Syzdek Family Newsletter

Stumped by Maciejewski? Tongue tied by Tomaszewski? Check out this online guide for pronouncing common Polish names. They also have a bunch of other names and languages, so you can pronounce your new Hindi’s coworker name, Chinmayananda.

Thanks to Lifehacker for the tip:

We’ve all been there. You look at a list of names for a meeting or at a new business card and you have absolutely no idea there was a last name with that many vowels. HowToSayThatName.com is a web site devoted to cataloging both first and last names, spoken by native speakers. No idea how to pronounce last names like “Nyguyen” or “Dokht”? Look the name up and play the embedded audio file to hear it. While a mispronounced name here and there is unavoidable, saying someone’s name correctly when they are accustomed to it being butchered goes a long way whether in a boardroom or at a barbecue.

Bruno and Phyllis Syzdek celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary on September 23, 2008 in Las Vegas. They had a quiet anniversary at home and have recently returned from a Air Force reunion in Austin, Texas a few days before.

The New York Times has this interesting article on the genetic relatedness of the peoples of Europe.

The genetic map of Europe bears a clear structural similarity to the geographic map. The major genetic differences are between populations of the north and south (the vertical axis of the map shows north-south differences, the horizontal axis those of east-west). The area assigned to each population reflects the amount of genetic variation in it.

Europe has been colonized three times in the distant past, always from the south. Some 45,000 years ago the first modern humans entered Europe from the south. The glaciers returned around 20,000 years ago and the second colonization occurred about 17,000 years ago by people returning from southern refuges. The third invasion was that of farmers bringing the new agricultural technology from the Near East around 10,000 years ago.

The pattern of genetic differences among present day Europeans probably reflects the impact of these three ancient migrations, Dr. Kayser said.

The map also identifies the existence of two genetic barriers within Europe. One is between the Finns (light blue, upper right) and other Europeans. It arose because the Finnish population was at one time very small and then expanded, bearing the atypical genetics of its few founders.

The other is between Italians (yellow, bottom center) and the rest. This may reflect the role of the Alps in impeding free flow of people between Italy and the rest of Europe.

From the AP:

Like a religious relic, the heart of composer Frederic Chopin rests in a Warsaw church, untouched since it was preserved in alcohol after his death in 1849 at age 39.

And that’s how the Polish government wants to keep it.

Scientists want to remove the heart for DNA tests to see if Chopin actually died from cystic fibrosis and not tuberculosis as his death certificate stated. But the government says that’s not a good reason to disturb the remains of a revered native son.

The heart lies in a jar sealed inside a pillar at Warsaw’s Holy Cross Church — and the only time it has been removed was for safekeeping during World War II.

Before it was returned in 1951, a doctor examined the heart and found it perfectly preserved in an alcohol that many think is cognac. Chopin died in France, where his body is buried, but he asked that his heart be sent to his homeland.

Cystic fibrosis, an incurable genetic disease, was not discovered until many decades after Chopin’s death, and the scientists who want to examine the heart say many of his symptoms match that illness, including respiratory infections, recurrent fevers, delayed puberty and infertility.

A spokeswoman for the Culture Ministry, Iwona Radziszewska, told The Associated Press on Thursday that ministry officials consulted experts and decided that “this was neither the time to give approval, nor was it justified by the potential knowledge to be gained.”

Link.

The Summer 2008 Syzdek Family Newsletter has been printed and you should receive your paper copy soon. A PDF version will also be posted soon.

The Syzdek Family Newsletter would like to welcome the Driskell family to the blogosphere! Link.

On March 4, Leo Syzdek passed away at age 83. He was the oldest member of the Ike Syzdek family.

The Battle of Grunwald (or Battle of Tannenberg) took place on July 15, 1410 with the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ranged against the Knights of the Teutonic Order. It was the decisive engagement in the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War (1409-1411) and one of the greatest battles of medieval Europe. The battle saw the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights decisively defeated — and the order never recovered its former power. This battle was one of the most important battles of Polish History.

The Syzdek Family Newsletter is in the mail! Almost 400 copies of the June 2007, Syzdek Family Newsletter went out in the mail yesterday and you should be receiving your copy soon. Electronic copies of the newsletter and past copies will also be posted on this website soon.

From the New York Times (link):

The newly appointed archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw W. Wielgus, resigned today after admitting two days earlier that he had collaborated with Poland’s Communist-era secret police. The revelation has shaken one of Europe’s largest Catholic communities and refocused scrutiny on charges that some clergy were Communist collaborators up until the 1980s even as the Roman Catholic Church was supporting dissidents. The archbishop had tried to minimize reports of his collaboration, which surfaced two weeks after Pope Benedict XVI named him to the job on Dec. 6, insisting that his contacts with the country’s feared Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa, or Security Service, were benign and routine. But Bishop Wielgus admitted to deeper involvement on Friday after documents from secret police files were published in Polish newspapers that suggested he had informed on fellow clerics for decades, beginning in the late 1960s.

Bishop Wielgus has maintained that his collaboration with the S.B., as the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa was known, did not involve spying on anyone and did not hurt anyone. Nonetheless, any cooperation between the Polish clergy and the S.B. is troubling to Poles, as it is to people all over the former Soviet bloc, because of the Catholic Church under the Polish-born Pope John Paul II was considered a beacon of hope and encouragement to people fighting Communist oppression.