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Does George Bush wear a small earphone when he’s speaking in public?
I do not believe George W. Bush is an effective communicator. Can you find me evidence to support that?
WHO IS GEOREGE W. BUSH’S CAMPAIGN MANAGER, AND WHAT ROLL IS THE FORMEWR GOVERNOR OF N.J., CHRISTIAN WITTMAN, PLAYING IN THESE AFFAIR’S
So, who’ll be the next Prez?

Freegans say they dine well , by eating trash

I guess there’s some new movement. Must be college students. I mean it has to be college students. They’re against the wastefulness of society so they prove their point by living on a diet of garbage only. Let me repeat: they eat out of the trash. I mean, I understand what they’re saying. They’re point is okay. Obviously, we shouldn’t waste food. But. I mean. Really. Do they really think that they’ll change the minds of those in society? Do they really? Do they really think that eating garbage is the answer?

The trio meets at 9:30 p.m. – about the time grocery stores close and put their trash out – and rummage through one store’s leftovers before moving on to the next. Picking through garbage bags, they fill their knapsacks with enough fruit, vegetables, loaves of bread and packaged goods to fully stock their shelves and refrigerators.”

It reminds me of one of my favorite segments on Seinfeld. George is caught eating a donut out of his girlfriend’s mom’s trashcan.

“So let me get this straight. You find yourself in the kitchen, you see an eclair in the receptacle, and you think to yourself, ‘What the hell, I’ll just eat some trash.’”
“No no no no no. It was not trash.”
“Was it in the trash?”
“Yes.”
“Then it was trash.”
“It wasn’t down in. It was sort of on top.”
“But it was in the cylinder.”
“Above the rim.”
“Adjacent to refuse is… refuse.”
“It was on a magazine. And it still had the doily on.”
“Was it eaten?”
“One little bite.”
“Well, that’s garbage.”
“But I know who took the bite. It was her aunt.”
“Well, you, my friend, have crossed the line that divides man and bum. You are now a bum.”
- Jerry and George, in “The Gymnast”

Kanzi is a semi-famous chimp who has, according to his owners, the ability to understand and communicate language. The experiments that show proof of this are, in my opinion, similar to most other spurious experiments that have “proven” that other apes have language. In Kanzi’s case:

“In addition to single words, Kanzi has demonstrated unequivocal understanding of thousands of novel spoken sentences with syntactically complex structures including embedded phrases, pronouns, case markers, and absent referents. His comprehension of spoken language is at least equivalent to that of a 2-1/2 year old child. ”

The knuckle draggers basically point and bark on command, can recognize many many words, and then get their picture taken wearing sweaters or opening Christmas presents. The scientists presenting these findings don’t tell you that this communication isn’t considered by most language experts to be language. And they wouldn’t dare to show Kanzi eating turds, or going spastic, or eating bugs, or doing these other things that surely he wants to and needs to do, as a wild creature. No, the stuff submitted to the public is nice and neat. All these tricks and charades cause us to forget to ask the question: “what is language, and do these animals truly exhibit it?” Human language, is of course, not mere communication. All animals communicate on some level, and everyone knows that. Anyone who has had a dog knows that a dog can tell you when it wants to go for a walk, is hungry, and by it’s barking, when it’s pissed. Essential to language, and missing completely from all other animals, from dolphins to the smartest of cardigan donning chimps, is creativity. We’re talking a difference in kind, not degree. Dorothy Chaney, professor of biology at the university of Pennsylvania says,

“We know that at least some species of non human primates possess in their natural communicative repertoire a small number of calls that serve as semantic labels for objects. Nonetheless, these same animals never seem to create new calls or new labels for objects.”

Even a child younger than to can give a name to something. It instinctively learns words and language without being taught. These animals do not and can not make these leaps. I think, however, we can sometimes miss what is probably the real sad thing, the real issue. These same “language able” monkeys and apes that Scientists dress up like babies in diapers and compel them to participate in human pastimes, would probably rather be in their natural habitat, swinging from trees, and eating their own poop.

Kanzi

Why Animals Don’t Have Language

I’m no great photographer, but I really like the look of all the girls in this picture.

Kaitlyn, Evelyn, Nicole, and Sarah.
Sister, Daughter, Sister, Cousin.

Our friend from college, Veronica visited us about 3 weeks ago. She’s a fledgling film maker and does some non-union grip type work whenever she can. She lives in Columbus but happily stays in our place if she gets work in Cincinnati. Anyways, she was helping out Animal Planet! do some show on rhinoceruses, and spent some time with the monkeys as well. That lead to the following conversation that we had at dinner:

   Say Something Witty!