I blame Bia?oszewski. For the short sentences. In fact, fragmentary. Sentences, that is. Very annoying. He wrote a book once. Famous. Pami?tnik z powstania warszawskiego. It was called. Miron Bia?oszewski wrote short, abrupt sentences in a sometimes successful attempt to capture and reflect the urgency and chaos of Warsaw during the uprising. Polish lends itself […]
Today’s Gazeta Wyborcza has an interview with Lorenzo Vidino, an Italian terrorism expert, about the recent near-attack on trans-atlantic aeroplanes. The interviewer is the ever incisive Mariusz Zawadzki. The headline is “Why Great Britain Again?” It is quite a puzzler, alright. Vidino is able to help: he says that Britain is perceived the world over […]
I wrote a few weeks back about an article — nay, an appeal — in Gazeta Wyborcza written by three young economists and claiming that Poland was facing a dependency-rate crisis (i.e. too many leeches like the old, the young and the sick and not enough worker drones). Among the authors of that article was […]
Another journalist is in trouble for insulting a government member. This time it’s Mariusz Ziomecki, who called a League of Polish Families deputy a “babsztyl” (big fat aul’ one) and a liar in a tabloid, and is now being investigated for “defaming a public functionary.” The prosecutor’s office called him in for questioning. What interests […]
“Nie podnosimy cen bez powodu” says the startling sticker on the door of a kiosk near my house. It means, translating freely, “we won’t raise prices for no reason.” The campaign bears the imprimatur of those noted advocates of centrally planned economies Gazeta Wyborcza and the Polish National Bank. In a free market am I […]
“Lebanese Children want to be Martyrs” is the surprising headline in Friday’s Gazeta Wyborcza. The subhead: “Thousands of children are the victims of Hezbollah’s war with Israel [not Israel’s war on the Lebanon]. In photographs from the Lebanon one sees mostly the dead or those injured after the explosion of bombs. But most of them […]
It turns out we’re all going to die in poverty, regardless. The problem is too many nasty old people hogging the social welfare budget and too few young ones contributing to it. In Friday’s Gazeta Wyborcza three young Polish economists make their contribution to the debate. Billed as an “appeal” and complete with exclamation marks […]
Wednesday’s Gazeta Wyborcza reprinted a New York Times article by Israeli writer Etgar Keret entitled “Je?li ju? Wojna, to Lepsza Taka” (If it’s war, then it’s better this way, translated by Maciej Kositorny). The original appeared under the title “The Way We War.” I thought it would kick up murder on the interweb but a […]
Nie (“No”) is a weekly current affairs magazine. Its editor is Jerzy Urban, the mouthpiece of communist Poland in the 1980s. The editorial line is firmly anti-Catholic church and the present, right wing government is not in favour either. Its journalists try sometimes a little too hard to defend the legacy of the People’s Republic […]
Perhaps I should make this a regular feature – if I could be bothered buying Rzeczpospolita regularly. Today’s paper, as usual, contains translations of editorials from foreign papers on page two. One is from the Daily Telegraph. The Rz writes: “Tymczasem teoria, ?e za kryminalne zachowania obywateli odpowiedzialne jest spo?ecze?stwo, jest nieprawdziwa.” This means: “The […]
