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English 101 for bonobos

Maia Leave a comment

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2007-05-10-bonobo-studies_N.htm?csp=15

http://www.care2.com/news/member/845082801/371656

Those of you who are members of Care2, why don’t you note my news story? Just a little suggestion.:)

I found this article yesterday, and I thought it was incredibly interesting. How wonderful that you can now comunicate with our closest relatives. In fact, I’ve been communicating with our non-human family members for years, but the primates can actually reply to you in a way that you can understand. Of course, so do many of my animal babies too.

In any case, this article is about how these apes get to learn symbols. In the past, apparently, the scientists had made a mistake, and tried to teach the apes our language, rather like we learn a second language – like French or Spanish. The scientists discovered this when a bonobo baby suddenly turned out to know what the mother had learned, without anyone working especially to teach him. Good boy!

There were a couple of other things I paid special attention to. For instance, what the bonobos enjoy the most, (other than their special interest – see earlier post) are movies about themselves, other primates and humans.

The smart little kid who learned his mother’s lessons, has a favorite book, about a gorilla. How cute.

Of course it isn’t just cute. It also shows clearly that at least primates (in my opinion all ‘more advanced’ animals) should be allowed basic human rights. There’s even an ongoing court case going on in Austria (I think). People are trying to secure basic rights to a chimipanzee, as a ‘person’.

If you can read books and watch movies and understand what you’re seeing and hearing, that has to mean you’re a person, right?

One of our dogs, a golden retriever, loved horses. Little horses inside the tv. Maybe it was the sound of their hoofs. One day she got to see some real horses grazing. You could almost see how her mind was working overtime. Oh. They’re that big? Not quite as much fun.

One of these bonobos appeared concerned about an orangutan, who needed to be fed. She told one of the humans so that the orangutan would get help. Empathy too. Even more likely that we’re very closely related (at least the ones of us who are empathic).

There’s a lot more to read in that article, so take a look.

I just wish that someone would do some work with my special favorites, the gorillas. Kanzi (the bonobo baby above) will probably agree.

Erotic Art?

Maia Leave a comment

Recently, I noticed a discussion in an online group I’ve joined. The topic was erotic art, dreams and the subconscious. To be perfectly honest, the dreams and subconscious didn’t tell me much, and the ‘erotic’ art – quite frankly it depressed me. As a heterosexual woman, I just don’t see how half-naked women can be considered erotic. Call me oldfashioned or whatever you like. It just doesn’t do anything for me.

Is it even supposed to be? Imagine this: a bunch of heterosexual men are expected to look at and enjoy art consisting of various representations of the nude male form. If these men found that ‘erotic’ art uninteresting, unmoving and perhaps even baffling, is it so strange?

I’m aware that I might be lacking in some sort of understanding or appreciation of what art really is, but I don’t think so. If I don’t like it, it isn’t art, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never been one to ‘appreciate’ what is trendy and hot, rather than ‘good’ or even appealing to me, as the ‘receiver’ of the message art is supposed to be.

I don’t listen to music I’m ‘supposed’ to like and I don’t go to the theater and watch plays I’m ‘supposed’ to like, and I certainly don’t read books, because ‘everyone else’ says they’re good. For me, appreciation needs to be based inside me and what I consider worthy of appreciation.

That’s all.

So the next time someone wants to interest me in a work of art, it had better contain some element I find artistic, be it a nude or semi-nude male, a landscape or something abstract. Otherwise, I’m not interested. Sorry. That’s how I am, take it or leave it.

Knitting

Maia Leave a comment

I love knitting. My only problem is I don’t love the stuff I knit as much as I love making them. Maybe I’ll find a solution soon. In any case, I don’t want to stop. It’s so much fun. Strange, really, because I’m not very practical when it comes to other things.

I think I knitted for the first time when I was ten. Someone, I think it was mom, taught me some years before that, but I was ten when I actually made something. It was a sweater. I’m not sure if it’s still around, but I do know I got compliments from unexpected sources… Like a guy in my class. Of course, he was probably a little partial to me as I was to him.

This is it, I've had enough…

Maia Leave a comment

This is the beginning of the end. When WebRing charges for membership, or limit the number of rings you can manage or be a member of, it’s time to say bye, bye. I was a member of 80 rings (yes, it’s true) and I still only had a few hits per day. Five rings? Forget it. Pay? Why? I’m only getting a few hits per day, remember, and besides, my site isn’t commercial. Bye, bye WebRing.

Of course, this is just the beginning. The free internet will soon be history. Soon we’ll have to pay to look at any home page.

Imagine this:

You’re going into town for some window shopping. As soon as you hit the road outside your home a gate is barring your way. You have to pay to drive on the road. (Naturally, you also have to pay for your home and all the costs connected with the running of a household). After a while you’re approaching the city center, the commercial part of town. New gate, new fee. You still haven’t seen any store and you’re far from a decision on whether you’re going to make a purchase or not. Next step is the little fee to enter the store.

All this before you’ve made up your mind to shop or not. Buy, yes. That will cost you, and that’s not a problem as far as I’m concerned. But what about the rest? What’s next? Pay to breathe? Open your eyes? Have a beating heart?

I know there’s no such thing as a ‘free lunch’. Ok, what’s free? Hardware? Are you kidding? Software? Internet connection? Where’s your free lunch? Now we also have to pay for mail addresses, webrings and so and so forth ad nauseam.

What happened to the free, fun internet? The playful, creative internet? Oh, right, it vanished along with ‘the customer’s always right’.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, it’s getting to be time for me to leave. I’m not even going to start on all the spying. That’s enough of a topic for a new post.

Make Love, not War – or…?

Maia Leave a comment

I read an article about the Bonobo chimpanzees. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re a subspecies of chimpanzee. In any case, they’re a species of primates – apes. Their society, if you’ll allow the expression, is based on sex. They don’t have a lot of aggression and hostilities among them. That’s not what I have a problem with.

Actually, I also read a column in one of Sweden’s major newspapers, strangely enough a conservative one, and the guy was raving about how gay penguins and Bonobos shattered the world view of some extreme right wing conservatives. Again, I don’t a have problem with that. Let the narrow minds expand, painful or not.

No, what I don’t like about the Bonobo society, is something else I read in that article. It was more or less verbatim like this: “The price the females have to pay for not having ‘wars’ is to be constantly available for sex”. In other words, they’re required to constantly provide sex – for the males, presumably. Is that a way to run a society? Since some people put forward the Bonobos as some kind of positive example to us, homo sapiens, should we follow their example? Do we placate the ‘beast’ (don’t take this literally, guys, I love you, it’s just a figure of speech) by putting out? Come on, that’s depressing.

The article about the gay penguins etc, also mentioned how males in a certain species of river dolphins (I hope I didn’t get that wrong – I’m not really good at science) like to mate with each other using their blowholes. (Ouch! If that’s true, how do they keep from drowning?) So maybe the column writer got that wrong too. But he also mentioned that they sometimes have sex with sharks and giant turtles. I mean, please. Again, the writer of that column seemed to think that this was something positive. Should we accept people having sex with animals too? Or is that only ok for animals? Come to think of it, maybe it is, between animal species, as long as both species are perfectly in agreement. Which is so NOT the case when so called humans have sex with so called animals. But anyway, do we want our society to be like that? I think not.

Again, the other day I read an article about human homosexuality. Very interesting reading. The scientists had studied twins – identical, I assume, though I don’t think the article specified that. Some of them had different sexual orientations even though they were in other ways practically identical. There was a lot more in the article but what caught my attention was this: gay males and straight males are different, but not when it comes to sex. Now what does that mean? I took it to mean that while they have different interests, hobbies, hairstyles, fashion sense etc, they act very alike when it comes to pursuing a partner. The only difference is that the gay males were more successful in realizing their goals. Because, presumably, other males share their eagerness to have sex.

Bearing in mind all these articles I read, something struck me. Let’s all be more tolerant of homosexuality and bisexuality as long as all participants (two or more) are in agreement. Consenting adults and all that. And shouldn’t we be even more tolerant of male homosexuality or bisexuality? Why? Because, while I’m not saying that we females don’t like sex, it’s usually men who want more of it, and more often than most females. Or in any case in a different way (more focused on sex, less on relationships). So couldn’t our society learn to be more accepting of casual sex between guys, who later in life find a female partner and start a family? That would spare us females the necessity of ‘putting out’ or being forced to accept violence, aggression and wars. Because if you think about it, that sounds a lot like blackmail.

Kisses and Music

Maia Leave a comment

Most people in Sweden probably saw the finals in the Swedish qualifying contests before the big Eurovision Song Contest, which took place in Kiev, in May 2005. Even I, who don’t really like schlager music, watched. And like many others, I’m crazy about Martin Stenmarck, the guy who won. Everyone who watched, also saw straight Martin kiss gay celebrity Mark Levengood on the mouth. Ok, it didn’t look particularly sexy, and if Martin had such a bad cold, as the evening papers have implied, it might not have been particularly nice, but still. Later on, apparently, Martin also kissed music producer Bert Karlsson, and surprise, surprise, Bert Karlsson, who doesn’t normally like Martin a whole lot, actually looked quite happy about it. Everyone seems to love Martin.

But all this made me think of something. In music videos or on opening nights, you often see straight female celebrities kiss each other, on the mouth. Why? Because it sells papers, that’s why. Men enjoy watching women kiss each other, especially straight women. There’s cause for speculation over why that is, but I’m no psychologist, so I’m not going to try to explain this phenomenon.

Instead, I’d like to ask why it’s so rare that guys do the same thing. Martin was so happy about winning that he probably didn’t have time to consider the fact that the kiss pictures will get him and the song writers attention and attention usually means money. Otherwise, you might speculate over why it’s considered positive media exposure when a female singer or actor “turns gay” for a while, but it’s the other way around with guys.

Is it because the executives of media companies everywhere are predominantly men? I think so. Just look at what happens when gay celebrities like the guys in Alcazar and the singer Mathias Holmgren, formerly of the band Barbados, appear on tv. Everyone, including the guys themselves, are extremely wary of them acting in any way – gay – or maybe feminine. Why? It can’t come as any surprise to the viewers that these guys are homosexuals. If they’ve read the evening papers or the gossip magazines, they know already. Does seeing two guys sing a love song together make people feel sick? Today? In the 21 century? Come on.

Where am I going with this? Simply this: if girls are going to kiss each other, why can’t guys? Quite a few women actually like seeing two hot guys kiss each other, for instance in a music video. In any case, why does there have to be such a big difference?

So, Martin, and all you guys out there, keep on kissing each other. And while you’re at it, try hugging each other too. Then maybe we’ll get a more loving and open society, and if not, then at least we girls out here will get something pretty to look at.