Krakow, where'd you get that magic?

I'm spending a week in Krakow to decompress after my stressful (sic) week in the mountains. What a city!! I've been here many times before, but never on an extended stay.

This place is amazing!! They advertized a chess tournament on the radio! There are jazz clubs! Hurrah!

Maybe I'm just jealous. Having lived in Poznan for two years now (a nice city, but not cultural), I've become very jaded about Poland itself. Visiting Warsaw, unfortunately, didn't do anything to cure that. But having been here for just a few days, I'm beginning to see a glimmer of hope in what I had seen as a terrible situation.

Watched the old men playing their music by the cloth hall today. One guy sauntered over as I reached for my wallet. He got his zloty. It was well-deserved.

See you back in Poznan.

Yeah! The Radio Maryja Wikipedia revert and edit war!

We're taking volunteers now! Don't want to go to Iraq? Don't feel like actually risking your life by painting a picture of Mohammed? Well join the war of words over at Wikipedia! I kid, I kid of course. Beatroot clued me into this edit war sometime last week I think, and I went to Wikipedia and I began to try to bring the article into some sort of factually honest state. What a stupid thing to do! I have been met with stiff resistance by a fellow who labels himself as Ksenon, and who until recently had a Heil Hitler salute posted on his user page. Ksenon, against all facts and articles that prove to the contrary, says things like:

All criticisms are included in the article. [You] are trying to shift the delicate NPOV (neutral point of view) balance towards the controversial side, totally ignoring the radio's real message and focusing only on underlining the accusations as much as possible, even if they don't have to be true.

He means of course his version of the article, in which he claims RM is attacked and slandered. You ask him where the criticisms that he claims exist in his version actually are, and he'll just say they are there, even though they're not. It's like a perpetual loop, it's like arguing with a wall. This is what bothers me about Wikipedia, few individuals are going to be interested in presenting Radio Maryja in a fair light on the English version of the site, and stupid me gets sucked into this ridiculous edit war with a person who has only one agenda, to show Radio Maryja as a victim. I, in turn, have been spending way to much of my time on that site. Stupid, stupid me. So I need a reliever to come in, I'm burned out. Rdzyk's Evil Empire is so mean!

The slush

I like to ponder on how nasty weather can really bring people together. The other day I was standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the light to change to cross. The first melt was underway and the ruts in the streets had collected large amounts of grey, nasty water.

Of course, each passing car brought a new chance to practice the "let's hop backwards in unison" dance move that is sure to be a hit this summer. After three or four such rehearsals, I yielded to nature and just stood there as the next car drove past.

After being duly splashed, I looked over my left shoulder at a guy who was looking back at me. We looked, shrugged our shoulders resignedly, and crossed the street. But there was more communication and commiseration in that glance than in any conversation I've ever conducted (in Polish, anyway).

Bless the rain, bless the snow, bless it all...from Mexico. :)