==================================================================== P I G U L K I an occasional electronic collection of news analysis, press reviews, and humor from/about Poland and the Polish community abroad ____________________________________________________________________ May 15 1995 ISSN 1060-9288 Number 19 ____________________________________________________________________ In this issue: Editorial LODZ SPRING ................................. Dave Phillips Polish Affairs THE FALL OF THE GOVERNMENT .................. Marek Cypryk IN THE WORLD OF INTENSIFIED SCHIZOPHRENIA ... Jan Krzysztof Bielecki interviewed by Teresa Toranska VE DAY, 50 YEARS LATER ...................... Radek Sikorski Networks POLAND: OPEN TO THE WORLD OR THE WORLD'S BACKYARD? - an appeal to Poland's legislature POLISH NETWORKING ISSUES 1995 ............... Jack Tuszynski POLAND-ELECTRONIC CONTACTS................... Rafal Maszkowski / Marek Zielinski Po Prostu LEAVING THE BARBED WIRE BEHIND .............. Dave Phillips Letters to the Editors INTERNET FOR HIGH SCHOOLS (IdS) ............. Jacek Gajewski The back page TRAVELOG: The Sabbath on Bald Mountain (1/3) Jurek Klimkowski Notes on Contributors About PIGULKI ======================================================================== Editorial LODZ SPRING Early this February (1995), a small flower bud poked its head up through the chilly soil of late winter in Poland. PDi, Limited (Public Internet Access) began its operation on a pair of Pentium machines running Linux, offering shell and PPP accounts to the people of Lodz. Unlike Warsaw, which is served by the internet service of emigre businessman turned quack politico Tyminski, there is no "X" factor here. The principals are a mix of people from Lodz - some of whom stayed in Lodz during the 80s, some of whom left and who were active from abroad in bringing the Net to Poland in the wake of the Round Table - and other Poles contacted during the days of the EARN/Poland Link Coordinating Committee. Solidarnosc supporters and net activist-scientists, a good combination to provide Lodz with a gateway to the new world of information in an information-intensive global economy. Contrary to the "Warsaw in the Polish desert" centralizing tendencies in telecom which are a legacy both of old agrarian Poland and of communist Poland, PDi represents a private initiative for regional economic development. In addition to offering students, professionals, and other citizens of Lodz affordable net connectivity, PDi's Centre of Europe Showcase (worldwide web server) offers Lodz a chance to position itself in cyberspace as a place to invest, to create jobs, and for tourists to visit. It also allows Lodz firms a chance to make new business contacts, and to acquaint themselves with trends in the West, new tech, opinions, market trends, especially as more and more cutting-edge trade journals and presses are making their first forays onto the web. With luck PDi may not only help improve access to information, but help stimulate new uses for this information, especially business-to-business. Provided, of course, that the bureaucrats in Warsaw, surveying their "provinces," are not allowed to meddle in the building of new information infrastructures in Poland. We want a thousand flowers to bloom in Poland, not just ragweed. A concerned Polonia can help make sure that late frosts don't stunt Poland's growth. For the editors, Dave Phillips ======================================================================== Polish Affairs By Marek Cypryk THE FALL OF THE GOVERNMENT Another Polish government has fallen. Here is a short summary of its achievements and failures. The main scope of evaluation is the economy (Table 1). Gross National Product (GNP) increased by 5% and was 4% larger than in 1990. This means Poland's economy is out of the recession which was caused mainly by structural transformation. Products Sold increased by 11.9%, of which the government-owned sector showed a 5.8% increase, and the private sector a 22.7% increase. The share of the private sector in the whole economy increased from 35% to 38%. Exports rose by 17.8%, imports by 13.7% and the foreign trade deficit was $4.3 billion (4.3E+9) ($4.7 billion in 1993). The budget deficit was 5.9 billion Zloty (*) (2.8%, the same as in 1993) and was less than the predicted 5%. Productivity increased by 14%. Inflation was 29.5% according to GUS (Central Office of Statistics) and 33.2% according to CUP (Central Planning Office). Unemployment decreased for the first time in 4 years. Table 1. Changes in Poland's Economy 1994 v. 1993 Category 1994 1993 ===================== ======= ======= Gross National Product + 5.0% +3.8% Products Sold +11.9% +6.2% Private sector: +22.7% Public sector: + 5.8% Private Sector Share in overall economy 38% 35% Budget Deficit 2.8% 2.8% Foreign Trade Deficit US$4.3bn US$4.7bn Productivity +14% Inflation per GUS: 29.5% per CUP: 33.2% The economic indicators are therefore very good. One has to remember, however, that there is a considerable lag between economic decisions and their results, and the good state of the economy should be credited to the governments of Balcerowicz and Osiatynski. One also has to praise, however, Borowski and Kolodko, finance ministers and architects of the economic policy in Pawlak's government, for not damaging the results of their predecessors. It happened only because the election promises of SLD and PSL (which were entirely unrealistic) were broken. The most serious criticism of Pawlak's budget is that it increased. As a result of tax rate increases, the government share in redistribution of GNP rose, intensifying state interventionism. We have one of the largest VAT rates (22%). The compulsory Social Security tax rate is about 50% of the salary. Personal income tax has three brackets: 21%, 33% and 45%, shown in Table 2. The distribution of income also shown in Table 2 indicates the poverty of our society, and weakness of our middle class. Table 2. Personal Income Tax and Income Distribution, Poland Income Bracket % of Poles Tax Rate U.S.$ Income Equiv. ============== ========== ======== ================ to 12,400 zl/yr 90.5% 21% to US$ 5,000 to 24,800 zl/yr 8.0% 33% to US$10,000 above 24,800 zl/yr 1.5% 45% above US$10,000 The results are much less impressive in the area of restructuring, a necessary element of the transformation of the political system from Communism to a free market. * Privatization has almost stopped, mainly by the hands of PSL * Reprivatization, the necessary ordering of ownership, did not move forward. * The reform of local self-government (communes, districts, voivodships) slowed to a halt, as did the reform of the structure of the government (mainly due to Minister Strak of PSL). * Social Security reform has not even begun, which threatens a future budget breakdown. * The conflict around the Foreign Affairs Ministry and Minister Olechowski demonstrated an unclear and conflicting understanding of the Polish raison d'etat. As far as the last topic is concerned, it is suggested that the governing coalition is interested in concessions towards Russia, in return for growth in trade. It is said that PSL is especially interested in such a turn, hoping for an increase of the agricultural exports to Russia. The stance of SLD is also ambivalent, which can be seen in presenting Longin Pastusiak, former propaganda specialist in PZPR, known from hostile and full of false texts about NATO, as a candidate for the Defense Minister. In recent days, economic indicators have worsened, and one can see a strong inflation impulse, which has not been explained by the government. I personally expect it to be mainly the result of the faulty agricultural policy forced by PSL. To summarize, I believe PSL was unmistakably the worse partner in this coalition. It had no cadres prepared for governing the country, and the politics of its leaders (Pawlak, Strak, Podkanski and Pek) was ruled mainly by the narrowly understood interest of the Agrarian party, not the society as a whole. In short term it was to the advantage of individual farmers, the electorate of PSL, but in the long run it deepens the backwardness of the farming districts. It may appear paradoxical that the agrarian party of individual farmers would be for strong state interventionism, and against privatization and decentralization. It turns out that entrepreneurs can be against free market and competition (**). It results from overcrowding of the countryside, excessive fragmentation of the farm properties and low productivity, and also from innate conservatism of farmers. Economic freedom is a deadly threat for them. They naturally choose the protectionist poverty, at the expense of the consumers working in other sectors of the economy. The conflict between the two essentially socialdemocratic parties, SLD and PSL, can therefore be seen as a reflection of the conflict of interests between the city dwellers and farmers. And here, into this more and more frustrating relationship enters the President, with his typical lack of deference. Walesa threatened (without basis in law) to dissolve parliament and achieved his goal to the point that the internal conflicts of the coalition, hidden until now, became public. Pawlak resigned, and the formation of the new government was conferred on the house Speaker Oleksy (SLD). Oleksy is not well liked by the president nor by PSL, which might want to have its revenge for the fall of their party boss. Thence Oleksy's problems in completing the cabinet. Eventually, the new government was sworn in. Oleksy is known as middle ground politician, reasonable and willing to compromise. The composition of his cabinet is a result of a compromise as well. It is not a Dream Team, but he managed to get rid of the worst ministers of Pawlak's cabinet: Strak, Podkanski and Smietanka (all from PSL). Already on the first day in office Oleksy nominated the chief of police, a decision Pawlak could not make in 8 months. Oleksy will have to show considerable skill in steering a middle course between Scylla (Walesa) and Charybda (Pawlak). I would not be surprised if the life of his government was short. An alternative for Oleksy's cabinet, at least in theory, was a proposal presented by Unia Wolnosci to form a non-partisan government. The proposal was not realistic, though, with the intensity of ambitions and touchiness of the politicians. The so called "right," enslaved by its slogans of decommunization, cannot agree to cooperate with post- communist parties. The ruling coalition cannot accept such a cabinet either, since it would mean admitting to incompetence and defeat in spite having a majority in the parliament. The liberals do not accept the economic policy promoted by PSL, SLD and the better part of the "right", which in essence also preaches socialdemocratic ideas. And X will not talk to Y, since they quarreled once and will not agree to sit in the same cabinet. More and more often one can hear talk of advance parliamentary elections. In connection with coming presidential elections we can expect a lot of commotion, but not much good for the country. After five years of reconstruction we achieved as much, that the majority of the society is against economic reforms, fearing worsening of their situation (farmers, workers in big state enterprises), and is also not too enthusiastic about democracy, seeing inefficiency, incompetence and the pursuit of private interests by politicians. If there is a minimal acceptance of the reforms, it is only in the sense of the necessary evil. Enthusiasm and optimism have evaporated completely. Marek Cypryk Translated by Marek Zielinski -------------------- (*) 1 Zloty = 10,000 Old Zl; 1$ = 2.4 Zl (**) Or, perhaps, not so paradoxical - in the US even the big farming companies are for state interventionism, since they are its biggest beneficiaries. ======================================================================== Polish Affairs Teresa Toranska IN THE WORLD OF INTENSIFIED SCHIZOPHRENIA Excerpts from an interview with Jan Krzysztof Bielecki Teresa Toranska authored the bestseller "ONI" (THEY), a series of interviews with the most prominent Polish leaders of the Communist era. Her new book is titled "MY" (WE). She had numerous conversations with the architects of the present system: Balcerowicz, Bielecki, Kaczynski, Kulerski, Merkel, Rulewski, Szczepaniak. Reprinted with permission below is a portion of her interview with Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, who served as Poland's Prime Minister during 1991. Bielecki: The funniest scene? Kohl and me. He's a big guy, isn't he? 130 kg. And me - half his height and weight. He is so earnest and I... (laugh). We are marching in front of the guard of honor. Toranska: And what did you tell him? Bielecki: "Aren't we marching?" in German. He looked at me in astonishment and I'm not sure whether he understood the comicality of this scene. **************************************************** T: You told me during our first conversation that you never wished to be a politician. That "I don't want to but I have to" although it's somebody else's saying. B: I said I am a man who found himself in politics out of a sense of responsibility since the situation was such that it indeed seemed that I had to, it seemed to me I had to. And now I don't have to. Now (laugh) I can spend some time in London. T: As an economist? B: I can be what I like. T: Don't you regret? Since you grew a lot during that incomplete year of being the prime minister. B: Is it a question? T: A statement. B: Since it is an interesting thread for me. T: You know? B: Janusz Lewandowski has already told me, so I'm not very surprised. Janusz is my friend. I have known him for twenty years and over those entire twenty years Janusz has regarded me with boundless irony. T: He's one month older, isn't he? B: He's one month younger and studied one year lower. But Janusz had come to Gdansk University as a top of his class from Lublin, later he became one of the most prominent students, during studies he greatly developed himself and when we were meeting as university Assistants at physical training for scientific workers, Assistant Lewandowski looked at Assistant Bielecki, mildly speaking, mockingly. When I stopped being prime minister he announced to me that I jumped over myself ten times which, on the one hand, confirms your thesis but on the other is a bad testimony for Poland. Since it means that Poland is a country with no competition. Since learning should take place at school. T: And you, what were you like then? B: Do you want serious or funny? T: First funny. B: So from the army. During Military Training I became famous for the greatest absurdities. When I found that the army was a totally nonsensical but unavoidable episode in life, I decided that it should be treated as amusement. Cleaning lavatories was regarded as the highest punishment by my dear officers, so I volunteered for it during each camp. Another punishment, applied when they wanted to torment or tease some student, was crawling in full kit that is chemical coat and a gas mask making breathing difficult. So I reported to my favorite major asking if I could practice the problem: an individual soldier attacking, during the break. He agreed, so I put on all that stuff and the whole 20 minutes of the breakfast break I was jumping, running, falling. But after the fourth year of studies I was promoted platoon commander, to some extent following the principle that when the most insubordinate soldier becomes a leader he will maintain discipline. Then I implemented my own military orders. For instance: one, two, three, four, a record! And the platoon, singing "sparrows have been chirping since the early morning, chirrup! where are you going, Mary darling" marched into the canteen. The officer of the day jumped out and ordered us to drill instead of eating dinner. T: What's your military rank? B: I'm a reserve Second Lieutenant. T: Walesa is only a corporal. B: I've always maintained that not only is talent of importance in Poland, as the President holds, but also qualifications. Therefore when during the officer's examination I was ordered: Show us, Cadet, the longest river in Poland, I pointed out to some river with great hesitation, and when they told me: and now, Cadet, point out Kwidzyn on the map, and we were in Kwidzyn at the moment and I couldn't find it for a long time and my officers liked it very much. T: Because they knew? B: Just so. They knew and were better than I, almost M.A. in economy, so they felt successful. T: And now seriously, what are you like? B: Seriously, the problem in my case is quite simple. There are people who, when in difficult situation in life, and this situation concerns different forms of life, i.e. sport, professional work, politics - start to complain about their fate. And there are people who reach their summit, I'll say proudly. I, God forbid, don't think too much of myself, but whatever I do in my life, I try to do my best and to learn with maximum speed. Once, in 1987, I was fascinated by the Pope's pronouncement on Westerplatte, which corresponded exactly with my ideology for my own use. The Pope said, addressing the youth and trying to restore their moral sanity, something like that everybody has his or her Westerplatte in life, a battle one must take up, doings one cannot withdraw from, when regardless of the consequences one must be simply... good, let's say. T: As a prime minister you... were? B: You see, now, in retrospect, I think that I wasn't so bad, anyway. T: So who was the worst? B: The one who did nothing, that is, Pawlak in his 33 days. And do you know what I'm most pleased at? That I deprived all our subsequent ex- prime ministers of insignia of power. I deprived them of their lifelong right to a guarding officer, a driver, official car, salary, flat they had... T: and yourself as well B: and that's O.K. Although I realize that on the whole as a prime minister I turned out to be the next example of being moderately efficient in home affairs and extremely efficient outside. That is, foreign affairs were managed in quite a short time while the home ones - not. T: By turns. After Walesa's election for the president first you were to be not the Prime Minister, but the minister of industry in the first, Olszewski's government, assembled by him in December 1990. B: There was such a suggestion. T: And you didn't want to? B: It didn't seem to be very concrete. However, I had an impression that people who were forming that government were a group of persons who wanted power very much, but it wasn't quite clear to me - why. After a year, when they had it at last it could be clearly seen. They lacked a program. T: And you had it? B: First: if I consequently strove for gaining power T: like Olszewski afterwards, didn't he? B: then, however, - I will take revenge on him, that's it! - I would have something to say; second: liberals had had a clear program, we were coming with our definition of privatization, knowing it should be carried out. In addition, I was coming with understanding of problems in microscale, microeconomy, understanding of problems at the level of enterprises which, with Balcerowicz who was an expert in macro, could result in not the worst combination. And third: don't forget that really I became the prime minister by accident. T: What did your mother say? B: Mother? Nothing. She was depressed. T: Why? B: Because I was taking such a disaster on my head. She was terrified. T: Didn't she ask you : don't take it? B: Certainly not! My family never discussed things with me in this way. I made all my life decisions on my own and I never regretted them. And my biography has been quite complicated. Studying in Sweden I washed windows, a hundred a night and I worked as a waiter's helper; I built pipeline in the Soviet Union; in 1983, when I lost work, I started to deliver wood. My biography consists of constant wandering, either forced by life or resulting from my conscious choice. And the situations I was in required taking lots of decisions. I took them often against reason, basing only on my conviction that it was necessary. So everybody virtually got used to the fact that any family disputes about me would be in vain and the only thing they could do was not to disturb me. T: Why you? B: Ask the President. T: So on what conditions? B: There were no conditions. T: Oh, no. Firstly: you came with the wave of great promises made by Walesa, shall I count? B: I'll confess to you that assuming this function I didn't think in terms of promises but in the context of economic program presented by Walesa during his election campaign which I created to some extent. T: Secondly: you were to be a buffer. B: (Smile) Walesa had sort of this conception then, indeed. Afterwards, after having appointed Olszewski's government, he recalled it again, saying that "I will change governments like buffers", so Olszewski's government was to be the next "buffer" case. T: What was the point? In Polish, please. B: Walesa imagined that he would appoint a government to be controlled manually, with leaders coming and going, and Walesa would change them freely. However, it wasn't the case with me. T: You weren't the first one? B: As you know, one shouldn't regard Walesa's words emotionally. One should establish in what his conception lies really, who has what sovereignty in the process of decision taking. I myself deeply believe, anyway, that he acts calmly and is a man who very often is able to take not only good decisions but also to see the development of a situation properly. I can say that I had been given great freedom since the very beginning and there were virtually no attempts of intervention on his side into the matters of importance for me. [...] T: This is what Geremek said about you immediately after you were appointed: "Advocates of acceleration had announced a radical airing of Warsaw, but it appears that the gust blew through Gdansk." Of course he meant it to be caustic. B: Listen, when I took over the office of Prime Minister, I had a completely different view about interpersonal relations. Before, it's true, I had met many people whom I exasperated by my manner - in their opinion it was somewhat unserious, who didn't accept my style of speech - disjointed sentences, allusions, who were irritated by my jokes - they're quite silly sometimes, I'll admit, but I never had enemies. I never had any implacable enemies. And all of a sudden it turned out that people weren't indifferent to me any more and that there are those who, with a vehemence worthy of a better cause, are beginning to suspect me, often completely disinterestedly, of the worst things - of bad intentions, log-rolling, shady business. You know, for me it was an extraordinary discovery. I suddenly saw this whole company, I saw how twisted, broken, and full of mutual mistrust it really was - a world of heightened schizophrenia, to put it bluntly. T: You didn't see it during nearly two years that you spent earlier as a member of parliament ? B: To tell you the truth, I didn't. I didn't really have the time. I commuted from Gdansk to Warsaw, actively participated in the proceedings of two parliamentary committees, involved myself very deeply in the preparation of the joint venture and radio & television acts. I travelled extensively all over the world because all of a sudden you were allowed to do so. In addition I directed the Gdansk consulting co-operative "Doradca" that I had set up in the mid- eighties. And I knew the parliamentary scene from television -Western television that is: guys fiercely fight against each other in parliament and then go out together, smiling, for dinner. Over there, the rhetoric of the parliamentary game doesn't affect one's private life. Maybe this is so because in a political world which has been ordered since time immemorial every advance upwards - by a centimeter, even half a step - is extremely difficult, requires hard work, years of soliciting, moving up successive rungs, which -firstly -teaches how to govern a state and conduct macro-style politics, and such knowledge can be gained only through practice, secondly - limits ambitions and a guy who came to parliament yesterday isn't even allowed to think that tomorrow he'll be appointed prime minister, and - thirdly - teaches the forms of competition, most probably how to be ruthless as well, but also hypocrisy, I suspect. Over here, in turn, promotion from ordinary parliamentarian to prime minister appears to be practically obvious (smile), I think we've already had about four repetitions of this during our short history, and over here all this happens through wars that aren't local, but total. T: Because if an electrician became president, everyone can? B: It was different: this crazy Walesa came to power, such an odd historical quirk, nothing more, and he pulled along with him a certain number of chance persons, though as we read in Jacek Kuron's book, Spoko, it's well known who had rendered the greatest services in this country, who fought for our dear Poland for 20 years, and who would be able to build it. What is more, I read in this book about, for example, activities that I knew very well and institutions in which I had worked for tens of hours, but I'm not mentioned, I'm not at all present in this book. It isn't therefore just a question of Walesa's career, it's a whole row of careers, which - according to many - are undeserved. In my opinion, it's a sort of Bielecki complex - to put it immodestly - that boils down to two matters. First of all: why did Bielecki, and not I, become prime minister; secondly: if Bielecki could, so can I. In particular this second complex concerned my colleagues who later on compared themselves to me, since, of course, they knew me very well and often made ironic comments about my abilities. Michnik also once said to me: you know very well that this Liberals' Congress of yours doesn't stand a chance in Poland, it doesn't count at all that it's humbug. T: But wasn't it ? B: It was and it wasn't. It wasn't because the party had it's own program, three years of activities, though in fact it did have few members. T: Donald Tusk assured that you'll do fine with two thousand. B: It was due to this freaked out Gdansk way of looking at reality. Due to the conviction that the party's members ought to be united not only by political interests, but also by mutual understanding and the belief in similar ideals. I don't know what was most important for us then: ideals or the conviction that the Congress is a group of very different personalities, who keep and respect their individual character. T: And it was ... B: And it was in the sense that we came from the street, and not from any posts in the Civil Service, especially not from the higher echelons. We came from Gdansk and for the politicians in Warsaw this was tantamount to "province" and, as we all know, the provinces are a barren desert. What's more, I received my appointment unexpectedly, I didn't think I was all that well prepared for this role - I didn't make a secret of this - and during the first period we had to have a close look at how the government as such functions. That's why, when you ask about Balcerowicz, my answer is - yes, I wanted to work with both Leszek Balcerowicz and Krzysztof Skubiszewski. For me, Balcerowicz - on the one hand, and Skubiszewski - on the other, they were the two experienced pillars that, as I thought, would give the image and work tempo to my government. Although, of course, I realized that this will be interpreted as a continuation of the previous economic policy, and not as a breakthrough, as Walesa had announced and what his electorate awaited. This was well received abroad, but negatively within the country. [...] Translated from Polish by Joanna Horowska and Maciej Zakrzewski ======================================================================== Polish Affairs By Radek Sikorski V-E DAY 50 YEARS LATER [Editors' note: the following article has also appeared in National Review.] 'Peace!!!' a leather-clad youth, his face contorted with anger, screamed three inches from a policeman's nose. We were a stone's throw away from the neo-classical Neue Wache, Berlin's equivalent of the tomb of the unknown soldier. (In fact, we were just outside the stone-throwing range; In anticipation of a riot, closer access had been forbidden by Germany's constitutional court the day before.) Official Berlin was preparing to receive several dozen heads of state to commemorate the end of the Second World War. The Neue Wache was the site of the alternative commemoration. The 2000 strong rally gathered the full range of Berlin's Leftists: from the neatly dressed, goofy Greens, to the riot-prone 'autonomes,' Germany's ultra anarchists. The youth I was observing was one of the radicals. Suddenly, he raised his fist and punched the policeman in the face. The policeman punched him back. At this, several bystanders lunged at the officer yelling slogans against police violence. For the first time in my life I found myself on the side of a German in uniform. Their generally odious appearance apart, the protesters had a point. The Neue Wache had served the same purpose since the times of the Weimar republic. Photographs show the fuehrer paying his respects to the German dead of World War One there. It also used to be attended by the leaders of the peace-loving regime of the German Democratic Republic. Bronze plaques appeared on it a couple of years ago stating which dead it is politically correct to honour there. But the monument is inherently ambiguous. With the passing away of living memory, it may well come to be regarded as a tribute to all the dead of the various wars, the innocent victims and the aggressors alike. At a time when 200 conservative German intellectuals issued a manifesto against forgetting, by which they meant the forgetting of the suffering of innocent Germans, it should have been easy for those who remember the distinction to get onto the moral high ground. The left managed to spoil it. I talked to a neat young man in a track- suit, a Cleveland Indians baseball cap and a portrait of Che Guevara on the back of a ruck-sack. He was holding the banner of the 'Bolshevik Youth': 'Glory to the Red Army which defeated Nazism under the leadership of comrade Stalin.' - Do you think comrade Stalin was a man of peace? I enquired. - He defeated Hitler, that's what counts. - He also murdered millions of his own people. - That's what the bourgeois press says, but I don't believe it. - What if it's true? You would be like those Germans who did not want to believe in the concentration camps, wouldn't you? - If they were capitalists and defended the system then perhaps they deserved to be killed. If those were the only people who remembered German guilt, one would have to be worried. Fortunately, confused teenagers are not alone in keeping alive the memory of the rights and wrongs of the past. Despite the fears at the time of the German unification, the middle ground of German politics has held firmly on the side of respect for the truth. Instances of revisionism are firmly thumped by the establishment: the dubious manifesto was criticized by newspaper editors, the churches and most politicians. The orthodoxy - that by being conquered the Germans were liberated from Nazi tyranny - is firmly upheld. That orthodoxy, celebrating your country's defeat as the day of liberation, is inherently ambiguous, but on the whole the Germans have managed to carry it off. The one blind spot they seem to have and the one jarring note in the Berlin commemorations was the absence, noted extensively in the German media, of the Polish president, Lech Walesa, who publicly demanded an invitation to Berlin and was turned down by Chancellor Kohl. Poland, the first country to resist Hitler, made the fourth largest military contribution to the war effort, spawned no organized collaboration with the Nazis, had an underground state second to none, and suffered six million casualties, half of them Jewish. At the end of the war, it passed under Communist rule from which it did not emerge until 1989. There was little to celebrate in 1945 and commemorations were again low-key now. In Berlin, I watched a lonely Pole standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate and waving at the official limousines on their way to the ceremonies with a huge Polish flag stuck on a wind- surfing pole. 'Fifty years ago, there was a Polish flag on this gate; Our soldiers liberated Tiergarten and the Polytechnic!' he yelled. 'Now, they've betrayed us again,' he told me. 'First, they didn't help us when Hitler invaded, then they sold us to Stalin at Yalta, and now they let the Germans not invite Walesa,' he argued, his anger directed more at the West for allowing Germany to get away with it. Most of the people who came up to him were Germans, he said, all of them with words of support. But the official insult has awakened the worst Polish fears. Germany's repeated assurances of a desire for a German-Polish reconciliation on the model of the one with France, now look threadbare. The victim is having to beg to be recognized. At some level, we are untermenschen to the Germans still. It's a bad omen. Before the Nazis vented their fanaticism on the Jews, Bismarck had practised kulturkampf -cultural genocide - on the Poles. So, uncannily, the celebrations of the 50 anniversary of the war's end have resurrected the feelings at the end of the war itself: ambiguity in Germany, a sense of betrayal in Poland. Ambivalence also reigns in Russia. Just as it had done fifty years ago Moscow has appropriated the glory, downgrading the proportionately larger sacrifices of Ukraine and Belorus. Just like the victory in the Second World War saved Stalin's regime from possible internal collapse, so the commemoration of its anniversary might yet restore a sense of purpose to the Russia of Boris Yeltsin. And, just as fifty years ago Russians were ambivalent as to whether to regard Stalin as a bloody tyrant, or their deliverer from Nazism, so today, they are confused as to their Soviet legacy. Soviet symbols: the red flag over the Reichstag, the red star on the veterans' caps, stand for the one thing Russians can feel good about their country this century. But the latching onto the Soviet legacy of victory carries long term risks. It may be politically expedient for the embattled Yeltsin administration to bask in the reflected glory of Marshal Zhukov - the top Soviet commander in the war - but it will make it all the harder for the Russians to create a new post-imperial national identity for themselves. The fate of the statue to Marshal Zhukov makes the point well. Last year, the plan was to erect the Zhukov statue on the site of the Lenin mausoleum, which was to be demolished, the corpse sent for proper burial. But on VE Day Boris Yeltsin unveiled the statue on another side of the Red Square and he reviewed the veterans' parade from the top of the mausoleum, just as Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev had done. The mausoleum is probably here to stay. Thus the monuments to the two men: the founder of Russia's totalitarianism and her saviour from another one, will illustrate Russia's inability to come to terms with its past. Perhaps more surprisingly, the war's anniversary resurrected the past in Western capitals as well. Cleverly, the French staged a military parade without speeches, which not only lessened the tedium but also saved the poor dears from having to explain how they managed to launder themselves into one of the victorious allies and gain an occupation zone in Germany in spite of years of collaboration by Vichy officials such as the young Francois Mitterand. It was a subterfuge worthy of de Gaulle who, fifty years ago, managed to persuade American officials to let him into Paris when the gates were already open, so he could pretend that it was his forces that liberated it. The echoes are particularly poignant in Britain. Having lived in Britain for several years, I hardly saw public expressions of patriotism, except for the last night of the Promenade concerts, a not entirely serious occasion. Love of country, the joy in a sense of belonging, pride in national achievement, was for the little peoples. Flag waving was something one associated with football hooligans. Suddenly, patriotism was back in last week. In the week of VE Day, hardly a country pub remained free of union jacks; Friends who visited tell me that you could hardly move in Hyde Park for the throng of revellers. For several days, the air resounded with the tunes of sentimental war-time songs. The Royal Family, including some of the same members, showed itself to the jubilant crowds from the same Buckingham Palace balcony as 50 years ago. At St Paul's cathedral, which miraculously survived the blitz virtually unscathed, grandees of the Church of England, in their daily routines busy with such weighty matters as the rights and duties of lesbian priestesses, managed to strike chords of genuine pathos. The outpouring of emotions was part nostalgia of the older generation for their youth, part an attempt to relive the last time Britain played a world historical role and part a longing for an age of heroism. Unique among European countries, Britain celebrated the anniversary of VE-Day at peace with itself, its conscience as clear as it had been when she had fought the war. And yet, a sense of foreboding filled the op-ed pages of British newspapers, just as it had done 50 years before. As the historian Corelli Barnett put it, Britain could only have won a long war, but it could only afford a short one. Having mortgaged its national wealth to win, it then went on a spending spree and replaced the heroic Winston Churchill with a Labour government which was supposed to distribute the non-existent fruits of victory. Needless to say, the credit soon ran out and Britain faced economic collapse and starvation. Soon, the empire which the war was suppose to preserve, was gone. And today, just as in 1945, Britain may feel secure about its past, but it is again worried about its future. Then, it was the sense that the war was won but the peace was lost and Britain emerged from the war as a diminished power. Today, the unification of Europe questions the country's very identity. The monarchy, the constitutional union with Scotland, the common law, as well as the hard-won achievements of Thatcherism, are seen to be under threat. 'Did we fight on the beaches of Normandy only to see India go its own way?' has given way to 'Did we privatise our pensions, only to join the European single currency so as to finance other peoples' state pensions from our taxes?' As Norman Tebbit, a former chairman of the conservative party, put it 'I'll be wondering if those who died to keep us free, would have given their lives had they known we would be ruled by the Germans, Italians, Spaniards, the French and the rest only 50 years on.' But perhaps of all the celebrations around the world, the most surprising were the low-key ceremonies in America, the one World War Two combatant which could truly count itself a victor. America emerged from it as the leader of the Western world, its economy doubled in size, accounting for 40 per cent of the world's GDP. A Roman Caesar would be proud. Yet, Americans remain strangely detached from it, perhaps because it came so cheap. At 300,000 American casualties amounted to a third of just one Russian city -Leningrad. That, and the ignorance among people who should know better about what went on in Europe, also echo the past. I watched CNN's 30 second history of the Second World War. It was as good as a 30 seconds history can be, except that it used the current map of Europe, which must have left observant viewers perplexed as to how the Wermacht managed to attack Moscow by leaping over Poland and Belorus. This reminded me of a scene which I recently gleaned from my uncle's wartime memoirs. A teenager when the war broke out, he was plucked out of a concentration camp only to be subjected to medical experiments in a German hospital. When the Americans arrived, he greeted them in a crowd of slave labourers and camp survivors and was impressed with their neat uniforms, healthy appearance and smiling faces. But he also noticed that they seemed not to comprehend what the people whom they were liberating had gone through. They could hardly be bothered to acknowledge the cheering. When one of the soldiers threw down a cigarette butt and one of the wretched survivors picked it up, he had several camera lenses aimed at him. It was at that moment that my uncle, a decent, earnest, intelligent man, decided that he had more in common with the Russians, underdogs like himself. He went back to Poland and became a Communist. American ignorance can be frightening. So, do the commemorations prove that peoples learn nothing from their history? Not quite. Victors don't learn. Americans carry on as if they can always win effortlessly. The British are still perplexed not to be top dogs. The French still mourn their long lost glory. Russians treat Grozny as if it was 1945 Berlin. But the losers do learn. The Germans learned that they can't take on the world. The Jews learned that they need their own state. And the Poles now know that the West will always dump them. The money spent on the anniversary celebrations was well worth it. Radek Sikorski ======================================================================== Networks POLAND: OPEN TO THE WORLD OR THE WORLD'S BACKYARD? [An appeal to Polish Legislature, protesting the proposed amendment to the Communications Bill of Nov 23, 1990, presented in March 1995 with some 700 signatures - ed.] Today, sharper than ever since 1989, Polish Internet circles in Poland and abroad recognize the danger of an attempt to limit the free flow of information by the Polish Communication Ministry. Inexpensive and accessible telecommunications is not only an expression of the progress of a civilized society, it is also a basic tool for achieving such progress. In the era of an unbelievable explosion in the means of interpersonal worldwide communications, and while the European Union specifically directs the development of telecommunication towards demonopolization and privatization, Poland's Communication Ministry presents an old- fashioned draft of "Law to change the Communication Law." In this draft there is no place for market solutions, which would insure modern and inexpensive telephony, TV and computer networks for all Poles. Instead of a new, better law they propose a lame amendment which confirms both the monopolistic ownership and the controlling role of the state administration in telecommunications, and which reinforces the privileges (almost infinite even now) of the ineffective state monopoly TP S.A. [Polish Telephony, Ltd.] The relatively new Communiations Law was popularly criticized for obsolete solutions, for promoting monopoly, for prolonging the archaic structure of telecommunications. The result of this law was a sharp increase in prices of telephone and related services, while in countries with modern Telecom systems such prices fall. The proposed "corrections" mean further limits for potential investors, already tied with red tape of bureaucratic process. Such behavior does not lead to the informational opening of Poland - on the contrary, it is an action designed to limit the flow of information and its civilizational benefits. We do not understand how it is possible that today, several years after Poland turned towards towards a market economy, the Communications Ministry manages to smuggle in an entry on the condition for every "permit" [for any activity connected with telecommunication]: it cannot violate the "interest of national economy." And one will look in vain for language protecting the rights of citizen, consumer or investor. Poland has very limited means for modernizing its aging telecommunication network. Instead of ensuring a climate which would improve this state of affairs by private investment, there is an attempt to close the remaining possibilities for investing. In more wealthy countries, with developed network infrastructure, the state usually does not designate its "superoperators" to give or rescind permits, conserving and improving the state of the infrastructure which serves everybody. Polish academic and business circles converged in the global Internet network cannot remain indifferent to what the Communication Ministry attempts to do with the most sensitive tools of freedom: telephony and networks. The ministry should follow the rules, not force new ones. The Communications Law should be designed by the appropriate committee of the Sejm to protect vital interests of Poles and Poland. In no case should it be the interests of the state administration. If our country fails to enact such law, we will lose our eagerly awaited opening to the World. ------------------------- Editors' note: The above appeal, with some 700 signatures, was delivered to the Sejm and Senate in March 1995. The amendment was, however, accepted by the Sejm (247:41). It then moved to the Senate, which attempted to weaken the monopoly language. The draft is now back in the Sejm. The campaign for a better communications law continues. You can retrieve the appeal (in Polish) from: http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/misc/protest.html http://hebe.umcs.lublin.pl/News/protest.html gopher://gopher.mat.uni.torun.pl/11/ustawa ftp://ftp.pdi.lodz.pl/pub/info/ustawa/ The proposed amendment is available at: http://www.senat.gov.pl/cgi-bin/tr-asc?/posiedze/dr-senat/212.txt The Congress resolution can be found at: http://www.senat.gov.pl/cgi-bin/tr-asc?/posiedze/dr-sejm/rezol.html The European Union recommendations on "Information Society" are at: http://www.ispo.cec.be/g7/keydocs/themepap.html ======================================================================== Networking by Jack Tuszynski POLISH NETWORKING ISSUES 1995 It seems that in 1995, now that high speed satellite and fiber optics networks connect us to Warsaw and Krakow where we can surf the nets, there would be no interesting topics left to talk about regarding the development of the internet in Poland. Quite the opposite is true however. Several important concerns remain to be addressed. MOS, a networking-based microcomputer operating system [Note 1], is going to be the next big killer O.S. Is Poland's communications infrastructure ready to adapt to its requirements? We should now start thinking about a country-wide distributed file system. Also, a controversy is brewing regarding whether or not to let the big boys of Western telecommunications into Poland, and forever be indebted to them for bringing Poland up to speed. Bill Gates has a big big problem. DOS is out of date, and MOS, not NT, is next. NT is not really needed, because Unix fits the corporate structure just right. However, a novel application that has recently exploded on Unix's internet threatens to obsolete Microsoft, the King of cheap microcomputers. That program is the Mosaic viewer. It is becoming so that one does not do very much on their computers before they turn to the essentials, to fire up the Netscape interface, and hit the waves. In no time at all, the three R's of computing - word processors, spreadsheets, and databases - are going to be available to customers on their favorite PC manufacturer's home pages. PCs will be sold with one- year free subscriptions to the manufacturer's home pages, which will include daily backups of ones personal data. PC manufacturers will become service providers, and the hardware, no doubt, will shrink to a fraction of its current size and cost. The next generation of PC clients will consist of a big screen, not like today's 14" SVGA monitors, no hard disk, 4MB of RAM to serve the video buffer, a low powered inexpensive CPU, and a very high speed modem. MOS will boot the computer, and instantly serve as a Mosaic or Netscape viewer, bypassing DOS, bypassing Windows, just connecting straight to the internet provider's home base, and from there, the world. The telephone infrastructure in Poland is going to have to adapt to MOS. Currently, in California, you pay Pacific Bell approximately $20 per month for a telephone connection. Calls within about a 10-15 mile range are absolutely free. One can connect for as long as one wishes. In contrast, in Poland, in addition to the high up front and monthly fees, local telephone calls cost about $1 per hour. This telephone rate structure has got to be redesigned. The phone companies should raise the cost of long distance calls, and in turn make the local telephone links free of charge. MOS and the new telecommunications structure is going to change the way that Polish Telephone and Telegraph (PTT) is going to do local business in the near future. The Open Software Foundation's (OSF's) Distributed Computing Environment (DCE), which contains the Distributed File System (DFS), is soon going to be incorporated into all of the major Unix operating systems. Currently, the multiplatform Andrew File System (AFS) is available as a commercial product, for approximately $100,000 from IBM's Transarc Corporation. In a nutshell, the distributed file system is a single world-wide file system which extends into nations, corporations, university systems, and enterprises. Unlike NFS, which burdens the server with overhead for each client, DFS outsources most of the job of managing files to its clients. So while NFS cannot handle more than about 100 clients efficiently, DFS thrives on servicing the needs of a huge amount of client workstations. Large institutions can purchase distributed file system software, or wait until all operating systems start shipping with it. Some operating systems, like IBM's AIX, already ship integrated with AFS. Soon, we are going to have to start thinking about how to arrange the /dfs/poland/... directory tree, and how to design its file server structure. This can be grossly abused if handled improperly. There is a server part of the DFS product, and a client part of the DFS product. If the organization that gets a hold of this software decides that it is best to locate all home disk space, freeware programs, and commercial software on centrally controlled file servers, or to control access to the WWW for the DFS net using only several key http servers, then a monopoly will ensue. Those institutes and companies that do not have access to the servers will not trust and be envious of those that have it and control it on behalf of the whole organization. If a distributed net is set up to serve a nation, this can be an important issue. It will be very important for the success of the distributed file system to share server responsibility among the many disparate computing centers and corporations throughout Poland, and not to centralize operations in Warsaw. Every town, city, and university should maintain its own file server hardware and server software, and make it available to the entire network. Recently, the new Katowice WWW site came on-line. One of Maciej Uhlig's pet projects is a petition to sign up for. It is interesting that there is only one choice, to vote against the provision. The background on the petition is that an important new statute went into effect recently which declared that Poland was not going to let the titans of the West into several key industries, like petroleum, and telecommunications. But the big companies have been invited to work in Poland on automobiles, construction, and shipbuilding. Telecommunications is the internet. Should companies like ATT, MCI, Bull, etc, be able to compete with Polish monopolies on their turf? The advantages are a swift and immediate improvement of telecom infrastructure. This is evidenced by progress made in the Czech Republic and Hungary. The disadvantages are that the country gets a short-term gain and makes a long-term loss. Once the big foreign conglomerates are in, they will completely dominate the market. Because the price of laying and establishing communications lines is so high, the expense of entering the market will be enormous, if not impossible for smaller and weaker Polish companies that will want to compete with them. The end result will be a tax on everything that passes across the communications lines paid to the foreign conglomerates. As a recent article on the topic makes clear, the cost of investment is so steep, in the hundreds of billions of dollars, the country is not in a position to provide the services themselves. One has to wonder however, if the price is so high, what makes the companies so eager to invest in the land's resources? Can it be the goodness of their hearts? For the corporations to be so eager to enter the market and invest billions must mean that there will be a significant payback. The question for Polish lawmakers is difficult to say the least. It seems that the internet in Poland has progressed so much from the days when Donosy was delivered via 1200 baud modem to some MicroVax in Switzerland, which constituted the network connection of Poland to the outside world. Today's problems are just as complicated, albeit maybe not as urgent or emotional. MOS is going require massive alterations to the local telephone infrastructure. It is important that the country approach the distributed file system in a democratic way and not stifle it by trying to overregulate and command its operations and its storage methods. Also, it remains to be seen if the gamble to attempt to develop a home grown telecommunications infrastructure will be a better deal for Poles and whether the country's limited resources will be able to keep up with the Western giants of industry. Notes: [1] MOS is an abstract term used to describe the author's interpretation of the up-and-coming trend in micro-computer operating system technology. MOS is a category of operating systems, like OS2/Warp and Prodigy for example, which instantly and automatically, upon purchase and installation, connect a PC to a corporation and bootstrap the customer to use the internet services of the company that produces it. Jack Tuszynski ======================================================================== Networks Rafal Maszkowski and Marek Zielinski POLAND - ELECTRONIC CONTACTS Short version, 15 May 1995 This is a short version of "POLAND - ELECTRONIC CONTACTS". It contains the list of institutions and their organizational subunits, together with contact persons. The more complete list of electronic contacts in Poland is available via WWW at http://www.pdi.lodz.pl. It can also be retrieved as file 'contacts.txt' from the same places that archive Pigulki (see "About Pigulki"). The list below is designed as an aid in locating E-mail contacts. In general, the most direct way of finding somebody's E-mail address is to ask him or her. Telephone and Snail-mail also work wonders. There are several tools available on the network (notably netfind), which, with more or less success, attempt to locate the person given name and approximate location. When all else fails, drop a note to the contact person listed below. The institutions with network connections are listed, together with names and addresses of contact persons. 1. Internet Addresses #################################################### -------------------------- CITY ----------------------------------------- |INSTITUTION: | | Division: Contact Person | |_________________________________________________________________________| --------------------------- BIALYSTOK --------------------------------------- BIALYSTOK TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: Arkadiusz Galicki --------------------------- BYDGOSZCZ --------------------------------------- ACADEMY OF TECHNOLOGY AND AGRICULTURE Inst. of Mathematics and Physics: Janusz Szykowny MEDICAL ACADEMY: Piotr Cysewski PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Slawomir Grondkowski TECHNICAL ELECTRONIC SCHOOL: Jerzy Pilat --------------------------- GDANSK ------------------------------------------ MEDICAL ACADEMY OF GDANSK Computer Center: postmaster@amed01.amg.gda.pl POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. of Hydroengineering: Jaroslaw Androsiuk Inst. of Fluid-Flow Machinery: Tadeusz Jankowski TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK: Piotr Maj Computer Center: postmaster@pg.gda.pl Fac. of Architecture: W. Leszkiewicz Fac. of Chemistry: Mariusz Krawczyk Fac. of Civil Engineering: Wladyslaw Grzesiak Fac. of Electrical Engineering: Krzysztof Snopek Dept. of Electronic Circuits: postmaster@gumbeers.elka.pg.gda.pl Fac. of Electronics: W.J.Martin Fac. of Hydrotechnics: Krzysztof Sass Fac. of Mechanical Engineering: Lech Skrzynecki Fac. of Oceanology: Hanna Czerniak Fac. of Technical Physics and Applied Mathematics: Ryszard Jan Barczynski UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK: Marek Karkowski Dept. of Biology, Geography and Oceanology: Adam Krezel Dept. of Molecular Biology: Bogdan Banecki --------------------------- GDYNIA ------------------------------------------ INSTITUTE OF METEOROLOGY AND WATER MANAGEMENT Maritime Branch: Miroslaw Mietus --------------------------- GLIWICE ----------------------------------------- SILESIAN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: postmaster@gleto2.gliwice.edu.pl Computer Center: postmaster@gleto2.gliwice.edu.pl Inst. of Automation, Industrial Control Group: Jurek Moscinski Inst. of Computer Sci.: Piotr Sasiedzki Inst. of Electronics: Witold Baran --------------------------- KATOWICE ---------------------------------------- ACADEMY OF ECONOMICS Computing Center: Aleksander Chrzan SILESIAN UNIVERSITY: Maciek Uhlig Computer Center: Maciek Uhlig Inst. of Chemistry --------------------------- KEDZIERZYN-KOZLE -------------------------------- INST. OF HEAVY ORGANIC SYNTHESIS "BLACHOWNIA": jsk@icso.com.pl info@icso.com.pl --------------------------- KIELCE ------------------------------------------ TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: Marek Zwierzyk --------------------------- KRAKOW ------------------------------------------ KRAKOW: Jerzy Pawlus ACADEMIC COMPUTER CENTRE "CYFRONET": Jerzy Pawlus INSTITUTE OF ZOOTECHNICS: postmaster@izoo.krakow.pl JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY: Roman Markowski Administration Office: Mariusz Korzel Astronomical Observatory: Marian Soida Dept. of Chemistry: Janusz Mrozek Dep. of Philology: Lukasz Bienkowski Inst. of Computer Science: Adam Kleiner Inst. of Environmental Biology: postmaster@eko.uj.edu.pl Inst. of Geological Sciences: Janusz Slezak Inst. of Mathematics: postmaster@im.uj.edu.pl Inst. of Molecular Biology: Jan Ilnicki Inst. of Physics: Robert Niemiec Inst. of Zoology: postmaster@iz.uj.edu.pl Jagiellonian Library: Ewa Bozejewicz NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND: Ireneusz Neska NUCLEAR PHYSICS INST.: Andrzej Sobala PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Wojciech Folta Central Library: Gabriel Pajdosz Dept. of Astronomy: Gabriel Pajdosz Dept. of Computer Science: Jaroslaw Rafa SOLIDEX LTD.: Maciej Kolodziej TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF CRACOW: Krzysztof Rozycki Administration: postmaster@admin.pk.edu.pl Computer Center: Krzysztof Rozycki Dep. of Chemical Engineering: Marek Bobrowski Dept. of Civil Engineering: Bogdan Przebinda Dept. of Electrical Engineering: postmaster@edison.pk.edu.pl Dept. of Environmental Engineering: Leszek Kaptur Dept. of Mechanical Engineering: Slawomir Szlezak Inst. of Computational Methods in Civil Engineering: Grzegorz Mucha Inst. of Physics: Jerzy Sanetra Library: postmaster@biblos.pk.edu.pl UNIVERSITY OF MINING AND METALLURGY: Szymon Sokol Central Library: Ewa Lankosz Dept. of Drive Automation: Grzegorz Wrobel Dept. of Geomechanics: Andrzej Barnat Dept. of Electrical Machines: Grzegorz Krawczyk Dept. of Electrical Power: Wojciech Losiowski Dept. of Electronics: Roman Rumian Dept. of Mechanics and Acoustics: Jacek Cieslik Dept. of Telecommunication: Miroslaw Gajda Dept. of the Theory of Metalurgic Process Engineering: Marcin Zembura Fac. of Geology, Geophysics and Environment: Tomasz Ulatowski Fac. of Management: Barbara Drejak Fac. of Materials Engineering and Ceramics: Stanislaw Komornicki Fac. of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics: Zbigniew Rudnicki Fac. of Mining: Jan Jasiewicz Fac. of Mining Surveying and Environmental Engineering: Krystian Pyka Fac. of Non-Ferrous Metals: Mariusz Lesniewski Fac. of Physics and Nuclear Techiques: Marek Ciechanowski Financial Dept.: Artur Surowka Inst. of Automatics: Wojciech Chmiel Inst. of Computer Science: Andrzej Krol Inst. of Design and Construction of Mines: Jan Jasiewicz Inst. of Elektrotechnics: Maciej Ogorzalek Inst. of Mathematics: Andrzej Welna Inst. of Metallurgy: Krzysztof Wilk Inst. of Underground Mining: Marian Branny University Computer Center: Szymon Sokol --------------------------- LODZ -------------------------------------------- LODZ: Piotr Wilk MAGNUM: Piotr Sroczynski MEDICAL ACADEMY: Jan Kaminski METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORK: Piotr Wilk NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND: hostmaster@nask.lodz.pl PUBLIC INTERNET ACCESS (PDI) Ltd. Rafal Maszkowski TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF LODZ: Piotr Wilk Computer Center: Andrzej Bednarek Laboratory of Computer Networks: Piotr Wilk UNIVERSITY OF LODZ: Waldemar Radke Dept. of Crystallography: Piotr Sobczynski Dept. of Solid State Physics: Marian Bieniecki Inst. of Cosmic Radiation: Konrad Plich MILITARY ACADEMY OF MEDICINE: Krzysztof Rzepecki --------------------------- LUBLIN ------------------------------------------ LUBLIN: postmaster@golem.umcs.lublin.pl ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF LUBLIN LUBLIN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: morys@archimedes.pol.lublin.pl Computer Center: admin@pluton.pol.lublin.pl Dept. of Civil and Sanitary Engineering: supervisor@akropolis.pol.lublin.pl Dept. of Electrical Engineering: supervisor@elektron.pol.lublin.pl Dept. of Management Science: supervisor@antenor.pol.lublin.pl Dept. of Mechanical Engineering: morys@archimedes.pol.lublin.pl MARIA CURIE SKLODOWSKA UNIVERSITY: Piotr Rozmej POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. of Agrophysics: admin@demeter.ipan.lublin.pl --------------------------- OLSZTYN ----------------------------------------- ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURE: Wieslaw Poszewiecki PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Wieslaw Poszewiecki POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. of Agrotechny: Wieslaw Poszewiecki --------------------------- OPOLE ------------------------------------------- PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Andrzej Czainski --------------------------- OTWOCK - SWIERK --------------------------------- INST. OF ATOMIC ENERGY, COMPUTER CENTRE CYFRONET: office@cyf.gov.pl --------------------------- POZNAN ------------------------------------------ ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY Computer Center: Dorota Nicewicz Dept. of Theoretical Chemistry: Adam Gnabasik Fac. of Mathematics and Informatics: Roman Bednarek AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY: Tomasz Niewiedzial FRANCO-POLISH SCHOOL OF NEW INFORMATION AND COMM. TECHNOLOGIES: Janusz.Krzysztofik@efp.poznan.pl INST. OF NATURAL FIBRES: Dobroslawa Gucia MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY Inst. of Heavy Organic Synthesis NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND: hostmaster@nask.poznan.pl POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. of Molecular Physics: Wojciech L. Malinowski POZNAN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: Mikolaj Lubiatowski Computer Network: Bartlomiej Woyke Fac. of Electrical Eng., Dept. of Control, Robotics and Comp. Sci.: Krzysztof Kosarzycki Fac. of Electrical Eng., Inst. of Electronics & Communications: Rafal Krenz Fac. of Electrical Eng., Inst. of Informatics: Ryszard Jezierski Inst. of Applied Mechanics: Jerzy Lewinski Inst. of Chemistry and Technical Electrochemistry: Andrzej Suszka Inst. of Computing Science: Janusz.Kaczmarek@cs.put.poznan.pl Inst. of Computing Science (Science Center): Janusz.Kaczmarek@cs.put.poznan.pl Inst. of Electrical Power Engineering: Bogdan Staszak Inst. of Electronics & Communications: Dawid Staskiewicz Inst. of Environment Engineering: Marek Sowinski Inst. of Industrial Electrotechnics: Pawel Sniatala Inst. of Internal Combustion Engines and Elements of Machine: M. Morzynski Inst. of Mathematics: Henryk Gorka Inst. of Mechanical Engineering Technology: Robert Cieslinski Inst. of Physics: L. Kruszewska Inst. of Technology and Building Structure: Witold Kakol Inst. of Working Machines: prof. Osmolski Office of the Dean of Chemical Technology Fac.: Bartlomiej Woyke Office of the Dean of Electrical Enginering Fac.: Bartlomiej Woyke University Computing Center: Bartlomiej Woyke SUPERCOMPUTING AND NETWORKING CENTER POZNAN: Cezary Mazurek, Janusz Kaczmarek UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS: Michal Walczak UNIVERSITY OF FINE ARTS: bind@pozman.edu.pl --------------------------- RZESZOW ----------------------------------------- RZESZOW PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Piotr Forys Inst. of Mathematics: ziim@plumcs11.umcs.lublin.pl Inst. of Physics: insfizrz@plumcs11.umcs.lublin.pl Inst. of Technics: lpyzik@plumcs11.umcs.lublin.pl Library: bibwyprz@plumcs11.umcs.lublin.pl RZESZOW TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: Jerzy Kus RZESZOW BRANCH OF MARIA CURIE SKLODOWSKA UNIVERSITY: umcsrze@frodo.nask.org.pl RZESZOW BRANCH OF KRAKOW ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURE: arrze@frodo.nask.org.pl --------------------------- SOPOT ------------------------------------------- POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. of Oceanology: Jacek Piskozub UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK Main Library: Waldemar Chrzan --------------------------- SZCZECIN ---------------------------------------- UNIVERSITY OF SZCZECIN University Computing Center: Roman Kruszynski --------------------------- TORUN ------------------------------------------- GEOPHYSICS: Waldemar Ogonowski HIGH SCHOOL #4 NASK - RES. AND ACAD. COMPUTER NETWORK: Zbigniew S. Szewczak NICOLAUS COPERNICUS UNIVERSITY: Zbyszek Szewczak Astronomical Observatories:: Andrzej Marecki Computer Center: Maja Gorecka Inst. of Astronomy: Jerzy Borkowski Inst. of Mathematics: Tomasz Wolniewicz Inst. of Physics: Jacek Kobus University Library: Andrzej Kaczor University President's Computerization Team: Jerzy B. Ludwichowski POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Astrophysics Lab. I: postmaster@ncac.torun.pl POWER AND HEAT PLANT: Grzegorz Kopcewicz --------------------------- WARSZAWA ---------------------------------------- ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURING INC., (ATM): customer@atm.com.pl ATM - Comercial Internet in Poland: Darek Wichniewicz CENTRAL INST. FOR LABOUR PROTECTION: postmaster@ciop.waw.pl CENTRAL PLANNING OFFICE Data Processing Center MILITARY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Computer Centre: Jacek Wisniewski MINISTRY OF FINANCE Dept. of Informatics: NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND: hostmaster@nask.org.pl Domain used for commercial users: hostmaster@nask.com.pl NASK in Warsaw area: Irek Neska THE PALACE OF YOUTH: Krzysztof Halasa POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES High Pressure Research Centre "Unipress": Henryk Marciniak Inst. of Biochemistry and Biophysics Inst. of Computer Science: Krzysztof Anacki Inst. of Fundamental Technological Research: Marek Pokulniewicz Inst. of Mathematics Andrzej Pokrzywa Inst. of Physical Chemistry Inst. of Physics: Jacek Madajczyk Nencki Inst. of Experimental Biology: msikora@nencki.gov.pl Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center: postmaster@camk.edu.pl Space Research Centre: Krystyna Hulewicz SOLIDEX LTD.: Marek Cyzio STATE COMMITTEE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: postmaster@kbn.gov.pl "TCH SYSTEMS" AND "TCH COMPONENTS": Wojciech Piecek TVP S.A.: Michal Pegierski UNIV-COMP LTD. Telecomunications Dept.: Zbigniew Kobylski WARSAW AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY - SGGW: Piotr Wroblewski Fac. of Land Reclamation and Environmental Engineering.: Roman Kaminski Inst. of Computer Science and Econometrics: Piotr Wroblewski WARSAW UNIVERSITY Astronomical Observatory: Andrzej Udalski Dept. of Biophysics and Biochemistry: Antek Laczkowski Dept. of Chemistry: Pawel Lukomski Dept. of Psychology: supervisor@psych2.psych.uw.edu.pl Fac. of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics: Staszek Kurpiewski Heavy Ion Laboratory: postmaster@slcj.uw.edu.pl Informatics Centre of Warsaw University: Leszek Imielski Inst. of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics: hostmast@appli.mimuw.edu.pl Inst. of Botany, Dept. of Phytosociology and Plant Ecology: Tomek Wyszomirski Inst. of Botany, Dept. of Plant Taxonomy & Geography: Wojciech Borkowski Inst. of Physics: Rafal Pietrak Inst. for Social Studies: Jacek Szamrej Interdisciplinary Centre for Math. and Comput. Modelling: Wojtek Sylwestrzak WARSAW UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY: Roman Adamiec Central Administration Computing Center: Roman Adamiec Dept. of Technical Physics and Applied Mathematics: Piotr Zemlo Fac. of Chemical Engineering Andrzej Dlugosz Fac. of Chemistry Fac. of Civil Engineering Fac. of Electronic Engineering (administration): whois@elka.pw.edu.pl (preferred - a program) Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Automatic Control: whois@ia.pw.edu.pl (preferred - program) Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Computer Science: Rafal Bajorek Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Electronic Fundamentals: postmaster@ipe.pw.edu.pl Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Micro- and Optoelectronics: postmaster@imio.pw.edu.pl Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Radioelectronics: Janusz Marzec Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Telecommunication: Leszek Wronski Fac. of Geodesy and Cartography Fac. of Power and Aeronautical Eng. Inst. of Electron Technology: Wojciech Lewandowski Inst. of Transportation Riviera - Students' Hostel: postmaster@riviera.pw.edu.pl --------------------------- WROCLAW ----------------------------------------- NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND: hostmaster@nask.wroc.pl POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. for Low Temperature & Structure Research: Ludwik Biegala TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF WROCLAW: Jarek Kurowski Dept. of Architecture: Sergiusz Pawlowicz Dept. of Computer Science: Jarek Kurowski Inst. of Control and Systems Engineering: mszr@i17unixB.ists-pwr.wroc.edu.pl Inst. of Electronic Technology: Zbigniew Helak Inst. of Engineering Cybernetics: Witold Paluszynski Inst. of Materials Science and Technical Mechanics: Wojciech Myszka Inst. of Mathematics: Krzysztof Szajowski Inst. of Mechanical Engineering and Automation: Wieslaw Caban Inst. of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry: postmaster@kchf.ch.pwr.wroc.pl Inst. of Telecommunication and Acoustics: Zygmunt Krawczyk UNIVERSITY OF WROCLAW Dept. of Theoretical Physics: Inst. of Computer Science: root@ii.uni.wroc.pl Inst. of Mathematics: Kryspin Porembski Library Mariusz Ozarowski ACADEMY OF ECONOMICS: root@unix.ok.ae.wroc.pl BRANCH OF T.U. WROCLAW IN JELENIA GORA: Maciej Pawlowski ENGINEERING COLLEGE IN ZIELONA GORA: Waldemar Wozniak 2. Fidonet ############################################################### ___________________________________________________________________________ |Node: Name: Location: Sysop: Phone: | |___________________________________________________________________________| 2:481/11 LOCKIE_BBS Brzeg_Dolny Remigiusz Pokucinski 48-71-195808 2:481/15 EAGLE_BBS Brzeg_Dolny Mariusz Ptasznik 48-71-192818 2:481/1 SM-Net_BBS Bydgoszcz Mariusz Boronski 48-52-411222 2:481/4 ATR_BBS Bydgoszcz Piotr Michal Kruza 48-52-438629 2:481/2 Technical_University Gdansk Mariusz Matuszek 48-58-472109 2:481/13 ASTOR_BBS Gdansk Marek Kalmarczyk 48-58-572599 2:481/14 Rat_BBS Gdansk Daniel Dubielski 48-58-322900 2:480/25 PiK'us_BBS Gliwice Wojciech Apel 48-32-374144 2:481/17 Test_BBS Gorzow_Wlkp Mariusz Dziakowicz 48-95-26924 2:480/34 The_Verbum_BBS Katowice Marek Gorny 48-32-586903 2:480/42 Nexter_BBS Katowice Klaudiusz Staniek 48-3-1537033 2:480/46 OTA_PSS Katowice Jacek Przybylo 48-32-597178 2:486/1 MULTISOFT_BBS Krakow Maciej Piotrowski 48-12-217620 2:486/3 Torreadore_BBS Krakow Miroslaw Majorek 48-12-367949 2:486/6 QUMAK_BBS Krakow Maciej Piotrowski 48-12-216273 2:486/7 LAVA_BBS Krakow Karol Olszanski 48-12-129534 2:486/9 ALF_BOARD Krakow Piotr Mamak 48-12-379066 2:486/18 Pc_duo_BBS Krakow Marek Sobol 48-12-214631 2:481/12 OCB283_BBS Legnica Marek Szenkaryk 48-76-541150 2:480/48 Fido_Lodz Lodz Radoslaw Machala 48-42-864647 2:480/8 WiRuSat_BBS Opole Piotr Rutkowski 48-77-39224 2:481/6 RBMeteo_BBS Poznan Jaroslaw Bernatowicz 48-61-496107 2:481/7 Apexim_BBS Poznan Mariusz Gieparda 48-61-771433 2:481/10 WSOSK_BBS Poznan Ireneusz Lupa 48-61-494719 2:480/4 Month_BBS Warszawa Andrzej Bursztynski 48-22-291578 2:480/10 Home_of_PCQ Warszawa Jan Stozek 48-22-410374 2:480/13 Spectrum_BBS Warszawa Tomasz Bursze 48-22-256965 2:480/14 Z-BBS Warszawa Andrzej Bursztynski 48-22-276333 2:480/19 Bajtek_BBS Warszawa Michal Szokolo 48-2-6284594 2:480/23 Galaxy_BBS Warszawa Jarek Wojcik 48-2-6431010 2:480/30 Imperial_BBS Warszawa Krzysztof Mlynarski 48-2-6176658 2:480/31 High_Quality_#1_BBS Warszawa Piotr Kaczorowski 48-22-250263 2:480/32 Acces_BBS Warszawa Darek Pruchniak 48-22-580417 2:480/33 Home_of_AMiga Warszawa Rafal Wiosna 48-22-339649 2:480/35 Post_Box_No.1_BBS Warszawa Tomasz Kepinski 48-22-424599 2:480/36 ZWK@LAB_BBS Warszawa Zbigniew W.Kaminski 48-22-465692 2:480/37 Time_BBS_Node_1 Warszawa Sebastian Streich 48-2-6796457 2:480/38 Opus_BBS Warszawa Robert Trzeciak 48-22-188465 2:480/39 Rainbow_BBS Warszawa Krzysztof Korczak 48-2-6198337 2:480/40 The_Palace_of_Youth Warszawa Krzysztof Halasa 48-22-203372 2:480/41 Time_BBS_Node_2 Warszawa Radoslaw Labanowski 48-22-188048 2:480/43 Fanatic_BBS Warszawa Ireneusz Lapinski 48-22-261983 2:480/44 Mamba_BBS Warszawa Wojtek Gorzkowski 48-22-367443 2:480/45 ICYE_BBS Warszawa Piotr Adamiak 48-22-409566 2:480/49 First_Aid_BBS Warszawa Krzysztof Szczepansk 48-2-6427851 2:480/50 PIKON Warszawa Piotr Konczewski 48-2-6350380 2:480/51 Sofcon_Mail Warszawa Artur Jerzy Olszewsk 48-22-475081 2:481/9 OWL_BBS Wroclaw Andrzej Zurakowski 48-71-448820 2:481/16 ALEX_BBS Wroclaw Alex Sell 48-71-686362 2:481/20 Ultimate_BBS Wroclaw Julia Woronkow 48-71-484191 The node addressing is given in Fido style, . Mail is gatewayed to Internet, and the equivalent domain style address is where a,b,c,d are the corresponding point, fidonode, network and zone numbers. The point is optional and defaults to p0 if not specified. For example an address to the user Jan Kowalski with an account in BitART BBS in Krakow is: . 3. Public sites and servers ############################################## You can access most WWW sites in Poland through http://www.fuw.edu.pl. A sample of about 30 existing gophers: gopher.cyfronet.krakow.pl - Akademickie Centrum Komputerowe "Cyfronet", Krakow gopher.fuw.edu.pl - Physics Department, Warsaw University, Warsaw gopher.mat.uni.torun.pl - Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun gopher.uci.agh.edu.pl - University of Mining and Metalurgy, Krakow mvax.ci.pwr.wroc.pl - Technical University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw plearn.edu.pl - Warsaw University, Warszawa prelude.iss.uw.edu.pl - Institute for Social Studies, Warsaw University usctoux1.cto.us.edu.pl - Centrum Techniki Obliczeniowej Uniwersytetu Slaskiego w Katowicach Some ftp sites with contents: alfa.camk.edu.pl - PIGULKI, dir: pub/pigulki; GUST clipper.psych.uw.edu.pl - Clipper archive, Novell - ftp.novell.felk.cz mirror, Antyvirus copernicus.astro.uni.torun.p - European VLBI Newsletter, Images of the strongest celestial radio sources ftp.cyf-kr.edu.pl - several mirrors, including SimTel ftp.elka.pw.edu.pl - PLOTKI - archiwum ftp.fuw.edu.pl - ftp.icm.edu.pl - X11R6 distribution, GNU mirror, FBPNews, satellite weather images, netlib mirror, tex mirror, sun public patches, RFC mirror ftp.ict.pwr.wroc.pl - Linux (Slackware, SLS), Gnu, X11, elm, tin, zip, less, some RFC, etc. Local lists, humour ftp.immt.pwr.wroc.pl - CD (1992) with Simtel, Windows (cica), GNU, X11, Simtel(source), Prime Time Freeware (1993) TeX (MeX, LaMeX, *.sty) ftp.mimuw.edu.pl - MksVir Demo ftp.nask.org.pl - main Internet router statistics ftp.pg.gda.pl - 750 MB - TeX, GNU, Linux (Slackware) ftp.uci.agh.edu.pl - Linux, X11, Polish electronic press, 'religia' list, GNU (binaries for SCO), X11, security related docs, irc gifs laserspark.anu.edu.au - Mleczko pictures, konkordat poniecki.berkeley.edu - Polish Archives sirius.astrouw.edu.pl - Acta Astronomica archive sprocket.ict.pwr.wroc.pl - Linux Slackware 2.x mirror zfja-gate.fuw.edu.pl - PA0GRI zsku.p.lodz.pl - Pigulki A complete listing of "Polish Interest Network Resources" (PZS) by Rafal Maszkowski is posted irregularily to PZS distribution list located on vm.cc.uni.torun.pl and can be retrieved by anonymous ftp and by gopher at poniecki.berkeley.edu and gopher.mat.uni.torun.pl, ftp.mat.uni.torun.pl. HTML version is available at http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pzs/pzs.html, http://info.fuw.edu.pl/pzs/pzs.html, http://www.uci.agh.edu.pl/pzs/pzs.html, http://zsku.p.lodz.pl/pzs/pzs.html or http://laserspark.anu.edu.au/pzs.html. ----------------- Please send changes and corrections to Rafal Maszkowski . ======================================================================== Po prostu by Dave Phillips LEAVING THE BARBED WIRE BEHIND I have a natural sympathy for pioneers. Most hate to punch a clock or take orders, yet they're far from lazy, being willing to spend days with little sleep on any problem that's important to them. Society dislikes them. They don't fit in. They usually don't employ many people and they usually don't have capital. Society likes the people who can understand what pioneers do and who can bankroll and coopt their work. Folks like Bill Gates and the early Thomas Watson, for example. The Nikolai Teslas and Albert Einsteins, who march decidedly to a different drummer, are either ignored but for small circles of respectful students, or are celebrated for their idiosyncracies but not for the dues they paid in perseverence and sometimes persecution. The American West was first "settled" (we won't discuss the genocide against the native peoples here) by a combination of pioneers, missionaries and criminals, in varying proportions. As the better land became fully allocated to waves of new arrivals, there were conflicts over land use and water use, especially between farmers and cattle- owners who needed to graze their herds and drive them to market. Also, as densities grew, the Al Gores of the day proposed a National Transportation Infrastructure, and the West was crisscrossed by railroads, publically financed or subsidized, who bled farmers, bribed local officials, and who also helped intensify the development of the vast continental spaces. One major invention accompanied rail to close the West to pioneers. Barbed wire of various types emerged over a decade in the latter part of the 19th century. The clear application of this technology was to fence off farms from hungry herds of cattle. This, along with the centralization of meat packing brought by rail, let to the solidification of land ownership and control in the West. But barbed wire was soon put to more innovative uses. The British found that fences not only kept steers out, but in the interests of preserving the Empire could keep Boer women, children and elderly in, at least until they died of disease. The U.S. Army, quick students of international affairs, applied the same methods at home during miners' strikes out West, inverting the technique by penning in the strikers and allowing their families' freedom of movement - to starve, basically, while company goons were allowed to steal relief food shipped in to local churches. Barbed wire achieved notoriety in the slaughterhouse of World War I Europe, in which industrial technology and mass warfare combined to kill much of a generation of Europe's males (and put a smaller dent in the same age cohort of American males). German industrial efficiency culminated in barbed wire's decorating each of the extermination, transshipment and work camps built by the Third Reich, and we must add that Vichy France, for example, did not forsake the American invention in its concentration camps for its rounded-up Jews [EuroDisney is therefore proper justice, more the sorrow, more the pity]. It is an interesting aside to note that none of the Nazis and their smokestack barons (e.g., Krupp) were pioneers. Pioneers look for open physical or mental space, shun confrontation and avoid the limelight. They are woefully inept at "using the media," and could care less how other people live. The Nazis were the precise opposite of pioneers: they had a Plan, a Design, a Strategy, an Ideology, which covered geographic, architectural, religious, intellectual and even genetic spaces, if one can speak in these terms. Much too confining for any pioneer. Similarly, pioneers are too busy creating to engage in long-running wars against governments.... unlike the rightwing fuel-and-fertilizer Militias in America's heartland, pioneers would sooner leave - or create their own space - than fight. I knew some pioneers in 1980s Poland, creating underground structures and alternative culture - their own space, waiting for the commies to crumble, and I worked with some of the Polish net-pioneers from about 1988. Pioneers are compelled to build, not destroy. Having been on the Net in one form or another these past eight years, I'm getting a bit itchy watching Washington discuss first Gore's National Information Infrastructure, then the Clipper chip, and more recently wringing its hands over the misuse of the net by pedophiles. We won't talk about the fact that statistically, young people are safer on the net than young Congressional pages and staffers are working in the Capitol. The attempt to legislate the Net, in any case, makes me cringe. Apart from Washington developing net-angst, the information "railroads" are busy forming trusts and looking for a large enough public teat to enable them to fiber-link all of America, empowering the average household to access dumbed-down interactive materials as well as an endless supply of high drama (I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, I Dream of Jeannie). The net is becoming privatized, inevitably, and the 'trusts' are using monopoly rents derived from cable and phone franchises to carve up the mass market and to concentrate control. I can live with an oligopoly, because at least cyberpioneers can always carve out niches where the behemoths are too slow or stupid to travel. The most worrisome part of recent talks is the spectre of monitoring in the interest of crime prevention and "public safety." I'm not sure to what degree monitoring on a massive scale is technically feasible, but I don't think I'd be surprised at the crunching and retrieval capacity of a network of packet sniffers linked to secure computing facilities at Fort Meade, Maryland. International links are routinely intercepted and monitored now, and now there is talk of enabling routine intercept on a domestic basis. Sounds like the cyber version of a camp to me. The obvious response to my unease was given to me by a newspaper reporter here, in a different context. Many in my academic department, located in a part of the campus where all World University Games athletes were to be housed, refused to release personal information to a private outfit tasked with security vetting for the Games a couple of years ago. I attempted to interest this reporter in the privacy and human rights angle of this story. I, for one, would have told the State Police anything they might want to know, as they have jurisdiction and I agreed security was important. But a rentacop outfit in my mind had no business accessing personal info on me in any way, shape or form. This Buffalo News reporter said she felt that anyone objecting to this obviously necessary screening procedure must have something to hide. Apart from the fact that she closely identified with the Games, she epitomized the herd notion that if you've nothing to hide, Don't Worry, Be Happy. As it turned out, our point was taken by the University, we did not have to release this information, and I was allowed access to our facilities during the Games, (running a gauntlet of checkpoints), and I even received by Kafkaesque mistake a form letter thanking me for volunteering at the Games. Where will the pioneers go? The Net is clearly getting, or will get, not only crowded but homogenized and controlled. The wonderful thing about pioneers is that they are creative and unpredictable. I can, however, suggest a couple of possible paths. The more hacking-orientated pioneers have already moved into cryptographic tech. PGP seems to give the Feds heartburn. I can't believe that NSA, which has been following the development of these algorithms since the late Seventies, can't hack them, but perhaps they detest the cost. I can see pioneers encrypting with independent systems simply to preserve their inner space and autonomy. Some pioneers will exploit the inevitable geographic lag in net concentration to help redefine the direction the Net is taking in other countries. For example, Poland's Net is still young and not yet ossified by turf-fighting bureaucracies. If the bureaucrats would just retire or emigrate, Poland could become a data-Switzerland. If America's net gets regulated or privatized into mass conformity, some pioneers will look elsewhere for creative outlets and inspiration. Other pioneers will undoubtably create their own global or local 'internets' - possibly closed nets based on public key encryption and authentication, perhaps satellite based. Clearly, space of a different kind, and open to others who accept the minimal rules. One area I hope will see an influx of pioneers is scholarship. Anyone in the social sciences has seen massive amounts of herdthink in many disciplines. Hemlines are up this year, down next year. Deans weigh vitas by the pound, counting published article for tenure and promotion review. Provosts have surgery to enable them to speak concurrent sentences from each side of their mouths. And pure scholarship has been devalued in favor of the treadmill of grantgetting and trend-sniffing. Our society needs people who can read, think, discuss ideas and issues on their own merits, and who can cheerfully admit that they might be wrong, even if they don't think so. People who can teach and inspire and not just punch tickets so the kids can move along and not bother them too much. People who can point out the rather unfashionable lessons from history, to a people who believe that history is contemptuously unimportant and impractical. Old cultures who maintained traditions of scholarship have survived to the present day, despite persecution and extermination. Our mass society seems to be eroding scholarship and we do so at our peril. Perhaps pioneers can help us, be they refugees from the net or academia or wherever spaces are being closed and constricted by mass conformity or barbed wire. - Dave Phillips Note: This essay is dedicated to my friend Scott Stevenson, who died in Oct 1994 at the age of 39. An autodidact, Unix consultant, ham operator, photographer and pioneer in spirit, he never made it to see Australia, but I hope he's there now. ======================================================================== Letter to the Editor Jacek Gajewski INTERNET FOR HIGH SCHOOLS (IdS) Fri, 03 Feb 1995 Ladies and Gentlmen, The Physics Department of Warsaw University has launched a project named 'IdS' with the goal of enabling inexpensive access to the Internet for the high schools in Poland. After being taught basic services, students will be motivated to use them, e.g. in interschool projects and during lectures using Internet resources. Schools will be using a 'call-back' modem connectivity to the nearest IdS dial-up node - so their own costs will be minimal. The employees of the Physics Department will organize and run the central IdS node. They will disseminate their know-how to the similar initiative groups which emerge throughout the country. The cost of running the IdS nodes will be covered from different sources: by Polish and foreign sponsors, international organisations and government subsidies. Jacek Gajewski ======================================================================== The Back Page By Jurek Klimkowski Travelog: THE SABBATH ON BALD MOUNTAIN Part One of Three It was windy, wet and quite chilly. Slopes of the mountain were almost void of vegetation. Only pines covering parts of the high meadow gave it a somewhat green tinge. The landscape, with its bald rocks, damp and gray, was almost deprived of any color pallet. It was this emptiness of the layers of barren, large stones that gave this place its name: the Bald Mountain. Witches, fauns and devils were coming from the sky. Brooms and flying carpets kept landing on the slope with a terrible screech. Their occupants disembarked one by one, greeting each other ceremoniously. Many travellers, with a great fear, looked toward a monastery complex on a neighboring Holy Cross mountain. The raw power emanating from that ancient structure was impossible to ignore. Some, although they could just as well see right through the thick walls of the monastery, were rather puzzled by the view of many paraphernalia housed inside. One, small devil greeted a witch: "!Buenas dias!", and pointing toward the other mountain asked: "?Santa Cruz?" "Si, diabelku." answered the witch to whom the question was addressed. "?Ablas ustedes Espagnol?", little devil was quite inquisitive. "A jakze," replied the witch with a smile. But the devil was not convinced, so he pointed toward a corpse displayed inside a dark hall of a large building on the mountain of Holy Cross and asked: "?Lenin?" The witch went to a frenzy, speaking the language the devil not only could not understand, but never thought possible. Fast sequences of very strange, hissing sounds were interspersed with sounds of rusted steel plates rubbing against each other, followed by chime-like, beautifully- sounding clear nasal vowels. Her hands, while she was speaking, made circles in the air, reminiscent of windmills in a stormy weather. The devil was dumbstruck. He couldn't make sense of a snake-long word: "Shpeekschaangeevishneevitskee (1)", which truly did not sound like anything a man or a beast could come up with; obviously the centerpiece of the tirade addressed to him. Just a small sample of to what levels the small talk has risen to in this strange land. "Aaaa, cie choroba, this must be Fra Montevideo." A jovial figure was quickly moving toward the embarrassed little devil. "Rokita! Oh my saint, Pan Rokita, how glad I am to see you!" Montevideo was ecstatic to see his master and the role model, as we all are as long as they, our masters, remain in good sprits. "Did you have a pleasant trip from the Mardi Gras here, Sir?" Rokita, or as he was respectfully called: Pan Bies Rokita, approached the other two. He bowed politely to the witch, who curtsied him, only to be totally ignored. He grabbed Montevideo by his armpits, lifted him in the air and kissed him, three times on cheeks so enthusiastically, that it would have been more appropriate for an early-adolecsent sexual exploit then for the site of the official conference which was about to begin on the Bald Mountain. Yet, in this strange place, this behavior did not truly surprise anybody. By then, the slope was crowded with fauns, devils and witches, engaged in agitated discussions. They greeted arriving witches by kissing their hands. Some fauns did kiss each other on cheeks, just as Rokita has done. What was rather typical for this gathering was this mix of talking and aerobics warmup -hands especially- which together with the sounds of the strange language most of them were using created an image of an outing from Hell, as indeed, it really was one. Montevideo discreetly wiped saliva off his cheeks and glimpsed at his mentor's outfit. It was of the most exquisite kind. A long gown made of pressed oriental satin, was drawn over a silk shirt. This shirt, a light but very expensive garment, together with an astounding wraparound belt made of precious turkish brocade held his belly in check. This belt, in turn, supported an assortment of pistols, cleavers and what not, armament which served as a mere stand by, in case an awesome sabre Bies kept in an mother-of-pearl-covered scabbard could not be unsheathed in time. Down, below Cossack-style lose pants were tucked into yellow, heavy leather boots. Bies' shaved head was covered with an enormous fur hat, definitely a polecat, of such a high quality, that it looked as if it was alive, almost ready to jump and bite. "What do you mean? I've been here for last 1,029 years and I don't know where this Mardi Gras of yours is," responded Rokita with some irritation in his baritone voice. "This meeting on Bald Mountain is a conference. We have to make some momentous decisions regarding this land and this is why I am wearing my official uniform." "Uhm, uhm", Montevideo was trying to erase quickly the bad impression he has made on his master. "Are those decisions of a secular, or of a religious kind, Sir?" "Both, my dear friend, both", responded the latter. "And, of course, the order to deal with these problems came from the very top." Montevideo nervously glimpsed toward Holy Cross Mountain. This did not escape his mentor's attention. Bies smiled jovially and said: "Oh don't worry, my little devil, they also got the word. They have to obey." Suddenly Bies' eyes flashed, he leaned over Montevideo, with his face almost touching that of his pupil's and yelled on the top of his lungs: "We are going to place Hell where it really belongs and leave those people here in peace, Mociumpanie! A secular, modern, liberal state based on the rule of the law, Mociumpanie! A solid market economy for this land, Mociumpanie! Or we, devils and witches of this World, are out of business! That's right, you heard me correctly, we have to do some good, for our own sake, for the sake of the General Directive and this is, indeed, an order from the Highest Authority!" "In such case, my Master, rest assured of my outmost devotion to this undertaking. You can count on me, Sir." Montevideo had stars in his eyes. "Cie choroba, I knew that, my little devil!" The jovial baritone once again thundered over the mountain, and again Rokita grabbed Montevideo by armpits, lifted him in the air and kissed him, three times on cheeks so feverishly that they became wet again. "You are like a son to me." he repeated several times. Half-conscious Fra could barely hear that. The witch listened very attentively to their conversation. She wanted to ask some questions of Bies, before Beelzebub, Lucifer and Belshazzar, who already arrived in a puff of smoke, would make it impossible. All three were walking toward Bies and his companions. The crowd on the mountainside became very, very quiet... "Couldn't they do it?", she hissed with a nod of her head toward the Mountain of the Holy Cross. "Apparently not." Rokita whispered his reply while looking at the dignitaries he wanted to greet very ceremoniously. All eyes were on them now, but Lucifer, the most beautiful of all devils, made a swift gesture, as if to cut the air. He wished the three to continue their discussion. "Madam", Rokita turned to the witch, "we go by what we see and the time is running short." Belshazzar approached them, bowed his head to the witch and said: "There is, perhaps, a little more to it than what my esteemed colleague just so eloquently elucidated. Permit me, Madam, to explain it in a more precise terms. We, so to speak, have seen the handwriting on the wall and alerted the Highest Authority to it." His English was an impeccable Etonian. "We recently became aware of certain misdeeds and false steps committed by our Opposition, which, as it appears to us, at this moment, may, just may, stand in a way of effective incorporation of the social empiricism into the overall political solution for this land; a solution sought by all interested parties at present." The witch was numb. She didn't understand much of what was said, but felt that some dismal failure occurred and would have to be corrected in a very delicate manner, lest all tumble down into oblivion. "Are we talking of a compromise, My Lord?" The witch was bewildered. "Yes and no, my child", responded Lucifer to whom the question was addressed. "We are talking of a compromise which is a fulcrum of any civilization, but it is the civilization we are really talking about." Turning to the very quiet crowd which hang upon every world spoken by him, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness spoke these words: "In order to move Hell from here to the place it belongs we will have to do some good for the mortals of this land. We promised this to the Highest Authority and I shall be personally responsible. This is the only way we can redeem ourselves in the eyes of the World!" Crowd cheered the leader enthusiastically and the applause turned into prolonged chants: "Walesa, Walesa... Waaleeensssaa!", but Lucifer, once again cut the air with his hand and muttered: "Not now." "Our Opposition, esteemed and loyal, as ever, was also told, in no uncertain terms, that things in this land have to get much better and that ever-elusive dignity has to return to the people. "We stand, here and now, committed to assure that the secret ballot shall remain the sole source of real power for any mortal. In essence, no dignitary, chairman, or any other person will be ever again allowed to reign over others beyond the actual mandate defined by the electorate. Furthermore, the free election shall stand as the only guarantor of the social empiricism that drives the collective need for material and spiritual betterment of human kind, as well as a constant remainder of the presence of the devil in human lives." The crowd was swept by a wave of humor. Lucifer realized his slip of tongue. He composed himself and continued: "Let me rephrase that. I meant to say that the free and otherwise uncompromised ballot should be the sole method of combating the ever- present evil, or misery and misfortune, mortals tend to inflict upon each other completely outside of the General Directive. In essence, we will have to free the imperfect ones to seek their own fortunes through the common solutions they would freely commit themselves at the polls. "That can be achieved only if their actions remain free of this stupid, doctrinaire zeal our Opposition so callously spread among the imperfect ones. Similarly, discrimination and prejudice have to yield to objectivity, merit and compromise. "Our Opposition, as well as their Robed Servants, will heretofore restrain themselves from their overemphasis of its millennia-old General Directive and recognize that for the very primitive mortals the Directive is often unclear on specifics, overreaching and, in more inopportune situations, like the now famous case of adultery, very impractical." Prince of Darkness laid his hand on a shoulder of his trusted friend, Mephistopheles, who arrived late, and encouraged him to speak, but a voice from the crowd called: "Your Lordship, so how is it that our own recruitment, free choice for humans and the overall improvement in Poland mesh together? Is there any connection?" Mephistopheles needed no encouragement: "Don't be a silly bunny, Mr. Diabelczuk! Study the General Directive and you will find no solid connection between Christianity and democracy. It was left for all of us to figure out... and the answer is, for all of you C-students, free choice. We, the devils, are all about free choice! No devil, no evil, no democracy, no improvement... simple as that." His explanation did not seem to satisfy the devil in the crowd. "Your Lordship, but if it is all in black and white, than what kind of choice is there? .... Incidentally, my name is Diabelczak." "Mr. Diabelkacz, nothing is black or white, it is in shades of gray. High-order differential, locally discreet and always nonlinear chaotic equations, no definite answers are valid here, because the situation changes all the time. "Our Esteemed Opposition is dressed in white, but they make their Robed Servants wear black, why do you think it is, Mr. Diabelkacz? "Go figure.... to avoid competition .... avoid responsibility ... Incidentally, my name is D i a b e l c z a k." "Close, Mr. Diabolak, close." [ to be continued ] -------------------------------------------------- (1) "Shpeekschaangeevishneevitskee" = (phonetically) "Spi ksiaze Wisniowiecki" = Prince Wisniowiecki lies in state; on the mountain of Holy Cross the corpses of Prince Jarema Wisniowiecki and his son Michal Korybut, onetime king of Poland and Great prince of Lithuania, are kept in caskets which are often open for public view, in a Lenin- tomb manner. ======================================================================== Notes on Contributors Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, born 1951 in Bydgoszcz. An economics major, he graduated from Economics College in Sopot. Prime Minister from January to December 1991. A minister for European Integration in Suchocka government (July - November 1992), he is presently the Polish representative in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London. Marek Cypryk (mcypryk@lodz1.p.lodz.pl) is a scientist (polymer chemistry) in the Centre of Molecular and Macromolecular Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Lodz, Poland and a contributing editor of PIGULKI. He was a co-founder and editor of POGLADY, Solidarity magazine of Lodz (1980-81). Jacek Gajewski is a physicist at the Physics Department of Warsaw University. Jacek took an active part in the "Bitnet to Poland" efforts in its early stages, and presently he is the main driving force in the Internet For Schools (IdS) organization. Joanna Horowska graduated in English studies from the Lodz University. She works as a translator in the Interpreters and Translators Agency ALIANS in Lodz and is a president of the Wojtek Wadowski Foundation which provides help for autistic children. Jurek Klimkowski (jleleno@cabell.vcu.edu) lives in Glen Allen, VA. His "travelogues" graced the POLAND-L list in 1990. He is Pigulki's Back Page Editor. Rafal Maszkowski (rzm@mat.torun.edu.pl) graduated from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. His speciality is astronomy, his hobby - travelling the Netland. Presently he works at the Onsala Space Observatory at the Chalmers Polytechnic in Goteborg. Dave Phillips (davep@niagaracyber.com) of Kenmore NY was active in the movements to support NSZZ "Solidarnosc," was a cofounder of the EARN/ Poland Link Discussion Group, and is a cofounder and an editor of Pigulki. An economic geographer, he runs Niagara Cyber, a research and informatics consultancy in Western New York. Radek Sikorski (74157.1220@compuserve.com) was born in Bydgoszcz in 1963. Graduated from Oxford University, he was a foreign correspondent in Afganistan, Angola and Yugoslavia in 1986-89. Vice-Minister of Defense in Olszewski government, he writes for Rzeczpospolita, National Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Spectator, The Economist, and has a "Interview of the Month" program in Polish TV. Together with his parents and wife, Anne Applebaum, he is restoring an antique mansion in Chobielin. Teresa Toranska, born a wanderer, educated a lawyer, works as a journalist, fond of prying into other's lifes. She begun her travel in Wolkowysk (In Poland, Soviet Union and Byelorussia, in this order), then: Szczecinek, Sulechow, Swiebodzin, Bialystok, Warszawa, Paris, Boston, New York and Washington... Out of chance created "Europe for $100", a 1975 bestseller; from spite: "Seen from Below" (1998), a collection of essays on Gierek's "decade of success"; out of despair, after the Martial Law was declared: "They", a collection of interwiews, bestseller of the underground publishing, translated into 13 languages. And now - "We". "My" can be obtained from the author (703-242-9857 or send e-mail to lsankowski@imf.org) Maciej Zakrzewski is a student at Lodz University (major: History). He moonlights as translator and interpreter. Marek Zielinski (zielinski@acfcluster.nyu.edu) of Rego Park, NY is a chemist and a contributing editor of Pigulki. He was a founding member of the EARN-Poland link discussion group in 1987, and was co-founder and editor of POGLADY, Solidarity magazine of Lodz (1980-81). On IRC he is known as Pigularz. ========================================================================= ABOUT PIGULKI Editors EMAIL Marek Cypryk (Lodz, Poland) mcypryk@plearn.bitnet Jerzy Klimkowski (Glen Allen, VA, USA) jleleno@cabell.vcu.edu Dave Phillips (Kenmore, NY, USA) NiagaraCyb@aol.com Jacek Ulanski (Lodz, Poland) julanski@plearn.bitnet Marek Zielinski (Rego Park, NY, USA) zielinski@acfcluster.nyu.edu Production Editor, Postscript edition Wojtek Hempel (Rego Park, NY, USA) PIGULKI Authorized Distributors North America: Dave Phillips (NiagaraCyb@aol.com) Oceania: Marek Samoc (mjs111@phys.anu.edu.au) Europe, Africa: Marek Zielinski (zielinski@acfcluster.nyu.edu) WWW EDITION: PIGULKI is available in html format readable by the World Wide Web (WWW) browsers such as Lynx and Mosaic. Point your browser to http://www.pdi.lodz.pl. POSTSCRIPT EDITION: PIGULKI issues 10 through 16 are available in printable Postscript form, by anonymous ftp, by E-mail and using Gopher. For instructions see below under Back Issues. BACK ISSUES: * ANONYMOUS FTP: The sites at alfa.camk.edu.pl, galaxy.uci.agh.edu.pl, ccpnxt7.in2p3.fr, laserspark.anu.edu.au, poniecki.berkeley.edu ftp.man.lodz.pl and ftp.pdi.lodz.pl store back issues in subdirectory /pub/pigulki. Log in as 'anonymous' and give your E-address as password. ASCII files have extension pub, Postscript files have extension ps. * MAIL: Send mail to netlib@alfa.camk.edu.pl with the line 'send index from pigulki' to obtain the list of available files, and with the line 'send pigulk12.pub from pigulki' to obtain eg. Pigulki #12 in ASCII. For Postscript substitute ps for pub. * GOPHER: In your Gopher's list of Other Gophers locate "University of Mining and Metallurgy, Cracow", or "Uniwersytet Kalifornijski, Berkeley", and look for Pigulki. Or connect directly to , or using your gopher client. Pigulki archives are also mirrored in the CIC gopher together with all other E-periodicals and books. * GOPHER/VERONICA: to locate issue 12 of Pigulki, search using a keyword of pigulk12.pub (for ascii versions) or pigulk12.ps (for postscript). Issues 1 through 9 are stored as "pigulki4.pub" etc. PIGULKI's editors are grateful to the following people for making space available to archive Pigulki: * Andrzej Kaczorowski of the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw , * Jaroslaw Strzalkowski of the University of Mining and Metallurgy in Krakow , * Wojtek Wojcik of the Centre de Calcul of Lyon , * Marek Samoc of the Australian National University in Canberra , * Darek Milewski of Poniecki Foundation in Berkeley , and * Piotr Wilk from Lodz Technical University . LEGAL BITS: PIGULKI is distributed electronically free of charge to masochistic readers who request it from an authorized distributor, bulletin board, or ftp site (above). Issues of Pigulki are also freely accessible in Gopherspace via Veronica searches. Signed articles are Copyright (c) 1995 by their authors. PIGULKI may not be copied or retransmitted without prior permission by the editors and notification of your local public health authorities. Your articles, letters, threats, denunciations are welcome; please send them to any editor you can find who'll admit being one. We reserve the right to edit for brevity. Readers, publishers, researchers, intelligence agents please note: FAIR USE: Permission to excerpt is granted in advance for academic use, provided there is full attribution and concurrent notification of the editors. REPRINTING: You must obtain permission to reprint a signed piece from the author(s), who must in turn notify a listed editor that they have so granted permission. Further, a reprinter must supply one copy of the reprinting to the Pigulki editors. Finally, the reprint must attribute the article's original appearance in (e.g.) Pigulki network magazine, ISSN 1060-9288, No. 19, May 15, 1995. ======================================================================== .