Related and Unrelated

Avian flu is related to chickens and ducks

Type A influenza is unrelated to pigs [so don't call it swine flu]

The relation of SARS to civet cats remains ambiguous

This is not a medical question, it is a sin foisted on animals by articulate humans

To swipe a book is not stealing   potatoes are not equivalent to French fries

A downturn can be dignified with the name of negative growth

Inarticulate animals can't find a lawyer to defend their innocence

9/11 is not related to Al Qaeda   Hezbollah may or may not be related to inshallah

We're not sure if recent bomb blasts in Afghanistan are related to Bin Laden

Bin Laden must be a civet cat, the way he holes up in caves and hollow trees

Keeping company with armadillos and moles   lying low by day and coming out at night

To deal with him, Americans have to change into beasts themselves   What do you make of that!

Out on the street, an American spy satellite spots the second hand on a girl's “Swatch”

But for some reason Bin Laden's wrist watch still eludes their cameras

Iraq is related to major oil fields   Saddam has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction

Between Obama's peace prize and George Dubbya there must be a distant blood tie

If Little Bush hadn't been so gung ho for war, Obama could not have been a peacemaker

Europeans were sitting on this bundle of old money from dynamite

Then they awarded it to the nation that makes incursions all over the world

What a knee-slapper!

Expanding armaments is for peace   anti-terror is to end war

A few days ago two migrant workers were coughing on a bus

I'm talking about the “Chinese worker”--who almost got picked as Time's “man of the year”

They were given a unanimous cold shoulder from the other passengers

In this country, lots of people pretend they have nothing to do with democracy

Yet sometimes they have to invoke this magnificent sounding name

While dealing with people more disadvantaged than themselves

Written on 24th of December, 2009

Translated by Denis Mair