Three Monkeys Online - the free current affairs & arts magazine

Congratulations to Witold Gadomski, economics features writer for Gazeta Wyborcza who has just won a prize for fearlessly upholding the general right wing status quo in economics. No, really, I mean it. The prize is funded by the avowedly apolitical Polish National Bank, the assuredly neutral Association of Polish Journalists and the totally objective Reuters Press Agency. He was awarded the prize (a cheque for 10,000 euros - about two years’ pay for a non-economist) for “defending the principles of market economics independently of political circumstances” (”za obron? zasad gospodarki rynkowej niezale?nie od koniunktury politycznej”).

Polish has a useful distinction between “dziennikarz” (journalist) and “publicysta” (columnist, feature writer, opinons guy). Gadomski is referred to in the laudatory article in today’s GW as the latter. But should journalists - sorry, columnists - be getting prizes for defending a particular political position? Gadomski used to be an MP but, the article tells us, is no longer connected with any political grouping. I disagree with the none-too subtle implication that running an economy is apolitical. If economics is removed from the domain of politics, as GW, Reuters, the Polish National Bank and the Association of Polish Journalists seem to think it should be it means that the plebs cannot influence it. And they moan about low voter turn-out…

I look forward eagerly to an equally generous prize for a journalist in a major national newspaper defending state intervention in the marketplace to be awarded, naturally, by the avowedly apolitical Polish National Bank, the assuredly neutral Association of Polish Journalists and the totally objective Reuters Press Agency.

Afterthought: isn’t giving large cash prizes to pro-market economics writers interfering with the free market? Should Gadomski not be content with waiting for the invisible hand of the market to reward him?

Today’s Gazeta Wyborcza has an extended advertisement for an anti-plagiarism service whose name I won’t give here, since GW helpfully prints it several times in BLOCK CAPITALS. Why the irony? you ask. Why shouldn’t the newspaper print the company’s name in BLOCK CAPITALS since it is an advertisement? Because formally at least it is not an advertisement, but a news report, headlined “Tough Times Ahead for Plagiarists” and signed by ?ukasz Partyka. My eye was caught by the following statement, which, since no evidence is provided for it at all, gives the unfortunate and doubtless false impression of having been written by a PR company acting for the anti-plagiarism company whose virtues are extolled in the article/advertisement (and make no mistake: only one company is featured in this article about plagiarism). The sentence is “Academic teachers are unable to detect them [plagiarised papers] on their own.” GW says teachers can’t do their job so it must be true.

Bertie Ahern, Taoiseach (or “prime minister”) of Ireland, has an article in yesterday’s Gazeta Wyborcza. While it is too boring to read, one thing does stand out: the man’s impeccable Polish (no translator is credited). Unless - perish the thought - a Polish politician or bureaucrat wrote it and Ahern just put his name to the end of it. But how could he know that his thoughts and those of the Polish speech writer would coincide? Could that degree of groupthink exist in democratic political elites?

Hardly do I open my yap about Gazeta Wyborcza’s occasionally one-sided picture of how great it is everywhere in the EU except Poland than economist and journalist Waldemar Kuczy?ski chimes in (on the pages of GW) on the same note. In today’s paper he writes “in the short term nothing can be done to stem the flow of departures but there is no reason to stimulate it and turn it into a fever.” He refers also to the media’s shunting of the failed emigrants to the margins of comment.

Some months back (March 28^th — it fell down the back of the couch) Polityka had a promising article on the encroachment of public space by private property (”Wspólnie nie dla wszystkich”). It would be naive to think that the Polish reader would find in such a magazine anything about Reclaim the Streets - they have a long way to go before they reach that stage. But even still, I expected better. You or I or any anarchist might suspect that capitalism is what lies behind the transfer of land from public to private hands. After all, the article itself talks of how “…ever more places are losing their public character: entrances, doormen and tickets are appearing.” (This goes also for national parks.) But not in Poland. The author, Pawel Wrabec, draws the conclusion that communism is to blame for this. It is a “sad legacy of the PRL [Polish People's Republic]… a form of reaction against the restraints of the earlier political system,” in which the attitude was that what belonged to the state belonged to no one - and therefore was mistreated (”panstwowe, wiec niczyje”).

You can kind of see his point but it seems convenient to blame rapacious capitalism on communism.

Wroclaw, Wrabec writes, earns five million zloties a year from renting out public space to beer gardens and so on. Wrabec describes this “river of money” as a gold mine (literally, a “golden vein”). About 40 lines later Wrabec gives some context to the figure of 5 million zloties. 480 million zloties represents one quarter of Wroclaw’s income. So if the city were to keep its public spaces public it would mean foregoing .0029% of its budget. So not such a golden vein after all.

There’s an interview with Bronis?aw Wildstein, new chairman of the state TV company, in today’s Rzeczpospolita. Jaros?aw Murawski asks this champion of the citizen’s right - nay, obligation - to be well-informed about democratic society’s workings if Wildstein has not sacked certain people because they are protected by Samoobrona (coalition members). Wildstein fearlessly replies: “If you’re claiming that I won’t sack somebody because they are protected by Samoobrona or anyone else I will treat it as something like slander.” Murawski quickly changes the subject.

Today’s Gazeta Wyborcza has a full-page ad for a car on its front page. Above it are the words (I’m quoting from memory as I did not buy it) “This ad makes childrens’ dreams come true.” As the sound of vomit splashing into the bottom of sickbags dies down, may I remind you that today is Children’s Day in Poland.