Vigil for the cow eternal

To die or not to die

Activism is becoming the salve of every grievance and we are back to the great message of salvation, the salvation of the sacred cow.

Last week, I raised the issue of a cow which tested positive for bovine tuberculosis and the Welsh Assembly Government had ordered the cow to be slaughtered.

What should have been in an advanced state of decay lives and breathes in a Hindu community of monks at Skanda Vale farm in Llanpumsaint, near Carmarthen, Wales.

A High Court judge granted a reprieve, saving the cow from certain death, but this was appealed by the Assembly and now the order by the Court of Appeal in London has been given to sacrifice the cow on the simple principle of commonsense.

An infected cow is a danger to other cattle, species and possibly humans too, the consequences of which we cannot begin to fathom.

Testing again

Unfortunately, this holy cow, oblivious of its situation would not die quietly, because Hindu adherents are now keeping vigil and praying for the cow to be saved, one would wonder if this is to save it from the scourge of the consumption or from the weapon of the executioner.

As this tale twists and turns like the tail of a happy cow, the adherents have now written to the Welsh Rural Minister asking for a magnanimous gesture of testing the cow again since the original test might have produced a false positive.

Bent athletes who dope would hope to be able to ask for this kind of reprieve after the A sample and B sample have turned up positives, maybe they are all false positives.

This is all a red herring to keep the cow alive for a few more days or weeks and some smart chap or monk cooks up another scheme to convert the sacred cow from mortal to eternal.

It would appear the last resort of civil disobedience and obstructing the path of justice is very well on the table to thwart every way and means to bring Shambo to the bovine gallows.

If this magnanimous gesture of a second test is offered and it returns a positive; what next for Shambo?

If you feel affected by all this, the need to register a protest or want to say the last rites - Visit Moo Tube.

Religion saves cow for consumption

Senate disorder on religious guest

Two events juxtapose religion and the state or civil society, in both cases a conflict ensued though the resolution may not be to the liking of observers.

The first comes from a post on Chxta's World, a YouTube clip shows a Hindu priest invited to the Senate - the highest legislative authority in the United States - to pray, opening a session of deliberations for the day.

Taken from Chxta's World

Just as he composes himself to utter his elegy, not necessarily sorrowful, a loud voice offers a hostile rebuke to his presence invoking the name of Jesus, this discourteous act was repeated once again in the middle of his prayer.

Now, the interrupter might well think they are speaking up for their religion and the selfsame notion of the Christian roots of America forgetting that this so-called Christianliness was what almost wiped out the indigenes of the America they now call their own.

Besides, the act was as unChristianly that anyone can get, treating a guest with such seething hatred and hostility when the message of love should be the warmth of evangelism.

Doing the devil's work

I doubt if the priest would leave the Senate thinking highly of those who so loudly profess their religion with utter disregard of others, suddenly the job of winning souls becomes one of losing souls - simply doing the work of the Devil and not knowing it at all - that is what happens when you lose objectivity for religious fanaticism - is the Christian version of a Jihadist (radicalised Islamist) now Crusader (radicalised Christian)?.

Anyway, what I found more heartening about the unfortunate event was the convenor immediately stepped to the microphone and rather than warn the culprit to behave he asked the orderlies to restore order to the chamber.

If that involved marching the person out of the chamber, so be it, it showed that the act was deemed unruly, disorderly and disrespectful of the house - hopefully a lesson was learnt; it showed that civil order matters more than zealous and religious bigotry.

Too sacred for the death

Swimming back over the pond we arrive at the Shrine of Shambo and a group of zealous Hindu worshippers. Apparently, Shambo was tested and inconclusively considered to be bovine-tuberculin indicative. If Shambo were on a cattle ranch or on the way to an abattoir, he would immediately be put to sleep and the carcase destroyed.

Not this Shambo, the bull and Holy Cow assumptive at the Skanda Vale Hindu monastery in Wales.

This became a tussle between veterinarian official and Hindu adherents who became activist and would not suffer any harm to befall Shambo.

Technically, this is illegal, unlawful and the obstruction of public officials in pursuit of their lawful duties and so the law was called in to deal with this matter which then ended up in court.

Taking risks of the law

For now the court has ruled in favour of the highly regarded Shambo and asked the authorities to reconsider other means of addressing the matter like treatment of the tuberculosis if found to be existent.

If Shambo does end up posing a serious health risk to other animals that would have been the court erring on the side of recklessness, worse still, with the lavish religious fawning of humans to their object of sacred respect the risk of the contagion jumping the species barrier is possible and how do you treat a person suffering from the bovine-induced tuberculosis?

It would be far-fetched to then consider the actions of the court bordering on the criminal, but a point of law would have been made not to allow religious activism and community clamour to override the basic element of civil law and order in our communities.

Without religion, Shambo would have already been dead and really quite dead, I say.