Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Why Sheep Are Dumb

Hang with me, here.

We were watching the Food Network last night, and Alton Brown came on with his "Good Eats" program. We like Alton. He's informative. He's entertaining. And we've never even pretended to try any of his recipes. He's just fun.

So last night he was doing this "crown" rack of lamb, and as he often does, he did a little skit on the background of the food he was making. Specifically, a background piece on sheep.

In the piece, a historian pops up and starts explaining that sheep were probably the first domesticated herd animal, yada yada... and Alton (after getting over being perturbed at her stealing his thunder... all in the script of course) asked her why lamb/sheep aren't too popular in America. She explained that it had something to do with the Brits not wanting us to compete with them on the wool market.

And Alton says something like, "besides, they're dumb."

She responded by saying yes, they're pretty dumb, and it's partially our fault. See, over the 6,000 years we've had them domesticated, they've lost their horns, their ears are all floppy instead of perky, and they have lost brain capacity.

Now let's think about that.

We took what was presumably a wild animal and started looking after their every need. Keeping danger away, making sure they were well fed, didn't get overly agitated. All they have to worry about is eating. And what happened?

They became less alert (ears are now floppy because they don't have to listen), can't defend themselves anymore ("horn" control ... they've lost their weapons), and they've gotten stupid.

Remember that next time someone starts talking to you about nationalized health care, gun control, promoting nanny statism, etc.

We the Sheeple.

Not for me, man.

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