Chickenware

The inevitable has happened: bird flu, also known as HN51 virus, has struck in Italy as well, killing so far a small number of wild swans, but bringing the threat of a devastating epidemic much closer to us than Thailand or China.

Now, I will not start elucubrating on the fact that thousands and thousands of people every year die of ordinary flu, and no-one seems to give a damn about them. Instead, these days every dead bird makes the headlines: good morning, here's the top news from TG1: 15 dead people in car accidents because of fog, dead swan found in Sicily, genocide in Darfur...

No, that's not what I wanted to talk about. We know the sales of newspapers are declining 5% a year, and they are doing whatever in order to stop the trend. And what better than a few dead birds to bring up TV audience at election times?

What really makes me think I'm living among 58 million idiots is that the sales of chicken and turkey meat has declined 70% after the discovery of the dead swans, causing the loss of thirty-thousand jobs!

Now, you don't have to be a genius to guess that Italy is the only country in Europe where this has happened. And this is true in spite of the fact that we have perhaps the best food higiene control system in the world (heck, we even run the EU food safety agency!). Besides, other EU countries are importing more of our chicken than ever before, a clear sign that they trust our standards.

Now, here's a message to those demented monkeys that stop buying bird meat because of chicken flu. Since they're probably too illiterate to read this, I'll speak with pictures.

Here's how the chicken whose meat you have eaten so far is grown:



As you can see the environment is comfortable and higienically optimal for food.

Here's how the animals look after slaughtering:



The way they are kept obviously guarantees the maximum cleanliness.

Now here's a picture of the chicken you are refusing to buy:



(thanks to Il pollaio del Re for the pics)

And here's a picture of a more intelligent animal than you:



I can assure you that the chicken breast we ate last Friday was delicious, and cost only 3 euros for half a kilo.

Disgust

I'm disgusted. And yes, it's about those old cartoons depicting prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) that a Danish paper called Jyllends Posten published a few months ago. Fellow Saudi blogmate Religious Policeman has a good story of the event.

But unlike what you may believe, I'm not disgusted by the reaction of the Muslim people. They are wrong, of course, since they do not have the right to torch embassies and kidnap people if they decide to feel offended about some innocent cartoons.

Instead, I'm profoundly disgusted by the reaction of most of our rotten, corrupt, ass-kissing, money-sucking political and religious authorities. From British foreign minister Jack Straw's delirating attack against free media to the usual Vatican blatter about respect (for hell's sake, it took THEM fifty years to apologize about the holocaust - who are they to say how we should behave with their history of torture, inquisition and bigotry? Another wasted chance to shut the fuck up).

Luckily today comes my fellow Siena citizen Giannelli with another of his excellent cartoons. We definitely needed some wit here.



In the cartoon you can see Berlusconi in form of a divinity (he probably thinks of himself as a semi-god) asking prophet Mohammed: "you got offended by twelve cartoons? what should I say then?".

Absolutely brilliant, and Kudos to Corriere della Sera and many other Italian papers who had the balls to not only republish some of the famous cartoons, but also added some of their own. Special mention for Giuliano Ferrara's Il Foglio, who came out with a very explicit first page (see below).



There is still some light at the end of the tunnel.

Disaster aftermath

The disaster is over. God's anger on us is a memory of the past. We can take a breath of relief. Together with the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the earthquake in Pakistan, we can classify last week's snowfall as one of the most dramatically moving events that stroke our little planet in the millennium.



(that's Milan on February 1 - notice the efficient snow shovelling technique called "melting" - it's an import from the Middle East)

Now, you see, Italy is very special. It has winters, but they are seldom snowy. Rome, our capital city, has seen a relevant snowfall only once in the last decade. However, at times, in periods when you would least expect it, snow happens to fall down. But this time it was beyond expectation. Snow!?! In northern Italy, the land of Giorgio Rocca> and Piero Piller-Cottrer, in the end of January?!? coincidence is hard to believe sometimes!

Rub your eyes, blink twice: it's snowing indeed. It so does for a day and a half. So what do most Italian people do when they see 70 cm of wet snow (the largest single snowstorm in twenty years) on the ground?

Needless to say: they keep on with their lives as if nothing has happened. They do not go out and make snowmen, throw snowballs at passers by or ride sledges. They do not stay home with their wives and open a nice bottle of vin brulé. Instead, they go to work, try catch a flight at the airport, take a train to visit their loved ones, do the weekly shopping, and so on.

Yes, sir, we are productive people, we never stop and always expect the best. And what happens when you have 70 cm (that's about 2ft6in) of snow falling within 36 hours? surprise! disbelief! things stop working?!? how could that be??? look how brilliantly other European countries, certainly much better at terms with severe winter, such as Finland and Sweden react to such events, how seamlessly they go through severe snowfall. How could we expect Italian infrastructure to perform less than perfectly?

In the wake of the indignated protests of people who complained about the delays and cancellations, here's a few pieces of advice for the next time snow is forecast to fall in Italy.

1) Travel as much as you can, with as many connections as you can find, and make your schedule as tight as you can, taking particular care not to leave any cushion time: things won't go wrong.

2) Drive normally, enjoying the sight of the white blanket ahead of you. Never contemplate the use of snow chains as stopping to put them on may disrupt traffic behind you.

3) Remembre not to shovel the pavement in front of your house. Doing so may prevent people from falling down, thus taking the enjoyment out of a day spent at home.

4) Use motorways extensively, especially in traits that witness heavy lorry traffic. Ignore speed limits as usual, as they are put there by ignorant politicians who have no clue how good a driver you are and how safe your car is, especially in slippery conditions.

5) Do not listen to Italian authorities urging you not to move. Who are they to say that you and 58.2 million other Italians should be deprived of your basic right to expect things to function perfectly regardless of the weather?

6) Make as much noise as you can in every situation. Complain, shout, shake your head in disgust, fuss around or just throw snowballs to old ladies. It will help improve the general mood.