A couple of weeks ago Jacek Dehnel had an article in Polityka in which he described his visit to Vienna. This week it’s Michał Witkowski’s turn: he was in Jerusalem and writes an interesting piece on it, on Polish-Jewish relations and on stereotypes. Here are the last lines: “What is the truth? What is a […]
The following comes in its entirety from Roman Daszczyński’s article in Tuesday’s Gazeta Wyborcza (April 7th). The penalties for drunk-cycling in Poland are extremely harsh. You lose your driving license for one (yes – your car driving licence). There are currently 1,931 cyclists in Polish prisons for drunk-cycling. The maximum prison sentence is twelve months […]
I’ve solved the economic crisis. After months of study and intensive thought I’ve finally cracked it. To be fair, I arrived at my earth-righting conclusion by standing on the shoulders of giants. I’ve been reading the newspapers, turning over in my mind the pronouncements of the experts, sifting through the policy initiatives of the finest […]
David Ost’s The Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe (2005) is the best book of its kind I know. His central thesis is that anger is an inevitable by-product of capitalism and should be channelled into class struggle where it can do some good for ordinary workers. If not, grievances caused by […]
They say all news is local so here’s a taste of Poland from the pages of a typical urban local paper, a weekly freshet. There are three headlines on the front page and each of them is an order: “Close this alley,” “Talk to the president” and “Fight the Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner.” Poles are […]
Alain Bihr‘s contempt for the term “human capital” is almost tangible: “As if capital, that cold monster, that accumulation of dead work, which lives only because it constantly preys on living work and exploits the labour of billions of people whose lives mean nothing to it, condemning more billions to poverty, insecurity, unemployment and socio-economic […]
Poland took delivery of its first Hercules transport plane last week. The aeroplane is nearly 40 years old and attracted much derision from the ever-independent Polish media. For instance, TVN, the fearless private sector news broadcaster, detailed the history of the aeroplane in a lengthy news piece. As long ago as 1983, they said, it […]
Here’s a report from the Irish national broadcaster’s news site which may be beyond parody but by jingo that isn’t going to stop me. For those unfamiliar with the subject, two pieces of background information: (1) the Irish economy has hit a brick wall (2) “Tánaiste” is the Irish name for the post of deputy […]
What with Sylwia Chutnik, Michał Witkowski and Dorota Masłowska’s Między nami dobrze jest, I’ve had quite a run of luck with books and plays by young writers lately. It’s not all good news on the young writing scene, though. Take novelist Jacek Dehnel (b. 1980), who wrote an article for Polityka a couple of weeks […]
Michal Witkowski’s Lubiewo (2005) – though much concerned with the passage of time, especially from communist Poland to the present, glorious, third republic – probably fits the description of “queer literature.” The Lubiewo of the title is a beach he goes to where he meets, among many others, a group of complex-free, open, right-on, emancipated […]
