Recent months have seen a spate of good news about (and from) Poland and a number of enthusiastic reports in publications which are authoritative and have never been very mild about the country's record. Two such articles come from the Economist and, importantly, their content deserves as much attention as the comments left by their readers.
One reports the events that mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Nazi Germany concentration camp in south-east Poland, and the changing attitudes of average Poles towards the Jews and the complicated Polish-Jewish history. Against a lingering notion that the Polish population has continued to display undue anti-Semitism, the Economist brings up persuasive evidence that this hateful undercurrent has been drying up in recent years and efforts at normalising relations at all levels, from diplomatic to workaday, have started to bear fruit in the form of Jewish culture festivals, exchange programmes or even passport applications from the descendants of Polish Jews from all over the world. There are some incredibly insightful and lucid comments from international readers, some of them probably some intelligent expats living in Poland.
The other article, penned in a tone of nearly complete admiration, extolls Poland's economic performance and political stability that, even in the face of the global financial crisis, have been second to none in the European context. Skin-deep as this analysis may be, creating a wrong impression that Poles have been living in universal prosperity and unduly concentrated on abstract indicators, it nonetheless gives immense pleasure and some consolation to see your homeland portrayed in such an overwhelmingly bright light. Again, the comment section is worth paying a visit.
Vocab bit: sanctimonious is feigning piety (świętoszkowaty), like: I wonder what happened to all this sanctimonious talk of putting the family first.
On a lighter note, amidst unforgiving winter one story that warmed hearts around the globe originated in Poland's port city of Gdańsk. Baltic, the dog which had found himself drifting on an ice floe, first down the Vistula River and then miles off the Baltic coast, was spotted and daringly rescued by a group of Polish seamen. What struck me were the readers' reactions which, possibly for the first time ever on the Daily Mail site, contained no rude language and no mud slinging at any direction. Instead, they included: tears rolling down people's faces, warming hearts, making people's day/morning, taking inspiration for staying resilient (= wytrwały, prężny) and always looking ahead, admiration for the dog's endurance.
Another Polish dog made headlines in the UK when his family had to give it away to the animal shelter and its staff had a hard time trying to teach him English commands.
Vocab bit:
1) Baltic was plucked (= picked) to safety by the sailors. You can also pluck a chicken or pluck a child from school mid-term.
2) The dog got trapped on ice.
3) a mutt = a mongrel dog
4) His luck turned.
5) After we solved tha problem the rest was plain sailing.
6) a pontoon,
7) the dog didn't even yelp (= skamleć) or shriek (= piszczeć),
8) to float further and further out to the open sea,
9) I wonder how he got there to begin with (= in the first place),
10) give a dog treats to train it,
11) the kennel = the dog shelter,
12) bouncy = lively and energetic,
13) owning a dog is a lifelong commitment,
14) a dog breed = rasa,
15) a pedigree = rodowód,
16) Woof is how dogs bark,
17) You can't teach an old dog new tricks,
18) a sound/reward association,
19) the yoof = the youth,
20) to have the decency to
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