tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15789046043871309632024-03-14T11:24:10.048-07:00Becoming PolakiemJosh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comBlogger182125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-35075305895220581822024-01-09T13:05:00.000-08:002024-01-09T13:05:29.356-08:00Farewell, Blue Helmet<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><span style="font-family: arial;">My government continues to fiddle while Kyiv burns, again. Shameful. We have
become shameless in our cowardice and sycophancy, and by <i>we, </i>of course,
I mean the Republican Party. While I have always gravitated toward the term and
concept of <i>republicanism, </i>small <i>r</i>—someone concerned for the common good of one’s
public, one’s people—the current party of that name is republican in name only,
even a contradiction in terms, and seems to exist now merely for the interest and
ego-stroking of its mango-faced demagogue and for the bad of virtually everyone
else—except Putin. It is terrible that the fate of the courageous people of
Ukraine may depend upon the likes of a people that we are become, feckless as the nights are long and cold in winter.<br /></span></p>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-50944838633642501672023-12-09T09:07:00.000-08:002023-12-09T09:07:49.253-08:00Getting it Together<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The world’s attention span in this media age is ridiculously
short and specious. After less than two years of life and death struggle
against the forces of a craven, cynical, and stoat-faced despot, Ukraine finds
itself in danger of lost interest and sympathy, support and resources. Truckers
in Poland and Slovakia and Russian assets in the United States—i.e. the
Republican Party—have placed their own self-interests, particularly selfish
ones, ahead of not only the dire existential needs of Ukraine, but ahead of the
larger interests of Europe and the West. Shameful, discouraging but not
altogether surprising. Human nature can be frail, easily distracted and
divided, even with the noble example of the Ukrainian people available to us
daily. To my fellow Americans and friends in Poland, I ask, “Can we get our
shit together?” To Ukraine, I offer the hopeful Churchillian observation that America
will do the right thing—after it has tried everything else. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-90324721777020886912023-10-13T20:39:00.000-07:002023-10-13T20:39:39.306-07:00Fighting Ukraine<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Five thousand miles from Kyiv, one cannot
know with any kind of certainty how things are going in the war. I read daily,
but not exhaustively, updates on the offensive, reports of modest gains, of
casualties, and the shortage of ammunition. That Putin might hang on and the
war become a long one should come as no surprise to anyone with any knowledge
of history. Things always drag on longer than expected. Lightning victory—I
cannot name one offhand, and I have read a lot of history. A war being fought
in trenches will be slow going. Which is why the friends and allies of Ukraine
must remember to be patient. The sharing of materiel and treasure is as nothing
compared to the sacrifices Ukrainians make daily, nightly, hourly. We should
honor their heroic example, their perseverance, with our patience and continued
support. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Some weeks ago I read Edith Wharton’s account
of France at the outset of World War I, <i>Fighting
France.</i> “War is the greatest of paradoxes,” she wrote, “the most senseless
and disheartening of human retrogressions, and yet the stimulant of qualities
of soul which, in every race, can seemingly find no other renewal.” If your
motives are noble, national self-defense among them, you are ennobled. The
qualities of soul on exhibit in Kyiv and Bakhmut and Robotyne, on the streets,
in the trenches, and aloft on the wings of drones—courage, ingenuity,
resilience—deserve our fullest appreciation. <span> </span></span></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-5408703277335302752023-08-25T18:49:00.002-07:002023-08-25T18:49:48.341-07:00Epigram, epitaph<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> When you strike at the tyrant, you must kill.</span><br /></p>Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-25220688937004817762023-06-25T09:00:00.000-07:002023-06-25T09:00:08.222-07:00Knives Out<p>A dagger rightfully belongs in the back of a tyrant.<br /></p>Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-5391847859129909602023-06-09T12:25:00.000-07:002023-06-09T12:25:36.453-07:00Zdrowaś Maryjo<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It would
appear that the long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive has begun. The
fortunes of battle being unsure, concerned old men in distant countries can
mostly pray and read the news in modesty and with hope. It is one of those rare
instances in which we know who is deserving of our prayers.</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-8586632532219262002023-02-24T14:37:00.000-08:002023-02-24T14:37:28.539-08:00Release the Leopards<p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As the war in Ukraine reaches the one-year
mark, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said last Tuesday that
Russia has "lost strategically, operationally, and tactically." Which
is not to say that the war is over or has been won—there are few winners in
war, if any, really—but only that losers can sometimes be identified and named,
Putin and the Russian Empire, first and foremost. When the Empire experienced a
similar defeat in 1904-5, the Czarist regime collapsed into revolution. Futures
are complexly contingent, so I don’t presume to predict the outcome of this
war, the post-war, or its inchoate prospects for peace and reconstruction, but
if all parties stay their current courses, we have cause for hope that all of
this death and destruction can entail a better Ukraine and a better world.
Supporters of the Ukrainian cause, however, must not slacken their efforts.
Guns, treasure, and unity are still required.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A second
loser: The Trumpian rump of the Republican Party, the so-called GOP, have been
such tools of oligarchy and authoritarianism</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> in general and of Vladimir Putin specifically, that
they could more transparently express their call letters in the
Russian/Cyrillic script—ГСП. Their (dis)putative House leader, Kevin McCarthy,
has proclaimed that U.S. aid to Ukraine will not be a “blank check,” and the
propaganda outlet of the ГСП, Fox Lies, continues to feature sycophants and
apologists whom Russian media have taken to heart. They are losers, too,
shameless appeasers, embarrassments. Donald Trump kissed, and continues to kiss, Vladimir
Putin’s ass; Ukraine, and the global forces of more liberal and democratic
values, interests, and institutions have kicked it. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-82881311098586076132023-02-07T11:51:00.000-08:002023-02-07T11:51:15.591-08:00Alas, Year Two<p class="MsoNormal">A year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a year of
heroic resistance, a second invasion impends. Failed and desperate as Putin and
his lackeys have been to date, they retain sufficient resources, if not to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">win </i>on their original terms, sufficient to
wreak further havoc on the Ukrainian people and state, to press the West in its
support of Ukraine, and to issue nuclear threats. The pathology of Russian
nationalism, insecurity, fatalism, and autocracy has weathered yet another year
of history, promising a war of further attrition, squared, perhaps cubed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">No reports of Russia from Russia of dissent or critical
thinking of any alternative sort encourage us to believe that anything but more
of the brutal same—or worse—is in the offing. One reads of their public
discourse only a vituperative hallucination. Apparent critics drop off of
buildings like flies. The echo chamber of Russian media thrums a bass of doom
and a treble of hysteria, the Fox idiot Tucker Carlson a darling. In the old
Soviet Union, where the press consisted of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Izvestia,
</i>“News,” and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pravda</i>, “Truth,” it
was said on the streets in Moscow that “there was no news in the Truth and no
truth in the News.” Would that media consumers fifty years later were that
savvy. Everywhere.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Zelenskyy still lives! My Polish prayers go out to Ukraine
and Ukrainians, along with a few paltry dollars. Their efforts remain for us in
the West an example of civic virtue and courage.</p>
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</xml><![endif]--> Every morning I check the news to see if President Zelenskyy
is still alive. He remains so, thankfully. He represents as noble an effort, as
principled and as dear in human value, as I have witnessed in my lifetime: the desire
of a people to be themselves in the present and to be even better in the future—against
the greatest odds. And not only has Ukraine fought the good fight, they have
known remarkable success, even to the point where the world itself is now threatened
by a humiliated despot who prefers to live in the past, or the illusion or
delusion of one.
</p><p class="MsoNormal">The public opinion of my own country begins to waver in its
support of this effort given the enormous human cost and the scale of economic disruption.
Winter portends, and the prospect, however remote, of a nuclear incident
inspires both prudence and cowardice, sometimes disguised as pragmatic punditry.
We have long since forgotten, as a nation, the meaning of real hardship and
sacrifice and risk. (We dole this hardship out to limited populations here, often
those least deserving additional hardship.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know nothing, have known nothing of the
experience of war that Ukraine has faced these two hundred and twenty days.
Their response to the Russian invasion has shown courage, intelligence, patience,
and no little wit. I trust in those virtues and hope we continue to support
them.</p>
<p></p>Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-61114267933402987312022-05-28T07:37:00.000-07:002022-05-28T07:37:22.381-07:0094 Days In<p><span style="font-family: Calibri, "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">The war in Ukraine is reaching, some claim, its
decisive moments. After much defeat, Russia is making small gains in the east,
in Donbas, which may give them grounds to declare victory—that is, a
disastrously destructive stalemate from which neither party can recover for
maybe a decade. And, for those who have lost loved ones, never. Putin has
revealed his version of Russia to be a Potemkin state, a vacuous polity, a sham superpower, a gas
station with nukes and a teenage conscript military of second-hand, second-rate
hardware with jowly bemedaled generals in oversized hats. A dozen fewer now. His
mission, a soulless, heartless, and not mindless but egregiously mistaken failure.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri, "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri, "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></p>Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-33543049047267262782022-03-04T07:50:00.000-08:002022-03-04T07:50:40.437-08:00May Luck Smile on Ukraine<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--> The war in Ukraine endures, to the credit of
President Zelenskiy and the Ukrainians, who resist with almost perfect underdoggian
pluck and wit, winning hearts in the information war, as propaganda is now
understood, and holding their own at the moment on the ground, at least in the
north around Khiv. Sanctions applied by the West have had potent and immediate
impact on the Russian economy. As wars, hot and cold, have a decided economic
dimension, odds are not good for Putin and Russia in the long-term. They seem
to have lost the short-term, with the mid-term to be decided. As once observed,
there are no winners in war, but there are losers. Putin and Russia may yet be
the biggest. Cutting that loss is the question—and who does the cutting. The
heroism of the Ukrainian people fascinates and inspires, even as we feel the tragedy of
young Russian soldiers sent to unwittingly subjugate their brothers and sisters.</p>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-55671491969190640902022-02-25T11:51:00.000-08:002022-02-25T11:51:43.412-08:00Ukraine<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->Russian ordnance is raining down on Ukraine. Some years ago,
a Polish friend voiced concerns about Vladimir Putin, portraying him as a
Soviet imperial revanchist who cannot be trusted—as if tyrants ever can. Accurate
as that description seems now, I find it too generous. It assumes that Vladimir
Putin has visionary interests other than his own, that he has the national
interests of Russia at heart, a mission on behalf of the Russian people. Absurd. A
tyrant has only one interest, his own. Russia and the Russian people are but a
means to that end, and sadly, now the Ukrainian people. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="jlqj4b"><span lang="UK" style="mso-ansi-language: UK;">Хай живе незалежна Україна</span></span>.</p>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-26612896569469791882015-01-19T19:34:00.000-08:002015-01-19T19:34:31.827-08:00ŻubrówkaSometimes, when you least expect,
you encounter at the suggestion of a friend, more or less by accident, a token
that makes you think, makes you rethink that token, its symbolic value in your
life. In this case, that token is Żubrówka, the Polish vodka scented,
enlivened with bison grass. Żubrówka, for me, is comic—and it is
a family comedy—of being completely buffaloed on the bathroom floor, prostrate
after a long day of shots and apple juice and love in Małe Śwornegacie; or, it is the memory
of golden-tinted evenings in the pubs and dessert cafés of Kraków, with my friends, Monika and <i>szarlotka.</i><div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In Somerset Maugham’s <i>The Razor’s Edge</i>, or rather, the movie
by that name I’ve just watched at the recommendation of a friend and colleague,
Żubrówka
is described as “music by moonlight.” Chopin, perhaps, if you’re in that kind
of mood, a melancholy, even a dangerous melancholy. In this story, a bottle of Żubrówka,
scented like “newly mown lavender” returns the recently abstinent Sophie to her
alcoholic depths, to her wayward life, and ultimately to her murder. Żubrówka, the vehicle to multipronged tragedy. I thought, at first, that this was just a
movie, just a novel, and that what happens in such fictions doesn’t matter. The
main character says as much, twice, about <i>life </i>even.
But that’s not quite true. If it were a truly bad novel, or a bad movie, that
would be true, but good books and good movies do matter. The problem is, they
don’t matter much, they don’t matter enough. At least on their own. One needs a
steady diet of them to affect one’s life for good—or bad.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in;">
And in this case, the disastrous role
played by Żubrówka in <i>The Razor’s Edge </i>does
not affect how I think about it, how I remember it, how I experience it, much. For that I am thankful. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-16919439853331480232014-12-21T08:24:00.000-08:002015-07-10T10:30:53.819-07:00DuklaDukla is the name of a town in the far southeast of Poland,
close to the Slovakian border, south of Krosno as the crow flies—no roads in
Poland run as the crow flies. (Perhaps
no crow actually flies as the crow flies.) But you eventually get to Dukla. I
found it on my wall map without the aid of a magnifying glass and marked it
with a yellow pushpin, which now completely obscures the name. <i>Dukla</i> is also the title of a book by
Andrzej Stasiuk, a book of “mixed genre”, though it suggests just how categorically
silly we’ve become as readers and critics with all our marketing and academic
vocabulary. Not so long ago it would have been enough to call it simply “a
book.” As if any extended piece of serious writing weren’t a mixture, simply
literature.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the process of not worrying overly about genre, I’ve been
lightly enchanted nonetheless by Stasiuk’s prose and sensibility, and his
sense, too, which sticks his sensibility in the eye when it approaches
sentimentality. The author is about my age, and he visited Dukla in his youth
and describes it in much the same way as I might my hometown, small,
non-descript on the surface—however intricately detailed the description—and
non-descript underneath, except for the merest suggestion of excitement and
mystery out in “the bushes.” A modern Polish Breughel of homely life: “rubber
boots on bare feet, the symbiotic smells of human and animal existence, curdled
milk, potatoes, eggs, lard, no long journeys in search of trophies, no miracles
or legends other than satiety and a peaceful death.” (73) Which is to say that
having more than enough and peace <i>are</i>
miracles for those of us lucky enough to have them. And death, too, in its
time.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-37176349106500243002014-09-13T20:14:00.000-07:002014-09-13T20:14:30.668-07:00My Polish House Guest<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My Polish house guest, after three weeks here in the Midwest,
has returned to Poland. I trust that her stay was restful, restorative, and
productive. Scholarly resources, not least the libraries and library hours,
left her almost speechless, breathless with admiration. So much stuff. (The
treasures of the Jagiellonian University in Krak<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ó</span>w do not include library
staffing until midnight—I remember when university libraries were open in the
U.S. all night.) Except for her witnessing a physical altercation on the light-rail
Green Line and dreaming, that is to say, bad-dreaming about Vladimir Putin, she
reported only positive results, results so positive, that she sometimes
imagines leaving Poland for the United States, or Sweden, or Ireland. Much as
she loves her country, her patience with it, and hopes and fears for it, all attitudes
tend in the wrong directions, respectively.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Her visit called to mind my
accultural backsliding. I have not made significant progress since returning to
the U.S. Language has languished. And while I have not wholly given up the
project, I have not taken any concrete steps eastward. I can plead only
laziness and negligence. Monika worried that her own disillusionment with
Poland might have distempered my resolve, but in truth, I have few illusions
about Poland, Polishness, or my project, even as I prefer to attend, when I
attend at all, to their positives and curiosities. I must rediscover the
occasion within, form some plans and stick to them. Very simple, discipline, but
rarely easy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Poland has been much in the news recently. Prime
Minister Tusk has become the EU Council president. A squadron of U.S.
helicopters put down in a field outside of Warsaw, owing to foul weather and
fog. They represent a statement of solidarity with former central and east
European satellites of the former Soviet Union. The Russians have embargoed
Polish apples in response to EU sanctions over Putin’s many lethal mischiefs in
Ukraine. I would eat a Polish apple in defiance of the Kremlin, even more than
one, if I could get them here. And I’m not a particularly healthy eater. If war
broke out, I think I should volunteer for the expatriate American brigade. Not
having extensive soldiering skills, I probably wouldn’t survive, but falling in
battle would likely earn me my White Eagle wings. There are many ways to become
Polish.</span></span></div>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-46420494615878828372014-08-26T20:10:00.000-07:002014-08-26T20:10:28.042-07:00Polish Museum<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I have probably driven past the Polish Museum of America in
Chicago a hundred times and said to myself at least fifty, “I should really try
to visit someday.” So I did, on Friday. My Jagiellonian University colleague
Doctor Hab. Monika Banaś, intent on some immigration and university research in
America this summer, flew into O’Hare on Thursday and requested that we spend a
few days in Chicago before she began her work in earnest. She had never been to
the Big Shoulders, and wanted to see her favorite American painting, Edward
Hopper’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nighthawks, </i>at the Chicago
Institute of Art<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i>Dreading the
traffic and my complete lack of urban navigational skill, I nevertheless agreed
and drove down to embarrass myself on the mean streets of Chi town. May I say
that the Chicagoans could not have been kinder and more tolerant, but,
seriously, someone needs to redesign access to I-90 westbound, and consider
signage.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">On
a less successful note, the Polish Museum is reportedly open 10-4 on Fridays,
and it was—the door anyway. We walked into the lobby 10:30ish—the bookstore and
museum store don’t open until eleven—and spied no one at the front desk. I
touched a virtual button, a primary color, red or blue, on a touch screen that
prompted a robotic verbal summons somewhere behind the lobby indicating that
service was being requested. We waited for five minutes, inspecting the closed
bookstore and the unopened museum store, and snapped a few pics of the lobby.
Nothing happened. No assistance arrived. A custodian walked through the lobby
and said that someone would be coming. We waited five more minutes. I pressed
the button again and reheard the verbal summons. We waited five more minutes.
Dr. Banaś, who had not passed the Polish Museum a hundred times nor said to
herself that she should visit someday, grew perturbed at the delay, and eager
to walk the city, prevailed upon me to leave. I asked her if this incident said
anything about Poles and/or Polishness. “Yes,” she snipped.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2hgnepc4CLfaqNYkhCflvdFMGaZow9HfSF6m2F4i54XzWUH0oLE9Mg8XFmD2ss8lMXBbHKDvUm3OGl4Eu22n3ffCDybKVMAK62TrunBhOv-nEj3QT8SKdrkcpP271ZslrcfJWIhZjDxk/s1600/DSCN1262.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2hgnepc4CLfaqNYkhCflvdFMGaZow9HfSF6m2F4i54XzWUH0oLE9Mg8XFmD2ss8lMXBbHKDvUm3OGl4Eu22n3ffCDybKVMAK62TrunBhOv-nEj3QT8SKdrkcpP271ZslrcfJWIhZjDxk/s1600/DSCN1262.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Polish Museum Lobby</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7vNTqf7qYDzfDZp2ptjuEKE5ItGk5Xx4dYCq49cW_5Y-gBlMOJgPHIIYCtJ2esL3nDdmcgj-SItmCCr8yCE7W_7Za4b0-IDlgMrDBxSx5HgOJ1ZPSWsyoq7Yi0Z_0kaXVsvduc7YyWe0/s1600/DSCN1277.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7vNTqf7qYDzfDZp2ptjuEKE5ItGk5Xx4dYCq49cW_5Y-gBlMOJgPHIIYCtJ2esL3nDdmcgj-SItmCCr8yCE7W_7Za4b0-IDlgMrDBxSx5HgOJ1ZPSWsyoq7Yi0Z_0kaXVsvduc7YyWe0/s1600/DSCN1277.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A More Successful Viewing</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-8125562236821294102014-05-27T19:33:00.000-07:002014-05-27T19:38:53.988-07:00Smoking PoniatowskiOf late, I’ve been filling my living room with the fumes and
exhaust of burning Poniatowski (luxury blend) while reading the constitutions—of
the Third of May 1791, of 1921, 1947, and the latest, 1997. (I’m not sure this
is all of them.) I had thought to shift my attention from the sublimities of
religious metaphysics to the more profane study of politics, but Polish
political and religious practice are sufficiently entangled these last two
hundred years as to prevent any neat and easy exit. Polish constitutional
history mixes religion and civil authority like a national cavendish, one that
I ponder as “pearly wisps of air,” a burnt offering, a charred prayer, a
carboniferous benediction, the incense of ritual meditation over failed aspirations,
failed institutions, the smoky memory of torched and defeated cities.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The name of Poniatowski, Stanis<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>aw August, the last “King of
Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Mazowsze, Zmudz, Kiev,
Wolyn, Podole, Podlasie, Livonia, Smolensk, Sever and Czernihov,” figures
prominently in the Preamble of the Constitution of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Trzeci Maj,</i> the Third of May, 1791. I breathe in his soul when I
light up, the ashes of the most enlightened, well-intended, and stillborn of
Polish Constitutions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 1791, only four years after the ratification of our own
quite secular Constitution—which makes almost no reference to God, until the
end, when it affirms that “no religious test shall ever be required as a
qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” and dates
the document “in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty
seven”—the most famous Polish constitution begins quite differently, “In the
name of God, One in the Holy Trinity.” Yes, that God, the real God, not
Nature’s God, the very Christian God, the Catholic God, “One in the Holy
Trinity,” Who receives first mention in the ideal Polish republic. Those
Americans who think that Christianity is inscribed in our founding documents
should take a lesson in how such inscription would have been handled were it
true—if they can be expected to read foreign and historical constitutions who
have so little familiarity with their own. The First Article of Trzeci Maj reads
as follows, unequivocally:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">I.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The Dominant Religion<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
The dominant national religion is and
shall be the sacred Roman Catholic faith with all its laws. Passage from the dominant
religion to any other confession is forbidden under penalties of apostasy.
Inasmuch as the same holy faith bids us love our neighbors, we owe to all
persons, of whatever persuasion, peace in their faith and the protection of the
government, and therefore we guarantee freedom to all rites and religions in
the Polish lands, in accordance with the laws of the land.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Note, Tea-Partisans,
how to establish religion in a constitution: Eight o’clock, Day 1, Article 1,
Sec. 1.) And yet, religious tolerance is universal—except for lapsed Catholics,
like, uh, me. But, interestingly, having established the Church, the framers
later back away from theocracy (Article 5) when they concede that “All
authority in human society takes its origin in the will of the people.” Poland’s
is not the charter for the City of God. Most of the rest of the document is
secular, an articulated arrangement of offices, powers, and processes, though
bishops and the Polish Primate have responsibilities within these arrangements,
most interestingly as “president of the educational commission” (Article 7) and
as regent in the case of a king still in his minority (Article<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>9). Disappearing shortly thereafter as a
country, Poland had little call for constitution-making for a hundred and thirty
years.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By 1921, when the Polish republic was restored after World
War I and assorted regional wars, it began on an even more emphatic religious note,
“In the name of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Almighty </i>God,” [my
italics] and “thankful to Providence,” but Christianity and the Roman Catholic
Church don’t appear until Article 114; and while recognized as “the religion of
the preponderant majority of the nation, [which] occupies in the state the
chief position among enfranchised religions,” Catholicism retains no higher
status than first among equals: “Freedom of conscience and of religion is
guaranteed to all citizens. No citizen may suffer a limitation of the rights
enjoyed by other citizens by reason of his religion and religious convictions.”
(Article 111) Thankfully, apostates were not, by definition, traitorous. It
would seem that atheism, however, was not constitutionally protected, not being
“a legally recognized religion.” All were expected to believe in something, but
no constitutional penalties attached to infidelity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Communist constitution of 1947, not surprisingly, makes
no mention of God and religion over the course of ninety-two articles.
Declaring atheism the national <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">un</i>religion,
however consistent with Marxist-Leninism—and ironic given the previous
constitution and the recalcitrant Catholicism of the Poles under Soviet
domination—the Communists were probably wiser to say nothing at all. At the
end, under the Declaration of Rights and Liberties, they did pretend to
recognize “Equality before the law, regardless of nationality, race, creed,
sex, origin, social status and education.” If by “equality,” they meant equal
in the regime’s fundamental <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">disregard</i>
to any claims at all arising under these headings, then perhaps, a certain
theoretical equality existed—a common nullification, equal but various
oppressions, general official repression. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fifty years later, the Preamble to the current constitution
(1997) opens ambivalently with the subject of religion, recognizing within the
citizenry, “Both those who believe in God as the source of truth, justice,
good[ness] and beauty, as well as those not sharing such faith but respecting
those universal values as arising from other sources.” Poles’ political
legitimacy finds support in either and both “our culture rooted in the Christian
heritage of the Nation and in universal human values.” One can take one’s pick,
“recognizing our responsibility before God or our own consciences.” The new fundamental
law acknowledges both God and the individual, two concepts not carefully regarded
under Communism.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Article 25 deals impartially with churches and religious
organizations in five brief sections. Article 53 deals again, impartially and
conventionally, with freedom of conscience for individuals and families. I am
particularly charmed by Section 7: “No one may be compelled by organs of public
authority to disclose his philosophy of life, religious convictions or belief.”
You can be compelled by your daimonion, like Mi<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>osz in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Land of Ulro,</i> but not by the authorities. Good thing. That’s
hard work, and for most of us, better kept secret. Office holders may take
their oath “with the additional sentence ‘So help me, God’”, but Poles are
largely otherwise on their own.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yesterday, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland’s last
Communist and briefly first post-Communist President, died at the age of 90.
He’s famous, and infamous, for declaring martial law in 1981, suspending the
Communist constitution of 1947, which was never much more than a dead letter
anyway, ruled as the Poles were from the Kremlin. He’ll be a controversial
figure until his memory disperses like smoke, though I doubt any pipe tobaccos
will be named for him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-65111365252814663312014-04-19T19:39:00.000-07:002014-04-19T19:39:20.034-07:00From the Sublime to the… Political<div class="MsoNormal">
Holy Saturday a year later, and I am remembering my Easter
week in Sulęczyno with something of the vicarious rapture of the unsaved,
of proximity to joy and its nostalgia. All that church, candle light, candle
heat, the sizzle of wax and the eruption of incense, and the flinging of holy
water with long-tendriled mini-whisk brooms, followed by ritual and incessant
feasting. I miss it. Here, home, rereading Proust, I happen across lines such
as “Even from the simplest, the most realistic point of view, the countries we
long for occupy, at any given moment, a far larger place in our true life than
the country in which we may happen to be.” [298] Proust reads actually like a
Pole, melancholy, graceful, capricious, virtuoso, just as he described Chopin.
So, while I’m far away, reading French and Russian novelists, they and the
season return me to Poland and the richer reality of memory, our true life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirHdkBN71wOzSIb3g2z22hvKiCQ4SzVmfVU9dqxp5XF1iRzUAwOKyaZmB7RsBtxmgO3oBQ-yG6QIoxAXsEifwWs-3_uwCmvJXR65QsR4zZ7H6dKpHL_f4RamHm46AAVHwTcWdORVo81BQ/s1600/Swieconka.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirHdkBN71wOzSIb3g2z22hvKiCQ4SzVmfVU9dqxp5XF1iRzUAwOKyaZmB7RsBtxmgO3oBQ-yG6QIoxAXsEifwWs-3_uwCmvJXR65QsR4zZ7H6dKpHL_f4RamHm46AAVHwTcWdORVo81BQ/s1600/Swieconka.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Swieconka: Easter basket blessed at Mass</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I’ve returned as well to the Constitution of this, the Third
Republic of Poland, now seventeen years old this month, for extended study. A
curious document at first glance, high-minded, loquacious, contradictory,
assertive, and yet a little silly in spots, as constitutions and teenagers are
wont to be. I note that the U.S. Constitution, which serves as a model of sorts
for western democracies, rather crisply delineates Seven Articles. In the
Polish Constitution, there are two hundred and forty-three. Now, in all
fairness, we’ve added Twenty-Seven Amendments over time, including one abolishing
slavery (XIII)—only vaguely alluded to in the main body of the Supreme Document—so it’s not as if the U.S. Constitution got it perfect and spoke to everything it needed to speak to; and no doubt,
the world and governance have gotten more complex since 1787, but two hundred
and forty-three articles seems like a lot. Especially when more than one of
them reads like Article 81: “The rights specified in Article 65, paras. 4 and
5, Article 66, Article 69, Article 71 and Articles 74-76, may be asserted
subject to limitations specified by statute.” Not the most elegant of executive
prose. There is a story to this Constitution and to each of its articles,
I’m sure, and I hope I won’t get to them all, but enough of them to understand
the foundations of its contemporary political culture, its basic rules for
civic life, which is but occasionally ridiculous—everywhere. </div>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-32708486340260725152014-03-02T20:46:00.001-08:002014-03-02T20:46:52.737-08:00Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Prompted by Miłoszean thoughts—and by interminable winter to
get out of my house—I went to Mass this morning, the Eighth Sunday
in Ordinary Time, the previous Seven of which I had remained warmly abed. (So it was an Extraordinary Sunday to me.) To
the Cathedral of St. Paul. I do miss my Polish church-going, its regularity,
its solemnity and gilded Otherness, its language, both fleetingly familiar and
yet largely incomprehensible—the strangeness of the tongue, thus seeming holier
than English, more magical. Polish is not liturgical Latin, of course, but foreign-sounding
at least, suggestively sacred. The second reading was from 1 Corinthians 4:1-5,
passages which coincidentally recalled my previous lesson from <i>Katyń:</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It is the Lord who judges me….who will bring
to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of
the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God.” Or
condemnation, as the case may be. Thus the powerful, the tyrannical, the
brutal, and the murderous ought to be reminded, warned and forewarned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Behind the altar at St. Paul’s are shrines to the Saints of
the Nations, including one to the Slavs, with statues of St. Cyril and
Methodius (translators of the Gospels to what became known as Old Church
Slavonic) and with windows depicting Stanislaus (Patron Saint of the Poles) and
Wenceslaus (Patron Saint of the Czechs). I offered Polish prayers for Ukrayna,
peace to the sons and daughters of the formidable Cossacks, whose recent
courage, resistance, resilience, and restraint in the streets and in the Maidan
in Kiev impress and inspire us distant and mongrel Slavs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzCIsSZExLeXgMUFduzieHHMAwLF4k0adNnVcybRSoAPys3k9mT0mukAsYyL_ReS2hVx9dVN0De-WSAoGzGSn4Q2GGtq4UWlBPU3QwaH5i7wT_lHzZfHI_4aEdUQuYm_ennVxGevafXs8/s1600/DSCN1245.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzCIsSZExLeXgMUFduzieHHMAwLF4k0adNnVcybRSoAPys3k9mT0mukAsYyL_ReS2hVx9dVN0De-WSAoGzGSn4Q2GGtq4UWlBPU3QwaH5i7wT_lHzZfHI_4aEdUQuYm_ennVxGevafXs8/s1600/DSCN1245.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shrine to Saint Cyril and Methodius<br />
Cathedral Church in St. Paul</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">And on a pier at the north exit from the passage of the nations
hangs a picture of Jesus—above and somewhat inconspicuous, though I remember seeing
it a number of years before, puzzling over what I thought was a Latin
motto—with the inscription </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">Jezu Ufam Tobie</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">. It’s not Latin, it’s Polish.
Who would have guessed?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;"> It's a secret waiting for Dan Brown. </span>Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-18359372713805060872014-02-18T18:37:00.001-08:002014-03-01T18:21:33.517-08:00Katyń<div class="MsoNormal">
Since returning to the United States in June, I have been to Mass
only twice, a memorial service for my nephew and at midnight on Christmas Eve.
I have, however, been reading much Mi<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>osz, a believer and a Catholic
communicant still at his death in 2004, in an effort to understand how so
intellectual and relatively contemporary a person, one with a full appreciation
of the powers of science, can understand and articulate his faith now well into
post modernity, into post catastrophic modernity. Having lost or laid Catholicism
aside many years ago in the aftermath of a simple, family tragedy, I continue
to rummage about from time to time in his (and my father’s) generation in
search of creditable responses to the Big Question. So far, in case you are
wondering, no incontrovertible answers have emerged. And, alas, not many of Mi<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>osz’s
words are encouraging to the prospects of my Catholic soul: “Attendance at
church on Sunday, even if socially motivated, even if for propriety’s sake (as
with the Poles, the Irish, the Italians), may well be viewed by the Almighty,
who is surely endowed with a rich sense of humor, as an act of faith.” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">LU, </i>261) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Land of
Ulro,</i> Mi<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>osz’s “spiritual self-portrait” (back cover copy claim), I had
hoped to find something of a recognizable but curiously reimagined Catholicism
and a clear pathway, a sort of Stations of the Cross for Wayward Boys, forward
to what a restored spirituality and perhaps a revamped Church might look and feel
like. A path to transcendence. The book has proved rather, as its author
“forewarned…[a] bizarre tangle” of William Blake, Oscar Mi<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>osz,
Emanuel Swedenborg, Dostoevsky, and Simone Weil, none of whom I have read at
any length. Interesting enough on many pages, still such efforts end up
reminding me of scholastic debates in the medieval universities about the
number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin. Intricate, ingenious,
arcane, and not a little tiresome. After finishing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ulro</i> though<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,</i> I watched
Andrzej Wajda’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Katy</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ń</span>.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Katy</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ń</span>, </i>Wajda, the master Polish
film-maker of Mi<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>osz’s generation, recounts the mass execution in the spring of
1940 of over 20,000 Polish military officers and personnel at the hands of the
Soviet NKVD—their secret police—and upon the orders of Stalin and Beria. The
movie harrows us with overcast and dark and cold and finally blood, and in the
last scenes, of execution, the explosive report of German-made pistols drops uniformed
bodies but singly into mass graves. Wajda knows that while there are dramatic lines
and scenes and stereo sound, there are not real words, images, music, nor human
imagination sufficient to document the Truth of that experience, the whole
truth (what happened to the blond sister arrested in Krak<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ó</span>w
for denying the Soviet account blaming the Nazis?), this event that claimed the
life of Wajda’s father. That <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Katy</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ń</span></i> might be a powerful artistic,
creative representation, one that inspires memory, which is a good thing, I can
grant—and heartily approve. But I insist that Mi<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>osz and Wajda, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we</i></b>,
are not witness enough. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Katy</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ń</span>’s</i> last soldiers are murdered while
reciting the Lord’s Prayer, a reminder of an Other Viewer; and the last image,
of a dead hand still warm with a rosary entwined amongst its fingers being
buried, fades to black with a requiem then silence. As if to say more than film
art, more than human memory, is required. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because human beings are okay with the daily tasks of
meaning-making, they’re all right, pretty pragmatic; they’re good, sometimes,
maybe even often, very good with the longer-term tasks of meaning-making, with
history and science, art and myth, muddling along in the direction of
civilization. Perhaps, possibly, probably a good argument can be made that the
material conditions of human life are getting better and better everywhere—over
the long term—and that we should focus our efforts on the here and now and the
future, our children’s future. (Who’d really argue against that second proposition?
Some angel busy dancing on a pin, I suppose.) But sometimes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">soo</i> more than once, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">soo</i> all too often, God! we human beings are bad, so bad,
individually and locally and globally, catastrophically bad, catastrophically
BAD. And at such times—and afterward—seriously, you don’t want human beings
fumbling around trying to make ultimate sense of what they’ve just made a
complete effing mess of, trying to make sense of utter human barbarity and senselessness,
you want something Else, the Truth. Lavrenti Beria, a chief of the NKVD, later
admitted—when it served his purposes—that the murders at Katy<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ń</span>
had been a “’great mistake.’” (116) An ironic confession, a self-serving lie,
the lies humans tell about themselves to enable them to live with others (and
themselves), our species whose capacity for self-deception, for “closure”,
approaches perfection. Including Mi<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>osz, including Wajda, and their readers
and viewers. But the dead, especially the murdered, the disappeared, the
suddenly, brutally gone in the middle of night, the relatively innocent borne
off by violence unexpected and unutterable—and those to come who shall perish
in this way—deserve an unimpeachable witness, the company of One That Knows.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This conclusion I reach not as some profession of faith. I
am no evangel. Without a lively intuition of holy things or a deep empathy for my
own generation—which has seemed to me, on the whole, amazingly graced—I arrive
here not as a revelation and not particularly by choice. In <i>A Year of the Hunter,</i> Miłosz
quotes favorably Karol Ludwik Koniński: “’One can also arrive at conviction
by philosophizing, but not by philosophizing systematically; rather, by
following the impulses of imagination, the emotions, custom. The heart points
the way to philosophizing.'” (194) I think my process more like that, and this
post, more like an act of contrition.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-34760701261264000442014-01-24T19:41:00.000-08:002014-04-06T15:10:59.779-07:001480<div class="MsoNormal">
So tonight, after eight months and two renewals, I’ve
finished D<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>ugosz’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Annals.</i> Even
this abridgement at times felt interminable, five hundred and fifteen years of
one thing after another, actually, the same damn things over and over,
occasionally all at the same time, medieval things, mostly fighting, everywhere
and between everyone, a thousand truces and never any peace, dynastic intrigue,
religious and cultural bigotry resulting in copious bloodshed, every
conceivable permutation of the Seven Deadly Sins, the plague, heresy, a dozen W<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>adys<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>aw<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">s</i> at least, with an equal number of Bole<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">sław<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">s, </i>and even more Casimir<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">s,</i> and to finish, Jan Długosz himself, a
bit actor in his own chronicle, which ends in 1480 on his death bed: </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Though
lying in bed, gravely ill, yet am I no little pleased that, after protracted,
uninterrupted labour, much thought and deliberation, extensive travel and
journeying in search of the chronicles of our own and other lands and in so
doing subjecting myself to censure, abuse and rebuff, I have come to the end of
this work, which all others have neglected. Gladly would I continue it for the
honour of God and the benefit of my Fatherland, but Fate is preventing me, for I
strongly suspect that the Cruel Sisters are even now drawing their threads. I
have, by the Grace of God, reached an age that not all attain, having lived for
sixty-five years. My afternoon being over and I having reached the actual
evening and term of life, when I am to enter the kingdom of Eternal Light and
enjoy everlasting life with all the saints, I confess, what I admitted long
ago, that not absolutely everything I have written has accorded with the truth.
Some of the things I have described have been trivial and ephemeral, though
amusing, thing[s] that I have taken from the writings of others either on my
own initiative or at the suggestion of others, things that I have found in
minor works or in other people’s maps, or matters of hearsay, taking as worthy
of belief what I have merely been told to be true. I beg those who are better
endowed by Minerva and have ready tongues to correct my errors and
misconceptions. Should they find what they read, even the whole, confused or
amateurish, may they undertake the editing of it, and may they forgive my
language and incompetence. With such a wealth and variety of topics, only an
angel could explain and verify it all. It is not a gospel or a canonical letter
I have been writing, as the holy apostles did, but, as an intellectual
exercise, I have described things that are variable and ephemeral. I accept
responsibility for verifying them or for failing to do so, should that be what
I have done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">….I
beg all who read or will read this Chronicle to kneel and say for me, first and
last of sinners, one Paternoster and one Hail Mary, so that Our Lord Jesus
Christ, son of the Immaculate Virgin, through all his torments borne with
strange love for me, for him and every mortal, may deign to free me of eternal
and temporal torment and lead me to see His Blessed Trinity, whose is the
honour and the glory, now and for ever. Amen. (p. 601)</span><br />
<br />
This I
can do and have done, in Polish.</div>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-76076282153731015422014-01-18T09:36:00.000-08:002014-01-18T09:36:07.077-08:001414<div class="MsoNormal">
On this date last year, I had just arrived in Poland,
slipping down through a winter fog into the damp snowy cold of Ma<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ł</span>opolska,
“Little Poland,” the capital of which is Krak<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ó</span>w. A year later I miss
everything about Poland—except the damp cold. But since so many of the good
things about Poland in winter are a response to the damp cold, a quiet
resistance to it, an occasional defiance of it—vodka, tea, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">grzaniec </i>(“hot, spiced wine”)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,</i>
a peppery <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">barszcz,</i> conversation with
family or boon companions in pubs and caf<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">é</span>s and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cukiernie </i>(“sweet shops”), and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">szarlotka—</i>perhaps
I miss the damp cold, too. The slush on cobbly pavements. The snow falling
clumpily from trees. The smell of wet cement, a little salty, a little savory.
The typical cold in Minnesota is not the same, but drier, edgier, and its polar
vortexicality, not in the least to be preferred. The chill cold dripping down
one’s neck on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Karmeliczka</i> Street,
while hardly pleasant, doesn’t begin to compare for discomfort with the
rolling, bitter, avalanche of subzero temperatures and subarctic windchills. BRRR.
At the moment, I remember my arrival in winter Poland warmly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have been reading Długosz desultorily,
intermittently, since coming home and yesterday arrived at the year 1414, exactly
600 years ago. Sometimes such coincidences seem more than coincidental. But I
have to say, little noteworthy appears to have happened in 1414. Yes, the
plague abated somewhat, but the Teutonic Knights were up to their old
bedevilment. While King Władysław defeated them spectacularly at the Battle of Grunwald in
1410, he neglected to push his advantage, failing to take their fortress at Małbork
and leaving them a stronghold for continuing mischief; the Order appears to be
winning the “peace,” duping the King, taking advantage of his diplomatic good
nature, and “using gold and bribery as arguments rather than justice” in
international forums of arbitration. Władysław concludes a truce “for winter
is approaching and dysentery rife among his troops.” He’s still angry with his
kinsman and ally, the Grand-duke of Lithuania. Heresy visits Czechoslovakia in
the person of Jan Hus. Same old, same old, and without much encouraging to say
to readers 600 years hence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But having now read Jan Długosz himself, and not just read
<i>of </i>him, his long and unflinching account of hardship and misfortune in the
middle ages, with rare visions of peace and goodness, I have a new appreciation
for his name, accomplishment, and the resting place of his bones in the crypt
as <i>Na Ska</i><i>łce</i>. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-86365114824405099882013-12-07T10:18:00.000-08:002013-12-07T10:18:31.452-08:00Uninstructed Ducks<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Reading still
and underlining often in Długosz, Miłosz, and Herbert, though not so much in
Długosz—it’s a library book. What I make of them, and what they make of me—in
the direction of Polishness—remains to be seen, but every now and then you come
upon a passage that bursts off the page like laughter, a tiny firework, the
memory of a wet, moustachy smooch from a rascal aunt long dead. And you want to
share it for what it is and make nothing more of it, complete in itself.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Once,
a very long time ago, walking down the street in a Polish village, I grew
thoughtful at the sight of ducks splashing about in a miserable puddle. I was
struck because nearby there was a lovely stream flowing through an alder wood.
“Why don’t they go over to the stream?” I asked an old peasant sitting on a
bench in front of his hut. He answered: “Bah, if only they knew!”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Miłosz,
</span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">To Begin Where I Am, </i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">p. 245</span></div>
Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-32237613929914756922013-11-05T20:01:00.000-08:002013-11-05T20:02:14.717-08:00Birds of the Planty, Lesson Three: the Rook<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">Rooks, </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">gawrony,</i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;"> nest high in the trees, socially, in
clusters, tree-top neighborhoods, “rookeries,” and in Kraków they would drop to
the Planty singly and pace, rather warily of humans, in search of food, mostly
worms and grubs. Whenever I would approach, however quietly and unobtrusively,
or lift my camera in their direction after sitting relatively motionlessly on a
park bench, they would lift-off on long, deliberate black wing, not in haste or
fear, but with a certain dignity, as if intruded upon, far enough away to
render my limited zoom pretty useless. So repeatedly unsuccessful was I in
trying to image them digitally, that when I came upon a trio cast in bronze at
an art gallery, I thought I might have to settle for that, an image of an
image, an image of a brazen image. (How that sculptor worked so fast I cannot
imagine.)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipRWX0ETnntWbh9ZBcAsvQFwXOTvYx1n94nyNVy2OJd6BaYOysc2l6YiRB6Ai6Xp0RnOEUNPqXYLqXf0rfklKm90w8O3oHz2m8-l1Q6paBeQg2tyHfRZ1c5Y4r0wUR5Rf01lV0Gl8BMgU/s1600/Bronze+Gawron+III.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiloIm8J_-UT3OrecOhL___N9ioYe72g8ZuuefpAXgNm4-kJC5MyVZjWzqUNblstg0JawVvOJk1xxegYuYaMowZHXcRZBirshLIzpBpjJ1jnb35tbCt52qwo7wMY7DjXqDQuJeCY_I8Ssk/s1600/Bronze+Gawron+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiloIm8J_-UT3OrecOhL___N9ioYe72g8ZuuefpAXgNm4-kJC5MyVZjWzqUNblstg0JawVvOJk1xxegYuYaMowZHXcRZBirshLIzpBpjJ1jnb35tbCt52qwo7wMY7DjXqDQuJeCY_I8Ssk/s320/Bronze+Gawron+II.jpg" width="240" /></a><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipRWX0ETnntWbh9ZBcAsvQFwXOTvYx1n94nyNVy2OJd6BaYOysc2l6YiRB6Ai6Xp0RnOEUNPqXYLqXf0rfklKm90w8O3oHz2m8-l1Q6paBeQg2tyHfRZ1c5Y4r0wUR5Rf01lV0Gl8BMgU/s320/Bronze+Gawron+III.JPG" width="248" /></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">But as you can see, they are a not unhandsome
bird, a little beaky perhaps, with iconic possibilities. Like their cousin, the
magpie, they appear in contemporary Polish poetry, in this case along with
their other cousin, the crow, known in Europe as the “carrion crow.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Crows, rooks gather </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of an evening in the
stubble. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman";">The dark company moves <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Slowly toward the forest. From the west</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Float violet clouds. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Crows, rooks preen <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman";">smoothe their Indian feathers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 1.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Zagajewski, 61, <i>my
free, inexpert translation</i>)</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">The rook and the carrion crow are not native to the United
States, though, like the magpie, the carrion crow has a close relative in the
North American crow. At any rate, the </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">Corvidae</i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;"> family—crows, rooks,
ravens, magpies, jays, jackdaws—among the most intelligent of bird, and even
animal species generally, strikes a familial note with me, and not merely for
their self-consciousness and tool use. The </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">czarnowron, </i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">the “black</span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;"> </i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 115%;">crow,”
or carrion crow, appears on the Borowicz family coat of arms. And while I’m not
convinced that my origins are particularly aristocratic—perhaps we’re magpies
and jackdaws to the more elite branches of the family—I’m not averse to
granting some resemblance. And I’m partial to that blue.</span></div>
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Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1578904604387130963.post-14942709929406394572013-10-25T13:20:00.000-07:002013-10-25T13:20:34.789-07:00Birds of the Planty, Lesson Two: the MagpieLong and away from the Planty, the greenspace surrounding
the center of Kraków, I’m reminded that I remain quite incompletely Polish and,
more recently, even lax in my efforts to become so. Reminders of failure and
guilt abound in life, but I have grown coarse and insensitive to them over
time. Having little use for guilt from my early teens and accustomed to failure
thereafter, I don’t respond much to these emotional spurs, these negative
drivers. Rather, one rediscovers the occasion within oneself, often prompted by
some outside messenger, some seemingly chance sign from the universe that draws
us back to the quest—even when you’re not looking for one particularly.<br />
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So last week, I was driving out to Seattle with my <i>by</i><i>łą </i><i>żon</i><i>ą</i>
to deliver a car to our son—my dear boy—when across our path in the high plains
of Montana swung a bird that I had first seen on the Planty. I called out <i>“Sroka!” </i>Magpie.</div>
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A handsome bird, sleek in black and white with wing
highlights in cobalt, and a long tail that plies the air like a gondolier’s
oar, it inhabits Europe and Asia and western North America, but not
Pennsylvania or Minnesota, my first and current homes. Its sharp markings
strike me as aristocratic, priestly, a priest with a sense of style, of
elegance, but understated, though he screeches. I think if I were an aristocrat
or a priest, I would adopt the magpie as my totem bird.</div>
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Curiously, the magpie appears in the poetry of both Miłosz
and Herbert, but when you consider how visually striking is the bird, how
bright its white against black wing, against the background green and blue of
lawn and sky in flight, it’s not that surprising that it generates a poem. In
“Magpiety,” Miłosz asks “Magpiety?/What is magpiety? I shall never achieve/A
magpie heart, a hairy nostril over the beak, a flight/That always renews just
when coming down.” (156) I own that nostril, but of the heart and flight, it
remains to be seen.</div>
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Herbert’s <i>sroka, </i>“Pica
Pica L.,”—the Latin name—is a villain. There is no question about the nature of
universal magpiety:</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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its song alone<o:p></o:p></div>
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a rattler’s song<o:p></o:p></div>
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betrays<o:p></o:p></div>
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the true nature<o:p></o:p></div>
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of a baby killer<o:p></o:p></div>
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Herbert invokes the Polish
priest-poet, Jan Twardowski (1916-2006), to exorcise and kill that feathered
demon. But the name, Jan Twardowski, is also the name of the medieval
magician/academic (a.k.a. Faust) who bargained his soul to the devil, so the doubleness of
appearances, the paradox of being both bad and potentially good, redeemable,
keeps the </div>
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question open indefinitely. In the magpie’s soul, there is black and
white, but also cobalt blue. <o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Josh Borowiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05699440741159846518noreply@blogger.com