Marcus the lamb - What do you think?

[Will]

I personally find the whole thing quite funny, but I am curious as to other peoples opinions.

Because I am too stoopid to work out the 'poll' thing, what do you think?

1. Vegetarian, you stand by your principles. Don't eat meat, so don't think he should have been slaughtered.

2. Carnivore, its the way of the world. Extra mint sauce.

3. Sentimental, poor bugger was just a pet after all.

- I appreciate vegetarians may not neccesarily choose #1, but I guess that means you don't like it because of the taste rather than the idea of it.

:D

[_tom_]

Who is Marcus the lamb and who's gonna pass the mint sauce?

[Will]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/8255125.stm

[MrBump]

It's bizarre. 

The whole point of the exercise was educating kids that probably think that beef is grown on trees in China.

Can't see why anyone needed to be involved - the school did the right thing.

[mikeluke]

Up to the point that they held a raffle for the meat.....

I thought was taking the pi$$ a bit....

[_tom_]

hmm its quite ridiculous. Its only a bloody lamb, eat it!

[Will]

The whole point of the exercise was educating kids that probably think that beef is grown on trees in China.

Next it will be about YouthInAsia ;)

I would like to see some other perspectives though, in all seriousness.

[FernandoDuarte]

I'm carnivore and eat as much meat as I can listening "Ian Siegal - Meat & Potato" blues :twisted:

[Jonny]

shite like this pisses me off.

I look down at the idiots who actually ramble on about children being "traumatised" because a lamb is sent to be killed, how else does it end up on your plate.

It's one of those things you just wish people would just end their lives cause of their sheer stupidity.

The thing that pisses me off most of that article is the parent,

Some children have been highly traumatised

She's like one of those bubble parents, I can't wait for her to be 'told to the face' by her child.

[mikeluke]

I'll run the story past my two kids and see what they think - it did sound a bit 'namby-pamby, arty-farty' to me - but there again in my kids' school they only grow veggies....

Mike

[Ian Price]

I'm a vegetarian, as is my partner. Our daughter is also veggie although if she decides she wants to eat meat when she is older that's fine by us.

The thing that annoys me about this article is that some people obviously don't want their kids to know the truth. Megan knows other people eat meat and that it involves slaughtering/killing of animals. She was upset about this when we explained it to her but seeing as her question was along the lines of "where does meat grow" I had to give her a real answer.

You can't protect kids from everything. Kids who are protected will have more difficulty understanding how stuff works and not have the right knowledge to form their own opinions or challenge others opinions. That's my opinion at least!

[Will]

Still waiting for a decent argument for the opposite side, still honestly curious about it. I suppose most of you would guess I have no problem with the meat trade, but I have grown up with it.

oh, btw this thread was inspired by an article in the Daily Mail. You all agreed with it so far, you must all be right wing scare mongered peoples now :lol:

*just addressing the issue because of the comment that Pat left about the marathon man, not all Mail readers are tw@ts.

[Philly Q]

I understand your points, everyone, and there's nothing wrong with teaching kids where food comes from and all that.  But they can be taught something without having to actually experience it.

It does say the school farm "also has rabbits, guinea pigs, c--kerels and ducks".... so essentially this sheep was a pet.  On that basis, I can understand little kids being upset when it got dragged off to be killed.  I would be too, frankly.

If I want to buy a piece of beef, I don't think I should first have to "qualify" by taking a guided tour of an abattoir and watching Daisy and Buttercup get their $%&#ing heads smashed in.

.....

Having said all that, we've heard a lot about the opinions of teachers, parents and animal welfare campaigners - it doesn't actually say what the kids themselves felt.

[AndyR]

Yeah, on the "pet front" I did wonder why they named the thing (or "allowed" the kids to name it, mebbe?)... however, I must admit I'm actually in the "why do folks get precious about pets?" camp, I don't feel it myself, but I know most other people do, so I was surprised to find it had a name...

One thing tho, Philly, what's all this about "rabbits ... etc.... ducks" classified as pets? We eats them thangs round these parts :lol: (ok, never knowingly ate a guinea pig, but I haven't been to KFC for a while...). Definitely agree though - sounds like some folks had gone into "pet" mode by giving it a name. What sort of name is "Marcus" for a lamb though?!! :lol: Marcus is a fine name, but did that animal look like a "Marcus"?! 

I'm also with Philly on his last point, were the majority of the kids upset? It doesn't sound to me like any of them witnessed it - they just came skipping in to see him on monday morning... "la-la-la, we're gonna kill 'im today, woo-hoo!" and instead there was just an empty pen, with a few whisps of fleece caught on the fencing  .... and maybe two "hoof-tracks" in the grass where something had been unwillingly dragged through the gate...  :lol:

Seriously though, we seem to have a bunch of emotions attributed, but no actual report of them... though we do know that the school council (7-11 year olds) voted over-whelming to kill it... :lol:

[Jonny]

It's the stupidity of parents.

We're the parents and we know our children were traumatised.

Like hell they would've, explaining first time to a child the child would probably not even understand. This article is clearly adults speaking for their children which really they're speaking for themselves.

Tossers.