Cows

Did you hear the one in Howard County this week about the four cows that broke out of their confines? It took a police tactical response team, several animal control officers, state livestock experts and two helicopters equipped with heat-sensing devices to track down the escapees. Two of the heifers were shot dead, but two others escaped into the woods and haven't been seen since.It would all be that much more laughable it it weren't so scandalously true. Let us state unequivocally from the beginning that we are rooting 100 percent for the surviving cows in this bizarre story.

I'm filling in for your regular recapper, Janell. I'm usually on b's dance show beat, covering "Dancing with the Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance. " This show is pairs of people doing things that are uncomfortable, so how different can it be? Seven teams remain, including one with a guy with MAGNIFICENT hair. Haters gonna hate, but that permed mullet takes some dedication, y'all. We're in Botswana and there is a very cute little kid bopping around. This area has a lot of wildlife and the racers all get to take time to see some elephants roaming around.

A Howard County jury has cleared a veterinarian of a criminal charge that he mistreated a cow at his Mount Airy farm in January 1992.The Circuit Court jury of six men and six women deadlocked on a charge of mistreatment of a second cow after seven hours of deliberation.The trial lasted three days.The veterinarian, Richard John Burroughs, 51, had been convicted in District Court in May 1993 of mistreating both cows. He was fined $500 and given a probationary sentence that called for him to give 350 hours of community service.

Cows, rather than chickens, caused the pollution for which an Eastern Shore farm couple and Perdue are being sued, contends a witness for the Salisbury-based poultry company. Charles Hagedorn, a microbiology professor from Virginia Tech , told a federal judge Monday that a small herd of cattle grazing on Alan and Kristin Hudson's farm near Berlin were the sole source of high levels of bacteria and nutrients found in drainage ditches there. "These counts - and they are high - came from the cattle," Hagedorn testified.  But a lawyer for the Waterkeeper Alliance pressed Hagedorn to acknowledge that manure blown by large ventilation fans out of the Hudsons' two poultry houses could also have reached the ditches, contributing to the pollution.

When you have been an experienced, highly accurate professional journalist for as long as I have, you develop a "sixth sense" for spotting a news trend that has the two elements that are absolutely essential for a major story:DTC 1. The potential destruction of all life on the planet.2. Cows.I regret to report that we are experiencing such a trend now.Consider the following true items:Item one: According to newspaper articles sent in by many alert readers, livestock in England are experiencing an epidemic of "Mad Cow Disease," a disorder that strikes the brains of cows (Yes!

HAVRE DE GRACE -- The Year of Our Lord 1996 drains squishily toward its close, and there is water everywhere. It's flowing into the pond faster than the 8-inch tile drain through the dam can take it away, and creeping up the banks around the trunks of the maples. It's rushing down stream beds. It's dripping from the morose faces of the cows, and exploring new ways to get into my cellar.Out in the fields it's made big shallow lakes in places which before this year even the Corps of Engineers wouldn't have suspected were wetlands in disguise.

A veterinarian convicted on two counts of animal cruelty received a sentence of two years' supervised probation and 350 hours of community service, and was fined $500 in Howard County District Court Friday.Richard John Burroughs, 51, of Mount Airy, faced a maximum sentence of 90 days in prison and $1,000 in fines on each count of cruelty to his two cows. District Judge Louis Becker decided May 18 that the animals had been mistreated."I have to hold you to a higher standard than someone who's a farmer or a simple pet owner," Judge Becker said.

NEW YORK -- Expressing what might be called "udder" frustration, a top New York arts group has declined to run a major city-sponsored exhibit because of a ban on "religious, political or sexual" works. The New York Foundation for the Arts refused to impose the ban on artists who will paint as many as 1,000 life-size fiberglass cows to be displayed in the city this summer. The walkout follows an art-world uproar over Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's ongoing crusade to shut down the Brooklyn Museum of Art for displaying a painting of the Madonna decorated with elephant dung.

A Mount Airy veterinarian's two cows remain in protective custody after his administrative appeal was thrown out by the Howard County Board of Appeals before it heard the case.Dr. Richard John Burroughs, who had hoped to be reunited with Harriet Hereford and Lady Jers, was to have made his case to the board last night, but the board ruled against him Oct. 12, saying he had failed to provide a transcript of his Animal Matters Board hearing and a memorandum detailing a legal basis for the appeal.

A veterinarian accused of mistreating two cows at his Mount Airy farm plans to appeal his Howard District Court conviction on two counts of animal cruelty.Dr. Richard John Burroughs, 51, faces a maximum sentence of 90 days in prison plus fines of up to $1,000 for each count if his conviction is upheld.Daniel Green, an Eldersburg attorney for Dr. Burroughs, said he believes his client's conviction by District Judge Louis Becker on May 18 was based only on circumstantial evidence."We feel the court was in error," Mr. Green said.

As a resident of Strawbridge Home for Boys in 1950, Jim Mathis, at age 13, found himself working on a full-fledged farm with cows, hogs, chickens and horses. He soon learned a few lessons. "Cows don't care what day it is. At the same time every day, when it is time to milk, they come to the barn," Mathis, now 74, chuckled. "Farming is a 24-hour, seven days a week job. (Today), there's not a farmer amongst us. " That "us" is Mathis' fellow alumni from Strawbridge, a Methodist-run home in Eldersburg where boys between ages 6 and 18 were sent to live, from 1924 to the late 1950s, either because they were orphans, or their families couldn't care for them.

One singer crooned like Sinatra. One twanged in true Conway Twitty style and another gave a credible gravel-voiced impression of Louis Armstrong. And, of course, an Elvis entered the Cow Palace at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium with a guitar and had most of the audience swaying in the seats Thursday before he left the building. The show was called "Baltimore County Seniors Got Talent," and 11 performers proved it in a contest loosely based on the similarly named TV reality show.

Show up at any Chick-fil-A today dressed from head to hoof like a cow and you will be rewarded with a free meal. Partial costumes get partial prizes: a free entree. If you're really crafty you can submit photos of your costume for a chance to win 50 free Chick-fil-A meals and other prizes. Visit  http://www.cowappreciationday.com/  for all of the details, a printable costume kit, and this awesome video.    

"Grass is for Cows" is the motto of this producer, and it delivers a sauvignon blanc that is notable for its lack of grassy, herbal notes. Neither is it overly fig-flavored — the extreme some producers veer toward. It's a subtle, smoky, mineral-infused wine that reminds me very much of a good Graves from Bordeaux. It seems to be structured for longer aging than most California whites, and could develop very nicely with a year or two aging — something I rarely say about a sauvignon blanc.

WASHINGTON — Fifteen years ago, Carol Nietmann and her husband bought a spacious house in Calvert County near the Chesapeake Bay. And thanks to the time-honored tax deduction for mortgage interest, she says, their new place was a little bigger and a little nicer than they otherwise would have been able to afford. Perhaps the most sacred of all the sacred cows in the tax code, the home mortgage deduction has long been seen as critical to a major element in the American dream — owning your own home.

In the tony village of Potomac, one of Montgomery County's most exclusive enclaves, the average home sells for about $1 million, but it's not hard to find properties that list for a great deal more money. People living there generally earn more than those who live elsewhere in the county, but they also pay much more in taxes, too. Yet when Montgomery County was struggling to pay for government services during the recession that hit eight years ago and raised property taxes at a rate higher than that of inflation (where it's normally capped by the county's charter)

A veterinarian accused of mistreating two cows at his Mount Airy farm plans to appeal his Howard District Court conviction on two counts of animal cruelty.Dr. Richard John Burroughs, 51, faces a maximum sentence of 90 days in prison plus fines of as much as $1,000 for each count if his conviction is upheld.Daniel Green, an Eldersburg attorney for Dr. Burroughs, said he believes his client's conviction by District Judge Louis Becker on May 18 was based only on circumstantial evidence.Mr. Green said he will take Dr. Burroughs' case to Howard Circuit Court after the veterinarian is sentenced in District Court.

In this week of WikiLeaks, "Slurpee Summits" and lame ducks quacking in the halls of Congress, an underlying and most disturbing reality remains intact and in charge, leading some of us to question whether the recently conducted midterm elections really matter much at all. One must understand that any number of newly minted elected officials, presidents, senators and congressional representatives have promised to change Washington upon taking office....