More to eat, but less heat

This week’s Polityka, Poland’s favored news weekly, presented some fascinating data on how the market economy has transformed the purchasing power of the average Pole’s salary.
The paper shows what could be purchased (with an average pay check) in 1990, i.e. at the beginning of the “great transformation,” compared with 1995, and 2003.

It appears that the average pay check can now cover many more kilo of sugar, meat, chocolate (the staples?!) but fewer hours of heat, fewer tickets to the movies, and fewer doctors’ visits than in 1990.

If you’re itching to travel, Poland’s prices remain comparatively lower than those in the States or Germany. Take a look at this table. Everything from apples to a Big Mac are just a fraction of what the cost would be in the US. Of course, the average salary (in Euro, gross, first line in the table) is also a fraction of that in the US, but just about four times that of a Russian.

My advice? Fill up on the Big Macs in Poland, but get sick when you return back home. Unless you’re one of the 40% under/uninsured in the States, in which case you should take a detour to France or England until you recover.

SUNDAY is family day...

My mother left a message on the phone last night (she lives in Berkeley CA). She wanted to know how come we had moved away without leaving a forwarding number. A veiled reference to the absence of calls on my part, I have no doubt. I am making up for my inattentiveness by including a reference here to our subsequent conversation.

We talked books – a very safe topic, because she reads a lot, certainly more than I do, and she remembers names of journalists, speakers, authors, which, again, is a considerable improvement over me. She feels good that in spite of the fact that our ratio of academic degrees is me 3 to her 0, she does better in the reading department. Our conversation goes something like this:

She: “I went to hear Ben Chehatsky speak yesterday”
Me: silence
She: “You don’t know who Ben Chehatsky is, do you?”
Me: “No clue, Mom”
She: “You say you have a law degree and you don’t know?”
Me: “Really, no clue.”
She: “He was excellent. The room was packed. They couldn’t pack a room full of people in Madison to see him, could they?”
Me: “Maybe people here don’t know who Ben Chehatsky is.” [this is just handing her the bone, but what can I do..]
She: “Hard to believe, isn’t it? And I’m guessing it’s cold now, right?”
Me: [I certainly can’t argue that one] “It’s cold.” And then, to find common ground: “Have you read the new Tyler book yet, Mom?”
[the rest of the conversation is about her reflections on Tyler, and I need only listen since of course I have NOT read every single Tyler book out there, and she has.]

I should admit, however, that I am currently reading Tyler’s “Amateur Marriage” – which hits at all the Polishness hidden within me as it is loaded with character names like “Mrs. Pozniak” and “Mrs. Kowalski” and "Mr. Kostka". I’m catching up on you, Ma!

Know your candidate..

This week, the Isthmus ran a story on the Democratic presidential candidates. By now, the only surprises are to be found in the answers to the question “What little known fact can you tell us about this candidate?”

Here are some revealing tidbits:

John Kerry: he windsurfs.
Dick Gephardt: he loves baseball and at one time had hopes of becoming a professional baseball player. [how all-American!]
Howard Dean: he requested African American roommates while in college at Yale. [would that be so that he could say “some of my best friends are..” ?]
John Edwards: he was the first person in his family to go to college.
Dennis Kucinich: he’s a vegan. [he might as well just close the campaign door for good with that one]
Al Sharpton: he married a James Brown back-up singer.
Wesley Clark: At 59, he has only 5% body fat. [that’s a mean one to hurl at a nation that has most people at 95% body fat]
Joe Lieberman: as a college student, he took a month off to help blacks register to vote in Mississippi. [I think that came up as the little known fact last time he ran..]