Big Daddy

Dear Big Daddy,
So they taser a tiger that ate somebody at the San Francisco Zoo, but Cal Expo police shoot a pregnant cow 11 times? Is this a case of animal racism?
–Angry Moo from Moorpark

Dear Angry Moo,
From what I hear, the cops were reaching for a taser and… I better shut up before protestors show up outside Capitol Weekly.  

But point taken.
To quote Tom Duhain of KCRA News, “Officials here at the Fair said it was shot because it was over 1,000 pounds, it was angry, it was on the loose, it could not be corralled and would not cooperate.”

By that standard…let’s just say I would have led a very short life.

Now if you’d been around pregnant ladies as much as I have, you’d know all that cow really needed was a tub of Häagen-Dazs and a good hoof massage. Though you’d also know why I pushed for a fulltime Legislature (hint: my wife stayed in L.A.).

As any high school debate coach knows, when you have 1,400 pounds of raging hormones on your hands, you have to plan accordingly. Heavy duty gates, extra handlers, cattle-prods galore, a tranquilizer gun that somebody actually test-fired beforehand – you know, sort of like a Speakership fight, but less kinky.

And just like a Speakership fight, they should have kept the cameras far, far away. Cameras, as quite a few police forces around the tarnished state know so well, make damage control well-neigh impossible. Take the cameras away, all you’ve got is a few loopy-sounding witnesses and daily special on deep-fried chocolate-covered murdered pregnant cow. Which sounds positively appetizing compared to some foods they sell at the Fair.

If they want to show the miracle of birth, fine. But the miracle of livestock transportation is a whole lot less cuddly. Though if you really want to show kids how food gets to their plate, chasing a cow down and dispatching it in a hail of gunfire is probably a whole lot more instructive. Happy cows make for great commercials…until it’s time to pass the ketchup.

Which is why that protest going on outside the fairgrounds as I write these words is so wrongheaded. If these animal rights folks really wanted to make an impact, they’d push to have a slaughterhouse in full view right there on the premises. You want a burger? Fine – just look it in the face first. Though I’ve done worse to a few Assembly-bovines during some of those Speakership fights I mentioned.  

Anyhow, what this is finally going to be remembered for is the inability of our state to do anything right. Sure, our state government is a national laughingstock, but here was our opportunity to forget our troubles in a fog of overpriced beer and lard nibblets with powdered sugar before climbing on a death contraption with loose bolts operated by a pair of ex-cons with 19 teeth between them – and we can’t even get that right.

Instead we have a $100,000 robbery, a Holstein with 11 extra holes in it, and a great new metaphor for what it means to live in California.