23 Jan 2004
The Green Man's Cows

Your author, along with Wulfie, our stalwart Highland cow, got an "honorable mention" today over at The Green Man, a fine blog that I peruse quite often.

The Green Man seems to have something of an obsession with cows: he's got an entire category devoted to them, although he's not an active farmer/rancher. It's an obsession that I share, although in my case I would extend it to all domestic ruminants. They're really pretty special critters.

Curiously enough, I've been thinking alot about cows lately - and about the difference between hunters and herdsmen. Some good Heathen friends of mine recently returned from a hunt, of a rather special and sacred nature, where the quarry was a wild boar, and the only weapons used were spears. The group is known as BOSH - the Brotherhood of the Sacred Hunt (although there are sisters who hunt as well). It is a path of high honor, no doubt about it, and one that can (I'm sure, from the outside looking in) attune one more closely with the Earth and with the Powers That Be. But it's not my cup of tea. I'm not a hunter (although I've hunted before) - I'm a herdsman.

Hunters are responsible for the harvest of the animal - the quarry (by definition) is wild, and has no connection with mankind other than as prey within the eco-system we all share. The hunter's relationship with the prey is one of challenge and combat - a contest of strength and will, of mind and body. While hunters certainly do care about their quarry - they want the strongest and best possible object for their ardous chase, their primary focus is still the contest of the hunt itself.

A herdsman, on the other hand, is concerned with the overall life of the animal, as well as with it's harvest. Rather than engaging in a pure contest with the animal, the herdsman will alternately entice and threaten, with the goal of attaining the best possible animal for harvest (not only of meat, but for other uses as well, such as milk and wool). Animals in tended herds are cared for, actively, by humans. We attend their deaths, 'tis true, but we also attend their birth. We feed and nurture them, and they feed and nurture us.

I don't want this to come off as too simplistic - of course good hunters care about the life of the animal, and most will work with enviromental causes to insure the survival of habitat and propagation of game species. Equally do good herdsmen carefully cull their herds and flocks - and anyone who thinks that running a farm (especially in the dead of winter), feeding the stock, attending the lambing and calving, is not a contest needs to come visit here for a while. Especially in January and February.

The problems come in when we forget the balance, and where "hunters" act like beserk herdsmen, and "herdsmen" behave like drunken hunters.

Another article from the Green Man illustrates this perfectly: Hunting Trip Illusions. This was no hunting trip - this was a wholesale slaughter of domestic animals, by folks who did not care for their lives, and who engaged in no contest of strength or will. It was essentially target shooting at living creatures. There was no honor here. These birds weren't quarry - they were targets.

On the other side we have the modern "factory farm" - anyone who has seen 10,000 hens, caged in groups of ten, in a single building, will quickly lose any illusion that the "herdsman" in charge cares a whit about his flock. The recent reports here in the US about downer cows, unable to walk, being dragged to slaughter with tractors and chains also shows that the people in charge of such operations do not deserve the title of herdsman. These "farms" are naught but contests, with other "farmers" for the most money. The animals are only the objects of ruthless exploitation in this greedy pursuit.

I find it striking that even our language is beginning to reflect this mindset: what I do is only rarely called agriculture anymore - it's agribusiness nowadays. Hunting is headed the same way - we fish in stocked lakes, and shoot birds released from cages in front of us. It's no wonder most people consider hunting as a barbaric relic, nor should we be amazed that the family farm has all but disappeared, replaced by accountants and CEO's with tractors.

We've lost the balance here - and we must get it back. If we do not, then we will terminally poison the planet. We can see this in the eruption of disease, such as BSE in cattle and CWD in deer, which are caused purely by human bungling in the eco-system. We know what to do, and we know how to do it. What we need is the renewed patience and foresight to think beyond the next quarterly profit statement, or the next fishing vacation. If we do not regain it, our mismanangement will lead to our demise.

I'm doing what I can: my animals are cared for to the best of my ability, and when death must come, it's as swift and painless as I can make it. My brothers and sisters in BOSH are doing their bit, too, restoring the honor and nobility to both hunter and quarrry.

It just seems like a long and uphill climb, sometimes. Which is why my heart is warmed to find sites like the Green Man - where an obsession with cows still thrives.

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Captain Kangaroo, RIP

Bob Keeshan, who gently entertained and educated generations of children as television's walrus-mustachioed Captain Kangaroo, died Friday at 76.

(link) [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

One Company's Response to SCO

The letter referenced in the Slashdot post (available as a PDF) is priceless: I only hope that other companies subject to SCO's current extortion campaign exhibit as much guts as this one does in calling their bluff.

(link) [Slashdot]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Search Engine Bombing

Jan over at Secular Blasphemy has a link today to this New York Times article on the growing sport of "Google Bombing".

The Times article quotes Google's director of technology as saying they're not too worried, but then goes on

...some in the industry say Google may be more worried than it lets on. The company's success, to a large extent, has been built on its search algorithm's ability to return relevant Web pages and weed out irrelevant or outright bogus results. The growing popularity of Google bombing can't be a welcome development for a company that is expected to begin selling stock to the public in a few months.

I'd be worried if I were at Google. This exposes a somewhat serious flaw in the famous page-rank system that makes Google so cool.

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

This Cow Is Certified Sane

Somebody else does have some common sense! Jean Halloran, director of the Consumer Policy Institute in New York:

"This is a profoundly wrongheaded approach to the problem," she said of the cloning research. "Especially when there's a much easier solution, which is that you stop feeding contaminated feed to animals that they weren't meant to have in the first place. Cows are vegetarians."

Experiments are underway to produce a cloned cow that is absolutely free of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. Critics have another suggestion: Stop giving cattle the feed that probably causes the disease.

(link) [Wired News]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

2 Jewish Leaders Report Upset After Viewing 'Passion'

Looks like Mel Gibson may have really stepped in it this time ...

Two of the nation's most prominent Jewish leaders found recent versions of "The Passion of the Christ" to be anti-Semitic and incendiary.

(link) [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link