The famous animal behavior researcher, Jane Goodall, died recently at the age of 91. I became aware of her when I was growing up, because our family subscribed to the National Geographic magazine. They featured articles about her, and her mentor, noted paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. My dad was particularly interested in Dr. Leakey, and his work excavating and studying the bones of early hominids in Africa. National Geographic articles gave teenager me and cattle rancher Dad something to talk about.
Fast forward to the present, I have watched many posthumous video clips of her speaking. She had a calm, reassuring voice, which is needed lately. One of the themes she talked about was hope, and telling people that we shouldn't give up hope, or give up trying. She also said that everyone's life matters, that we all have a purpose.
She appears to have been a generic Christian. Her grandfather had been a Congregational minister. She spoke of a hope for life after death.
Her survivors include her son Hugo and his wife Maria, and three grandchildren. One of her granddaughters works with her foundation.
She is featured in the Netflix series, Famous Last Words. The series consists of interviews with famous people, which aren't aired until after their deaths. Since we don't get Netflix, I was glad to find a link to the transcript of the episode:
https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/jane-goodall-famous-last-words-documentary
IIRC, Goodall never had any special training for her work with primates. She was just a keen observer with an open mind. If memory serves, she was among the first to document chimps making and using a tool, a stick to pull bugs out of a log to eat, sort of a proto-fork. She helped blur the lines between human and animal.
ReplyDeleteI can't say I put any stock in the Christian view of Heaven and Hell (though Purgatory makes a certain amount of sense if there's consciousness after death). But I do agree with Goodall that what we do matters. It has the potential to make life better--or a living hell--for other people.
I have read about crows using sticks as tools to get food also.
DeleteI don't know why we would be the only species to "MacGyver" things to get what we need.
I read a lot about corvids. The diff between them and primates seems to be that primates solve puzzles that require several steps through manual handling, and trial and error. Corvids study something visually, memorize the sequence, and figure it out on the first or second try. Ravens seem to be quickest to solve a puzzle, but crows are more adaptable and less skittish, so in the real world they have an advantage over ravens.
DeleteOops, meant to add that Goodall was instrumental in encouraging a lot of these animal behavior studies.
DeleteSo now I’m not on the same planet with Jane Goodall but still on the same planet with Trump and Netanyahu. I miss these good voices. Goodall was a voice for nature, the environment, fighting climate change. I saw a photo of her with Greta Thunberg, kind of passing the torch, I guess. Her work with the apes, life reaching out to life. A friend of mine is a retired vet. She worked in Africa at one time on virus studies, viruses that might transfer to humans. I asked her how they (her male African assistants) could take blood samples from wild chimpanzees. The trick was to give them a treat afterwards. Just like my childhood dentist.
ReplyDeleteTreats!
DeleteLots of pop psych stories these days about "joy" and how you can crank this up with regular treats in your schedule. The anticipation for the treat gives you one dopamine hit, and the treat itself gives you another one.
NFP advocates talk about the anticipatory high that enhances the main event when sex is on the calendar on a regular basis.
My cats seem to have some similar joy routine going with their bedtime treats. They start milling around about 9 p.m., and when I get up to take my chemo at 10, they run to the kitchen for their three Temptation pellets.
I don't think there's a treat big enough to compensate for the dentist ...
LOL, my childhood dentist gave us little plaster animals that he made. Somehow he had the plaster material as part of his equipment for making dentures and such. And I suppose used confectioners' molds for the animals. I never had very good teeth and amassed a collection of plaster animals. And no, it wasn't enough to compensate for being at the dentist.
DeleteStanley, you'll love this one, it's less than a minute long:
Deletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qszx72zVCvc&t=1s&pp=2AEBkAIB
I never went to a dentist until I was going to college because my mom couldn’t afford one. So no treats. The college required a dental exam. Since they were giving me a free ride, including room and board, my mom squeezed out a trip to the dentist from her very tight budget. Fortunately no cavities to fill.
DeleteJean- “ NFP advocates talk about the anticipatory high that enhances the main event when sex is on the calendar on a regular basis.”
And that is precisely why NFP is not N - it’s a totally unnatural way to live a marital love life. The whole idea of “scheduling” love making on a calendar is a turn-off, just as taking mucus samples and basal temperatures every day is horrible. Nothing natural about any of it. I did that routine when trying to conceive after not being able to. Ugh. Plus It didn’t work. I finally got pregnant during a “safe”:time according to the “signs” and temperature readings.
The joy of spontaneous love making is a really good high! If you need a wait to heighten the anticipation there is plenty of that available when kids are still in the house,
I’m so housebound these days that a trip to the library is a treat.
We have a long, challenging weekend ahead of us. Driving to New York on Friday for my sister in laws memorial service on Saturday, home on Sunday. I’m nervous about the hotels because we have to rely on muscle power from my nephew to get my husband in and out of wheelchair and beds. We won’t have the lift with us. He’s 170 pounds of almost completely dead weight and it’s tricky.
. A number of relatives seldom seen will be there so a little treat there in spite of the occasion, especially for my husband to see some cousins. I also worry about a colostomy bag failure in the hotel which we’ve had at home a couple of times. Travel isn’t exactly spontaneous anymore either. We used to pick up and go at the drop of a hat, even traveling to Europe for three weeks at a time with a roller bag, a plane ticket and a rental car reservation. Not even hotel reservations. Just a general idea of where to go.. we’d pick up the car and start driving. A lot easier with cell phones because once we charted a destination for a few days I could call ahead for reservations instead of getting there and calling from coin pay phones as we did in the first 30 years of our travel adventures. . Here when we would get restless and would just throw a few things in the car and take off somewhere. Now the planning is onerous, including having to call hotels to see how high off the floor the tops of the mattresses are in the accessible rooms to facilitate the transfers. A lot of hotel beds these days are too high to transfer from a wheelchair very easily.
Anne, sorry to hear about your sister in law. Was she your husband's sister?
DeleteSending prayers for safe and uneventful travels.
Yes, she was his older sister.She died on Aug 27: two days before her 86th birthday. He will be 85 in November. Prayers for Katherine - may she rest in peace. She was a good person and devout Christian - a pillar of her Episcopal church for at least 56 years. I imagine many from the congregation will be there as she was active and well known there.
DeleteYah, my comment wasn't a plug for NFP. Just sayin' that proponents tout it as a real turn-on. But the Church, of course, did not sanction NFP because it was fun.
DeleteHope all goes OK for the funeral trip. Sounds like SIL lived a happy, long, and useful life.
Anne extols the joy of spontaneity, and I certainly won't disagree. At the same time, anticipation, as of a tryst, has a lot to recommend it.
DeleteFWIW, I don't think the "Natural" part of NFP refers to spontaneity, but rather to the lack of a chemical/technological barrier. Openness to sex being reproductive. One needn't practice NFP for that, although perhaps there is something be said for the "Planning" part of it.
I may be completely wrong, but my observation of married couples is, at some point many of them decide, "Let's have kids." Then at some later point they decide, "That's enough. Let's not have any more kids." If they don't have any issues conceiving, and if the mom is able to bring pregnancies to term, then in between those two points, they may have one, or two, or three or more kids. I don't think they plan it any more granularly than that. But as I say, I could be wrong.
And I could be seeing things through my own personal characteristics (or defects): when it comes to my personal life, I'm really not much of a planner; I just keep going and doing whatever I've been doing until someone or something makes me stop.
I think all of us are beyond the point where we need to worry about family planning. I reject Church teaching about birth control in marriage, and I left accordingly. I would be happy never to talk about Church sex rules in this lifetime, and I am sorry I brought it up.
DeleteJim, that sounds pretty much like us, our planning doesn't tend to be very granular.
DeletePraying for you guys in Chicago. The situation has to have everyone on edge, even if you're not where ICE is hassling people.
Jim
DeleteI am well aware of the church’s distorted reasoning based on “natural law” that they use to call NFP “natural” . It’s a con. Because there is nothing natural about it. So about 95 % of Catholics eventually use either the pill or sterilization once they no longer want kids. Permanent sterilization is the most commonly used method of birth control by couples past their mid- 30s. Then the pill (which is the most common method before 35), next is condoms and other barrier methods. NFP and calendar rhythm added together are less than .05% throughout the woman’s fertile years, including among Catholics. As far as anticipation of a tryst goes, there are plenty of ways to achieve that without scheduling it like a business meeting on a calendar. Anyone who can’t figure that out is lacking in romantic imagination.
NFP also doesn’t respect the natural cycle of fertility for those who might want to make love when the woman’s libido is peaking - during the time that she is most likely to conceive. So if they don’t want another kid, it’s abstinence time- Again, denying women peak pleasure during the time she must abstain, and also denying the couple an opportunity to make love.
Unfortunately the church is still stuck in ancient thinking - especially Augustine and Aquinas ( sex is licit only for procreation). But the true importance of sex in marriage is the unitive aspect, not the procreation part, especially in a time in history when most want only one or two kids. Or none. They are no longer needed for economic reasons, to work in the family business and be the social security for aged relatives.
Sex only exists because of its original procreative purpose and genetic shuffling. If technology separates procreation and sexual pleasure, I would expect that, if extended over a long period of time, sexual intercourse of any kind would probably go to the same place as flight for the Dodo. I don’t think this will happen as I believe high tech civilization’s days are numbered. In vitro fertilization will disappear along with intraocular lens implants (love mine) and automobiles. I guess The Pill will disappear too. I don’t know if there are any low tech replacements.
DeleteNot totally following this. Procreation will disappear(?) but it’s unlikely that sexual pleasure will. Augustine blames women and sexual pleasure for “original sin” - concupisence. His views have permeated church thinking ever since.
DeletePersonally, I am not crazy about my intraocula lens implants and I was miserable after the surgery until I was able to get new contacts. If sexual procreation, and IVF, both disappear is that the end of the human race? We won’t need automobiles or implants or the pill if sex and procreation disappear because there won’t be any people around to use them.
Darwinian evolution may not be the total story but it’s a big part of the story. All our biology including the sex drive is sculpted by the successful passing on of genes. When birds landed on islands without predators, they no longer needed to fly to survive, so flying went away. For the same reason, if sex is no longer needed to survive, the sex drive may very well atrophy unless perhaps a purposive eugenics program is instituted to preserve it. But technological civilization as is is is unsustainable and is going to collapse and all the high tech IVF stuff along with it so its effect on human evolution will be minimal. You may think I’m making value judgements but I’m just trying to make scientifically realistic projections. Technology has effects on human evolution. We’ve had fire for eons. Look at our mandibles compared to chimps. Not a big deal because fire is low tech. If fire went away, our jaws would become more robust.
DeleteInteresting theory. But if humans continue to exist, so will sex. If there is no sex the human race will disappear. Even Dodo birds have sex.
DeleteOr do you think cloning will be the answer to continuing the human race? But that’s high technology. IVF will probably. E replaced by some kind of advance in medical infertility treatments. Due to high tech medical research.
DeleteSome musings on cultural aspects of sexuality in GenZs that dovetail with Stanley's more biological take. https://www.npr.org/2025/07/11/nx-s1-5454738/gen-z-is-afraid-of-sex-and-for-good-reason
DeleteSex seems to have become fraught with legal ramifications, fear of STDs and unwanted or expensive pregnancies, erosion of live human interaction skills due to COVID and social media, etc. Porn/explicit romance seems to be the outlet of choice for a lot of young people. (Studies in "literary" porn is a hot academic topic.) Kids have a lot of voyeuristic info, but not a lot of hands-on experience.
The Boy tells me that dating is now like a job interview. Women have a long list of things (not usually sex-related) that they go thru on the first date to determine whether subsequent dates are "a waste of our time."
LOL, first date memories; I don't know if I had a checklist, but I knew pretty quickly that I didn't enjoy spending time with this guy who asked me out when I was 16. I spent the next two months making up reasons why I wasn't available to go out. I had a cold, I had homework, I had to babysit my sister. I should have just said no. But I had a hard time doing that. He wasn't a bad person , I didn't want to hurt his feelings. But ghosting him for weeks probably did. A different world now, I guess? I would know how to treat dating like a job interview either.
DeleteHow I got my husband to ask me out; a friend told him, "Katherine thinks you're cute. You ought to ask her out." He did.
It should read, "I wouldn't know how to treat dating like a job interview"
DeleteWell, I have no argument with the population going down anyway it can, except the Israeli method. On a macro level, it’s a good thing. For many individuals, a sadness not to have children. The existence of IVF technology attests that some people want children. It’s been estimated that Amish-level technology can support 2B humans. We’re at 8B and the planet is being killed, mostly by the minority that’s high tech. We’re out on an ecological limb and I don’t see anyone doing anything about it. So if a couple has sex without kids, it’s probably helping the macro situation. My kosher katholic method also works very well.
Delete... and now Our Young People are relying on ChatGPT to play Cyrano De Bergerac for them. Part of me is real curious to see where this takes human interaction in another 100 years. But most of me is grateful I'm going to die while I can still ignore this stuff.
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/oct/12/chatgpt-ed-into-bed-chatfishing-on-dating-apps
We won’t even have the resources for thr individual transportation technology known as the automobile, let alone AI. We don’t have the resources now. Unfortunately, we will have to suffer through the AI hype and BS for the rest of OUR lives until it all collapses.
DeleteOnce the electrical grid and petroleum refineries collapse, you'll have desperate people forming up gun gangs to collect as much fuel as they can. They'll be able to terrorize everybody else and take their resources for awhile. Then comes decimating forests for wood, desertification, and famine. The Boy plays this game with his buddies: What skill do you have that would see you thru the end of civilization. He tells me I'm safe because I can spin, knit, and those skills are easy to maintain with improvised materials. Reminds me of the Vikings who kidnapped women weavers to enslave in the sail-making operations for their ships. Fun, fun times ahead!
DeleteI know Trump hates alternative energy, but whether he and the MAGAs like it or not, solar and wind power have been around and supplying part of our energy for some time now. It's not going away. And it isn't rocket science. Main problem isn't generation, it's storage. But they've been working on a hydrogen based battery where you wouldn't need the rare earth metals.
DeleteMusk was bragging after hurricane Maria that he was going to give Puerto Rico all these solar panels so every home could be energy independent. But he never did anything about it, talk is cheap. It's more fun to spend your money stirring the sh*t and buying an election in the States.
There always was a low tech use of solar energy practical but ignored even before solar panels got cheaper. Passive solar heating. Face your house southward. A Trombe wall is a passive way to heat and cool your home. As for the post-apocalyptic, I would only want to survive long enough to take care of some of the nasty folk Jean mentioned. Cancel culture has a different meaning for me than for most. Is it paranoid for me to think I will be labeled with some pejorative in the next few years and a party sent to collect me or maybe just deleted by drone? But I forgot. Sleep tight, Stanisław, you have the Democrats to defend you from the nazis. And if the Republicans get me, the Democrats will send out a picture of a crater with the caption “look what they did to poor Stanley. Donate $25 to our party so we can admonish the Republicans again.”
Delete"Is it paranoid for me to think I will be labeled with some pejorative in the next few years and a party sent to collect me or maybe just deleted by drone?"
DeleteThey already got the pejorative, Boomer. Anybody who thinks that all of us born before 1964 aren't seen as a self-involved resource drain is fooling himself.
Last part about Dems made me laugh. Cuz I refuse to cry.
Stanley, passive solar is great and very few people seem aware of siting their homes to take advantage of it. Our house has a SSW exposure on the big windows side of the house ( the back, where kitchen and family room overlook the woods) and is well insulated. We basically live in those two rooms. When the sun is out during the winter our heater doesn’t run all day - as it cools at night it might kick on. Our heating bills are a fraction of most of our neighbors with very similar homes. Friends in Maine built an Acorn type house, designed to be passive solar. During their Maine winter the wood stove and the sun mean that their heating system seldom needs to be on.
DeleteAnne, are you back home now? How did the trip go?
DeleteNot home. A series of problems unfortunately. The memorial service was nice. The Episcopalians do church really well and I do love the translations in the BCP. Now we are in CT, in a suburb of NYC. My husband was taken to the ER of the local hospital yesterday. We were supposed to drive home yesterday . He has aspiration pneumonia. We don’t know anyone here. I’m staying in a hotel. He’s doing ok but they are still waiting for some test results. Wednesday is the earliest we can leave for home. It’s about a 5-6 hour drive. I’m grateful he’s doing ok and that it’s a good hospital. But I’m really hoping to get home in a couple of days. My hotel is fully booked tomorrow so I have to move to a different one. It took a while to find one that wasn’t full but I finally did. Taking it all day by day. A lot of hours sitting next to my husband’s bed while he sleeps so my iPad helps distract me. Praying for a fast recovery. I feel very tired right now. But grateful for good medical care here in a town I know nothing about.
DeleteAnne, I'm so sorry to hear that your husband is ill! Sending prayers for his quick recovery. I hope you can get some sleep tonight.
DeleteMe, too.
DeleteGod, what a nightmare, Anne. I am so sorry. Will someone come to help you with the drive home?
DeleteMy husband called. The Dr came again and said they plan to discharge him tomorrow. But, they did take more blood for some reason, so I’m still praying hard! Thanks you all. I’m checking out and moving to the new hotel after I go to the hospital. The weather tomorrow is supposed to be clear and sunny all the way home - good for driving.
Delete"Once the electrical grid and petroleum refineries collapse, you'll have desperate people forming up gun gangs to collect as much fuel as they can. They'll be able to terrorize everybody else and take their resources for awhile. Then comes decimating forests for wood, desertification, and famine. "
DeleteThat's essentially the Mad Max universe.
Re: Trump and the Nobel Peace Prize: I give him credit for overseeing an admininistration that came up with a plan that seems to have stopped the shooting and bombing, at least for a while, and got the hostages (all of the living and the remains of some of the deceased) released. And I understand that aid is rolling in to Gaza, at least through yesterday, although I understand the whole arrangement is pretty brittle, and as I write this on Thursday late afternoon, it may have collapsed already.
On the other hand, Trump also is unilaterally sinking or blowing up Venezuelan boats, which may or may not have any connection to the drug trade, in international waters. And his domestic goon force, aka ICE, is shooting pepper balls and tear gas at peaceful demonstrators as it tries to whisk away people of indeterminate citizenship status to his gulags. So in the Nobel Peace Prize voting, I vote No.
Instead of giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Trump, they apparently gave it to a Venezuelan trumperette supposedly fighting for democracy. The only kind of democracy the US wants is one that will let our oil companies exploit Venezuelan resources at the expense if Venezuelans. I think if Venezuela has a Maduro problem, that’s one the Venezuelans should address, not us.
ReplyDeleteI don't know anything about the woman who got the prize, but at least it wasn't Trump.
DeleteI thought Trump and Maduro had been buddies, but apparently they fell out. Two guys with industrial sized egos, or something.. I agree that Venezuela should solve their own problem. It isn't as though we don't have any of our own!
Yah, I don't care about the Nobel Prizes. They've been cheapened (lookin' at you, Bob Dylan) and politicized (Obama, what'd he actually do?). Zelensky says he'll nominate Trump if he can stop Putin, so now they're transactional. I am glad that Trump does not have the prize to weave into his idiotic narrative about stopping seven to 10 wars in 10 months. But he still has three more tries at it before he runs for Emperor in 2028.
DeleteIf Trump stopped US arms shipments to Genocide Inc., I’d give him two Nobel Prizes. Instead, we get more performance art in the form of a ceasefire. It all seems to be theater and the playwright really sucks. I don’t put any faith in anything I hear from politicians anymore. If a ceasefire is on the way, why are they still restricting aid to the Palestinians? The murderers also always like to bomb in earnest until the last second before any ceasefire. Shows the spirit behind the letter.
DeleteAm I the only one who keeps hearing media people (reporters, announcer, etc.) pronouncing Nobel as noble (rhyming with mobile or global)?
DeleteGenerally, local TV news people seem to mispronounce things a lot. "Noble/Nobel" sounds like one if their screw ups, but I don't listen to a lot of broadcast news so have not had that particular aggravation.
Delete