One Cow’s Opinion

Monday, July 29th, 2013 • Cartoons

A NOTE ON THE TEXT: While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, the limits of bovine verbal expression and the corresponding ethological and zoological challenges inherent in the tasks of interpreting the utterances of cattle provide severe restraints on comprehension and translation of oxen opinion. The incapacity of cow language to convey abstract ideas has been addressed by means of large illustrated cards (see Appendix I) but constraints in ungulate eyesight (including severe colorblindness and the inability to recognize and interpret pictorial representations or written language) present difficulties in conclusively determining the author’s positions on certain issues.

Ambiguities in cattle markings have, on occasion, prevented the repeated specific identification of the author; substitutions have, when possible, been culled from the same grazing herd (and confined to animals with similar coloration).