My Beef With All The Bad Press About Cows

Cows again, my friends, are in the news. I don't go looking for these items; they find me. Yes, it seems that it is My Destiny to be an advocate for my bovine brethren...er, sistren, is it? whatever--since they cannot effectively manage their own publicity. Cases in point:

Item: Steer's Owner Ticketed for 'Excessive Mooing'. Incredibly, a Washington County, Ohio resident, who owns a single cow named Wally, was served with a misdemeanor citation for "ongoing nuisance cow mooing." Wally, who lives on a 33-acre farm zoned for 50 head of cattle, "moos maybe once or twice a day," says his owner, Karyl Hylle. Important to note is the fact that when the sheriff and/or his deputies had been called out on each of the 21 complaints by the neighbor, Mark (who asked that his last name not be used), Wally never said a single word. Even when prodded by reporters, Wally never uttered a sound. The citation carries a $1000 fine and/or 90 days in jail. Clearly, Mark just hates cows. Or has no knowledge of them. Cows moo. That is their native tongue. And, it would seem Wally does precious little of that as it is.

Item: Man Admits Sexually Molesting Cows. Lest you think this is a random, one-time thing, this 56-year-old man was charged with the same offense in 2000, but "police decided against bringing a cruelty-to-animals charge against Viens [the offender] after consulting with a veterinarian, who said no harm came to the cows." Did this horrific act occur in some Third World, unenlightened country as part of an occult ritual? No! It occurred in Vermont, U.S.A.! The farm employees caught him in the act, the police were called, and Mr. Viens gave them a sworn confession on the spot. Why not? He will only be charged with trespassing, I'm sure. After all, no harm came to the cows! How do they know?

Item: Global Warming and Stylish Cows. I am grown increasingly fatigued of cows being blamed in part for global warming. First was the FearMongering of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (mad cow disease--how I even hate to see it in words before me!), and its effect on beef and dairy, and now the insidiousness of the Republicans trying to mitigate the responsibility of big business by pointing the finger at innocent bovine flatulence. Who amongst us has not had a bit of intestinal gas every now and then? If your diet was made up entirely of grains and grass, wouldn't you have a bit of the bubbleguts? But I digress. An OpEd writer from Pennsylvania went to the PennEnvironment press conference to learn more about the devastation that could be wreaked upon Pennsylvania's particular environment by global warming if left unchecked. According to one spokesman, the forecast is dire for the state's dairy cows, whose milk production would drastically reduce due to heat stress. Rather than take this threat seriously, this cavalier writer instead spun it to blame the cows themselves, asking that since "gassy cows produce one quarter of the methane that's causing global warming," wouldn't it be better if the state's cows die, meaning that fewer of them are producing the gas? When the PennEnvironment guy reminded him that the cows wouldn't necessarily die, but produce less milk, this wag of a writer offered this solution: “couldn't we affix large, floppy sun hats to the cows' heads so they can graze in the heat? They would stay comfortable and look stylish.” I cannot even begin to enumerate the problems with this if he doesn't know them already. The least of which is that no one looks good in large, floppy sunhats especially if one is already large. Duh.

The incessant, inexplicably vicious campaign against cows continues. Their one champion besides me would be, perhaps, the Real California Cheese advertising campaign in which the happy cows play Marco Polo, Knock Knock Zoom Zoom, and otherwise frolic and behave in acceptably fun ways while decidedly not wearing clothing. Do your part. Become an advocate for cows today. Appreciate them. Count them when on long car trips. Moo at them when you pass them. Don't buy figurines of them wearing clothing. And never, ever order your beef well done. That's just wrong.

Last Year at The Dept. of Nance: The Alaskan Adventure Part V

Unfair and Unbalanced

In the interest of full disclosure, DoN readers, there are a few things I need to tell you before you read this blogpost:
1. There are few things that irk me more than Cleveland newscasts that hype and sensationalize news stories that would otherwise not be that newsworthy.

2. It irritates me to no end that news reporters intrude themselves into a family's most private moments, the most vulnerable of these being the death of a loved one.

3. I have an incredible fondness for and attachment to cows.

Alrighty, then! Moving on.

An absolutely freakish farm accident happened on January 31st in Lexington Township, Ohio. You can pop over here and read about it in its entirety, if you wish, but I will copy-and-paste the part of the news story which is germane to our discussion.

Basically, "Steven Walker was doing his daily chores with his two grandsons when the mundane became inconceivable. 'He was gonna separate the mom from the little calf,' says 13-year-old Zach Elbiali. 'The cow just started chasing him.' Zach was inside the barn at the time and immediately ran outside to find his 55- year-old grandfather on the ground inside the pen. It appears a defensive cow charged him, knocking him to the ground where he hit his head. Zach called 911, and stayed with his grandfather until the ambulance arrived. Walker was taken to a hospital where he later died." (My sincerest sympathies to the Walker and Elbiali families.)

The Suspects--photo courtesy wkyc.com

And what was the lead for this story? On the news and in its "teasers" it was Farmer Murdered by Cow! Give me a break. "Murdered?" Later, it was softened to "Killed", but even then. This is typical Cleveland reporting. And it's not even a ratings period.

Actually, the thing that irritates me about this entire story is that they are blaming the death on the cow. The guy hit his head, and not on a cow. Did the cow gore him to death? No. Did the cow bite his head off? No. Did the guy come up and just pet the cow and it suddenly went psychotic on him? No. Basically, this man was perceived as a threat to the calf by an adult cow; the cow defended the juvenile; the cow tried to stave off what it perceived as an attack by a predator. The guy then stumbled and fell and hit his head. On something not a cow.

Why such wholesale scapegoating of cows? Is this some sort of paranoia fed by the recent outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, also known as "Mad Cow Disease"? Because despite its first confirmed case in 2003, the US saw no real impact in its domestic beef consumption since. And now, scientists have discovered a way of reversing the early symptoms of the human form of the illness should anyone have the misfortune of eating tainted beef.

What more do these people want? They can have their burgers and eat them, too!

Seriously, what is more nonthreatening than a cow? Cows walk along, nodding constantly. "Yep," they seem to be saying, "everything is just fine with me." When you look into the eyes of any cow, there is no hidden agenda there. The cow stares blankly back at you with huge, limpid eyes, blinking perhaps, chewing its cud and offering no differing opinion, no debate. There will be no argument from a cow. Obviously, if you don't try to take a calf away from it, there's no problem. Don't try any threatening posturing around a cow. How tough is that to remember?