Best Headline Ever

ADVICE: Make your screen either as wide or as narrow as possible. That aligns the photos and makes this post look much better. I have GOT to figure out how to get the photos to stay where I put them . . . . Sorry.

The Best Headline Ever comes from Reuters and was published yesterday at 2:15pm:

Rodeo injuries common, but preventable

Entirely preventable, in fact. Stop tormenting, torturing and mounting tormented, tortured animals.

DONE. Complete prevention.

When I first started writing Animal Person, I couldn’t resist the urge to be snide. It comes easy to me. What’s difficult is to treat the ridiculous verbiage of journalists as if it isn’t ridiculous. (And by the way, the same is true when commenting on blogs, and encountering what you experience as an absurd comment. To counter with your own absurdity, thereby engaging in a contest of rant and sarcasm, though often entertaining for you and perhaps for some readers, is usually the opposite of productive.)

Without further ado, I shall attempt to deconstruct Rodeo injuries . . . without being too obnoxious. But it won’t be easy and I apologize in advance for blunders or complete failure:

• "The rough-and-tumble world of rodeo puts competitors at a high risk of injury, but better prevention efforts and a little less machismo might help, according to a new report." I’m curious if the report assessed the risk of injury for the animals.
• "Among rodeo events, bull riding takes the greatest injury toll, but bareback riding, steer wrestling and calf roping carry significant risks as well, according to Dr. Daniel J. Downey of Pioneer Medical Specialists in Dillon, Montana. Writing in the journal Current Sports Medicine Reports, he details the range of injuries that rodeo competitors sustain, and the relative lack of protective measures in the sport." I’m stuck on the word  "sport."  I think this is one of the most incorrectly used words in the English vocabulary and I am committed to doing something about it. You know how Gary Francione coined "new welfare" to distinguish traditional welfarists from the newer ones who really do believe in abolition and think incremental reforms will get us there? Well, I’d like to come up with a word to describe rodeo and hunting and dog racing and horse racing and any other activity where the people are competing (even via gambling), and they are using animals to do so, however there is no consent on the part of the animals, therefore there is no legitimate competition. There is no "sport," in my mind, when there is no intention to participate.
• "A study of nearly 2,000 professional rodeo events between 1981 and 2005 found that half of all injuries occurred during bull riding. Knee and shoulder injuries are most common, according to Downey, but ‘most alarming’ are the head injuries. Concussions account for nearly 9 percent of all bull riding injuries, he notes." I sort of thing the broken backs of calves are a bit more alarming. But that’s me.
• "Yet, despite medical opinion that bull riders should wear protective head gear, head gear is a rarity in rodeo, according to Downey. What’s more, outside of high school competitions, there is no requirement that competitors who’ve sustained a concussion get medical clearance before returning to the sport." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, children often start nice and early in their desensitization to the pain of others but jumping right in there and causing it themselves. At least some medical doctors are looking out for them. Now, what I’d like to see is psychological clearance in addition to medical clearance.
• "Other typical rodeo injuries include finger amputations during calf roping, sprains to the knee, shoulder or ankle, and chronic problems that develop from such injuries. Riders are also at risk of being gored or stomped after dismounting or being thrown from an animal." I know I’m all about nonviolence, and I’m no fan of revenge, but part of me wants to say that every person with any of those injuries deserves them.
• "Protective vests have been found to lower the risk of rib fractures and penetrating chest wounds, Downey points out, and rodeo competitors have been fairly open to using them. Few are willing to use head gear, however. ‘The machismo culture of rodeo certainly plays a part in lack of head-gear acceptance,’ he writes." Well, there you have it, folks–the motivation for "competing" in the rodeo: to demonstrate alleged manliness.
• "Having doctors at rodeo events could also help, he suggests. Currently, national rodeo organizations require only that paramedics be present." Again, I’d like to see some mental health professionals evaluate the situation.
• "Our hope," Downey writes, "is that the sport of rodeo will be made safer for the athlete through greater physician interaction with the rodeo organizations and athletes in the future." And safer for the animals when we wake up and realize how barbaric and unjust it is, and stop doing it–forever.

Go to SHARK, and learn more about the realities of rodoes.