Rzeczpospolita Polska
Sunday, April 22nd, 2007While prying through some personal files late one night last week in the local IPN branch I came across one that caught my eye. It was the file of a certain university professor, doctor… well, let us call him “Dr. Wykształciuch” for the sake of discretion. The top sheet was his CV and at the [...]
Numbers
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007Average Polish pay, 1997: 1,000 zł Average Polish pay, 2005: 2,500 zł Mimimum wage: currently about 935 zł (Some organisations define poverty as an income of less than half the national average.)
In and out
Saturday, February 17th, 2007In the last two years some 1.2 million people have left Poland. Since May 2004 2.5 million cars have been imported. (Polityka 2007: nr. 7) I don’t know what that signifies. Probably nothing.
We had to destroy the hospitals to save them
Saturday, February 17th, 2007As mentioned previously, hospitals here in Poland are being overrun by bailiffs as the government agrees to bail out only a few of them. One of the reasons being offered for this disastrous turn of events is that there are too many hospitals. There may well be something in this but I would find it [...]
Health Care Bingo
Wednesday, February 7th, 2007The Polish health service is in a jock. Several hospitals in the ?l?sk region have had the pleasure of forming a close acquaintance with the bailiffs and it’s back in time to the Victorian era of Do-gooding as a whip around is organised to keep taxpayer-funded hospitals afloat. If this were happening in a socialist [...]
Eccentricity
Sunday, January 28th, 2007In the eighteenth century to be an eccentric you had to worship Satan, gamble, go hot air ballooning, accidentally kill someone, marry a close relative, flee from creditors, be addicted to opium, write and privately publish a pornographic novel, discover one of the elements and have a star, a species of plant or a national [...]
Target Practice
Friday, January 26th, 2007Dziennik (26th January) has revealed that the nefarious soviets had atomic bombs on Polish territory. It’s a good thing no one knew about this at the time: their presence would have made Poland an obvious target in any European war. On an entirely unrelated note, an American general calling himself Henry A. Obering has assured [...]
The Big Questions in Local Journalism
Friday, January 26th, 2007Who is to blame for all this snow? This is the question which has been tormenting journalists in local newspapers for the last few days as Poland gets a belated flurry of snow action. Who can we blame for the gigantic tail backs and traffic jams, for the hours wasted by drivers in their cars, [...]
How Capitalist is Poland (part five or six)?
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007There is talk of abolishing the May 1st public holiday. Showing any respect for work here is regarded as dangerous communist deviance. There used to be a lot more streets named after the labour day holiday.
How Capitalist is Poland? (IV)
Monday, January 8th, 2007“To dzięki nami bogaci stają się jeszcze bogatsi” is the proud slogan of an investment bank here in Poland. It means “It’s thanks to us that the rich are getting richer.”
