want Jarosław Kaczynski to take the position.
“Kaczynski. That sounds familiar,” some might think.
That’s because the president of Poland is Lech Kaczynski, Jarosław’s twin brother.
Oh, he’s so adorable, let’s just call him “Jarek.”
It’s not clear whether Jarek is going to take the position. He turned it down earlier on the reasonable grounds that it might give some people the willies to have twin brothers in the two highest positions in the nation, but I think this time he’ll just suffer through those discomforting thoughts and take the post.
But it’s no big change. Jarek’s been running the country for month’s. Marcinkiewicz’s just been a puppet, people say.
That sounds awfully familiar.
At any rate, the BBC report seems strangely enough to confirm this:
Over recent weeks, there had been frequent reports of a rift between Mr Marcinkiewicz and Jaroslaw Kaczynski over economic policy.
BBC did not use the Polish character “ł,” pronounced like the English “w,” so it’s not a typo.
Wait a minute? I know Jarek is the PiS party leader, but his brother is president, is he not? Wouldn’t it be tensions between the president and the PM that would cause the PM to resign, rather than tensions between the party boss and the PM? Unless, of course, the party boss is the boss.
The good thing in all this? At least Jarek will admit — sort of — that he’s in charge.
A Modest Proposal
I prefer the English “football” to the American “soccer.” “American football” barely even makes use of the feet — fat seems critical there.
Perhaps one reason Americans don’t like football is because of the whining, says Jake Novak in Newsday. The Week writes that “European soccer players seem to spend most of the game writing in fake agony.”
Indeed, diving in football — intentionally falling to make it appear one has been fouled — is a growing concern in European football.
Germany World Cup-winning captain and coach Franz Beckenbauer has asked for there to be a crackdown on divers and cheaters.
“The players are looking for an advantage and they attempt to exploit the situation,” said the head of Germany’s 2006 organising committee.
“At the beginning of the tournament, I felt the referees were showing yellow cards too early for trivial offences but the players make it much harder by simulating, and by staying lying on the ground to interrupt play,” he said.
“Perhaps everyone — players, referees and administrators can get around a table after this to come up with a solution to put an end to this kind of unfortunate incidents. (“BBC News)
Often, you see a player gnashing his teeth in pain, clutching a shin video replay shows to have been hardly tapped by an opponent’s leg. The paramedics and team physical trainer all come running out with a medical case and stretcher, only to find that — hey! — he can walk after all! In fact, after a few limps, he’s jogging, then running!
Miracle of miracles.
Aside from being immoral, this behavior simply slows a game of otherwise constant motion.
“How do we deal with it?” everyone moans.
And so I present my simple, three step process.
First, introduce the use of video replay into the game. Too often the ref is too far from the “foul” that takes place very quickly. To make a judgment that this was indeed a case of diving is difficult, at best.
Second, provide refs with a small, wireless video monitor. Simple. When a ref thinks there’s been a case of diving, he simply reviews the play on the monitor.
Third, implement a graduated penalty system for diving:
- The penalty for the first offense of the season: a fine of 1% of the player’s annual contract income.
- Second offense: 5%.
- Third offense: 10%.
- Fourth offense: suspension for the rest of the season, plus an additional 10% of the player’s annual contract income.
The proceeds of this go to a charity designed to provide football facilities in developing nations.
Diving would disappear very quickly.
One Foot On Each Continent
Only when you have lived in two countries can you really appreciate the fact that there is no perfect country. But that appreciation comes with a price — homelessness.
My adventure with kielbasa and vodka began ten years ago last month, when I packed off for what I thought would be two years in central Europe. Little did I know — I lived there for seven years, all told.
The fact that I returned shows that I really didn’t need the last four years to call the place “home.” I’m still not even close to fluent in Polish (nor will I ever be) and the average Pole can still drink me under the table (though I’m not ashamed of that), but somehow the sausage and freezing winters did something to my DNA, and I feel at least partially Polish.
Every time I came back to the States, I lived through reverse culture shock. I immediately hated it and loved it: the ability to get humus at four in the morning versus a culture that seems to be in love with kitche; a hundred kilometers in under an hour versus ridiculous health insurance.
It was even worse moving back the first time. Poland called to me even in my dreams. When I went back for a visit after a year in Poland — culture shock, of a sort. “I can’t believe I lived here!”
Yet there was a strange comfort there, and so I went back, fully aware of the challenges and fully prepared for the material sacrifices. A few days after arriving, I wrote in my journal: “Will I ever learn to be happy with my life as it is at that very moment?”
I hated it. And stayed four more years.
Back to America, full of high hopes, and I hate it again.
Once you live in another culture, your legs are knocked out from under you. You see the silver lining and the disgusting grey of both cultures, and you realize you’ll probably never be entirely happy in either.