Polish Court: Go Ahead, Call Prez a 'Duck'

Poland’s president and his twin brother, the head of the opposition party, called it slander when the press labeled them “ducks”—but a Polish court is letting it fly, Der Spiegel reports. The Kaczynski brothers' surname comes from the word for “duck,” and at first, they embraced the image, using it in their campaigns. But when a paper started referring to them as ducks, they decided it was lame.

The “dour, slightly round” brothers seemed ripe for the label, Der Spiegel notes; still, Jaroslaw, the opposition head, filed a complaint. But a judge said human-animal comparisons aren’t necessarily insults. The tussle followed a 2006 incident in which a German paper drew the brothers with potatoes for heads. They called for an apology from Germany’s chancellor, but didn’t get one.
(More Poland stories.)