PiS is showing party political broadcasts which boast about, among other things, “improved” security – at this point the TV screen shows some jet fighters, possibly the F16s PiS bought the other year. I’m sure it is entirely coincidental that Lockheed Martin has an advertisement in today’s Gazeta Wyborcza for the F16 Fighting Falcon. It’s […]
I don’t have the heart to explain all the “lustration” shenanigans in Poland so I will just throw out a few comments for those who have been following it, but perhaps not that closely, and perhaps relying on English language sources. Unsurprisingly, the lustration law was found to be largely unconstitutional on Friday by the […]
May 3rd is the day on which Poles celebrate the anniversary of their 1791 constitution, which is considered by some (mostly Poles) the most progressive in Europe of its day. Only the American constitution beats it, the national mythology goes. It did not liberate the peasants but it did take on some of the worst […]
Andrzej Zybertowicz puts up a strong, if entirely illogical, defence of the law requiring journalists to swear to whether they did or did not cooperate with the secret services of communist Poland in Wednesday’s Rzeczpospolita. Journalists should sign the loyalty declarations beacuse they are “the fourth estate.” It’s that simple. I have scoured the constitution […]
Not all journos here are finding the legal requirement to pledge that you never informed under communism so irksome as those prima donnas who claim that this is mere humiliation, since in any case the archives are about to be thrown open to journalists (and that, as mentioned before, means nearly everyone — including you, […]
From March 15th all journalists born before 1972 working in Poland will have to sign a declaration that they did not spy for the Polish People’s Republic. That includes me: Polish law has a very wide definition of journalism and the bill makes no distinction between Poles and foreigners. Nor does it make any attempt […]
Marcin Wojciechowski of Gazeta Wyborcza (Feb 13th) takes the unfortunate minister for agriculture, Andrzej Lepper, to task for questioning the wisdom of locating an anti-missile shield in Poland. “In matters of state as important as the missile shield only the competent members of government should speak out, not the minister for agriculture, and never outside […]
After extensive research (one and a half minutes on Google) I have been unable to find the source for “no matter who you vote for the government always wins.” It’s certainly true here in Poland, with local elections just over and a government still firmly in power. An interesting difference of opinion has come out […]
All news is local, they say, so here’s what Poland looks like going by the pages of a classified ads newspaper that comes out twice a week here: Poles love cars. One third of the paper is given over to them. The section marked “hobby” is less than one page long, hopefully because hobbyists have […]
Local elections are approaching and all over Poland (presumably — I haven’t been all over it myself) teams of workers are energetically engaged in infrastructural work. Roads are being resurfaced, roundabouts rationalised and parks prettified. It’s not fooling anyone: “kie?basa wyborcza” (election sausage) is what Poles call this transparent bribery of the general public. My […]
