-- 65% POSITIVELY ASSESS GOVERNMENT'S ACTIONS REGARDING THE PANDEMIC - CBOS: “Currently, 65% of respondents rate the actions of Mateusz Morawiecki's government in combating COVID-19 positively. This is 5 percentage points less than at the turn of May and June. The percentage of people negatively assessing the government's actions in this area increased from 25% to 29%. Almost all PiS voters, as well as the majority of PSL–Koalicja Polska and Confederation sympathizers, praise the Morawiecki cabinet's actions. Among Civic Coalition and The Left voters, criticism prevails”. -- GROWING NUMBER OF SKEPTICS REGARDING THE LIFTING OF RESTRICTIONS: “As CBOS notes, concerns about the pace of lifting epidemic-related restrictions have intensified in recent weeks. The percentage of people convinced that the government is easing restrictions too quickly increased from 31% to 43%. At the same time, the percentage stating that the authorities are doing so at an appropriate pace decreased from 48% to 39%. Relatively few (10%, a decrease of 2 percentage points) believe that restrictions are being lifted too slowly”. https://dorzeczy.pl/kraj/149312/sondaz-cbos-wiekszosc-polakow-zadowolona-z-dzialan-rzadu.html -- TVP SIGNED A 10-YEAR AGREEMENT WITH EMITEL: “On July 31 this year, TVP and Emitel concluded an agreement for the distribution of TVP programs on the third multiplex (MUX-3) of Digital Terrestrial Television. The agreement covers not only the provision of television broadcasting services but also the change in broadcast and encoding standards, which will be implemented in 2022. The agreement was concluded for 10 years”. -- EMITEL CEO ON EXPANDING TVP'S CAPABILITIES: “‘The conclusion of a new, 10-year agreement and the continuation of cooperation with our strategic partner, Telewizja Polska S.A., is a very significant event for Emitel. It is also an opportunity to jointly develop digital terrestrial television, which enjoys great popularity among Polish viewers. The planned transition to the DVB-T2/HEVC broadcast standard will allow the broadcaster to develop its content distribution platform, which will benefit viewers in Poland,’ said Andrzej J. Kozłowski, President of the Management Board of Emitel S.A.”. https://centruminformacji.tvp.pl/49244922/telewizja-polska-i-emitel-podpisali-umowe-na-nadawanie-programow-tvp-z-mux3 -- PLATFORM WITH ITS PARLIAMENTARY TEAM ON ELECTIONS, HOŁOWNIA DOES NOT QUESTION THE ELECTIONS, GRODZKI ON THE PANDEMIC IN THE SENATE - 300LIVE: https://300polityka.pl/live/2020/08/04/ -- GLIŃSKI AS COORDINATOR FOR WINNING BACK THE YOUTH? - PIOTR ZAREMBA IN DGP: “In 2015, Gliński did not want the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. He chose culture. Today, the main reason for this accumulation is supposed to be the reluctance to hand over the Ministry of Science to the leader of Porozumienie, Jarosław Gowin, who is seeking a place in the government. Gowin is to be admitted, but to some economic ministry (likely development). There is another reason: after the elections, there were voices among right-wing politicians stating that the atmosphere in schools and universities is responsible for the insufficient support for Andrzej Duda among the younger generation. Gliński is thus to become the great coordinator for ‘winning them back’. Culture is also considered part of the problem, hence this combination. And Kaczyński wants to give value to a politician who has always been loyal to him”. -- SCHOOL SHAPES LESS, TELEVISION PROGRAMS MORE? - ZAREMBA CONTINUES: “Above all, young people are shaped to a greater extent by the information noise, flowing primarily from the internet, than by school or academic classes. In this sense, a more significant problem than any particular textbook or teacher is the tone of TVP's propaganda, taken directly from the television news programs of the late PRL. Or the communication style with the audience of Deputy Speaker Terlecki himself, which has a touch of what young people consider embarrassing”. -- A RISKY INSTRUMENT FOR A NEW OPENING - ZAREMBA CONTINUES: “Perhaps, because of course everyone can change. If PiS hopes for a new opening in science or education, it has chosen a risky instrument. This is also, incidentally, a consequence of the length (or shortness) of the party's bench. One can understand that Piotr Gliński, one of the leading figures in the government, has earned Kaczyński's trust. And one can also dream about the vision of at least one competent person in the party dealing with each of these topics (for example, the name of MP Mirosława Stachowiak-Różecka circulated in the context of education). However, the short bench is visible everywhere. There is still no candidate for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, apart from the traditionally ready Krzysztof Szczerski. And yet, this is one of the keys to effective government policy over the next three years”. https://wiadomosci.dziennik.pl/opinie/artykuly/7789952,piotr-glinski-rzad-rekonstrukcja-jaroslaw-kaczynski-pis-klopoty-nauka-sport-piotr-zaremba.html -- THEY DIDN'T LIKE THE CAMPAIGN, THEY DON'T LIKE THE SUPREME COURT JUDGES, SO THEY WON'T ATTEND THE SWEARING-IN - JACEK KARNOWSKI: “More and more figures from the opposition are declaring that they will not come - or would not have come if they were on the guest list - to the inauguration of President Andrzej Duda. Because they didn't like the campaign, because they don't like the Supreme Court judges who deemed the elections valid”. -- ON THE DAY OF THE SWEARING-IN, THE DEFEAT OF THE TOTAL OPPOSITION WILL RESONATE LOUDEST - KARNOWSKI CONTINUES: “Overall, however, one cannot be surprised that the opposition thinks of August 6th with reluctance. Because the day of Andrzej Duda's inauguration for his second term will also be the day when the defeat of the total opposition will resonate most fully. It will be the day when it becomes clear that the strategy of throwing a spanner in the works, refusing cooperation, blocking parliament, whipping up foreign pressure, resorting to street action, creating a completely false image of Poland, and all that we have witnessed over the last five years, has lost. In fact, it has collapsed. And spectacularly so”. -- WITH AN OPPOSITION LOYAL TO THE STATE, POLAND WOULD BE STRONGER - KARNOWSKI CONTINUES: “No boycotts, no tricks will change that. On August 6th, the opposition can come, or it can stay home. It no longer matters. Because, yes, a more united Poland, with a more state-loyal opposition, would be a stronger country. However, we already know that it is difficult to count on this, and secondly, that it is possible to change Poland for the better even with the total opposition on the other side”. https://wpolityce.pl/polityka/511991-6-sierpnia-kleska-opozycji-totalnej-wybrzmi-wyjatkowo-mocno -- BERLIN RESIDENTS' FIGHT AGAINST HIGH RENTS - INVESTMENT FUNDS TO BE EXPROPRIATED FROM HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF APARTMENTS IN BERLIN - Dr. Joanna Kusiak in conversation with Grzegorz Sroczyński in GW: “It seems that international investment funds will be expropriated from hundreds of thousands of apartments. If the majority of Berliners vote 'yes' in a referendum – and polls indicate this – it will happen. The Berlin Senate will then have to invoke Article 15 of the German constitution and expropriate all corporate landlords. Owners holding more than three thousand apartments in Berlin would be socialized. It is not entirely known how many there are, because in addition to stock corporations like Deutsche Wohnen or Akelius, various shadow companies, 'companies within companies,' subsidiaries of international corporations scattered across tax havens, operate in the housing market. The fight of Berlin residents against rent increases often begins with tedious attempts to figure out who actually owns the apartment one lives in. These companies have strange, poetic names, and then it turns out that at the end there is only a mailbox. A photo from Luxembourg circulated on the internet, showing seventy different company names on one mailbox; all of this is, of course, about tax avoidance. If we socialize the corporations and these 'shadow companies' that we already know about thanks to journalistic investigations, it amounts to over 250,000 apartments”. -- SOON IT WON'T BE POSSIBLE TO LIVE HERE, BERLINERS WON'T BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO STAY IN THE CITY IN RETIREMENT - DR KUSIAK TELLS SROCZYŃSKI ABOUT THE HOUSING SITUATION IN BERLIN: “Because due to these companies' actions, prices have gone crazy, and soon it won't be possible to live here – there are already studies showing that 40% of Berliners aged 45-55 will not be able to afford to stay in the city in retirement if the price dynamics don't change”. -- BERLIN KNOWS HOW TO DEFEND ITSELF, TENANT MOVEMENTS ARE STRONG HERE, THEY ACT LIKE TRADE UNIONS - DR KUSIAK CONTINUES IN CONVERSATION WITH SROCZYŃSKI: “Berlin knows how to defend itself, tenant movements are strong here, and it's not just about organizing street protests; the key is court proceedings, constant fights in the courts. At the tenant level, it works like this: when signing a lease, you join a tenant association – it's like a trade union. My annual fee is 70 euros, and this includes insurance for court costs. It's a great thing because if a conflict arises with the owner, who, for example, raises the rent without reason, you go to your tenant association for a lawyer's consultation, they assess whether the rent increase is legal or if it can be legally challenged, and then the insurance covers all court costs, even if you lose”. https://next.gazeta.pl/next/7,151003,26178814,jak-odebrac-250-tysiecy-mieszkan-prywatnym-firmom-trzeba-miec.html -- MICHAŁ SZUŁDRZYŃSKI ON MORAWIECKI AND ZIOBRO'S INCOMPATIBLE VISIONS - WRITES IN RZ: “Morawiecki dreams of a Poland where official matters are handled online while sipping coffee; Ziobro dreams of a Poland that goes to ideological war with the West. (...) Can a compromise be imagined between such extremely different visions of political goals?”. https://www.rp.pl/Analizy/308039926-Michal-Szuldrzynski-PiS-pragmatycy-kontra-ideolodzy.html -- JAKUB MAJMUREK ON THE CLASH OF CONCEPTS IN PiS - WRITES IN KRYTYKA POLITYCZNA: “How to respond to all this? Two tendencies clash within the ruling camp. On the one hand, the technocratic-modernizing one, on the other, the 'revolutionary,' 'Jacobin' one. What do the 'modernizers' want? To reach an agreement, or at least de-escalate the political conflict with at least some of the Poles who voted against Duda in July. What would this mean in political practice is that in the next three years, PiS will not initiate any new revolutionary offensives – against independent media, universities, non-governmental organizations – and will do its utmost to de-escalate the conflict on the fronts it has opened. For example, concerning the judiciary, the dispute with the European Union, human rights”. -- PiS COULD WIN BACK PART OF THE MIDDLE CLASS IN EXCHANGE FOR A MODERNIZATION PROMISE - MAJMUREK CONTINUES: “United Right would return to the language and image that gave it double victory in 2015, based on a much broader social base (people with higher education, city dwellers) than its current, predominantly plebeian electorate. PiS and its coalition partners would again don the attire of a people's-conservative party with a strong social component. One that focuses on large modernization projects such as electromobility, drones, biotechnology, robotics, rather than cultural and institutional wars. PiS positioned in this way could fight to win over at least part of the centrist middle-class electorate or young voters, capable of accepting the conservatism of United Right in exchange for a modernization promise. Because even in the vision of the PiS 'modernizers,' supporting the proverbial biotechnology hubs would be linked to countering the 'moral revolution,' a clearly conservative historical and symbolic state policy, and the privileged role of Catholicism in public space”. -- KACZYŃSKI REINED IN THE JACOBINS - MAJMUREK CONTINUES: “Which faction's arguments will ultimately convince the chairman? For now, it seems that the demands of the 'Jacobins' have been reined in. Their most important goal after the elections, the replacement of Prime Minister Morawiecki, has most likely failed. Kaczyński declared that the prime minister remains. This, of course, will not stop Morawiecki's enemies within his own political camp from plotting against him. However, if at the PiS congress in the autumn Morawiecki becomes one of the party's vice-chairmen, the factions most loyal to Kaczyński will have to somehow come to terms with the current prime minister”. -- MORAWIECKI CLEVERLY RESOLVED THE CONVENTION ISSUE - MAJMUREK CONTINUES: “Morawiecki – certainly with Kaczyński's knowledge at least – has also cleverly resolved the issue of demands to withdraw from the anti-violence convention. He sent it to the Constitutional Tribunal to check if it complies with the constitution. It can be expected that, as in the case of the query about the compliance of 'eugenic abortion' with the constitution, the matter will lie indefinitely in the Constitutional Tribunal, which is subordinate to Kaczyński”. https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kraj/jakub-majmurek-rekonstrukcja-rzadu-modernizatorzy-jakobini/ -- THE CONVENTION DOES NOT HAVE REAL IMPACT - PRZEMYSŁAW WILCZYŃSKI ON THE CONVENTION - WRITES IN TYGODNIK POWSZECHNY: “What about its real impact? For five years of PiS rule, we've had a bit of everything: there was harassment of organizations, there were attempts at absurd legal changes, according to which, for example, a single act of domestic violence would not be considered violence, but also successful attempts to introduce sensible changes, like the provision on isolating the suspected perpetrator. As for the Convention, its impact on our lives under PiS rule will remain negligible: it will neither solve – under any government, for that matter – all problems, nor will it destroy tradition. Its future fate is best summed up by Andrzej Duda's doctrine formulated a few years ago on TVP cameras: 'Above all, do not apply it.' And so it will be: many provisions of the Convention will be boycotted (including those that are not ideological at all, such as the proposal to introduce the category of economic violence into the law) – but attempts to withdraw from it will end with threats. https://www.tygodnikpowszechny.pl/taka-konwencja-164406 -- THE TIRELESS PROF. JACEK RACIBORSKI BELIEVES THAT PiS ACTUALLY LOST THE ELECTIONS… - as he says in an interview with Agnieszka Kublik in GW: “Because it was a Pyrrhic victory. To paraphrase: one more such victory, and PiS will be ruined. PiS threw all possible forces into these elections, it provoked a total, deep social conflict, which always comes at a great political cost. It appealed to homophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-European slogans. Raising these issues in the long run is very harmful for many reasons, including diplomatic ones; it clearly violates Polish raison d'état”. -- A DRAMATIC DEFEAT FOR THE RULING CAMP - RACIBORSKI ON YOUNGER VOTERS: “It is a dramatic defeat for the ruling camp. Such proportions have never been seen before. An opposition candidate usually has some preferences among younger voters, but not to this extent. Even in the 2015 presidential elections, Komorowski, who seemed anachronistic to the younger generation, and Duda was young and dynamic, fared better among young people than the current PiS candidate. Furthermore, better-educated people, students, and university students strongly supported Trzaskowski. And this is a fatal forecast for the future for PiS and for Duda. And there is also the problem of Poland's image. Because please note how voters in England and Germany voted. Supporting PiS is becoming embarrassing among them. Emigrants feel the problem of the prestige of their country of origin more strongly. It really affects them greatly, and the president's image has significant importance. And Poland has presented itself as a homophobic, intolerant country, full of prejudice towards foreigners, and in addition, with a hidden ruler. Another dimension of this Pyrrhic victory is Krzysztof Bosak to the right of PiS”. https://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,26178007,ideologia-i-modlitwy-nie-wystarcza-pis-w-koncu-bedzie-musial.html -- SZUMOWSKI ON CIRCUMVENTING RESTRICTIONS - TELLS DGP: “Absolutely. When wearing masks, people often cite medical contraindications. I can count on one hand the situations where it really shouldn't be worn. However, these are such serious health conditions that a person is usually unable to walk. If someone really cannot wear a mask because they have difficulty breathing, they can always replace it with a face shield”. -- SZUMOWSKI ON NEW POWERS FOR SHOPS: “We want to grant additional powers to shops so that they have the right to refuse service to individuals without masks. This will be introduced as a legal norm, at least in a regulation. This will happen this month”. -- SZUMOWSKI REFUTES ACCUSATIONS OF INCREASED CASES DUE TO ELECTIONS: “Voter turnout was high in all voivodeships, and we have outbreaks in three regions. I would definitely not link the elections to the increase in infections. Currently, the daily number of cases is variable. It would become serious if we were dealing with exponential growth, meaning a doubling of cases. Then it would be unstoppable without restrictions like those we had at the beginning of the epidemic. Currently, it is important to control the outbreaks, as they are the main cause of infections”. -- SZUMOWSKI ON HIS DEPARTURE: “As you can see, I have just returned from vacation. This does not look like preparing for resignation, but rather for dealing with the coronavirus. Reconstruction is the Prime Minister's and the parliamentary coalition's responsibility. I don't even want to participate in it; I have other things on my mind”. https://wiadomosci.dziennik.pl/polityka/artykuly/7789699,lukasz-szumowski-sklepy-zmiany-w-prawie-koronawirus-covid-19.html -- PHOTO. RENÉ MAGRITTE, Empire of Light, 1953–54, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. In Empire of Light, of which there are several versions (e.g., those in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels), a dark, nocturnal street scene is contrasted with a pastel-blue, light-drenched sky, speckled with fluffy cumulus clouds. Without any fantastical element beyond a single paradoxical juxtaposition of day and night, René Magritte subverts a fundamental premise organizing life. Sunlight, usually the source of clarity, here causes confusion and unease traditionally associated with darkness. The brightness of the sky becomes unsettling, making the empty darkness below even more impenetrable than it might seem in a normal context. The bizarre subject matter is treated in an impersonal, precise style, typical of the veristic surrealist painting favored by Magritte since the mid-1920s. https://www.guggenheim-venice.it/en/art/works/empire-of-light/ René François Ghislain Magritte – Belgian painter, surrealist. His first solo exhibition took place in 1927 in Brussels. Known as the "author of words and things," he liked to change the names of objects, as exemplified by the painting The Treachery of Images. His paintings were shocking and controversial, distinguished by their poetic mood and precise drawing. The artist, who depicted a uniformed world, reflected in successive reproductions, unintentionally influenced the art of the second half of the 20th century, especially pop art. -- BIRTHDAYS: Zygmunt Solorz, Jerzy Wierchowicz, Paweł Majcher, Grzegorz Karpiński.