Word: lechings
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...former trade unionist and Polish President Lech Walesa is the city of Gdansk's most famous son, then its second-most famous progeny is probably the Nobel Laureate German writer Gunter Grass. Grass, of course, was born in Danzig, as Gdansk was known before it reverted to Poland at the end of World War II. And while Walesa became internationally renowned for leading the shipyard strike that led to the formation of the Solidarity trade union and proved to be a decisive blow in the collapse of Polish communism, Grass was honored for his passionate and clear-eyed excoriation...
...everyone shares Michnik's appreciation of Grass. One nationalist newspaper columnist called Grass a "cheater," while deputies with the ruling nationalist Law and Justice Party boycotted the Gdansk celebration and decried the $100,000 spent by the city on the event. The ruling party led by the twins Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, which faces the voters two weeks from now, has stressed Poland's suffering at the hands of Germany during the war, and relations between the two countries have chilled during their two years in power. But Gdansk appears more willing to both remember and forgive...
...former child film stars and identical twins who have been governing Poland for the past two years, Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, have been the butt of many jokes. Some play predictably off their diminutiveness. Others, more bizarrely, involve potatoes. One Berlin newspaper last year splashed a photo of a spud on its front page alongside one of Lech, the Polish President, and inquired: "Which one is coming to visit?" A Polish satirist recently lamented the shortage of humorists to cope with the volume of material that the twins are generating: "Life just surpasses my capabilities," said cartoonist Szczepan Sadurski...
...parties, no one knows which party that will be. Analysts like Piotr Kaczynski (no relation) at the independent Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw say that Jaroslaw is unlikely to stay on as Prime Minister whatever happens, although his party will probably remain the biggest opposition grouping. Meanwhile brother Lech, who occupies a directly elected post, will remain President with influence over foreign policy until at least...
...matters of foreign policy, Civic Platform leaders are just as staunchly nationalistic as their rivals. On Aug. 15 - the same day that Lech Kaczynski paraded alongside columns of tanks and troops to celebrate a great Polish victory over Russian Bolshevik forces in 1920 - the Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk, a prospective Prime Minister, did his own bit for Polish patriotism by trying (unsuccessfully) to enter Belarus to celebrate the holiday with Polish nationals there. Economists, for their part, say that while the Civic Platform is friendlier toward business than the current government, it still may not have the political will...