“Entrepreneurship Takes Off in Ireland” is the title of an upbeat New York Times‘ article on the go-get-’em business moxie that is supposedly rampant in the “new” Ireland.The piece kicks off with a bold–some begrudging inhabitants of the “old” Ireland might prefer the word “ridiculous”–assertion:”Ireland is now alive with enthusiasm for entrepreneurs, who seemingly rank […]
Given the near-daily reports about crises in the Irish health service, the country’s position on this chart seems surprising.Then again, the murder rate in Baghdad has also declined impressively in recent months, but I still wouldn’t be in a rush to visit.
The Pope stole the front page of many newspapers today, both in Italy and abroad, as he performed a deft PR sidestep leaving Academics and students at Rome’s La Sapienza university to celebrate a pyrrhic victory as they open the Academic year tomorrow without him. The Pope had been invited by the university’s governing body […]
For a mid-week post, I was girding myself to produce an elevating squib on Alex Ross’s much-lauded history of 20th-century music, The Rest is Noise. However, having reached only page 90 so far, even I am reluctant to offer a nugget-sized synopsis of Ross’s argument. For more, stay tuned–unless you’re a follower of the Second […]
Poland’s public health service is still in a jock. Doctors out, nurses out, patients being evacuated—I’ve lost track to be honest. But here comes Agata Nowakowska of Gazeta Wyborcza to take me by the hand and patiently explain that “Raising Health Insurance Contributions Only Puts Out Fires,” (the title of her opinion piece in today’s […]
We have America to thank for what must be or should be or maybe already is a popular new adjective: subprime. Northern Rock crumbled but Poland is safe because as any neophyte knows the market never falls. A brief survey of the advertising of bank loans here: 1. We will not check your credit rating. […]
Taking advantage of an extended Christmas/New Year’s vacation, I’ve been working my way through Tim Blanning’s “magisterial” (i.e. very long) The Pursuit of Glory, which covers developments in Europe in the century-and-a-half between the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 and the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815. Blanning’s approach might be described as dialectical, with […]
Cudowna Melina (Wonderful Drinking Den) by Kazimierz Orłoś is an interesting case of a book that requires a certain knowledge of its times to be fully appreciated. Written in Communist Poland (1971), it is, to say the least, schematic. You can almost guess the pattern: an idealistic young party apparatchik comes to town and cleans […]
Enjoying the sunshine and the weak dollar in the company of my wife’s family in Arizona, I have found it difficult to put the rest of the world’s travails in perspective. Sure, I’ve diligently waded through the New York Times (BTW, the new narrower format seems to confirm the widespread simile that compares the newspaper […]