Probably one of the more interesting down-homeisms I learned from Dad during my rearing was “That’s about as useful as teats on a bull.” Well, I was reminded of said witticism just the other day when I happened to catch a snippet of Barnyard on Nickelodeon. Lo, there were useful teats on a bull. I say useful because they were on an udder, presumably producing milk. I also say on a bull, but if you had asked the artists or writers of Barnyard, you would have been told he was a “boy cow.” Apparently Barnyard features bulls as well; but calling an animal a “boy cow” is tantamount to calling it a “boy girl.”

At best, this is confusing and misleading for children. I imagine most adults who care about such things will find it asinine. Besides the obvious complaint about how everyone is getting so citified he can’t tell the difference between a cow and a bull, and besides the standard excuse that “cows don’t walk on two feet and talk either,” I am afraid I have to ask the question everyone else is thinking, but is afraid to ask: is the creator of this movie trying to ambush us with a trans-sexual bovine?

Two days after my encounter with Barnyard, I read a report from the drive-by media about a Dead Sea tablet casting doubt on the resurrection of Jesus. Among other things, the article tells us that a Professor Knohl says “that the text ‘could be the missing link between Judaism and Christianity in so far as it roots the Christian belief in the resurrection of the Messiah in Jewish tradition.'” Really? This is news? Again I have to ask the obvious question: don’t these people realize that Jesus’ death and resurrection were predicted thousands of years earlier in the Old Testament and everyone else already knows this?

The moral of the story follows: Discounting the comic spectacle, the drive-by media are about as useful as teats on a bull.