NOT THE SHARPEST KNIVES IN THE DRAWER: The Littlest Locavores
Some 250 children at the Lydd primary school in Kent, U.K. take part in a farming program that teaches them to breed and raise ducks, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs. One of their projects was rearing a lamb from birth, and the children took turns hand-feeding him. After the school council – 14 kids aged 6 to 11 - voted 13-1 to send the lamb, which had been named Marcus, to the slaughterhouse, grown-ups who should be, well, more grown up about these things had a hissy fit, reports Reuters:
The decision has provoked fury among animal-loving celebrities, animal and human rights campaigners and the parents of some of the children, and led to threats against and its teachers, according to a member of staff. …
The intention had been to buy pigs with the money raised from slaughtering Marcus, but those plans have been put on hold following the furor created by the lamb's culling. The school said the program may now have to be stopped. …
[T]he school said there had been overwhelming support among the children, the staff and most of the parents to have Marcus - a castrated male who could not have been used for breeding - sent to the slaughterhouse.
But opponents branded it heartless and cruel, with animal rights campaigners asking why Marcus could not have been used to teach the children about wool, and human rights campaigners worried about the emotional impact of Marcus's death on the children. …
"When we started the farm in spring 2009, the aim was to educate the children in all aspects of farming life and everything that implies," the school said in a statement.
The Stiletto thinks the sooner British children learn to deal with the emotional impact of death, the better, seeing as how their government has hastened the deaths of hospitalized patients by prematurely classifying them as being at the “end of life” stage and withdrawing food and water, or euthanizing them with morphine. At least the children themselves controlled the fate of Marcus rather than some NICE bureaucrat.
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