User:Nihil novi/sandbox

A commonplace book of truths not yet decayed into truisms



 * "[O]ur existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."
 * — Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory: A Memoir, 1951


 * "You can think of death bitterly or with resignation, as a tragic interruption of your life, and take every possible measure to postpone it. Or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and seize it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever-surprising world around us."
 * — Barbara Ehrenreich, Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, Twelve, 256 pp., $27, reviewed by Megan Erickson in "The Great Equalizer:  Barbara Ehrenreicher and the ethics of dying", The Nation, vol. 307, no. 8 (October 8 / 15, 2018), pp. 32–36.  (The quotation is on p. 33 of the review.  Erickson comments immediately after:  "Accepting death, for Ehrenreich, means being able to live more fully.")


 * "The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things which lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy."
 * — Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, 2nd ed., 1993, ISBN 978-0465024353, Epilogue, p. 155.


 * "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless."
 * — Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory: The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature, 1993, ISBN 0-09-922391-0.


 * "... the reality existing behind all appearances is, and must ever be, unknown."
 * —Herbert Spencer, First Principles (1862), part I: "The Unknowable", chapter IV:  "The Relativity of All Knowledge".


 * "I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."
 * —J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds and Other Papers, 1927, p. 286.


 * In 1814 Pierre-Simon Laplace published an early articulation of causal or scientific determinism: "We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future.  An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect, nothing would be uncertain and the future, just like the past, would be present before its eyes."
 * — Pierre-Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay, New York, 1902, p. 4. A similar view had earlier been presented in 1763 by Roger Boscovich.  Carlo Cercignani, chapter 2:  "Physics before Boltzmann", in Ludwig Boltzmann:  The Man Who Trusted Atoms, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 55, ISBN 0-19-850154-4


 * "History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed of the broken fragments of antique legends." (more recently misquoted as a Mark Twain saying: "History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.")
 * — Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, 1874 edition, Chapter 47: "Laura in the Tombs and Her Visitors". http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/ Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age:  A Tale of To-Day by Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner, 1874 edition, Chapter 47: Laura in the Tombs and Her Visitors.


 * "a favorite theory of mine—to wit, that no occurrence is sole and solitary, but is merely a repetition of a thing which has happened before, and perhaps often."
 * — Mark Twain, The Jumping Frog: In English, Then in French, and Then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil, 1903, p. 64




 * "Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow....


 * In this world – as I have known it – we are made to suffer without the shadow of a reason, of a cause or of guilt....


 * There is no morality, no knowledge and no hope; there is only the consciousness of ourselves which drives us about a world that... is always but a vain and fleeting appearance....


 * A moment, a twinkling of an eye and nothing remains – but a clod of mud, of cold mud, of dead mud cast into black space, rolling around an extinguished sun. Nothing. Neither thought, nor sound, nor soul. Nothing."


 * — Joseph Conrad, quoted in Jeffrey Meyers, Joseph Conrad: A Biography, New York, Scribner's, 1991, p. 166


 * "Egoism, which is the moving force of the world, and altruism, which is its morality, these two contradictory instincts, of which one is so plain and the other so mysterious, cannot serve us unless in the incomprehensible alliance of their irreconcilable antagonism."
 * — Joseph Conrad, in an August 1901 letter to the editor of The New York Times Saturday Book Review, quoted in Zdzisław Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, 2007, p. 315.


 * In a 23 October 1922 letter to mathematician-philosopher Bertrand Russell, in response to Russell's book, The Problem of China, which advocated socialist reforms and an oligarchy of sages who would reshape Chinese society, Joseph Conrad explained his own distrust of political panaceas:

"I have never [found] in any man's book or... talk anything... to stand up... against my deep-seated sense of fatality governing this man-inhabited world.... The only remedy for Chinamen and for the rest of us is [a] change of hearts, but looking at the history of the last 2000 years there is not much reason to expect [it], even if man has taken to flying – a great 'uplift' no doubt but no great change...."
 * —Quoted in Zdzisław Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, Camden House, 2007,  ISBN 978-1-57113-347-2, pp. 548–49.


 * "I exclude the hypothesis of complete originality on [Charles] Lever's part, because a man can no more be completely original in that sense than a tree can grow out of air."
 * — George Bernard Shaw, preface to Major Barbara (1905)


 * "Toutes choses sont dites déjà; mais comme personne n'écoute, il faut toujours recommencer."
 * "Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again."
 * (or:  “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”)
 * — André Gide, Le Traité du Narcisse (The Treatise of the Narcissus)
 * Cf.: "Nullumst iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius."  ("In fact, nothing is said that has not been said before.") — Terence, Eunuchus (The Eunuch, prologue, line 41), 161 BCE.


 * "nihil novi sub sole" ("there is nothing new under the sun"): Vulgate Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:9.  King James Version:  "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done:  and there is no new thing under the sun." New International Version:  "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."


 * "Technology is the ultimate driving force behind history. Technology cares nothing for human welfare...  It shows no preference for peace over war...  As... with the gene,... technology's sole object is its own survival, evolution and propagation."  (* Technology is the ultimate driving force behind history.  Technology cares nothing for human welfare, or for which people happens to be in the ascendant.  It shows no preference for peace over war, and happily exploits both.  As is the case with the gene, so also technology's sole object is its own survival, evolution and propagation.  Technology cares only for its own advance, which it pursues with relentless tenacity.")
 * — Christopher Kasparek


 * Albert Einstein: Quotations


 * "I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever."
 * — Albert Einstein, 1918.

Einstein described himself as a determinist.

Einstein has been quoted as saying that he loved humanity in the aggregate but not individual humans. It would be well to track down the exact quotation.


 * "Be not the first by whom the New are try'd, / Nor yet the last to lay the Old aside."
 * — Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711


 * 1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
 * 2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
 * 3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
 * 4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
 * 5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
 * 6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
 * — George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language", 1946


 * "[D]on't trouble to be too scrupulous... In my opinion 'it is better to interpret than to translate'....  It is... a question of finding the equivalent expressions.  And there... let yourself be guided more by your temperament than by a strict conscience."
 * — Joseph Conrad to his niece and Polish translator Aniela Zagórska (quoted in Zdzisław Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, 2007, p. 524)


 * Doubt all, but not all the time.


 * "Art is never finished, only abandoned."
 * — attributed to Leonard da Vinci, E.M. Forster, and Pablo Picasso, but possibly paraphrased from Paul Valéry


 * "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
 * — ancient maxim of uncertain provenance


 * "Recognizing a problem is an invitation to do something about it. That is the main lesson I learned from the formative experience of my life, in 1944, when the Nazis occupied Hungary. I might not have survived if my father hadn’t secured false identification papers for his family (and many others). He taught me that it’s much better to face harsh reality than to close your eyes to it. Once you are aware of the dangers, your chances of survival are much better if you take some risks than if you meekly follow the crowd. That is why I trained myself to look at the dark side. It has served me well in the financial markets and it is guiding me now in my political philanthropy. As long as I can find a winning strategy, however tenuous, I don’t give up. In danger lies opportunity. It’s always darkest before dawn."
 * — "‘The EU Is on the Verge of Collapse’—An Interview: George Soros and Gregor Peter Schmitz", The New York Review of Books, February 11, 2016.


 * "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."
 * — Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, 1821.


 * "A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say."
 * — Italo Calvino


 * "Silent enim leges inter arma." ("Amid the clash of arms, the laws are silent.")
 * — Cicero (106–43 BCE), Pro Milone, 52 BCE


 * "The old lie":
 * "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" ("It is sweet and proper to die for the fatherland.")
 * — Horace (65–8 BCE), Odes (III.2.13), ca. 23 BCE.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australia BC

"Copernicus" lead
Nicolaus Copernicus (German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; Italian: Nicolò Copernico; Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a heliocentric model of the universe which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center.

Copernicus was born, lived and died in the Royal Prussia region of the Kingdom of Poland. He studied at Jagiellonian University in Poland's capital, Kraków, and subsequently at the Universities of Bologna, Padua and Ferrara, in Italy. During the Polish-Teutonic War of 1519-21, Copernicus defended Olsztyn (Allenstein) and Warmia (Ermland) at the head of Polish troops against the invading Teutonic Knights.

The publication of Copernicus' book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), just before his death in 1543, is considered a major event in the history of science. It began the Copernican Revolution and contributed importantly to the rise of the ensuing Scientific Revolution.

One of the great polymaths of the Renaissance, Copernicus was also a jurist with a doctorate in law, a physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classics scholar, translator, artist, governor, diplomat and economist who formulated Gresham's Law in the year (1519) of Thomas Gresham's birth.

Notes:

Nicolaus Copernicus (German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a heliocentric model which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center of the universe.

Copernicus lived in Royal Prussia, which had become a region of the Kingdom of Poland in 1466, seven years before Copernicus' birth. He studied at Kraków and subsequently at Bologna, Padua and Ferrara.

The publication of Copernicus' book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), just before his death in 1543, is a watershed event in the history of science. It began the Copernican Revolution and was seminal to the ensuing Scientific Revolution.

One of the great polymaths of the Renaissance, Copernicus was also a jurist with a doctorate in law, a physician, quadrilingual polyglot (he knew German, Polish, Greek and Latin, and probably also Italian), classics scholar, translator, artist, governor, diplomat, and economist who in 1517 set down a quantity theory of money, a principal concept in economics to the present day, and formulated "Gresham's Law" in the year, 1519, of Thomas Gresham's birth.

Notes:

Reply to Walkee, concerning the "Copernicus" article lead

 * I do not object to inclusion of language links, Polish audio link, or no-nationality-assertion comment.


 * It is customary, early in an article lead, to place a biographee in his historic location, rather than leave him floating somewhere in space. This is particularly helpful if no "nationality" is to be attributed.


 * It is not true that, in my proposed version of the lead, "Kraków is especially emphasized as his university although he didn't graduate there." This university is simply mentioned as the first of 4 that he attended.  His attendance there, whether or not he obtained a degree, was important to his subsequent intellectual development, as amply discussed in this article and summarized in the following paragraph:

"Copernicus' four years at Kraków played an important role in the development of his critical faculties and initiated his analysis of the logical contradictions in the two most popular systems of astronomy—Aristotle's theory of homocentric spheres, and Ptolemy's mechanism of eccentrics and epicycles—the surmounting and discarding of which constituted the first step toward the creation of Copernicus' own doctrine of the structure of the universe. [Jerzy Dobrzycki and Leszek Hajdukiewicz, 'Kopernik, Mikołaj', Polski słownik biograficzny, vol. XIV, p. 5.]"


 * Your description, as "wet imagery", of the words "watershed" ("a critical point marking a change in course or development") and "seminal" ("highly influential, especially in some original way, and providing a basis for future development or research") betrays your limited grasp of the English language. Please look up these words on Wiktionary.  Neither adjective is "extraordinary" in application to Copernicus' achievement, as made clear in Wikipedia's "Scientific revolution" article:

"The scientific revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, medicine, and chemistry transformed views of society and nature.... [T]he publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) and Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human body) is often cited as marking the beginning of the scientific revolution."


 * If anyone in Copernicus' age can be described as a great polymath, he surely can be. Please see his entry in "List of people who have been called a polymath".


 * We can call Copernicus a "polyglot", with a mention of the languages he knew.


 * Copernicus painted a self-portrait which Polish Police found useful as a representation of its subject: "the Polish Police Central Forensic Laboratory used the skull to reconstruct a face that closely resembled the features—including a broken nose and a scar above the left eye—on a Copernicus self-portrait."  ("Copernicus' grave found in Polish church", USA Today, 3 November 2005.)  How many art works must an individual produce to qualify as an artist?  Novelists Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee each wrote only one novel (Gone with the Wind; To Kill a Mockingbird).  Does this disqualify them as artists?  We can drop the reference to the Jagiellonian University self-portrait copy and rely on published accounts of the Polish Police's forensics.


 * Scholars have found it worth noting Copernicus' iteration of what was indeed described before Copernicus and has since become known as "Gresham's Law". Multiple discovery is common in the sciences and arts.  That does not take away from Copernicus' achievement.  Stating that he described this law the year that Gresham was born, simply puts the matter in chronological perspective.


 * The "Copernicus" lead has been the work of many hands, and "your" version carries no more legitimacy than "mine".

Nihil novi (talk) 00:25, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

[Walkee's specific concerns:]
 * Removal of language links.
 * Removal of Polish audio link.
 * Removal of no-nationality-assertion comment.
 * Pushing up a paragraph about Royal Prussia's relation to Poland from the third to the second paragraph because that's obviously more important to the author than Copernicus's book. "Kraków" is especially emphasized as his university although he didn't graduate there. Bill Gates does not have "Harvard" in the lede and has "(dropped out)" in the info box.
 * Turning the paragraph about his book into some wet imagery with "watershed" and "seminal". Both extraordinary claims to which the words refer are unsupported by the rest of the article and replace a neutral description.
 * "One of the great polymaths". Peacock POV.
 * "quadrilingual" is listed unecessarily to the noun polyglot but five languages are named. That's a failure in mathematics (quadri = 4) and because it's unknown how many languages Copernicus spoke we can leave it as polyglot.
 * It's claimed again that he was an artist, "artist", supported by no secondary source making the claim. The footnote is original research and suggest that because Copernicus had one self-portrait, he was a visual artist. Would the fact that he cooked himself a good meal make him a cook too? What about if he cooked himself meals regularly? No? We don't publish original research on Wikipedia anyway.
 * Here's a fun question for you. What makes you think the self-portrait was the one alleged by Britannica? Owen Gingerich mentions a self-portrait. He refers to a work by Tobias Stimmer and cites Metze. Look at page 166 here. Britannica's alleged self-portrait looks nothing like it.
 * Why do you emphasize that Copernicus had a version of Gresham's law in the year of Gresham's birth? It's as if to emphasize that Copernicus was more awesome than Gresham with an added touch of mysticism. Also, why do we mention that it came before Gresham's version? There's no indication that Gresham knew of Copernicus's version that did not became famous then and there's a much earlier version by Nicole Oresme.

"Copernicus", "Nationality" section, 05:53, 7 April 2013:
"Encyclopædia Britannica,[114] Encyclopedia Americana,[115] The Columbia Encyclopedia,[116] The Oxford World Encyclopedia[117] and World Book Encyclopedia[118] identify Copernicus as a Polish astronomer."

Notes:
 * 114 "Copernicus, Nicolaus". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-21.
 * 115 "Copernicus, Nicolaus", Encyclopedia Americana, 1986, vol. 7, pp. 755–56.
 * 116 "Nicholas Copernicus", The Columbia Encyclopedia, sixth edition, 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 18 July 2009.
 * 117 "Copernicus, Nicolaus", The Oxford World Encyclopedia, Oxford University Press, 1998.
 * 118

A "Poles" gallery:


Władysław Elbow-high • Copernicus • Kochanowski • Krasicki • Kościuszko Staszic • Chopin • Łukasiewicz • Wieniawski • Prus Malczewski • Conrad • Zamenhof • Skłodowska-Curie • Piłsudski Malinowski • Tatarkiewicz • Banach • Rejewski • Rotblat Sendler • Koprowski • Lem • Wajda • Wolszczan


 * Nihil novi (talk) 10:14, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Oxford spelling

 * Ohconfucius, I appreciate your good intentions in regard to "Edmund Charaszkiewicz", but he was not a "British person of Polish descent". He was a Pole who ended up in Britain due to the vicissitudes of history.  He could not return to Poland, so he stayed in Britain.  That is not sufficient reason to change the spelling used by the article's original author.  Please do not change the spelling again to British.  To prevent further confusion, I have deleted the "British persons of Polish descent" category.
 * Thanks. Nihil novi (talk) 02:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * [...}
 * In that case, I propose applying Oxford spelling, which uses the suffix -ize in words like organize and recognize because -ize corresponds more closely to the Greek root, -izo (-ιζω), of most -ize verbs. Oxford spelling is used by many British academic and science journals (e.g., Nature) and many international organizations (e.g., the United Nations and its agencies), and in many British literary works, including the King James Bible, the works of Shakespeare, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.
 * The -ize spelling is common for academic, formal, and technical writing for an international readership. The spelling affects about 200 verbs and is favored because -ize corresponds more closely to the Greek root, -izo, of most -ize verbs.  The belief that -ize is exclusively an American spelling is incorrect.  In Britain, both the -ise and -ize spellings are used.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 19:04, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * [...]
 * Thank you, Ohconfucius, for introducing Oxford spelling into the "Edmund Charaszkiewicz" article!
 * Nihil novi (talk) 22:02, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nihil novi
[...]

Suspected sockpuppets

 * Crawiki   [...]
 * Rwood128  [...]

[...]

The editors show interest in many of the same articles,, making the same (flawed) points and are creating a WP:WALLEDGARDEN, Nihil novi restoring crawiki's edits (and vice versa) (, , , "see also"'s pointing to crawiki's Ideocracy), seamlessly support each others points (eventhough flatly contradicting MOS:SEEALSO, ) and frequently comment on each others talkpages (,. Walled garden articles include Ideocracy, Political midlife crisis, Political stagnation, Political fiction, State collapse and others. RWood128 is also a frequent contributor to the articles in the walled garden. Kleuske (talk) 11:42, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''


 * I was working to improve edits, and if the editor who posted this complaint had looked more carefully he would have realized that (but we all tend to move too fast on the internet). See edits on State collapse and The Meaning of Hitler (book) (see Talk page, . At one time I was close to accusing User:Crawiki of edit warring. I have tried to improve edits made by this editor and help him. See, this very recent edit. .Rwood128 (talk) 16:06, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Bbb23, as far as I can see everyone is acting in good faith here; the problem seems to be User:Crawiki's excessive enthusiasm combined with lack of experience of editing on Wikipedia. Rwood128 (talk) 16:16, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Note that editor Kleuske has been in conflict with Crawiki on the Ideocracy article . Rwood128 (talk) 16:35, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

User: Nihil novi and User: Rwood128 have been very helpful in pointing out my various errors and I am grateful. That is not evidence of a conspiracy. For my part I have never written on their talk pages as alleged. All communication is on the article's talk pages. It is alleged that we have backed up each other's 'flawed points'. Is there any specific evidence for this sweeping allegation? Please refer to talk pages on State collapse and The Meaning of Hitler (book) to see that, far from colluding, Rwood128 and I have often vehemently disagreed. Also please see talk pages for Genocide and Ethnic cleansing where I appealed for more editors to contribute to State collapse. Again, not what you'd expect to see if there were a garden walling conspiracy. Crawiki (talk) 16:57, 6 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Crawiki appears to have begun contributing to Wikipedia about 22 August 2017, when he was welcomed on his talk page. About 3 weeks later, having noticed some of his contributions—which struck me as novel and useful—I inquired about them on his talk page.


 * I had immediately noticed (as reviewers of the present complaint against him also will, by consulting Crawiki's talk page) that Crawiki was untutored in Wiki-typesetting and text style (book titles in italics, article titles in quotation marks, etc.) and sought to help him learn these arca na by example, correcting some of these errors.


 * A number of other editors have also left him tips on Wiki content and format. They have generally done so in a friendly, welcoming manner.  An exception has been the present complainant, Kleuske, some of whose remarks on Crawiki's talk page Crawiki has accurately characterized as "ad hominem".


 * Kleuske has taken particular exception to Crawiki's having added "Ideocracy" to the "Authoritarian personality" see-also list. Crawiki's "Ideocracy" article makes reference to authoritarian personality; referring readers of the "Authoritarian personality" article to the "Ideocracy" article, therefore, does not seem unreasonable.


 * Today (6 December 2017) Kleuske has largely gutted Crawiki's "State collapse" article, in 7 serial, slashing cuts.


 * He has today also nominated Crawiki's article on "Power Politics (Wight book)" for deletion.


 * I think that Kleuske could have made a more useful contribution to Wikipedia by helping Crawiki learn Wikipedia's content criteria and format standards, as Rwood128 and others have been doing, and as I have been trying to do. It is easy to harass new contributors and to nominate articles for deletion.  It is harder to provide instruction and encouragement—as well as constructive critiques.  It took me many months to learn some of the Wikipedia basics, and I am still learning.


 * Respectfully,
 * Nihil novi (talk) 23:50, 6 December 2017 (UTC)


 * User: Nihil novi makes several good points. In my experience User: Kleuske frequently violates WP: rude and tends to make sweeping statements, not founded on any evidence. People in glass houses...Crawiki (talk) 06:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I cut sections that violate WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. Kleuske (talk) 23:52, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

It appears that State collapse has been shorn of entire sections notably 'history of the concept', 'examples', and others. This done without any consultation or discussion.

I'm struggling to see how this improves the article, especially since similar articles such as Societal collapse and Economic collapse have similar structures. Does User: Kleuske intend to make similar cuts there on the basis of OR and SYNTH? Seems to be a lack of consistency if not. Go figure, as they say in the US Crawiki (talk) 07:55, 7 December 2017 (UTC)


 * While I heartily agree with Nihil novi, Crawiki's approach to editing can be exasperating–so I can also understand User: Kleuske's reaction. Rwood128 (talk) 12:12, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

User: Rwood128 while it's true that your copy editing skills exceed mine, it has also been exasperating for me to put you right in matters of political definition. See numerous examples in the state collapse talk page. As far as SYNTH and OR, there was a lengthy and inconclusive discussion with User:PBS on 10th November. Again, a sweeping accusation and when as an inexperienced editor I asked for specifics, I got no reply. Crawiki (talk) 12:39, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that the original-research stricture is not as clear-cut as some may assume. Certainly an encyclopedia (a repository of established knowledge) cannot welcome indiscriminate conceptualizing.  On the other hand, it is self-defeating to merely parrot (in altered phrasing, of course, to avoid "plagiarism") text from published secondary sources ("secondary source" itself being a relative term).
 * Where connections do legitimately exist between information from different sources, the trick is to make those connections clear.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 21:38, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Notifying editors of sock allegations is not required. However, in this instance, I am pinging, , and so they can respond to the allegations if they wish.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:44, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Folks, best of luck in resolving your content issues. I see no evidence of socking. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Tomasz Strzembosz, Jedwabne, 1941
http://www.antyk.org.pl/ojczyzna/jedwabne/strzembosz.htm


 * How would 40 Polish perpetrators manage to murder 1,600—or even just 340—victims, on their own, without a pretty substantial number of Germans carrying firearms (which the Poles themselves did not possess, as Poland was not blessed with an American Second Amendment)? Nihil novi (talk) 00:05, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Please forgive me for not wanting to participate in this exchange since my insistence on adherence to historical facts falls on deaf ears, but be advised that, after prolonged beatings and confessions extracted through torture, the Stalinist court in Łomża still reduced the number of convictions to ten (10), not twenty ... and not fourty. Individuals pronounced guilty and sent to prison included: Karol Bardon, Jerzy Laudański, Zygmunt Laudański, Władysław Miciura, Bolesław Ramotowski, Stanisław Zejer, Czesław Lipiński, Władysław Dąbrowski, Roman Górski, and Antoni Niebrzydowski. The rest were either pronounced innocent and sent free (10) or no longer living in May 1949. Józef Żyluk and Feliks Tarnacki were pronounced innocent the following year. Szmul Wasersztajn (who named them) was never interviewed by the police, the prosecution, or the courts. (Strzembosz).  Poeticbent  talk 21:38, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Questions regarding the Stalinist court-case, Łomża: 16–17 May 1949 [re the Jedwabne massacre]
One of the more important elements of the postwar history the Jedwabne pogrom, namely, the circumstances surrounding the Stalinist court-case against the 22 individuals accused of participation in the massacre, is not mentioned in this article. Seeing the bigger picture: – Between 1945 and 1949 the communist security police, both Soviet and Polish, conducted bloody roundups of the anti-communist resistance movements in the area. – Article by Krzysztof Sychowicz @ HistoriaLomzy.pl (Henryk Sierzputowski, ed.). As of July 17, 1945 some 727 members of Armia Krajowa and 69 members of Narodowe Siły Zbrojne were jailed in Łomża. The roundups continued for three years ... and only intensified after the fake amnesty announced on 22 February 1947. Many cursed soldiers were sentenced to death in Łomża, others simply bludgeoned to death. The false charges of killing Jews were common, and so were the extortions by the Stalinist functionaries, coupled with wayward claims of ownership of Jewish real-estate (including in Jedwabne). Prisoners had their teeth knocked out; they were being hanged upside-down from the ceiling with water pumped into their nostrils; some were subjected to staged executions with blank ammunition, and most of them beaten with truncheons for hours. (Sychowicz) Such were the extant circumstances surrounding the arrest of the first 15 men from Jedwabne in January 1949 by PUBP in Łomża. During prolonged beatings, the confessions of their involvement in the Jedwabne massacre were extracted from them in prison. – The May 1949 court-case of Bolesław Ramotowski and 21 men accused of killing Jews lasted for just two days. No one confessed to actually killing Jews. Their confessions included long phrases based on a form letter. – Prof. Tomasz Strzembosz (Rzeczpospolita, Nr 77/01) and Piotr Gontarczyk (IPN), copy of 1949 final judgement (by Wlodzimierz Kaluza), as follows: 1). Bolesław Ramotowski confessed to helping collect Polish Jews from their homes and said, that he does not know who burned them. He also named 41 men who allegedly helped him along the way. – Here's where the number of forty Polish perpetrators comes from. (Strzembosz) He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.  2). Stanisław Zejer confessed to bringing two Polish Jews to the square. He went home after that, and saw nothing else. Sentenced to 10 years in prison. 3). Czesław Lipiński, confessed to bringing one Jew and two Jewish girls to the square. He run away from there after just 15 minutes, and saw nothing else. Sentenced to 10 years in prison. 4). Władysław Dąbrowski confessed to being forced to guard the Jews at the square, he was hit in the face by a German and lost a tooth; escaped from there after two hours and saw nothing else. Sentenced to 8 years in prison. 5). Feliks Tarnacki, confessed to being forced to guard the Jews at the square. He escaped after 15 minutes, grabbed a bicycle and rode to Kaima village to hide; he returned to Jedwabne under the cover of night. Sentenced to 8 years in prison. 6). Roman Górski, confessed to guarding Jews at the square for 3 hours, and said that Sobuta and Wasilewski were humiliating them there. In court, retracted his confession entirely as extracted from him through torture. Sentenced to 8 years in prison. 7). Antoni Niebrzydowski (age 48), confessed to guarding Jews at the square, and opening storage room with kerosene, as ordered. Went home after that. Sentenced to 8 years in prison. 8). Władysław Miciura (age 47), confessed while in prison to guarding Jews at the square, and on their march to the barn. In court, retracted his confession entirely as extracted from him through prolonged beatings. Sentenced to 12 years in prison. 9). Józef Chrzanowski, during pretrial beatings confessed to guarding the Jews on their march from the market square and guarding their entry into the barn. While in court, retracted his confession entirely. Pronounced innocent for lack of further incrimination. 10). Józef Żyluk, confessed to picking up a Jewish man, Mr Zdrojowicz, from the flour mill. He let him escape on Łomżyńska Street. Sentenced to 8 years in prison. In a letter to the court of appeals he wrote that he saved 8 Jews after that and Mr Zdrojowicz is his witness. Pronounced innocent on appeal and released. 11). Jerzy Laudański, former prisoner of KL Auschwitz #63805. Sentenced to 15 years in prison. 12). Zygmunt Laudański, brother of Jerzy. Sentenced to 12 years in prison. The indictment listed 22 individuals of whom 12 were pronounced guilty including: Karol Bardoń (death sentence, commuted to 15 years in prison), Jerzy Laudański, Zygmunt Laudański (brother of Jerzy), Władysław Miciura, Bolesław Ramotowski, Stanisław Zejer, Czesław Lipiński, Władysław Dąbrowski, Roman Górski, and Antoni Niebrzydowski. Pronounced innocent and sent free (10) in May 1949 without recompence: Józef Chrzanowski, Marian Żyluk, Czesław Laudański (see above: father of Jerzy, Zygmunt, and Kazimierz Laudański), Wincenty Gościcki, Roman Zawadzki, Jan Zawadzki, Aleksander Łojewski, Franciszek Łojewski, Eugeniusz Śliwecki and Stanisław Sielawa. – Józef Żyluk and Feliks Tarnacki were pronounced innocent the following year. (Strzembosz) Kazimierz Laudański (son of Czesław Laudański), took Jan T. Gross to court for defamation of his family, after the publication of Neighbors. In the December 2008 court-case, Jan T. Gross admitted to have made an honest mistake – by attributing the confessions of his sons to their father – and subsequently, removed it from the second edition of his book. Judge Katarzyna Polańska-Farion of the Warsaw Court of Appeals declared in her final statement that under the freedom of scientific research Gross had a right to make controversial claims, and possible mistakes weren't intended by him. – Law Society Gazette @ gazetaprawna.pl Poeticbent  talk 17:17, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Summary of articles in Polish (for the benefit of English readership)

Ad nationem argument
A very important point. Ad nationem arguments should be avoided. Thank you, Dahn. Nihil novi (talk) 22:34, 25 March 2018 (UTC) [Talk:Jan Grabowski (historian)]

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Dariusz Stola on Jan Grabowski's Judenjagd
https://www.holocaustresearch.pl/index.php?mod=news&show=169

Dariusz Stola reviewed Judenjagd (the 2011 Polish-language edition) in the 12 March 2011 Polityka. Stola wrote: "The book Judenjagd shows how much we do not know about the Polish village—about its complex structure under occupation and about that structure's connection with hunts for Jews....  A key role was played by the institution of hostages—village residents... who would be punished for the unsatisfactory carrying-out of German orders [by the community].  Sometimes the hostages themselves were charged with visiting homes and calling their neighbors to participate in the round-up.  In this way, [the community's] solidarity with the hostage... was placed, by the [German] occupier, in the scales against the Jewish fugitive's life.  This diabolical mechanism in a certain measure explains the hostility, registered in many rural communities, to persons who harbored Jews:  they could bring disaster not only on themselves but on others." After a somewhat turgid statistical discussion, Stola registers "two reservations. First, the author assumed, after an earlier work by Szymon Datner, that the number of fugitives seeking shelter came to about 10% of the number of Jews on the eve of the deportations.  It is hard to say whether that was acutally the case.  That 10% is not, strictly speaking, an estimate but rather a "guesstimate," as the English say, even if it comes from a person well acquainted with the subject.  Secondly, a pall of ignorance to a considerably greater degree enshrouds the histories of the ghetto escapees who were not murdered but died [of malnourishment, exhaustion, exposure, or disease].  We will not find information about their deaths in postwar court records.  Judenjagd speaks not only about the killing but also about the sheltering of Jews (sometimes by the same persons), about various kinds of aid tendered [to Jews], about the Righteous—the disinterested rescuers who risked their own lives to save people who were hunted like animals...."

2015: Victims of hostages [deleted from "Jedwabne pogrom", 8:29, 8 April 2018]
In a 2015 interview given by historian Jan Grabowski, author of the 2013 book Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland, his interlocutor asked: "You write that [Polish] villagers hunted for the Jews. How did the Germans get them to do that?" Grabowski replied: "The German policy was based on terror. Poles faced the death penalty for any help they gave to Jews. Also, the Germans created a so-called “hostage” system among the Poles. In every community they designated people who would be rotated every couple of weeks. They were responsible for informing the Polish police, or the Germans, about Jews hiding in their towns. If a Jew was discovered that had not been reported, the so-called hostages would be harshly punished. So everyone was highly motivated to get rid of the Jews."

Another historian, Dariusz Stola, made a similar point in reviewing an earlier, 2011 Polish-language edition of Grabowski's book, Judenjagd (Hunt for the Jews): "The book Judenjagd shows how much we do not know about the Polish village—about its complex structure under occupation and about that structure's connection with hunts for Jews.... A key role was played by the institution of hostages—village residents... who would be punished for the unsatisfactory carrying-out of German orders [by the community]. Sometimes the hostages themselves were charged with visiting homes and calling their neighbors to participate in the round-up.  In this way, [the community's] solidarity with the hostage... was placed, by the [German] occupier, in the scales against the Jewish fugitive's life.  This diabolical mechanism in a certain measure explains the hostility, registered in many rural communities, to persons who harbored Jews:  they could bring disaster not only on themselves but on others."

D'Arcy Thompson on scientific discovery
A BBC radio program about D'Arcy Thompson on 4-7- or 4-8-2018 quoted him saying that advances in science tend to occur at the interface of 2 distinct sciences. It would be well to track down the exact quotation.

=LESZEK PIETRZAK=

Leszek Pietrzak (born 1967) is a Polish historian, archivist, and journalist.

Life
Leszek Pietrzak received his doctorate in history from Lublin Catholic University.

He worked at the Lublin branch of the Institute of National Remembrance In 1991–2000 he was an analyst at the Urząd Ochrony Państwa (the state security office); in 2006–2008, a member of the Military Intelligence Services clearance board (komisja weryfikacyna); in 2008–2010 he worked at the National Security Bureau (Poland).

He has worked with Zeszyty Historyczne WiN-u (Freedom and Independence History) and with Radio Maryja

Since July 2017 he has been editor-in-chief of the monthly, Służby Specjalne (Special Services).

Documentary films

 * Zaporczycy, an episode in the "Z archiwum IPN" ("From the Institute of National Remembrance Archives") series.
 * Orlik, an episode in the "Z archiwum IPN" ("From the Institute of National Remembrance Archives") series.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leszek Pietrzak
The result was delete. SoWhy 11:57, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed
Kochanski, Halik (2012). The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University. ISBN 978-0-674-06816-2.

https://books.google.com/books?id=EJ5vIyDBpLcC&pg=PA97#v=onepage&q&f=false

Talk:"Polish death camp" controversy

 * Yes. In addition to being ambiguous, inaccurate, misleading, fallacious, deceptive and specious, the term is also a misnomer. &mdash;Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 22:10, 14 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I think that Roman Spinner says it best when he writes in the "Survey", above: "In addition to being ambiguous, inaccurate, misleading, fallacious, deceptive and specious, the term ["Polish death camp"] is also a misnomer."
 * But, for the sake of argument, what if, in the lead as it now reads, we replaced "misnomers" with "ambiguous expressions"?
 * Nihil novi (talk) 00:27, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Icewhiz&action=edit&section=9

It's quite astounding what you just did there

I've been pushing this change for a month and a half, and you just slipped it in the backdoor. I know most of them didn't bother reading the sources, I know most of them didn't really follow the discussion, and this... subtle solution of yours is quite impressive. François Robere (talk) 15:40, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If you post walls of text, and many sources, very few will read it all. The discussion devolved into walls of text between you and the IP. Slatersteven stepped in to mediate, the way to move things in the correct direction is to compromise with the mediator - who probably (like most everyone else involved) did not read the walls of text...Icewhiz (talk) 15:44, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * you should not, however, posted in the TP how this proves you righr (even if it does) - that elicits pushback. The correct TP post would have beeb a simple support, perhaps grudgingly in the spirit of compromise... I suggest you undo your posts and do that instead - you want to deescalate, not escalate.Icewhiz (talk) 15:53, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You did more than just compromise - you committed first. It was very clever.
 * I know they don't. The reason it evolved in that way is because "short" quotes didn't work - she just ignored them and kept introducing more and more (and more) sources that supposedly supported her, all the while accusing me of "cherry picking", and none of the others picked it up. It's shocking but not surprising how Wikipedia dumbs down the discussion - these "walls of text", shorter than the average newspaper column, are barely sufficient in a field that has literally seen thousands of books written on every possible aspect, and even those are too long for some? How much lower can this discussion get?
 * Yeah, I apologize. I know it was the wrong "move", but... well, this issue was by far my longest and most frustrating "Wiki war", and it's not even that complicated - it's only the stubbornness of that one editor, and the apathy of the other editors and admins (and this naiveté of one of them - "if it's wrong, others will fix it"... yeah, I'm sure...) that made it that difficult. Then these twists - the mediator producing his own sources, and you managing to get everyone to agree - I wanted to set the record straight, and I counted on them not turning back after having already agreed on the phrase.
 * I'm not sure why, but these POV-directed edits tend to go hand in hand with poor phrasing, resulting in an overall poorly written text. I think I'll take a break from that article and go edit something less contentious, like the article on Grabowski. François Robere (talk) 16:53, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Grabowski should not be contentious. But the article is. Sources on his Canadian history work, family, and other non-Holocaust details would do the article good. Note his group made a major new release in the field - but coverage at the moment is mainly in Polish (there was some pre release info in English interviews) - I am holding off on adding this until there are English sources, preferably in peer reviewd sources - which I am sure will materialize soon.Icewhiz (talk) 17:03, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I know. I saw the PR on their site a month ago, but haven't yet seen the work itself.
 * I noticed a short discussion upstairs on citation templates. I'm sure you're aware of ProveIt, and Zotero can be configured to format citations in Wikicode (or any other format) on drag-and-drop. Coupled with a browser plugin it makes citation handling much easier, and reduces the need for manual input to a minimum. François Robere (talk) 19:12, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I might try that, though typing them with refs is pretty quick.Icewhiz (talk) 19:15, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArbitration%2FRequests%2FEnforcement&type=revision&diff=840137115&oldid=840102461#E-960

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Collaboration_in_German-occupied_Poland#Editorializing

Don't you know that Haaretz, The Forward, The Times of Israel, and The Jerusalem Post, which we cite in some Wikipedia articles, are all peer-reviewed, scholarly, unbiased reliable sources, in contrast to these Polish non-peer-reviewed, unscholarly, biased, nationalist, wrong-wing, non-English-language non-reliable-source publications? Nihil novi (talk) 01:36, 8 May 2018 (UTC)


 * wpolityce is perfectly reliable source,I see no reason to remove it.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 16:02, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not when we are discussing serious criticism of academic work. A newspaper which has an interview with someone on an academic subject is reliable insofar that the interviewee is a reliable source. As established above, Grabowski is, the Polish ambassador isn't. WP:DEADHORSE. 198.84.253.202 (talk) 21:24, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * And insofar as the journalist does not distort what the "reliable source" says, as apparently a lady journalist at Haaretz distorted what Jan Grabowski told her, thereby spreading the rumor about "200,000" Jews killed by Poles. Nihil novi (talk) 22:25, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Jakub Kumoch, Poland's ambassador to Switzerland:   https://www.msn.com/pl-pl/wiadomosci/other/sk%C4%85d-niska-liczba-ocalonych-z-holokaustu-ambasador-demaskuje-prof-grabowskiego/ar-BBJO8Bu

Text from "Collaboration in German-occupied Poland", section on "The Holocaust", 2nd half of paragraph 2, 18:18, 11 May 2018, deleted on 21:21, 11 May 2018 by 198.84.253.201:

According to a series of Facebook posts by the Polish ambassador to Switzerland that were reported in the Polish internet portal wPolityce, "Grabowski admitted that the number of 250,000 fugitives from the ghettos is based solely on his own estimates and selective treatment of Szymon Datner's works. Grabowski simply accepted the maximum number of escapees from the ghettos suggested by Datner but rejected his estimate of the number of survivors. According to Grabowski, if you subtract the number of survivors (in his opinion, only 50,000) from the number of fugitives, you get 200,000. Grabowski therefore stated this number as Jews murdered by Poles."

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Hunt_for_the_Jews&oldid=841186128#a_rural_county_???

Joanna Michlic has been peddling her own nationalist/extremist views about Polish historians she does not like for more than a decade. Obviously, Timothy Snyder and Ray Brandon, as well as many other historians, don't think much of them if they invite Marek Wierbicki to contribute to an Oxford University Press publication in 2014. Nor apparently does Yehuda Bauer, a leading Israeli Holocaust historian, for that matter, who described Musial's Sowjetische Partisanen – Mythos und Wirklichkeit as "a most important contribution to the history of World War II generally." It is obvious that the war on these historians is purely ideological and is not based on the actual merits of their publications. Virtually all Polish historians of all stripes were devastatingly critical of the book Fear by Jan Gross, who is one Michlic's gurus from the politically correct camp. Here are a few examples: August Grabski, “‘Krew brata twego głośno woła ku mnie z ziemi!’,” Kwartalnik Historii Żydów, no. 3 (2006): 407–14; Bożena Szaynok, Review of Gross’s Fear, in Zagłada Żydów: Studia i materiały, vol. 2 (2006): 486–94; Jacek Walicki, “Bezdroża nauki i publicystyki—o nowej książce Jana T. Grossa,” Dzieje Najnowsze, vol. 39, no. 1 (2007): 158–67; Paweł Machcewicz, “Odcienie czerni: AntysemTatzref (talk) 14:35, 14 May 2018 (UTC)ityzm po wojnie,” Tygodnik Powszechny, January 13, 2008; Paweł Machcewicz and Konstanty Gebert, “Kto się boi ‘Strachu’,” Gazeta Wyborcza, January 18, 2008; Dariusz Sola, “Nieudana próba Grossa,” Gazeta Wyborcza, January 19, 2008; Paweł Machcewicz, “Zbyt proste wyjaśnienia: O ‘Strachu’ Jana Tomasza Grossa,” Więź, no. 2–3 (February–March) 2008: 73–84. See also the compilation by Robert Jankowski, ed., Cena “Strachu”: Gross w oczach historyków (Warsaw: Fronda, 2008). A discussion of the merits, not mudslinging, should be the only valid criteria. Tatzref (talk) 14:35, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:%C5%BBegota#Anna_Poray_-_SPS

Anna Poray - SPS Any policy based justification for reverting back in a WP:SPS source? Such sources, per policy, are not suitable, failing V. Also note, that though unlikely (due to the subjects' age) - unless you verified via RS that all those named are dead, there is a BLP issue here - as per WP:BDP we assume anyone younger than 115 (1903 birth year is alive).Icewhiz (talk) 17:53, 14 May 2018 (UTC)


 * User Icewhiz, you are clearly not being here to build an encyclopedia. — Please stop assuming that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it... Anna Poray is not a WP:SPS publishing historian because she is deceased. Your kind of disruptive editing makes me physically sick. Sorry to say that,  Poeticbent  talk 23:17, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Poray self published the book prior to being deceased - her death does not make a self published work published.Icewhiz (talk) 04:44, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * What is your point about self-publishing? There have been many non-self-published books that have been worthless.  Nihil novi (talk) 07:28, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know myself what Icewhiz's is talking about often times and what is his point, I'm forcing myself to read those massive walls of text and I was wondering if that was only me... really what is your point about self-publishing?GizzyCatBella (talk) 07:40, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * 82 Words (above - counted both posts, without the sig) a wall of text? Hardly even a fence. Per WP:SPS (which is policy) - or that reason, self-published media, such as books, ... personal websites ... and social media postings, are largely not acceptable as sources. Certainly there are worthless published books, but self-published books are generally considered, by Wikipedia policy, to be unacceptable sources.Icewhiz (talk) 10:33, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen destructiveness like our Siamese twins' since the Russian depredations of some 10 years ago.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 10:38, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There can be good reasons to self-publish. Among other things, it prevents publishers' editors, who like to show their mettle, from wrecking authors' texts.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 10:38, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Anna Poray or Anna Maria Poray-Wybranowska (10 February 1919 – 25 July 2013) was a Polish-Canadian scholar best remembered for her scientific research into the history of Christian Polish rescue efforts during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. She was a professional librarian with a PhD in political science, and Director of the Polish Library in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Poray-Wybranowska published a ground-breaking book entitled Those Who Risked Their Lives in 2007, featuring thousands of wartime stories and biographies of heroic individuals who, under the threat of death, helped Jews during World War II. Some 30,000 of them were murdered by the Nazis for trying to save Jews according to Poray.

Life and work
Anna Poray-Wybranowska née Chościak Popiel, was born into a noble family bearing the Sulima coat of arms in Ściborzyce, Little Poland, soon after Poland's return to independence. She finished primary education at home, and the private secondary school Sacré-Coeur near Poznań. She studied at the Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium before World War II. Anna returned to her homeland during the September Campaign of 1939 and left after Poland's defeat, to continue her education in Perugia and Rome, Italy. She spoke five languages. Poray joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West while in Italy. She served with the Women's Auxiliary Service as an administrator, and a librarian in the Archives and Museum of the Second Corps of the Polish Army. Soon after the war ended, she went to Argentina with her new husband, Count Jan Poray-Wybranowski, whom she married in 1947. A few years later they immigrated to the United States.

Holocaust research
Poray obtained her master's degree in librarianship from Columbia University in New York, where she also enrolled for a PhD in political science. She settled permanently in Canada with her two small children in 1961, after her husband's untimely death. Poray worked in a number of Montreal university libraries and for twelve years headed the main Polish Library in the city. In 1978 she began to research the life stories and whereabouts of Christian Poles who saved Jews during the Holocaust in occupied Poland, including those who perished as punishment for trying to do so. She began to submit testimonies to Yad Vashem in Israel on behalf of the rescuers she discovered, to receive recognition as Righteous Among the Nations for their heroism. About one hundred Poles have been awarded the status of Polish Righteous among the Nations thanks to her efforts. Also, around the same time, Anna founded a charitable organisation, "Pro Justitia", to help the most needy around the world with sponsorship from Pope John Paul II.

Anna Poray cooperated with the Institute of National Remembrance since 1986, and helped found the "Committee for the Memory of Poles Rescuing Jews" (Komitet dla Upamiętnienia Polaków Ratujących Żydów) in Warsaw. She was the recipient of numerous national and diplomatic orders and awards, including the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, received in 2001. She died in Montreal on 25 July 2013 at the age of 94, survived by her two sons. Her first child, daughter Joanna died of leukaemia at the age of seven.

Notes and references
Talk: "Collaboration in German-occupied Poland":

Szarota's article in Wyborcza
http://niniwa22.cba.pl/kolaboranci_pod_pregierzem.htm Xx236 (talk) 08:16, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Can this be confirmed?Slatersteven (talk) 10:34, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You may buy the original copy . Szarota is a respected historian.Xx236 (talk) 11:10, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * So it can be verified as the original good.Slatersteven (talk) 11:14, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * http://niniwa22.cba.pl/problem_kolaboracji.htm Xx236 (talk) 11:18, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I commend, to linguistically-misinformed colleagues, journalists, and scholars who write about Polish authors disingenously avoiding use of the term "collaboration" in connection with World War II Polish history, the final sentence in Tomasz Szarota's 1995 Gazeta Wyborcza article, linked above:

"Jeśli się nie mylę, określenia 'kolaborant' i 'kolaboracja', w odniesieniu do sytuacji w okupowanej Polsce, w ogóle nie występowały w naszej prasie konspiracyjnej."

In English:

"If I'm not mistaken, the terms 'collaborator' and 'collaboration', in relation to the situation in occupied Poland, did not appear at all in our underground [konspiracyjna] press."

Cognate words in different languages often carry different denotations. E.g., "konspiracyjna", above, is not "conspiracy" but "underground".

The Underground Poles did not speak of "kolaboracja" but of "współpraca", which, depending on context means either "cooperation" (there's that disingenuous Polish word !) or "collaboration".

Tread carefully in matters of language! And don't obfuscate through ignorance—or malice!

Nihil novi (talk) 12:25, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "collaboration" does means "cooperation". Collaboration is just a type of cooperation (thus one does not exclude the other).Slatersteven (talk) 12:36, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Obviously. And "appeasement" similarly means a "pacifying", "placating", or "bringing to peace".
 * Nihil novi (talk) 12:47, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * it also means "Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political or material concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict.", So it depends on context, what context is współpraca being used in?Slatersteven (talk) 12:52, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you missed the ignorant (malicious?) comments of some "experts" that the Poles refuse to call a spade ("collaboration") a spade and instead use the weasel-word, "cooperation". Nihil novi (talk) 13:12, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Movies : "Tylko swinie siedza w kinie."

"Collaboration in German-controlled Poland", "Jewish collaborators" section, near end of paragraph 3, Witold W. Mędzykowski source:

Witold W. Mędykowski, "Przeciw swoim: Wzorce kolaboracji żydowskiej w Krakowie i okolicy", Zagłada Żydów - Studia i materiały, Rocznik naukowy Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów IFiS PAN, no. 2 (2006), p. 206. "Zdarzało się jednak, że urządzano prowokacje, by aresztować osoby mające kontakty z podziemiem, pośredniczące przy wyrobie fałszywych dokumentów czy zajmujące się przemytem ludzi i nielegalnym handlem. Na przykład w 1942 roku do Elżbiety Jasińskiej, mającej kontakty z konspiracją, przyszła Marta Puretz, prosząc o wyrobienie kenkarty. Jasińska zgodziła się wyrobić jej ten dokument za 2000 zł. Puretz miała zgłosić się do niej za dwa dni. Kiedy jednak przyszła do niej w umówionym czasie, pod dom zajechało Gestapo, Jasińska została aresztowana, a następnie wywieziona do Auschwitz. Gdy później szwagier Jasińskiej spotkał Martę Puretz na ulicy bez opaski, kazał ją aresztować. Ona jednak na komisariacie policji przy ul. Franciszkańskiej wylegitymowała się dokumentem współpracownika Gestapo i została wypuszczona na wolność. Zagroziła szwagrowi Jasińskiej, że jeśli wejdzie jej w drogę, wsypie go... Podobnie działała Stefania Brandstätter." ("Provocations were organized in order to arrest persons with [Polish] Underground contacts who acted as go-betweens for the production of false documents or who engaged in people-smuggling or  illegal commerce. For example, in 1942 Marta Puretz came to Elżbieta Jasińska, who had Underground contacts, and asked to have a Kenkart made. Jasińska agreed to produce the document for 2,000 złotych. Puretz was to come back in two days. But when she did, a Gestapo car pulled up in front of the building, and Jasińska was arrested and subsequently sent to Auschwitz. When Jasińska's brother-in-law later encountered Marta Puretz on the street without a [Star of David] armband, he had her arrested. But at the police station on ulica Franciszkańska [Franciscan Street] she showed a Gestapo-collaborator document and was let go. She threatened Jasińska's brother-in-law that, if he got in her way, she would turn him in... Stefania Brandstätter acted much the same way.") It is estimated that at the end of 1941 and the start of 1942 there were some 15,000 "Jewish Gestapo" agents in the General Government.

Methodological difficulties
Polish historian and religions scholar Jacek Proszyk had been asked to work up Bielsko County for Dalej jest noc. However, he was unable to submit a finished text, largely because of methodological difficulties that he encountered, which he summarized ("summa summarum") as follows:

"At a certain moment I concluded that, even were I to devote 10 more years' intensive research, I still would not be able to gather data sufficiently reliable to be able to perform statistical analysis and state the exact number of persons who perished, the exact number of persons who survived, and how they survived. What I can do is describe certain, verified individual cases. The war was a great DESTRUCTION and LIE.  We do not have hard and complete archival records on the basis of which to exactly describe exactly how things were.  Even what we have is not always the truth.  In my opinion, in Bielsko and Biała, the survival strategy of Jews, Poles, and Germans (e.g., followers of the Christian Democrat, Eduard Pant – a total antifascist) was flight, abandonment of truth, and self-concealment under the mask of him whom one was not.  This falsehood left its trace in the records and accounts, and that is why I became so very sensitive to verifying every account and every entry.

Since I was unable, in such a short time, to take in and verify the source materials, I was not able to properly write a text by the deadline. I had been brought late into the team working on the project; in addition, I wound up getting hospitalized with a serious condition that precluded my doing research for almost half a year. Consequently I did not send Prof. Barbara Engelking a text and relinquished my participation in the above publication. I had been unable to take in and verify the source materials just for Bielsko and Biała, and I was supposed to have written about the entire county! The same job would have awaited me in working up Wadowice, Andrychów, Kęty, and Oświęcim (!). Each of those cities is a topic for a separate doctoral thesis. If health and time permit, I will publish the results of my research on the subject, but as individual histories without commentary or attempt at statistical analysis."

McKibben
Bill McKibben sees encouraging signs of progress in the worldwide campaign to replace the fissile-fossil complex with solar energy, direct and indirect (wind power). "Over the last decade, there has been a staggering fall in the price of solar and wind power, and of the lithium-ion batteries used to store energy.... Who is going to invest in [a fossil-fuel] industry that is clearly destined to shrink?... [Petroleum's] price should fall if it has to compete with the price of sunshine.... [T]he world's largest private-sector coal-mining company, [Peabody, went from the Fortune 500 list of most prosperous U.S. corporations] to bankrupt[cy] in 2016.... [O]ver the first nine months of 2018, India installed forty times more capacity for renewable than for coal-fired power.... Even "cheap" natural gas is... starting to look expensive compared to... sun, wind, and batteries.... [Once-powerful] General Electric [has become] "a thermal-power-reliant basket case" [and in 2018] was dropped from the Dow Industrial Index... The world's leading car companies have become convinced that electric vehicles will account for all the growth in demand by the early 2020s.... An effort... launch[ed] in 2012 to persuade universities and churches to divest their fossil fuel shares has... become the largest divestment campaign in history.... Countries in Africa and South Asia have a[n] opportunity to avoid expensive fixed investments in fossil fuels and centralized grids by adopting mini-grids and decentralized solar and wind energy deployed off-grid – just as they jumped straight to mobile phones and obviated the need to lay expensive copper-wired telephone networks.... Imagine a world in which the tortured politics of the Middle East weren't magnified in importance by the value of the hydrocarbons beneath its sands.... The question, of course, is whether we can reach that new world in time."

Updating introductory paragraph to reflect that Conrad is an English writer (2019)
There's a worldwide consensus that Joseph Conrad is an English writer of Polish descent. Most other language WPs say so (see Ukrainian, Polish, Portuguese etc.), as well as every respectable encyclopedia does (see Britannica, The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction etc.). The current version that says "Polish-British" writer is misleading and confusing and should of course be replaced with the correct statement (e.g., either "British writer of Polish descent" or "English writer of Polish descent").--Piznajko (talk) 14:26, 1 May 2019 (UTC)


 * How is this a correct statement? You haven't explained yourself. Ukrainian Wikipedia is bias and full of misleading information and I don't know what it has to do with Conrad anyways. Polish Wikipedia is biased. You haven't provided reliable English sources or publications eg books and textbooks since this is English Wikipedia. Regardless a consensus was achieved before and Conrad held both citizenships. User:Oliszydlowski, 01:22, 2 May 2018 (UTC).


 * Jonathan Swift, Edmund Burke, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett all wrote in English. In this English-language Wikipedia, Swift is described as "Anglo-Irish"; Burke as "Anglo-Irish"; Shaw as "Irish"; Joyce as "Irish"; and Beckett (who wrote in both English and French) as "Irish".
 * Joseph Conrad, who never lost his Polish language and always spoke English with a striking Polish accent, was doubtless linguistically and culturally more Polish than any of the above authors was Irish. By all rights, he can be properly described as a "Polish author who wrote in English".  Calling him "Polish-British" is already a major concession to the acquired British elements in his biography and psyche.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 20:45, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
 * David Hume and Adam Smith, two Scottish Enlightenment figures, wrote in English. Both are described in the English-language Wikipedia as "Scottish", plain and simple.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 21:08, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk:Czesław Miłosz

 * This was some really outstanding work. Really impressive. Thank you! SteamboatPhilly (talk) 12:58, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much! IbIANTiA (talk) 10:40, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * You have indeed put the “Polish vs. Lithuanian” question into better perspective. And you have made substantial additions to the article that will take me some time to fully absorb.
 * Miłosz, in what may have been somewthing of a poetic conceit, referred to himself as one of the last citizens of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Most of the historic Grand Duchy's inhabitants did not speak Lithuanian but one or another Eastern Slavic language.  Further, a lingua franca of the more educated and better-off citizens of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that had long since incorporated the Grand Duchy, not just of the Poles, was a Western Slavic language, Polish.  The commander of the Lithuanian Army from September 1934 to April 1940, General Stasys Raštikis, had a perfect command of Polish.  Miłosz's Wilno (now Vilnius) was a thoroughly Polish city, one of a handful of the principal cities of prewar Poland.  Miłosz may well have picked up a smattering of the Lithuanian language but, when I asked him directly whether he knew Lithuanian, he denied it.  (This cannot be put into the article, as it has not yet been published elsewhere.)  As to Lithuanians honoring the centenary of Miłosz's birth on a postage stamp, what people—including Poles—does not wish to bask in the reflected glory of a Nobel prize?  To Poles, the true inventor of polio vaccine was not Jonas Salk or even the Jewish Pole Albert Sabin but (with some justice) another Jewish Pole, Hilary Koprowski.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 23:58, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Szymon Datner's article (in English)
http://muzhp.pl/en/c/1977/german-nazi-crimes-against-jews-who-escaped-from-the-ghettoes Xx236 (talk) 10:28, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Nihil novi (talk) 04:48, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

=Talk:The Holocaust in Poland=

"x" times "y" makes 200,000: or, Jan Grabowski as scholar
In hia book Judenjagd, Jan Grabowski probably gave an estimate of the number of Jewish victims of Poles for Dąbrowa Tarnowska County (that number, "x", is, however, inflated: see historian Krystyna Samsonowska of Kraków's Jagiellonian University). Grabowski multiplied his number for that one county by the number of counties, "y". However, Dąbrowa County was then part of Tarnów County. It's difficult to specify how many counties existed during World War II; the counties were different.

The numbers "x" and "y" were not published, and Grabowski misquoted Szymon Datner: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editors-Notes-The-anatomy-of-a-diplomatic-crisis-581441

An analogous theoretical example:

I take the population of California, 39,557,045, and multiply it by 50 (the number of U.S. states). I obtain 1,977,852,250: the number of inhabitants of the United States is 2 billion. Does this qualify me for a Ph.D. in U.S. demography? The two numbers here are more or less precise; Grabowski's numbers aren't.

In 2018, in Dalej jest noc, Grabowski allegedly took numbers for the 8 and a half counties discussed in that book and multiplied them. He claimed to still obtain his total of 200,000. Borkowski, however, performed the same multiplication and obtained 40,000.

Is Grabowski's figure of 200,000 reliable and encyclopedic? So far, no one has been able to replicate his calculations, so probably no serious journal would publish the "200,000" figure. Xx236 (talk) 11:37, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Grabowski is a WP:RS on the topic of the Holocaust in Poland. Do you have a similar WP:RS that contradicts his numbers? Jayjg (talk) 12:26, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I'm a scholar and I know what I'm writing. No "reliable sources" can refute mathematics.
 * Yes, I have a much better RS. I have several times quoted Jacek Borkowicz: https://www.rp.pl/Plus-Minus/305179916-Pogruchotana-pamiec-o-Zagladzie.html What about the Jerusalem Post, above?  Is it anti-Semitic?  Xx236 (talk) 12:38, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Xx236, could you quote here the specific statements from WP:RS that you think contradicts Gross' numbers? Jayjg (talk) 12:45, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It's Grabowski not Gross.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:22, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * 40,000.
 * Science doesn't work by quoting "reliable sources". A scientist or scholar should quote transparent and reproducible results. It's not "I believe the sun is yellow" against "I believe the sun is orange."  "I believe in 200,000" means nothing.  Estimating a number is a scholarly procedure.  We don't just "believe" in 6 million Jewish victims, against a revisionist who has his own beliefs.  We have data and procedures.  Xx236 (talk) 13:01, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Is any of what you typed in that response a quote from a reliable source? If so, which words, and what was the source? Jayjg (talk) 13:24, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The reliable source which contradicts this number is Samsonowska (though this addresses only one issue with the number) which is here. Grabowski takes the number 250,000 and multiplies it by the survival rate he "estimates" in one particular county. Putting aside whether 250,000 is the appropriate number to base these calculations on, AND, whether this one particular county is representative, Samsonowska shows that she can identify almost three times (2.4x by name, and 3x if some who are known to survive but are not known by individual name but only family name) as many survivors in this county *by name* than Grabowski. This is because, according to the author. Grabowski consulted only a very limited set of archival documents and basically stopped when he got to 1/5 (hence (4/5)*250,000=200,000).
 * Couple other issues. The 200,000 is mentioned only twice in Grabowski's book, which runs for more than 300+ pages. In the introduction and the conclusion. There's actually no section or even a paragraph devoted to explaining the methodology. It's basically an aside. However, this number was then picked up by media which was looking for a click-bait-y headline and somehow became the focus of what this book is about. The book is actually NOT about the 200,000, and Grabowski himself has distanced himself from it.
 * The other issue is that if you actually read the book it says that 200,000 were the victims of "Judenjagd". It does not say that 200,000 were victims of Poles. Obviously, the Judenjagd was organized by Germans. So jumping from "victims of Judenjagd" to "victims of Poles" is WP:OR even IF we take Grabowski at face value (though it's true that some press articles presented it this way).Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:02, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The author also notes that Grabowski himself does not claim for his estimate to be an exhaustive list of survivors even though some other commentators have treated it as such.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:15, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Has your above information been introduced into articles that may still include the "200,000 Jewish victims of Poles" disinformation?
 * Thanks.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 06:38, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Given that G. is still an RS and isn't suspected of dodgy practice or bias, we should add the other estimates rather than remove his: "G's estimate has been criticized by Samsonowska...". We should stick to the source with regards to the rest of the statement. François Robere (talk) 09:34, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * [I] wanted to also raise one other issue with Grabowski's figures, taken directly from his book on pages 2-3 . Grabowski writes, "Given the numbers above one can assume that the number of victims of the Judenjagd could reach 200,000." This shows just how speculative these numbers are, using words such as "assume" and "could reach", yet some try to use these very questionable numbers as if they [were] a fact, but Grabowski's own words show it is not so, never mind other issues raised about his work. --E-960 (talk) 09:05, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Indeed, Jan Grabowski's use here of the word "assume" reminds me of my mathematics teacher's definition of "assume": "'Assume' makes an ass out of u and me."
 * Nihil novi (talk) 11:21, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * LOL
 * Numbers like this are often speculative. We shouldn't expect an exact number resulting from counting of each and every one of the victims. I don't think G. digressed from the methodological norms in his field in giving this assessment. François Robere (talk) 13:09, 6 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The issue here is that, aside from the number being speculative, controversial and basically debunked, it's not even a significant portion of his book. It's mentioned twice in a 300+ page text. Grabowski himself has distanced himself from it. Etc. Etc. Etc. Hence, it is simply UNDUE.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:22, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * For the record, could someone please unearth the (Gazeta Wyborcza?) interview in which Grabowski backtracked from the "200,000" number—giving the link, his "clarification" (in Polish) of what he had meant, and our English translation?
 * Nihil novi (talk) 20:49, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * "Clarification" and "backtracking" / "distancing" are not the same. The quote we used here before - I didn't read it as anything other than a clarification. François Robere (talk) 01:01, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

The English-language edition of Grabowski's Hunt for the Jews came out in 2013; and Dalej jest noc (Night Continues), co-edited by him, came out in 2018. In a March 2018 interview published in Gazeta Wyborcza, Grabowski said that, while he believed 200,000 Jews died while in hiding, he was unable to determine the exact percentage of that number who perished, directly or indirectly, due to acts by Poles; and that his claim that Poles were responsible for the deaths of 200,000 Jews was a "research hypothesis", though he continued to believe that Poles were responsible for the majority of that number. Neverthless, in the same interview Grabowski said that the limited number of Polish counties covered (1 in the first book, perhaps 10 in the second, out of 60-odd counties) might lead other scholars to conclude that the research cannot be used to draw generalizations.

Nihil novi (talk) 07:17, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The clarification to the Gazeta changes nothing of note - this is was an estimate all along. The 200,000 estimate (directly and indirectly) continues to be used by sources following March 2018 - e.g. this review, this journal article, this book, this interview with Grabowski in Nov 2018. The estimate is clearly the most widely cited estimate for Polish complicity and is clearly WP:DUE for inclusion. Icewhiz (talk) 07:28, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The book makes a passing mention of the number in only two places out of 300+ pages, does not actually describe any methodology, the number has been debunked by other researchers and Grabowski himself has backed off or emphasized the uncertainty involved with the number. All of this makes it simply WP:UNDUE. And remember WP:ONUS? It's on those wishing to include, as you've reminded others on a large number of occasions.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:33, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Beware WP:RECENTISM. It's more clear that the estimate is recently the most widely cited estimate for Jews murdered by Poles (which was not always direct complicity, scholars say) than it is the most widely cited estimate. The estimate recently brought about controversy which is why it is so widely cited recently. I agree with User:Icewhiz that it is due for inclusion, but on the grounds of verifiability alone, not becasuse we can be certain that it is the most widely cited. Wikipedia is not a record of the truth, it's a record of what recognized reliable sources say. In the article we must say what it is, which is that it is one man's estimate that has been variously supported and contested, and let's be done with it. That's surely the Wikipedia way. If anyone feels it's an unfair, racist or hurtful estimate, I humbly invite you to do the maths of 200,000 as a percentage of 6 million. For what it's worth, it might be worth considering why Poles didn't kill a greater proportion of the Holocaust victims than that, because they surely were in a position to. --Chumchum7 (talk) 10:53, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The book covers the estimate both in the introduction and in the body of the book. Grabowski hasn't backed off - in fact he has repeated his estimate - and being an estimate - it is certainly uncertain as all estimates (though better founded now given Dalej jest noc's wider reach). The book is widely cited for this estimate (in reviews and in articles) - both in academic and non-academic contexts. If there is a competing estimate (e.g. something not based on a Facebook post, preferably something in English) - we could definitely include a number of estimates (e.g. X estimates 50,000, Grabowski estimates 200,000).Icewhiz (talk) 12:53, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * This is not true. It's in two places - out of 300 pages. And he has backed off, now he's saying "most of" and "directly and indirectly", or says that this is the number who perished, but stops short of saying it was due to Poles (he's said various things in various places). Also, there's nothing in either source being quoted about 80% afaict. That seems to be a piece of WP:OR.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:40, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Of Grabowski's 2 references in Hunt for the Jews to 200,000 Jews allegedly killed by Poles, the first (pp. 2-3) is cited above by E-960 (Grabowski writes: "Given the numbers above, one can assume that the number of victims of the Judenjagd could reach 200,000.").  How does the other reference, in the book's conclusion, read?
 * Nihil novi (talk) 22:26, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Some prophets receive information by revelation. You don't prove a revelation. One day Jan Grabowski received a revelation: "The Poles murdered 200,000 Jews." He passed this revelation on to the multitudes.  Grabowski isn't obliged to prove his "estimate":  he received the number from on high.
 * We, however, have a problem: Wikipedia lacks procedures for embracing revelations. The Catholic Church does have such procedures; e.g., Our Lady of Fátima is O.K., Our Lady of Medjugorje is pending approval.
 * Academia has procedures for peer review of scholarly texts before their publication. Were Hunt for the Jews and Dalej jest noc peer-reviewed? Who were the peer reviewers?  What were their opinions of the revelation concerning 200,000 Jews allegedly killed during World War II by Poles?  Xx236 (talk) 08:03, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * "But it is only natural for investigators to have differing views." Does that mean Grabowski entertains critical opinions? The same Grabowski sued the Polish Antidefamation League.
 * Bogdan Musiał's Kto dopomoże Żydowi... (Who Will Help a Jew?...) rejects the "200,000" revelation. Xx236 (talk) 08:11, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

If I'm understanding all of this correctly, Grabowski stated the number was 200,000, he continues to use the 200,000 figure, it has been widely cited, and some people disagree with the figure. Is that an accurate summary? Jayjg (talk) 12:36, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Datner himself
http://muzhp.pl/en/c/1977/german-nazi-crimes-against-jews-who-escaped-from-the-ghettoes Xx236 (talk) 10:28, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for Szymon Datner's article.
 * Which facts or passages should we especially take note of?
 * Nihil novi (talk) 03:21, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Cite errors
Plenty of them. Please correct.Xx236 (talk) 10:56, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Academic text
An academic text is reviewed and published in a serious journal. An interview isn't academic. Was the interview authorised? Xx236 (talk) 10:59, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Haupttreuhandstelle Ost
was a Nazi German predatory state institution responsible for liquidating Polish and Jewish businesses in occupied Poland Xx236 (talk) 11:25, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

szmalcowniks
until finally reporting them to the Germans ? extorting Jews was illegal, so some szmalcowniks were punished by Germans. The book by Grabowski is based on German documents describing arrested szmalcowniks. Xx236 (talk) 11:40, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

English translation in response to User:MyMoloboaccount's translation request
"The hunt for Jews began, and unfortunately it was unusually effective. Few of the fugitives managed to survive.  Grabowski [in his Judenjagd] counts 38 Jews who managed to last out the occupation, hiding in Dąbrowa Tarnowska County.  Other data yield a number of 150.  Grabowski writes that the number given by the "Dąbrowa amateur historian" is too high, and criticizes the absence of any archival basis for formulating such a number.  (Judenjagd, pp. 53–55).  Possibly it is too high.  However, it is certain that the number given by Grabowski, of 38 Jewish survivors in that county, is substantially too low.  It would have sufficed for the author [Grabowski] to have taken into account earlier-published sources, to have corrected that number.  For example, Feliks Świerczek, in Gorzyce, concealed not only "Faiga (Franciszka Krystal)", as Grabowski writes (Judenjagd, p. 147), but also her brother, who likewise survived the war. The actual name of Franciszka Kryształ, as she identified herself during the occupation, was Feiga Birken. Likewise one of her female cousins survived in hiding near Dąbrowa Tarnowska, and after the war married her rescuer and converted to Catholicism.9 In Oleśno, a teenaged girl named Hajka was given refuge and survived the German occupation.10  There are many more similar examples of saved Jews that are passed over by Grabowski.11  This means that there were also more rescuers, and that the numbers given by the "Dąbrowa amateur historian" are doubtless closer to the truth than those stated by Grabowski on the basis, as he himself says (Judenjagd, p. 148), of "archival documentation available to us."

If you use this translation, you should also provide details of the author and publication, along with (in a footnote) the original Polish-language text, for verification if desired.

Nihil novi (talk) 23:46, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

What does Hunt for the Jews, page 172, say?
I don't see such a statement there. Xx236 (talk) 10:51, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
 * 172 in Hunt, or this shorter summary in a 2018 Routledge book. Icewhiz (talk) 11:35, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I asked where you see the "200,000" number of Jews murdered by Poles, because I don't see it. The Poles "had a larger say". Why aren't the Germans and Austrians who terrorized the Poles, mentioned here? Xx236 (talk) 05:58, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Have you read the text you quote? Apparently not. It shows how biased Grabowski is (see below). Xx236 (talk) 06:35, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Samuel Johnson on human nature (recurrence)
Johnston, Freya, "I'm Coming, My Tetsie!" (review of Samuel Johnson, edited by David Womersley, Oxford, 2018, ISBN 978 0 19 960951 2, 1,344 pp.), London Review of Books, vol. 41, no. 9 (9 May 2019), pp. 17–19. ""His attacks on [the pursuit of originality in the writing of literature] were born of the conviction that literature ought to deal in universal truths; that human nature was fundamentally the same in every time and every place; and that, accordingly (as he put it in the 'Life of Dryden'), 'whatever can happen to man has happened so often that little remains for fancy or invention.'" (p. 19.)

Litigation against editors
Dalej jest noc accuses Edward Malinowski, sołtys of the Polish village of Malinowo, of having been responsible for the deaths of dozens of Jews who, during World War II, were in hiding from the Germans. His 94-year-old relative Filomena Leszczyńska is suing Professors Engelking and Grabowski, the book's editors, in Warsaw court for defaming Malinowski, who—on the contrary—had assisted Jews, at the risk of his own life and the lives of his family.

Talk:The Holocaust in Poland
Someone please either find a reliable source's documentation of the unreliability and unreproducibility of Jan Grabowski's figure of – is it 200,000? 180,000? 120,00? – Jews killed by Poles, "directly or indirectly", during World War II; or, barring that, someone please open a new career for himself, join the Holocaust historians' community, and publish reliable data and conclusions on this matter. Nihil novi (talk) 00:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

List of atheists in science and technology (Einstein: deleted 24 July 2019)

 * Albert Einstein (1879–1955): In a one-and-a-half-page German-language letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, dated Princeton, 3 January 1954, physicist Albert Einstein wrote:  "The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends.  No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change anything about this. [...]  For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. [...]  I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them [the Jewish people]."

Einstein: atheist (Talk:List of atheists in science and technology)

 * Einstein clearly used the expression "God" as a manner of speaking, as in his oft-quoted remark to Niels Bohr that "God does not play dice with the universe." And, like many a thinking person, including Charles Darwin, he did not want to make himself a target to bigots by acknowledging  atheism.
 * What Einstein repeatedly wrote of was his wonder at the mystery of a universe that man's limited faculties are inadequate to comprehend: a view identical with that of the atheist philosopher Herbert Spencer.
 * As to Einstein's admiration for Spinoza, Einstein was simply expressing his admiration for Spinoza's logical method of reasoning.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 22:20, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * None of that adds up to, or supports, the claim that Einstein was an atheist. Since he explicitly denied being an atheist, his name cannot be justifiably included in the list. 81.97.179.9 (talk) 22:42, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * When did Einstein deny being an atheist? Nihil novi (talk) 00:02, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Talk:Collaboration in German-occupied Poland

 * How does Connelly define "indifference" in this context? Nihil novi (talk) 10:11, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * To save us some time, here's the entire passage:
 * "To say the least, Jews who escaped the ghettos were not shown the solidarity Poles expected from Poles. A particularly wrenching incident is recalled by Adam Neuman-Nowicki, a Polish Jew of impeccable "Aryan" appearance and speech. At one point in his own ordeal as "Polish Christian," Neuman-Nowicki met the fellow Jew Hanka, with "blue eyes, straight blond hair combed into two braids, a small nose, and rosy cheeks." Having escaped deportation, she worked as a maid, but because she grew up speaking Yiddish, her Polish was not as "accent-free and polished" as was his. This small "flaw" proved her undoing: after a failed rendezvous, he discovered that she had been turned over to the German police. Of course, any sudden newcomer to a small town will be a subject of rumors, yet had this woman been a Pole, locals would have colluded in shielding her from danger. But as a Jew, Hanka was viewed as a curiosity, a welcome occasion for gossip. Before long the fatal rumor, spread carelessly, had reached the ears of an informer. The callous participants in such rumor mills would have been surprised to learn that they had deliberately served the enemy. The theologically minded might accuse them of grave "sins of omission," but even the underground courts would have been hard-pressed to arraign any but the individual who actually tipped off the Germans. Yet if no individual Pole can be held guilty of the crime, as a community Poles certainly can be accused of shared indifference, of what one might call a "structural collaboration" that made the Nazi agenda of killing Polish Jews so infernally successful. Had Poles indeed seen Jews as neighbors, the death rate might have been more like 85 percent rather than the 90 percent that was actually achieved."


 * François Robere (talk) 11:11, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * "can be accused" is very different from "vast majority of ethnic Poles were impervious to the Jewish plight". This is another instance of straight up WP:OR, putting aside the fact that the entire article is precisely about how collaboration was marginal (yet somehow someone pulled just this one quote out of it).Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:03, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't write that sentence, why are you complaining to me? And stop distorting Connelly - he's clear about the historiography of the term Poland, and goes along with it; other sources don't. Again, we've already had this discussion. François Robere (talk) 20:47, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the John Connelly quotation, just above. (By the way, what is the "there" source's actual title?)  This more complete text clarifies a fragment previously drawn from it which, in the article's context, had seemed to speak of the entire Polish people's attitudes rather than of a single incident.  The fragment had mentioned "the crime", without explaining what exact crime was being referenced.
 * The incident recounted by Connelly illustrates an observation by another source that many, if not most, Jews in prewar Poland stuck out like a sore thumb. As this incident tragically confirms, that made it hard for a Jew to disappear within an ethnically-Polish community.
 * The hazards to a hiding Jew and to anyone hiding or otherwise helping him were greatly exacerbated by the Germans' practice of executing the helper and his family.
 * These considerations are surely relevant to a discussion of ethnic Poles' caution in risking their own lives.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 04:00, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The full citation is:
 * It actually does speak of Poles in general, using Hanka's story as an example. And no, Jews did not "stick out like a sore thumb" - the Germans did. Some Jews were identifiable, but only by Poles. Connelly: "had this woman been a Pole, locals would have colluded in shielding her from danger. But as a Jew, Hanka was viewed as a curiosity, a welcome occasion for gossip. Before long the fatal rumor, spread carelessly, had reached the ears of an informer." And so the lesson to draw from this is that some Poles happily collaborated - some were even willing to call out a random passer-by as a Jew, at no risk and with no reward to themselves, with full knowledge that they would be killed. "They stuck out" is a sad excuse for how they were treated by the majority of Poles: "Had Poles indeed seen Jews as neighbors, the death rate might have been more like 85 percent rather than the 90 percent that was actually achieved". François Robere (talk) 10:00, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Please see "The Holocaust in Poland" article, the "Rescue and aid" section, the opening sentence –  "The vast majority of Polish Jews were a 'visible minority' by modern standards, distinguishable by language, behavior, and appearance." – and subsequent sentences.
 * That seems to confirm my point, above.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 11:21, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Grabowski (Talk:Collaboration in German-occupied Poland)
I'd like to move the discussion regarding Grabowski's 200,000 claim over from User talk:Paul Siebert to the actual article talk page. I also reverted User:Piotrus changes as they need further discussion.

I would argue that quoting Grabowski's 200,000 is problematic, because there were legitimate objections by other historians about his claims, for example historian Shimon Redlich stateded that the careless "claim of 'hundreds of thousands' of Jews seeking shelter among the Polish populace", which according to Redlich cannot be extrapolated to the whole country based on one single area or ''historian Krystyna Samsonowska wrote that Grabowski did not use all available sources, and "gave up" on actual field research; for example, by not trying to contact the families of Jewish survivors from Dąbrowa Tarnowska, or the Poles who hid them. Samsonowska argues that, by using broader resources, she could identify 90 Jews who had survived the war in hiding in Dąbrowa County, as opposed to the 38 cited by Grabowski.'' Yet, Grabowski is cited as an be-all end-all reference, however the debate about the involvement of Poles and the actual numbers is still going on, Grabowski is just one side of the debate, not the undisputed authority. --E-960 (talk) 08:40, 21 June 2019 (UTC) This is what I find most troubling about Grabowski's claim page 2-3 — quote directly taken from his book "Given the numbers above one can assume that the number of victims of the Judenjagd could reach 200,000." This is highly speculative statement using words such as "assume" or "could reach", yet user Piotrus re-wrote the section to make it sound like the 200,000 figure is based on hard research. --E-960 (talk) 09:55, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
 * If anything I would remove the direct reference to Grabowski, and re-write the section in a general voice, and note the wider debate about Polish involvement and the debate about the actual numbers, and open this discussion to other editors who in the past debated the issue of Grabowski on this very page such as MyMoloboaccount or Volunteer Marek because I don't think it was the correct approach to re-open this discussion on a user talk page first. --E-960 (talk) 08:46, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
 * One can assume that the number was 10,000 or 1,000,000. A serious estimate by Borkowski gives 40,000. Why isn't the serious "40,000" quoted, and why is the fantastic "200,000" quoted? To prove that Wikipedia is biased and based on lies? Xx236 (talk) 08:23, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Collaboration in German-occupied Poland
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Collaboration in German-occupied Poland's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "google": From Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust:  From Demographic history of Poland: Jerzy Lukowski, Hubert Zawadzki, A Concise History of Poland, Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-521-55917-0, Google Print, p.6 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 04:50, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Alan Weisman, "Burning Down the House"

 * Alan Weisman, "Burning Down the House" (review of David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, Tim Duggan, 2019, 310 pp.; and Bill McKibben, Falter:  Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?, Henry Holt, 2019, 291 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 13 (15 August 2019), pp. 4, 6, 8.  "[Economic] growth is how we measure economic health, and growth must be... fueled.  Other than nuclear energy... no form of energy is so concentrated, and none so cheap or portable, as carbon.  By exhuming hundreds of millions of years' worth of buried organic matter and burning it in a couple of centuries, we built our dazzling civilization, not noticing that its wastes were amassing overhead.  Now we're finally paying attention, because hell is starting to rain down.... Norman Borlaug [1970 Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his Green Revolution] [f]or the rest of his life... campaigned, in vain, for universal family planning.... One million species are now at risk of extinction, the [U.N.] Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services reported [in May 2019].... [B]y 2100 the oceans may be too hot for phytoplankton to photosynthesize....  Phytoplankton... provide, as [Bill] McKibben notes, 'two-thirds of the earth's oxygen.'  Their loss... 'would likely result in the mass mortality of animals and humans.'... [In addition, a]bsorption of [carbon dioxide] has already made the ocean 30 percent more acidic, with [the acidity] expected to [rise] 'well beyond what fish and other marine organisms can tolerate' by the end of the century.... Major cities... have come within mere days of running out of water...   McKibben [writes of] of the duplicity of oil companies:  'There should be a word for when you commit treason against an entire planet.'  As early as 1977, one of Exxon's own scientists [told] the company's executives that their products were causing a greenhouse effect, and that there would be only 'five to ten years before... hard decisions [on] changes in energy strategies might become critical.'"  (pp. 4,6.)

Re: Jan T. Gross' Golden Harvest
In a 2011 interview involving his book Golden Harvest, Gross said: "It's all the same whether I write that the Poles murdered a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, or several tens of thousands [of Jews]. Either [number] means many.  The first variant, that the Poles murdered between 100 and 200 thousand Jews, appeared at an early stage, when I sent the book to specialists, requesting their critiques. In my opinion, that number [originally appearing in the text] is the better fit, but several tens [of thousands] can easily be justified."

"Talk:The Holocaust in Poland

 * Great. Please provide full citations and explicit quotations for Samsonowska and Berendt. Jayjg (talk) 19:19, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Krystyna Samsonowska, "Dąbrowa Tarnowska – nieco inaczej" ("Dąbrowa Tarnowska:  It's a Little Different"), Więź (The Social Bond), vol. LIV, no. 7 (July 2011), pp. 75–85:
 * Historian Krystyna Samsonowska of Kraków's Jagiellonian University writes that [in his Hunt for the Jews] Grabowski did not use all available sources, and "gave up" on actual field research – for example, by not trying to contact the families of Jewish survivors from Dąbrowa Tarnowska, or the Poles who hid them. Samsonowska writes that, using broader resources, she was able to identify 90 Jews who had survived the war, hiding in Dąbrowa County, versus the 38 cited by Grabowski; and that the number of survivors was probably much higher. She also writes that Grabowski understated, by half, the number of Righteous among the Nations from Dąbrowa County.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 05:04, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Dariusz Stola, "Ofiary zakładników" ("Victims of Hostage System": a review of Jan Grabowski, Judenjagd Polowanie na Żydów 1942–1945. Studium dziejów pewnego powiatu [Judenjagd: Hunting the Jews, 1942–1945: A Study of One County's History], Warsaw, Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, 2011), Polityka, 12 March 2011, pp. 58–59:
 * Dariusz Stola, a professor of history at the Polish Academy of Sciences and since 2014 the director of Warsaw's POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, reviewed the original, 2011 Polish-language edition of the book, Hunt for the Jews. He noted Grabowski's description of the hostage system set up by the Germans in rural Polish towns.  "This diabolical mechanism," wrote Stola, "in some measure explains the hostility, observed in many rural communities, to persons who harbored Jews: they could bring disaster not only on themselves but on others."  Stola disputed Grabowski's numerical estimates:  "First, the author assumed, after an earlier work by Szymon Datner, that the number of fugitives seeking shelter came to about 10% of the number of Jews on the eve of the deportations... That 10% is not, strictly speaking, an estimate but rather a "guesstimate"....  Secondly, a pall of ignorance [largely] surrounds the histories of the ghetto escapees who were not murdered but died of malnutrition, exhaustion, exposure, or disease.  We will not find information about their deaths in postwar court records.” Finally, Stola noted that “Judenjagd speaks not only about the killing but also about the sheltering of Jews (sometimes by the same persons), about various kinds of aid given [to Jews], about the... disinterested rescuers who risked their own lives to save people who were hunted like animals."
 * Nihil novi (talk) 11:14, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Jacek Borkowicz, "Pogruchotana pamięć o Zagładzie" ("Mangled Memory of the Holocaust"), Rzeczpospolita (The Republic) Plus Minus (online edition), 17 May 2018:
 * Historian Jacek Borkowicz wrote in Rzeczpospolita that, using data from the 2018 book Dalej jest noc, edited by Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, he concluded that the actual number of Jewish victims of Poles was much lower, at most 40,000, while around 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Jews were saved by Poles.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 05:35, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Grzegorz Berendt, "Zbiegowie z gett i obozów dla Żydów na terenie Polski w latach 1942–1944" ("Fugitives from Ghettos and Camps for Jews on Polish Soil in 1942–1944"), Biuletyn IPN (Bulletin of the Institute of National Memory), no. 6, 2017, p. 64:
 * "So far no one has confirmed, through scholarly research, Datner's surmise concerning the overall number of fugitives. The present state of knowledge thus relates to the number formed by data offered by Yad Vashem and Paulsson, i.e., a number no greater than 60,000 persons."  ("Jak dotad nikt nie potwierdził badaniami naukowymi przypuszczenia Datnera dotyczacego ogólnej skali zjawiska zbiegostwa. Obecny stan wiedzy dotyczy wiec wielkosci tworzonej przez dane ujete przez Yad Vashem i Paulssona, tj. zbiorowosci nie wiekszej niz 60 tys. osób.")
 * Nihil novi (talk) 05:59, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Grzegorz Berendt, "The Polish People Weren't Tacit Collaborators with Nazi Extermination of Jews", Haaretz, 24 February 2017:
 * Following the publication of Hunt for the Jews in Israel in 2016, Grzegorz Berendt, professor of history at the University of Gdańsk and historian for the Polish government's Institute of National Remembrance, wrote in Haaretz, in February 2017, that, in contrast to several other European countries, Poland's elite groups, in the underground or in exile, opposed Germany's policies toward the Jews, and expressed and acted on this opposition repeatedly. Anyone holding an official position inside occupied Poland, including the police, was obliged to follow German orders or face harsh punishment, which might be a beating or public execution. Conversely, prizes, including property plundered from Jews, were awarded for compliance. German-induced poverty in Poland—rationing of 400–700 calories per person, leading to black-market food at exorbitant prices—meant that "thousands of people discarded moral constraints and decided to assist the Germans in rounding up Jews for economic reasons". Berendt referred to Grabowski's statement in Hunt for the Jews (published 2013; p. 3) that "the number of victims [in Poland] of the Judenjagd could reach 200,000" as "hot air", in that it substantially exceeds, he wrote, the approximately 50,000 Jews thought to have escaped from the ghettos in occupied Poland.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 12:16, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Jacek Proszyk, "Nienapisany rozdział. Powiat bielski (Wschodni Górny Śląsk), niem. Landkreis Bielitz, Ost-Oberschlesien" ["Unwritten Chapter:  Bielsko County (Eastern Upper Silesia), German:  Landkreis Bielitz, Ost-Oberschlesien"], Jacek Proszyk – własne zapiski (Jacek Proszyk: Personal Notes), 21 May 2018:
 * Bielsko County was supposed to have been worked up for Dalej jest noc by Jacek Proszyk, but he "[found it impossible to obtain] data sufficiently reliable to... perform statistical analysis and [to determine] the exact number of persons who perished, the exact number... who survived, and how they survived." Proszyk concluded that he could only "describe... verified individual cases.  The war", he writes, "was a great DESTRUCTION and LIE.  We do not have... complete archival records....  Even what we have is not always the truth.... [I]n Bielsko and Biała [which were only part of the county that Proszyk was to have covered, in order to survive] Jews, Poles, and [anti-Nazi] Germans [all had to flee, lie, or pretend to be what they were not].  This falsehood left its [imprint] in the records and accounts, and that is why I [felt compelled] to verify... every account and every entry."  Proszyk was unable to submit generalized findings for Bielsko County, but hopes eventually to prepare a study of particular individuals' experiences there. Proszyk's experience highlights the methodological difficulties in undertaking a reliable study of such subject matter.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 21:21, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Talk:Jan T. Gross, "Gross, cavalier statistician"

 * Jan T. Gross' peers, when he consulted them in 2011 before publishing Golden Harvest, evidently thought his number of "100,000–200,000" Jews allegedly killed by Poles during World War II to be excessive, so by his admission in the above interview, he reduced his estimate.
 * Jan Grabowski, in his Hunt for the Jews, also published in 2011, favored the "200,000" number but may not have consulted peers.
 * Each author expressed uncertainties about his high original number, in their separate (Gross, 2011; Grabowski, 2018) interviews with publications in Poland, which were apparently more difficult to convince than publications outside Poland that Poles had killed up to 100,000–200,000 Jews in Poland during World War II.
 * As Gross remarked to his interviewer, readers expect to see a number. In the absence of hard data, what is a historian to do?
 * Nihil novi (talk) 22:32, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

"Talk:Collaboration in German-occupied Poland"

 * Just to remind you, you did just that at a recent ARBCOM workshop. "Disruptive and insulting", you say? François Robere (talk) 20:29, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, the incident where you repeatedly insisted, with a straight face, that the murder of Poles and Jews by Ukrainian cossacks in the 17th century was an instance of ... Polish anti-semitism. You sure you want to bring that one up again?
 * And I feel compelled to note that here we have another instance where Francois Robere replies to a comment addressed to Icewhiz, just like a day ago, Icewhiz for some reason felt it pertinent to reply to a question asked of Francois Robere. Is this one of those stable version supersets? Or is it a superset of a stable version? Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:53, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

National minorities' role in the Holocaust (What is "little to lose"?)
Xx236 (talk) 08:44, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What section and paragraph of the article are you referring to?
 * Nihil novi (talk) 08:48, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "National minorities' role in the Holocaust". Xx236 (talk) 08:53, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I've edited the sentence. Thanks for raising the question.
 * It helps to provide links, such as I've added above to your response to my question.
 * Please use quotation marks (" ") for quotations, reserving italics (in Polish, kursywa) for foreign expressions or for emphasis (dla obcych wyrazów lub dla emfazy, podkreślenia).
 * Nihil novi (talk) 19:48, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Esther Perel
"Those who came back to life were those who understood eroticism as an antidote to death."

PBS News Hour malapropism
The PBS News Hour of 24 June 2020, in reporting the visit of Poland's President Duda to the White House, erroneously described Poland as an "East European" country. Such geographical misplacement of Poland is a residue of the binary geopolitical thinking.that prevailed during the late Cold War. Poland is a Central European country, as explained on Wikipedia:. It pains me to hear such geographical confusion on the estimable News Hour. I would be obliged if this error could be brought to their attention. Thank you. Sincerely,

Melkowski, Stefan (1963). Poglądy estetyczne i działalność krytycznoliteracka Bolesława Prusa (Bolesław Prus' Esthetic Views and Literary-Critical Activity). Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.

Pieścikowski, Edward (1985). Bolesław Prus (2nd ed.). Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.

A standard response to the same sort of articles that keep coming up for deletion

 * Keep for the following reasons:
 * 1) Enough information about the character to fill an article.
 * 2) If you aren't interested in the article, you aren't likely to ever find it, unless you are specifically looking for things to delete (a rather horrible hobby to have).
 * 3) There is no shortage of space on wikipedia, so no reason to delete something just because you don't like it.  Some people will find the information interesting to read.
 * 4) The notability guidelines are suggestions, not policy.  You don't have to follow them, and shouldn't just use them as an excuse to delete something you don't like, for whatever reason.

I'm thinking since the exact same types of articles keep getting nominated for deletion, might as well respond in the same way to the same tired old story. All arguments have all been said and done before, for this particular issue anyway.  D r e a m Focus  19:57, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

=coupled cousins=

This is a list of notable individuals who have been romantically or maritally coupled with a cousin.

Notable people


A
 * Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib (c. 546 - 570/571) and his third cousin once removed, Aminah (549-577/578)
 * John Adams (1735-1826) and his third cousin, Abigail Smith (1744-1818)
 * John Adams II (1803-1834) and his first cousin, Mary Catherine Hellen
 * Ali and his first cousin once removed, Fatimah
 * Mark Antony and his first cousin, Antonia Hybrida Minor, and later his fourth cousin once removed, Octavia the Younger (69-11 BCE)

B
 * Johann Sebastian Bach and his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach
 * Josiah Bartlett, second signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and his first cousin, Mary Bartlett
 * Ilsley Boone and his first cousin, Ella Murray "Mae" Boone, founder of the American Sunbathing Association, which today is known as the American Association for Nude Recreation
 * James Boswell (1740–95) (biographer of Samuel Johnson) and Boswell's cousin Peggie Montgomerie married in 1769.
 * Christine Boutin and her first cousin, Louis Boutin
 * Wernher von Braun and his first cousin, Maria Luise von Quistorp
 * Marcus Junius Brutus (assassin of Julius Caesar) and his half-first cousin, Porcia
 * Charles Bulfinch and his first cousin, Hannah Apthorp

C
 * Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer and his first cousin, Clodia Pulchra
 * John C. Calhoun, seventh Vice President of the United States, and his first cousin once removed, Floride Calhoun
 * Jeanne Calment, the oldest person whose age was verified by official documents, and her second cousin, Fernand Calment
 * Benedict Swingate Calvert, third Proprietor Governor of Maryland and father of Eleanor Calvert, and his first cousin once removed, Elizabeth Calvert
 * Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Roman Catholic signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and his second cousin, Mary Darnall
 * Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum and his second cousin, Cornelia Africana Major

D
 * Charles Darwin and his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood Their respective siblings Caroline Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood III also married. In addition, their grandparents, Sarah Wedgwood and Josiah Wedgwood, were third cousins.
 * Alfred I. du Pont, great-grandson of DuPont founder and his cousin-by-marriage, Bessie Gardner, as well as his second cousin, Alicia Bradford Maddox
 * Pierre S. du Pont married his first cousin, Alice Belin, in 1915
 * Andrew Jackson Donelson and his first cousin, Emily Donelson; later, his first cousin, Elizabeth Martin Randolph

E
 * Albert Einstein and his first cousin (through his mother) and second cousin (through his father), Elsa Löwenthal née Einstein
 * William Greenleaf Eliot, founder of Washington University in St. Louis (and grandfather of poet T. S. Eliot), married his first cousin.
 * William Ellery, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his first cousin once removed, Abigail Cary
 * William Crowninshield Endicott, former US Secretary of War, and his first cousin, Ellen Peabody
 * John Wayles Eppes and his half-first cousin, Mary Jefferson

F
 * James Fenner and his first cousin once removed, Sarah Whipple Jenckes.
 * John F. Fitzgerald, former mayor of Boston and grandfather of John F. Kennedy, and his second cousin Mary Josephine Hannon


 * Vivian Fuchs, British explorer, and his cousin Joyce Connell

G
 * Carlo Gambino, a mob boss, and his first cousin, Catherine Castellano
 * Harry Augustus Garfield and his second cousin, Belle Hartford Mason
 * Buddha Gautama and first cousin Yaśodhara
 * André Gide, Nobel Prize-winning French author, and his cousin Madeleine Rondeaux
 * Charlotte Perkins Gilman, American author, and her first cousin, George Houghton Gilman
 * Carl Giles, cartoonist, and his cousin, Joan Giles
 * Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York, 1994–2001, and his second cousin, Regina Peruggi
 * A. D. Gordon and his cousin, Faige Tartakov.
 * Laurent Gouvion, French general and later Marshal of the Empire, and his first cousin, Anne Gouvion
 * Samuel L. Gouverneur and his first cousin, Maria Hester Monroe
 * Duncan Grant, Scottish painter, who was in a relationship with his male cousin, the English writer Lytton Strachey.
 * Bibb Graves, and his first cousin, Dixie Bibb
 * Edvard Grieg, Norwegian composer, and his first cousin, Nina Hagerup

H
 * Benjamin Harrison V, American revolutionary leader, and his second cousin, Elizabeth Bassett
 * Anna Tuthill Harrison, daughter of William Henry Harrison, and her first cousin once removed, William Henry Harrison Taylor
 * Elizabeth Bassett Harrison, daughter of William Henry Harrison, and her first cousin, John Cleves Short
 * Friedrich Hayek, Austrian-British economist, and his cousin Helene Bitterlich
 * Alexander Herzen, Russian writer and political activist, and his cousin Natalya Zakharina
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., the poet, and his second cousin, Amelia Lee Jackson
 * Stephen Hopkins, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his second cousin, Sarah Scott
 * Saddam Hussein and his first cousin Sajida Talfah

I
 * Isaac was married to his first cousin once removed, Rebecca

J
 * Jacob was married to two of his first cousins, sisters Leah and Rachel
 * Ja'far al-Sadiq and his first cousin, Fatima bint al-Hussain'l-Athram bin al-Hasan bin Ali
 * Jesse James and his first cousin, Zerelda "Zee" Mimms
 * Thomas Jefferson and his third cousin, Martha Wayles
 * Jón Sigurðsson, leader of the 19th-century Icelandic independence movement, and his first cousin, Ingibjörg Einarsdóttir

K
 * Naoto Kan, former Prime Minister of Japan, and his first cousin, Nobuko
 * John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, was married to (then divorced from) his distant cousin Julia Thorne.
 * Arthur Henry King and his second cousin Patricia
 * Nobusuke Kishi, former Japanese statesman, and his first cousin, Yoshiko Kishi
 * Kujō Michiie and his first cousin, Saionji Rinshi
 * Kujō Yoritsune and his second cousin once removed, Minamoto no Yoshiko

L
 * Mark Labbett and his second cousin, Katie Labbett
 * David Lean, British film director, and his first cousin, Isabel Lean (his first wife)
 * Charles Lee and his second cousin, Anne Lee
 * Edmund Jennings Lee I and his second cousin, Sarah Lee
 * Robert E. Lee and his third cousin, Mary Anna Custis
 * Charles Lilburn Lewis and his first cousin, Lucy Jefferson Lewis
 * Fielding Lewis and his second cousin, Catharine Washington, and later his second cousin, Betty Washington, the sister of George Washington
 * Jerry Lee Lewis, rock and roll musician, and his first cousin once removed, Myra Gale Brown
 * Li Ka-shing, founder of Cheung Kong Holdings, married his first cousin Chong Yuet Ming, who died in 1990
 * Edward Philip Livingston and his third cousin, Elizabeth Stevens Livingston
 * John Henry Livingston and his second cousin, Sarah Livingston
 * Abbott Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard University, and his distant cousin, Anna Parker Lowell
 * John Amory Lowell and his first cousin, Susan Cabot Lowell

M
 * John A. Macdonald, first prime minister of Canada, and his first cousin, Isabella Clark
 * Rob Roy MacGregor and his cousin Mary Helen MacGregor of Comar, who married in January 1693
 * Gerardo Machado y Morales, fifth president of Cuba, and his first cousin, Elvira Machado Nodal
 * Maeda Toshiie, Japanese Daimyō in the 15th century, and his cousin, Matsu.
 * Thomas Malthus, British academic, and his first cousin once removed, Harriet Eckersall
 * Delarivier Manley, British playwright and political satirist, and her first cousin John Manley
 * Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, and his second cousin Luo Yixiu
 * Francis Marion, American revolutionary leader also called the "Swamp Fox," and his first cousin, Mary Esther Videau
 * Humphrey Marshall and his first cousin, Anna Maria ("Mary") Marshall.
 * Abraham Maslow, father of humanistic psychology, and his first cousin, Bertha Goodman
 * Matthew Fontaine Maury married his first cousin, Ann Hull Herndon, sister of Captain William Lewis Herndon, who died on his ship SS Central America
 * Hipólito Mejía, Dominican Republic president, and his third cousin Rosa Gómez
 * Darius Milhaud, French composer, and his first cousin Madeleine Milhaud
 * Christopher Robin Milne, son of author A. A. Milne who was the model for the character Christopher Robin of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, and his first cousin Lesley Sélincourt
 * Marina Mora, Peruvian beauty queen and former Miss Peru, and her first cousin Gustavo Mora
 * Mōri Terumoto, Japanese Daimyo in late 15th and early 16th century, and his cousin (first wife), Minami no Kata.
 * Samuel Eliot Morison, historian, and his first cousin once removed, Agnes Priscilla Randolph Barton
 * Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the Morse code, and his first cousin once removed, Sarah Elizabeth Griswold, his second wife
 * Ignacy Mościcki, Polish chemist and president and his first cousin, Michalina Czyżewska
 * Muhammad, Islamic prophet and his first cousin, Zaynab bint Jahsh
 * Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg and his second cousin, Catherine Anne Muhlenberg. Their son William Frederick Muhlenburg married his second cousin, Henrietta Augusta Muhlenberg.

N
 * Naoe Kanetsugu, Japanese samurai and Karō of the Uesugi clan in 15th and 16th century, and his cousin, Osen.
 * John Neal, an eccentric and influential American writer, critic, and activist, and his first cousin, Rachel Hall.

O
 * Ōtomo no Yakamochi, Japanese statesman and waka poet in the Nara period, and his cousin, Sakanoue no Ōiratsume.

P
 * Karen Pini and her second cousin, Garry Carpenter
 * Edgar Allan Poe and his first cousin, Virginia Clemm
 * Peter A. Porter and his first cousin, Mary Cabell Breckinridge
 * Bolesław Prus, Polish novelist, and his cousin Oktawia Trembińska

R S
 * Sergei Rachmaninoff, composer, and his cousin, Natalia Satina
 * Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. and his double third cousin, Martha Jefferson Randolph
 * Satyajit Ray, Indian film-maker, and his first cousin, Bijoya Ray
 * José Rizal, Philippine national hero who had a relationship with his second cousin Leonor Rivera
 * Theodore Douglas Robinson and his sixth cousin Helen Rebecca Roosevelt
 * Franklin D. Roosevelt, US president, and his fifth cousin once removed, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
 * James Roosevelt I and his second cousin, Rebecca Brien Howland, and later his sixth cousin, Sara Delano
 * Philip Roosevelt and his second cousin Jean S. Roosevelt
 * Alphonse James de Rothschild and his first cousin once removed, Leonora de Rothschild
 * Edmond James de Rothschild and his first cousin once removed, Adelheid von Rothschild
 * Ferdinand de Rothschild and his second cousin, Evelina de Rothschild
 * James Nathan de Rothschild and his second cousin, Laura von Rothschild
 * Lionel de Rothschild and his first cousin, Charlotte von Rothschild
 * Nathaniel de Rothschild and his first cousin, Charlotte de Rothschild
 * Salomon James de Rothschild and his first cousin once removed, Adèle von Rothschild
 * Adolph Carl von Rothschild and his first cousin once removed, Julie von Rothschild
 * Albert Salomon Anselm von Rothschild and his second cousin, Bettina Caroline de Rothschild
 * Anselm Salomon von Rothschild and his first cousin, Charlotte Nathan Rothschild
 * Mayer Carl von Rothschild and his first cousin, Louise von Rothschild
 * Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild and his first cousin once removed, Mathilde Hannah von Rothschild
 * Hassan Rouhani, 7th president of Iran and his first cousin Sahebeh Rouhani née Arabi
 * Eisaku Satō, prime minister of Japan, and his cousin, Hiroko Sato
 * Greta Scacchi, actress of Presumed Innocent, and her first cousin, Carlo Mantegazza
 * Lucius Scribonius Libo and his half-first cousin twice removed, Cornelia Pompeia
 * Robert Sargent Shriver and his second cousin, Hilda Shriver, parents of Sargent Shriver
 * Igor Stravinsky, composer, and his first cousin, Katerina Nossenko
 * Werner von Siemens, founder of Siemens AG, and his third cousin once removed, Antonie Siemens

T U
 * Alphonso Taft and his fourth cousin twice removed, Louisa Maria "Louise" Torrey
 * Toyotomi Hideyori, Japanese daimyō, a son of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and his cousin Senhime
 * John Alexander Tyler and his third cousin, Sarah Griswold Gardiner
 * Uthman and his second cousin, Ruqayyah bint Muhammad, and later his second cousin, Umm Kulthum bint Muhammad

V
 * Marcus Valerius Messala Barbatus and his half-first cousin, Domitia Lepida the Younger
 * Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian writer and 2010 Nobel laureate, and his first cousin Patricia Llosa
 * Martin Van Buren, US president, and his first cousin once removed, Hannah Hoes
 * Stephen Van Rensselaer and his third cousin, Margarita "Peggy" Schuyler

W
 * Gordon Welchman, Bletchley Park mathematician-cryptologist, and his cousin, Elisabeth Huber (his third wife)
 * H. G. Wells, author, and his first cousin, Isabel Mary Wells (his first wife)
 * Zack Wheat, baseball player, and his second cousin, Daisy Forsman
 * William Whipple, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his first cousin, Catherine Moffatt
 * Dennis Wilson and his first cousin once removed, Shawn Marie Love
 * John A. Winston and his first cousin, Mary Agness Jones
 * Henry Winthrop and his first cousin Elizabeth Fones

Y
 * Annie Henrietta Yule, breeder of Arab horses at Hanstead Stud in England, and her cousin Sir David Yule, 1st Baronet, Scottish business based in British India

Chopin and Tytus Woyciechowski
Several letters of 1829–30 from Chopin to Tytus Woyciechowski (who by then had moved to his rural estate at Poturzyn, 300 kilometers southeast of Warsaw) contain brief expressions of affection which have been interpreted by some, including journalist Moritz Weber (who also mentions Chopin's letters to Jan Matuszyński and Antoni Wodziński), as homoerotic. Chopin biographer Adam Zamoyski writes that such expressions "were, and to some extent still are, common currency in Polish, and carry no greater implication than the 'love concluding letters today. "The spirit of the times, pervaded by the Romantic movement in art and literature, favoured extreme expression of feeling ... Whilst the possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, it is unlikely that the two were ever lovers." Another Chopin biographer, Alan Walker, is "much inclined to doubt ... whether there might have been a passing homosexual affair between Tytus and Chopin. [N]ot a single letter from Tytus to Chopin has survived. Tytus was, in any case, a reluctant recipient of overt declarations of love, as Chopin's side of the correspondence confirms." Walker surmises that, in reality, Chopin's more ebullient words to Tytus reflected Chopin's infatuation with the teen soprano Konstancja Gładkowska, whom "he could not summon up the courage to declare himself to".


 * Nihil novi (talk) 02:04, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Several letters of 1829–30 from Chopin to Tytus Woyciechowski (who by then had moved to his rural estate at Poturzyn, 300 kilometers southeast of Warsaw) contain brief expressions of affection which have been interpreted by some, including journalist Moritz Weber (who also mentions Chopin's letters to Jan Matuszyński and Antoni Wodziński), as homoerotic. Chopin biographer Adam Zamoyski writes that such expressions "were, and to some extent still are, common currency in Polish, and carry no greater implication than the 'love concluding letters today. "The spirit of the times, pervaded by the Romantic movement in art and literature, favoured extreme expression of feeling ... Whilst the possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, it is unlikely that the two were ever lovers." Another Chopin biographer, Alan Walker, is "much inclined to doubt ... whether there might have been a passing homosexual affair between Tytus and Chopin. [N]ot a single letter from Tytus to Chopin has survived. Tytus was, in any case, a reluctant recipient of overt declarations of love, as Chopin's side of the correspondence confirms. It seems far more likely that Chopin wrote these and similar passages in an exalted frame of mind when, in the seclusion of his sanctuary in the Krasiński Palace, he put pen to paper and gave free rein to his adolescent fantasies.... If Chopin's 'confession' to Tytus in October 1829 is to be taken at face value, the image of Konstancja [Gładkowska] could rarely have been absent from his thoughts during his six-week tour of Vienna, Prague, and Dresden made earlier in the year. By the time he had returned to Warsaw, in September 1829, with such accolades as 'pianist of the front rank' bestowed on him by the Viennese press, his position had been transformed. Yet his newfound confidence did not extend to his private life and he could not summon up the courage to declare himself to Konstancja." Indeed, as late as 1832, in France, Chopin wrote of Konstancja in his diary: "Her image is continually before my eyes... sometimes I think I no longer love her, yet I cannot get her out of my head."


 * Nihil novi (talk) 20:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

=Miscellanea=
 * https://booksfrompoland.pl/news/prof-ewa-thompson-wins-the-transatlantyk-prize/
 * Nihil novi (talk) 22:35, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

=Licensing and attribution of Wikisource translations= In 2018 a very substantial translation of mine, bearing my real name, was deleted from Wikisource, without my being contacted, because it bore a GFDL license rather than a CC BY-SA 3.0 or 4.0 license.

If 3.0 licenses are discontinued in favor of 4.0 + GFDL, will provision be made to automatically upgrade current 3.0 pages to 4.0 + GFDL, so that more pages are not deleted without the authors' knowledge; or at least to notify the authors of planned deletions?

Is there a way I could consult appropriate staff about any possibility of restoring my deleted page? When I contacted a Wikisource staffer, I was informed that its resuscitation would require substituting "Translated by Wikisource" in place of my real name. I'm willing to contribute Wikipedia texts anonymously, but I feel that translators should, if they wish to, be allowed to contribute translations to Wikisource under their real names, and I would be glad to present my arguments for that.

Could I please be contacted at my Wikipedia talk page, if there should be any responses to my questions?

Thank you.

Nihil novi (talk) 07:05, 23 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The above is from: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use#Licensing_and_attribution_of_Wikisource_translations

=Sand's description of Chopin's creative process= "Chopin", 19 Jan. 2011, 5:28: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin&oldid=408733002#George_Sand

During the summers at Nohant, particularly in the years 1839–43, Chopin found quiet but productive days during which he composed many works. They included his Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53, the "Heroic", one of his most famous pieces. It is to Sand that we owe the most compelling description of Chopin's creative processes—of the rise of his inspirations and of their painstaking working-out, sometimes amid real torments, amid weeping and complaints, with hundreds of changes in the initial concept, only to return to the initial idea.[Jachimecki, p. 424] She describes an evening with their friend Delacroix in attendance:

Nihil novi (talk) 07:11, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Dr. Le
I am deeply impressed by optometrist Ms. Tram Le, O.D., who examined my vision, using the most up-to-date equipment and techniques, showed me pictures of the insides of my eyes and explained their features and functions, most patiently educated me and answered my questions, and gave me appropriate referrals. I would like every health-care professional to be as competent, personable, and disarming as Dr. Le, and I highly recommend her.

Nihil novi (talk) 03:16, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Translators' names
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Xd5033x5pjs6vd3b

Removing things from the realm of philosophy

 * Nagel, Thomas, "Leader of the Martians" (review of M.W. Rowe, J.L. Austin: Philosopher and D-Day Intelligence Officer, Oxford, May 2023, ISBN 978 0 19 870758 5, 660 pp.), London Review of Books, vol. 45, no. 17 (7 September 2023), pp. 9–10. "I [the reviewer, Thomas Nagel] was one of Austin's last students..." (p. 10.) A quotation from Austin: "Is it not possible that the next century may see the birth... of a true and comprehensive science of language? Then we shall have rid ourselves of one more part of philosophy... in the only way we ever can get rid of philosophy, by kicking it upstairs." (p. 10.)

Nihil novi (talk) 06:31, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

J.S. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier

 * tinyurl.com/JSB-WTC-RLW

Nihil novi (talk) 03:33, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

=Pope Francis= https://www.bbc.com/news/world-67005362

Climate change: Pope Francis warns world 'may be nearing breaking point'

The pope also warned against placing too much hope in carbon capture technologies, suggesting that was akin to "papering over the cracks."

"To suppose that all problems in the future will be able to be solved by new technical interventions is a form of homicidal pragmatism, like pushing a snowball down a hill," he said.

"To the powerful, I can only repeat this question: 'What would induce anyone, at this stage, to hold on to power, only to be remembered for their inability to take action when it was urgent and necessary to do so?'"

Nihil novi (talk) 16:16, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

=Economic sanctions= Krugman, Paul, "The American Way of Economic war: Is Washington Overusing Its Most Powerful Weapons?" (review of Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy, Henry Holt, 2023, 288 pp.), Foreign Affairs, vol. 103, no. 1 (January/February 2024), pp. 150–156. "The [U.S.] dollar is one of the few currencies that almost all major banks will accept, and... the most widely used... As a result, the dollar is the currency that many companies must use... to do international business." (p. 150.) "[L]ocal banks facilitating that trade... normally... buy U.S. dollars and then use dollars to buy [another local currency]. To do so, however, the banks must have access to the U.S. financial system and... follow rules laid out by Washington." (pp. 151–152.) "But there is another, lesser-known reason why the [U.S.] commands overwhelming economic power. Most of the world's fiber-optic cables, which carry data and messages around the planet, travel through the United States." (p. 152.) "[T]he U.S. government has installed 'splitters': prisms that divide the beams of light carrying information into two streams. One... goes on to the intended recipients, ... the other goes to the National Security Agency, which then uses high-powered computation to analyze the data. As a result, the [U.S.] can monitor almost all international communication." (p. 154) This has allowed the U.S. "to effectively cut Iran out of the world financial system... Iran's economy stagnated... Eventually, Tehran agreed to cut back its nuclear programs in exchange for relief." (pp. 153–154.) "[A] few years ago, American officials... were in a panic about [the Chinese company] Huawei... which... seemed poised to supply 5G equipment to much of the planet [thereby possibly] giv[ing] China the power to eavesdrop on the rest of the world – just as the [U.S.] has done.... The [U.S.] learned that Huawei had been dealing surreptitiously with Iran – and therefore violating U.S. sanctions. Then, it... used its special access to information on international bank data to [show] that [Huawei]'s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou (... the founder's daughter), had committed bank fraud by falsely telling the British financial services company HSBC that her company was not doing business with Iran. Canadian authorities, acting on a U.S. request, arrested her... in December 2018. After... almost three years under house arrest... Meng... was allowed to return to China... But by [then] the prospects for Chinese dominance of 5G had vanished..." (pp. 154–155.) Farrell and Newman, writes Krugman, "are worried about the possibility of [U.S. Underground Empire] overreach. [I]f the [U.S.] weaponizes the dollar against too many countries, they might... band together and adopt alternative methods of international payment. If countries become deeply worried about U.S. spying, they could lay fiber-optic cables that bypass the [U.S.]. And if Washington puts too many restrictions on American exports, foreign firms might turn away from U.S. technology." (p. 155.)

Nihil novi (talk) 22:25, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

=PUWFiPW= County Offices of Physical Education and Military Training (Powiatowe Urzędy Wychowania Fizycznego i Przysposobienia Wojskowego, or PUWFiPW)   (in "Edmund Charaszkiewicz")

Nihil novi (talk) 23:42, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

=Beekeeping, sentience, sociology, outgroups=
 * Knight, Sam, "Hive Mind: Is beekeeping wrong?", The New Yorker, 28 August 2023, pp. 26–30, 32. Natural beekeepers leave their bees alone. They seldom treat for disease – allowing the weaker colonies to fail – and they raise the survivors in conditions... as close as possible to tree cavities." (p. 27.) "Last year, the U.K. passed legislation that recognized animals as sentient beings, capable of feeling pain and joy. So far, the bill dignifies vertebrates, decapod crustaceans... and cephalopods... but not a single conscious bee." (p. 29.) "According to the B.B.K.A. [British Beekeepers Association], about a third of British beekeepers did not treat their bees for varroa [mites] last year. 'There's a phenomenon in sociology where, when you've got a very small out-group, nobody cares... When that immigrant population or whatever hits a certain threshold, they are perceived as a threat.'" (p. 32.)
 * Nihil novi (talk) 10:01, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

=noted, observed - are they really not neutral?= https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch&oldid=1235869543#noted,_observed_-_are_they_really_not_neutral?

I was under the impression those terms are neutral synonyms for said. @Nihil novi Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:42, 12 July 2024 (UTC)


 * [...]


 * The English verb "to note", which derives from the Latin noun "nota" (“mark, sign, remark, note”), is cognate with the English adjective "notable", which derives from the Latin "notabilis" ("noteworthy, extraordinary").
 * Use of the verb "to note" thus suggests that its object is unusual or particularly remarkable.
 * Different English "synonyms", such as "to note", "to observe", and "to say", carry different connotations and are best reserved for their respective linguistic ecological niches.
 * Best,
 * Nihil novi (talk) 17:16, 21 July 2024 (UTC)