Sure, they look cute. You hear that humans and chimpanzees share 98 percent of their genetic material and think, "wow, that would be a unique and awesome pet, right?"
Wrong, wrong, wrong. As proved in a number of recent news stories - such as this one about a chimpanzee hurling rocks at zoo visitors because it was tired of being stared at, this one about a caged chimp escaping and attacking a friend of the owner's, and this one about an abused chimp killing its owner with a well-aimed coconut - chimps don't make good pets.
This is due in very large part to the fact that chimps are mean as hell, especially male chimps. In the wild, they fight all the damn time. When groups meet, they attack and sometimes kill each other, and groups of male chimps will go on hunts for smaller monkeys. Now, granted, all the animals in the incidents listed above were somehow provoked, but chimpanzees are naturally testy. In The Last Great Ape, a Nova episode about bonobos - a far rarer and more peaceful species of chimp, pan paniscus - one researcher talks about the difference between the species in human terms, and chimpanzees are described represent humanity's violent side. (Bonobos, incidentally, are very rare and endangered and should not be kept as pets. I'm also fairly sure it's illegal to do so.)
This is not to say that chimpanzees are any more violent than any other animal that might be kept as a pet. But they are more intelligent, stronger, and more capable of planning ahead by far than most of those other species. Leaving aside the fact that nobody should be keeping these already endangered animals as pets to begin with, very few people are equipped to give them the space and facilities to keep them healthy and happy. It's the cardinal rule of pet ownership - don't keep an animal you aren't prepared to take good care of.
Travis, the chimp that attacked a woman's face, didn't deserve to be shot. He was one victim among many of a society that fails to recognize that great apes, while like us in many ways, are still wild animals and are not appropriate pets.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Awesome Things: The Hyperaware Consciousness
You should all go do this now. I happen to know the guy that founded it - peripherally, but we have met IRL - and he, and it, are pretty much awesome. It's basically a sort of list of questions that you can journal. I'm starting and you should too.
But not online, 'cause some of it's sort of personal and the Internet is forever.
But not online, 'cause some of it's sort of personal and the Internet is forever.
And Now For Something Completely Different
Worst spelling and puns ever? Check. Kenyans? Check. Four hundred babies? Check.
This is pretty much the ultimate ad.
This is pretty much the ultimate ad.
Blast from the Past
Watch these in order. It's much funnier that way. Sorry I couldn't embed the second one.
And now Seth Green's take on it.
And now Seth Green's take on it.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
In Which I Rant About Classes
Mandatory attendance is the bane of my life.
I have never had a mandatory-attendance class that was actually worth attending. Attendance points are, as far as I can tell, a substitute for actual teaching.
Case in point: My gender studies core requirement class, Gender Across Cultures. First, a disclaimer: Although this is anthropology class, and anthropology is my major, I have a marked antipathy towards gender studies. I think, frankly, that that field of study is a watered-down conglomeration of a number of other fields and really only scratches the surface of the issues it claims to study. Additionally, it nearly always leads to value judgments - such as what political system is 'best for women' - that I believe fundamentally countermand the entire point of anthropology. However, my issues with this class have nothing, or very little, to do with my feelings towards gender studies as a whole. My problem is that this class is almost entirely a waste of my time - a long, early waste of my time.
In Gender Across Cultures, we spend much time discussing and augmenting the readings - a process involving the same three people and sometimes a PowerPoint presentation - and contributing to lists of words on the board. My professor, the head of the department, is almost always absent, called away to various meetings, and this leaves us in the no-doubt capable hands of the TA. The TA is Finnish and talks as if she has a mouthful of marbles. I realize that she is not responsible for this, nor can she help it, but it doesn't help. She invariably attempts to lead class discussions, involving a very unwilling audience and attempting to draw out certain conclusions and follow a specific line of reasoning. This, incidentally, defeats the purpose of a discussion. It also means that she oversimplifies everything and fails to give the gender issues we discuss any context other than, for example, American culture - which varies radically by socioeconomic status, region, race, education, and any number of other factors which definitely are not consistent.
Another problem with the discussion angle to the course is that it is used by the vast majority of the students to fulfill a core requirement. Not only do they not especially want to be there, but most of them don't see why they need to learn anything from the class. This is fairly obvious every time the Finnish TA attempts to draw a contribution out of one of the douchebag males in the class and he repeatedly mumbles something about not knowing. He is clearly unwilling to even try to think about the class and I don't think I'm getting anything out of hearing someone try to get blood out of a stone.
The readings for the class are all right, but not great. For example, we keep reading the name of one woman who supposedly pioneered this field. It might be interesting to see what she wrote, however outdated, because it's going to influence the course of the field. But we never read anything of hers in the class, not even an excerpt from one of her papers.
Now, I understand that for a discussion-based class, you might need to require attendance - especially since nothing discussed is going to appear on the multiple choice tests. But why not change the multiple choice tests to essay tests, thereby making the discussion time and procession of ideas provided the class actually applicable to something? And for that matter, why predicate a 200-level core requirement class so heavily on discussion? That's something more suited to a smaller 300- or 400-level seminar on the subject, taken by students with some actual interest in the subject. Hell, even a once-a-week recitation led by a TA would work better. The entire classroom structure is unsuited to this presentation method; there are more than 70 students in the class. Someone's voice is always going to go unheard.
And yet I still have to attend this class, despite the fact that I get more out of talking to my mom on the phone for an hour or hanging out in my room and reading, because of attendance points. If students aren't motivated to attend the class without coersion, perhaps professors should rethink their teaching methods. I never skip my more interesting classes, or smaller classes, or classes that cover a lot of material, and these very rarely have any kind of attendance policy.
I have never had a mandatory-attendance class that was actually worth attending. Attendance points are, as far as I can tell, a substitute for actual teaching.
Case in point: My gender studies core requirement class, Gender Across Cultures. First, a disclaimer: Although this is anthropology class, and anthropology is my major, I have a marked antipathy towards gender studies. I think, frankly, that that field of study is a watered-down conglomeration of a number of other fields and really only scratches the surface of the issues it claims to study. Additionally, it nearly always leads to value judgments - such as what political system is 'best for women' - that I believe fundamentally countermand the entire point of anthropology. However, my issues with this class have nothing, or very little, to do with my feelings towards gender studies as a whole. My problem is that this class is almost entirely a waste of my time - a long, early waste of my time.
In Gender Across Cultures, we spend much time discussing and augmenting the readings - a process involving the same three people and sometimes a PowerPoint presentation - and contributing to lists of words on the board. My professor, the head of the department, is almost always absent, called away to various meetings, and this leaves us in the no-doubt capable hands of the TA. The TA is Finnish and talks as if she has a mouthful of marbles. I realize that she is not responsible for this, nor can she help it, but it doesn't help. She invariably attempts to lead class discussions, involving a very unwilling audience and attempting to draw out certain conclusions and follow a specific line of reasoning. This, incidentally, defeats the purpose of a discussion. It also means that she oversimplifies everything and fails to give the gender issues we discuss any context other than, for example, American culture - which varies radically by socioeconomic status, region, race, education, and any number of other factors which definitely are not consistent.
Another problem with the discussion angle to the course is that it is used by the vast majority of the students to fulfill a core requirement. Not only do they not especially want to be there, but most of them don't see why they need to learn anything from the class. This is fairly obvious every time the Finnish TA attempts to draw a contribution out of one of the douchebag males in the class and he repeatedly mumbles something about not knowing. He is clearly unwilling to even try to think about the class and I don't think I'm getting anything out of hearing someone try to get blood out of a stone.
The readings for the class are all right, but not great. For example, we keep reading the name of one woman who supposedly pioneered this field. It might be interesting to see what she wrote, however outdated, because it's going to influence the course of the field. But we never read anything of hers in the class, not even an excerpt from one of her papers.
Now, I understand that for a discussion-based class, you might need to require attendance - especially since nothing discussed is going to appear on the multiple choice tests. But why not change the multiple choice tests to essay tests, thereby making the discussion time and procession of ideas provided the class actually applicable to something? And for that matter, why predicate a 200-level core requirement class so heavily on discussion? That's something more suited to a smaller 300- or 400-level seminar on the subject, taken by students with some actual interest in the subject. Hell, even a once-a-week recitation led by a TA would work better. The entire classroom structure is unsuited to this presentation method; there are more than 70 students in the class. Someone's voice is always going to go unheard.
And yet I still have to attend this class, despite the fact that I get more out of talking to my mom on the phone for an hour or hanging out in my room and reading, because of attendance points. If students aren't motivated to attend the class without coersion, perhaps professors should rethink their teaching methods. I never skip my more interesting classes, or smaller classes, or classes that cover a lot of material, and these very rarely have any kind of attendance policy.
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