In the Playroom today, I came across a book called “A Design for Scholarship,” a collection of speeches from 1935-1936 by Isaiah Bowman, president of Johns Hopkins University. Flipping through, I came across this quote:
If you wish to live in bovine contentment, the University is no place for you.
Things sure have changed, huh?
Let me just say: Moo!
That's a good quote. I disagree that anything has changed. The university presidents I read about are just as self-satisfied in what they say. Columbia's President chastizing the President of Iran, for example.
Things sure have changed, huh?
For the faculty, or for the cows?
Yes, things are a lot worse for cows now.
It used to be that you'd go on a bike ride through southern Wisconsin and see lots of cows out in pastures contentedly eating grass. Now you see many fewer cows. They are all shut up in feedlot pens or barns, eating processed junk to maximize milk (or beef) production. The pastures are more likely producing cattle feed.
While PETA and the organic farming movement are attempting to raise public awareness of the cruelty involved in producing cheap meat, there seems to be no need for a similar program to improve the university feed lots.
;)
Interesting comments. I'd been narrowly thinking from the standpoint of the professor, not thinking of the college president or the cows as agents in their own right!