Word: polisher
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...this day two decades ago, Polish patriots took on the world’s largest army and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, eventually toppling the Communist regime in Warsaw. They achieved this feat not through violent revolution, but through a series of negotiations that became famous as the Round Table talks. The defeat of Communism in Poland—which was soon followed by its total collapse in Eastern Europe and, in 1991, the Soviet Union itself—should properly be regarded as one of the greatest triumphs in European history...
...Walesa, had gained international sympathy after the 1980 shipyard strikes in Gdansk. It would eventually gain huge popular support; 1.5 million Poles would claim membership in April 1989. However, the Communist regime felt threatened by the union and responded with force. In 1981, Wojciech Jaruzelski, the secretary of the Polish Communist Party, declared martial law, criminalized Solidarity, and imprisoned much of its leadership. For two years, Poland suffered under military rule...
...Turning Poland into a market economy, however, was a more complex and painful process than anyone could have imagined. In the early 1990s, the Polish government attempted to use “shock therapy” programs—championed by Jeffrey Sachs and other Western experts—to jumpstart the economy. This resulted in high inflation and unemployment for years. The Polish economy eventually revived, but the intervening years were painful for most of the country. Solidarity, which had championed shock therapy, soon paid the political price for backing the unpopular economic platform...
...Walesa, Solidarity emerged from the overthrow of Communism popularly viewed as the savior of the Polish nation but proved to be much less effective as a governing party. Just four years after the Round Table talks, the once-dominant coalition led by Solidarity had fragmented and lost power to its Social Democratic opposition, some of whom had served in the Communist government. This was not due simply to the economic climate; in the first truly free elections, the movement split violently when Walesa ran for president against Tadeusz Mazowiecki, another Solidarity politician who was then prime minister...
...always been the signature of the band, the latter’s sheer beauty brings frequent comparisons to the Beach Boys in their heyday. And while both voices have always been put to more instrumental use than is typical in pop music, here they have the trappings of true polish.“My Girls,” the album’s most obvious single, builds toward a sugary, handclap-heavy, altogether nonsensical chorus. Like the tracks that follow, it’s stacked high and deep with keyboard loops, distorted vocal samples, and percussion both various and eclectic...