February 17, 2007
by Mike Anderson

     Late last week our partner website, STLMedia, received this anonymous bit of emailed viewer unhappiness...

     On thursday at 5p KTVI showed live coverage of a cow drowning in the Big River. Anchors were oblivious to the fact the animal's head was going under... and when it went legs up, they stayed with it. I was horrified and so were my children.

     I had Fox2 on, in the background at the time, while working on another project, but managed to catch the last bit of the segment. I can't honestly say exactly what is was I saw in the chopper-fed video but I did note that the anchors' voices trailed off in a kind of "Yuk, what was it we just saw?" fashion.

     A cursory search of the KTVI website didn't turn up a replay of the incident. No surprise. Bastards at the Fox O&O are probably anti-cow. Damned wingnuts.

     Yeah, I know, it was a cow. Just a cow. Better, of course, had it been a raging hippopotamus or an angry alligator or some other critter with big nasty teeth and glaring eyes and a bad attitude. Or maybe even a bull (which, for you city folk, is a male cow).

     Bulls are known to be antagonistic and inherently violent and adverse to anything red, like, ummm, maybe, Red States! That, of course, would have worked better for CNN or NBC.

     But is was a cow, with big, well, cow-eyes and smooth fur and a friendly "Moo" for everyone. Kids like cows. Shoot, even grownups like cows. What's there not to like about a cow? They give milk and produce cute little calves and you can tell if it's going to rain if you drive by them and they're laying down.

     They have cute names like Daisy and Bossy and Sally (even the name of their poop is cute: cow patties) and they never throw their cigarettes out of their cow-car windows when they're driving on I-270.

     Cows are good citizens and it's a damned shame that last Thursday night a cow died on live tv, on KTVI.

     So here's my recommendation to KTVI: whether it's a high-speed car chase or a chopper-shot of a kid (or a cow) falling through the ice, use the delay, huh?

     There's enough unhappiness out there that we and the kids don't need further emotional disruption.

     Thanks. Now, I'm off to Dairy Queen for a banana shake. Bless dem cowz!