Milking Pamplona

In response to some world class whining, the famous Pamplona bull running may soon include a second event with cows. Women in Pamplona now want their own race - with cows. A student website, www.estudiln.net, started all this (have fun with that website).

Two interesting points:

1. Women can race with men in the bull-runs now.
2. The women want the cow race to exclude men.

They lay it out like this:

"Cows, as well as bulls, have four legs and a natural instinct to run," says their manifesto. "An encierro [what the bull-runs are called] for cows, would put Pamplona at the vanguard of traditional fiestas with equality for men and women."

Equality? How 'bout you can race the bulls with the rest of us? And where, o' where do they get the idea that since cows have four legs they have "a natural instinct to run." I have seen plenty of cows in my life and here's what they were doing: not running. Grazing? Yes. Moving fast? No.

The bull-run actually has some historic background, dating back to the fourteenth century. The idea originally was to get the bulls from the pen outside the city to the bull fighting ring for the corrida (bull fighting). That is ostensibly the idea today, although the actual run has now taken on mythic proportions.

Don't cheapen this thing anymore by pandering to idiotic suggestions to trot cows down the streets to...well, I don't know what they intend to do with them when they get them to - remember this - the bullring.