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Bovinephobia alive and well

In a story sure to shock one Louis la Vache as much as it did I, the front page of today’s Advocate – my home town’s journal of record – shook me to my very core, and prompted me to muse on it.

First, the facts as we know them:
  • A dark and stormy night.
  • An unlit road out in the country.
  • A young man in a high powered vehicle.
  • Thirty cows innocent of any crime.
  • A CRASH!

So why then, I must ask, this headline?
"Man hurt as car hits cows"

“Man hurt?!?” FIVE innocent cows killed, and they choose to run with “man hurt”?

Unfortunately this is merely the latest in a long line of anti-bovine reportage. It is distressing that the media are not aware of their own biases, and how, constantly, their framing of stories reveal an innate prejudice against cows.


When asked for comment, this cow said, “Yeah, the marginalisation of cows is disturbing”.

I will not even go into another disturbing facet of the story, other than to say that this quote from the story is equally troubling:
“Sgt Lee-Anne Walters, of Smithton police, said yesterday about 30 black cows [my emphasis] had wandered onto the road before the crash.”
What, pray tell, has the race of the cows got to do with it?

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Mary Stebbins Taitt said…
poor cows!

People should be psychic so when invisible cows clog up the road, they know about it@!
27 June 2008 at 13:12
blackie said…
who cares about the cows...they spelt Miffton wrong!

My aunt breeds banded galloways (black with white stripe around their tums), does this make them half-caste cows?
27 June 2008 at 15:29
Kris McCracken said…
Portuguese-, Spanish- or French-speakers would call them mulattos, but I am not sure if we are supposed to say that in English any more.

I'm reasonably certain that we aren't supposed to say half-caste any more either.

I pretty sure that now we say "cows of a culturally, ethnically, religeously and geographically diverse background".
27 June 2008 at 15:45
Shantaram said…
It has happened here in Chennai to a couple of people I know. And one of them indeed said "That #@%!^* cow should have used its horn!"

He chose to laugh it off.
27 June 2008 at 19:05
sam said…
what a Moo-ving story! those reporters are full of bull.
1 July 2008 at 04:52
Kris McCracken said…
Sometimes I don't, sometimes I do, are there cows still wandering around Chennai these days? Do they have something like ‘cow catchers’ if they are on the highway etc?
24 August 2008 at 16:12
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