The Daily Roxette discussions forum has been closed. The forum is only available as a read-only archive.
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ZOO!!
13 replies
LittleSpooky said on August 27, 2005 19:00:
Humans Are Ones on Display at London Zoo
By CASSANDRA VINOGRAD, Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 27, 3:56 AM
LONDON - At London Zoo, you can talk to the animals _ and now some of them talk back. Caged and barely clothed within a rocky enclosure, eight British men and women monkeyed around Friday for an amused, bemused crowd behind a sign reading “Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment.”
The captives in the Human Zoo exhibit sunned themselves on a rock ledge, clad in bathing suits and pinned-on fig leaves. Some played with hula hoops, some waved. A signboard informed visitors about the species’ diet, habitat, worldwide distribution and threats.
Visitors stopped to point and laugh, and several children could be heard asking “why are there people in there?”
London Zoo spokeswoman Polly Wills said that’s exactly the question the zoo wants to answer.
“Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate,” Wills said. It also, she conceded, lets them “have a gawk at people.”
The exhibit, which opened Friday, puts the three male and five female Homo sapiens side by side with their primate relatives _ though separated from them by an electric fence. While their neighbors might enjoy bananas and a good scratch, these eight _ chosen from 30 applicants who entered an online contest _ have diverse interests, from a chemist hoping to raise awareness about apes to a self-described actor/model and fitness enthusiast.
Chemist Tom Mahoney, 26, decided to participate after his friend sent him an e-mail about the contest as a joke. Anything that draws attention to apes, he said, has his support.
“A lot of people think humans are above other animals,” he said. “When they see humans as animals, here, it kind of reminds us that we’re not that special.”
Actor Brendan Carr, 25, won his place by submitting a spot of anthropomorphic verse: “I’m funky like a monkey and as cool as a cat, talk more than a parrot, up all night like a bat.”
Visitors’ reactions to the spectacle varied Friday. Pointing at one heavily muscled and gleaming body on the ledge, a visitor joked that the zoo should consider a breeding program.
“You can tell why some people came here, like the big muscly men who clearly like parading around in thongs,” said Damien Largey, 23.
Melissa Wecker, 21, was disappointed that the humans were wearing swimsuits beneath their fig leaves. “They’re not doing anything. It looked lots better on the news,” she complained.
Mark Ainsworth, 21, also heard about the Human Zoo on the news.
“I’ve lived in this country for nine years and have never come to a zoo,” said Ainsworth, who came with Wecker. “This exhibit made us come to the zoo. Humans are animals too.”
The human captives were kept well-fed and watered by zoo staff, who took care to ensure they did not grow bored. A supply of board games was on hand, and some said they were looking forward to tuning into the England-Australia cricket match on the radio.
Unlike the zoo’s non-human inhabitants, they are allowed to go home each night at closing time. The event runs until Monday.
When visitor Peter Bohn, 42, saw the “animals” juggling, he stopped and had a good laugh.
“It’s hilarious,” he said. “It turns everything upside down. It makes you think about the humans in relation to the animals.”
After three hours strutting his stuff on a cool late-summer day, Mahoney said he was still having fun, except when the wind picked up. But, he added, “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it.”
LittleSpooky said on August 28, 2005 04:20:
I don’t think humans are superior in any way, shape or form.
Look how humans have screwed up the world.
coyboyusa said on August 28, 2005 14:19:
humnas are far from superior oldag, just because we walk upright and are the master predator on the planet doesn’t mean we have an ounce of sense. We viciously murder we develope weapons of mass destruction, we murder over mateirla objects...how on eart are we superior?
LittleSpooky said on August 28, 2005 20:40:
Coyboy: “Master predator”... I beg to differ. I’ve seen animals hunt better than man and not use any ’weapons’ at all. Do you think you can kill a zebra with your bare hands or just some “claws”? Catch salmon just using your mouth and hands?
I doubt you could.
Jud (moderator) said on August 28, 2005 20:46:
human beings should disappear and leave Earth and other animals and plants alone. But at this rate, we’ll be gone sooner than expected.
Oldag75 said on August 29, 2005 11:42:
If you don’t consider humans superior to other animals, then you obviously do not listen to music. You do not appreciate and enjoy your parents and other family members. You don’t engage in any sort of creative activities, such as art or writing. You never exercise reason/logic. You never go to a doctor or dentist, you do not take any vaccinations against disease, all of your activities are ruled by the outside environment, and everything in your life is done according to rote instructions wired into your genes… you are a robot. You scavenge for all your food, you do not wear clothing to protect you from the weather, and you are frightened all the time. If you say that humans, sentient beings, are not superior to animals, yet you are living as a human, enjoying and depending upon all of the upgrades we have made in our existence, then you are a ROYAL hypocrite. Or, you truly do have some serious internal guidance deficiencies, and you really should seek some treatment for your pathetically nihilist mental defects.
LittleSpooky said on August 29, 2005 21:26:
Spoken like a true narrow-minded-self-centered-humans-are-the-rulers-of-the-world-and-are-by-far-superior person.
If we’re so superior... why is the world so fucked up?
Why are we (humans) so hell bent on destroying each other and not for very good “causes”?
Why is it, when I look at humanity, I see what was described in The Matrix: “Humans are like a virus, they multiply and spread, they don’t adapt to the enviornment, but destroy it. And when the resources are used up, they move on to another area....” (approximation of the quote). We don’t adapt to the environment around us, we destroy forests... the HOMES of other animals so that we may build our “domiciles”.
Then we flip out when deer, moose, mountail lions, and the like go stomping through our yards... BECAUSE THAT WAS THEIR HABITAT FIRST.
Yes, I “enjoy” things like computers, music and the like... but I’m also smart enough to realize that humanity is hell bent on destroying this planet over petty ass shit.
Oldag75 said on August 29, 2005 23:32:
Hmmmm... SOME-one obviously has been indoctrinated by all of the excrable nihilist claptrap which insists humans are merely dirt. If that is your “thinking,” why don’t you simply kill yourself and be done with this “horrible” life? (Don’t base your conclusions on movies.... otherwise you’ll end up like Tom Cruise, expressing opinions about post-partum depression when he’s actually a lot more qualified to fight aliens from Mars!)
If you think the world is horrible now, you have not studied the history of the world. Mankind has consisted, with various setbacks and continual strife, of a constant improvement process. Yes, we presently have destroyers loose on our planet, but evil simply cannot prevail – evil is impotent. We are living in the very finest time in history of the world, because good, constructive humans have made it that way.
The most valuable thing on our planet is the individual human mind – it is our planet’s sole instrument of creativity, of progress, of upgrade. If you are in your 20s right now, the PRIME of your life, and you don’t understand that.... then you have not properly employed your mind and senses. And, you are expending a lot of mental energy to make yourself feel miserable. Believe in the worthlessness of humanity if that makes you happy, but don’t pollute other people’s lives with your nattering nihilistic negativism.
Go right now and help someone who is less fortunate than you. You both will feel better about humanity afterward.
LittleSpooky said on August 30, 2005 00:17:
Why don’t I kill myself.... *paces briefly back and forth*... why don’t I kill myself. What a fantatic idea!!! Why didn’t I ever think of that before?!
If I kill myself then I don’t have to worry about the ills of humanity again! If I kill myself, I don’t have to worry about all the times my mom irritates me with her actions and words. If I kill myself, then I won’t have to worry about paying rent, or any other bills because I won’t have the need for money. If I kill myself, someone else can worry about making sure my cat is fed and his litter box is changed....
Hey Oldag: Kiss my ass! I’m getting real fed up with your “I’m so superior, I know all of this stuff yadda yadda yadda” when you obviously think everything is okay in the world and that the direction everything is taking is JUST FINE! Wake up you egotistical bastard... OUR LEADERS are itching to start a NUCLEAR WAR based upon what??? NOTHING! Yet you sit idly by, thinking all of this will resolve itself just as it has done in the past. I got news for you: IT WON’T! Take a look at where you live. Is there something there that could be considered a threat and have cross-hairs surrounding it?
I live near SEVERAL installations that are secondary / tertiary targets: Tooele Army Depot, Dugway Proving Grounds, Hill Air Force Base. A nuke, or even an ICBM, dropped on Dugway will destroy most (if not all) of Northern Utah, Eastern Nevada, Southern Idaho, and if the winds are right, will drift up into Canada, over to Washington State and Oregon, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, and surrounding areas.
THAT is what HUMANITY has done for YOU.
coyboyusa said on August 30, 2005 00:21:
oldage lets get this straight ok
no other animal on the planet has the current capability to turnt he planet into an irradiated tomb like humans thats why we’re bad
and oldag perhaps the better thing is if one of the lovel humans you’ve coem to adore, perhaps that ghetto kid wearing the baggy jeans and carrys a semi automatic weapon kills you for all our sake
Oldag75 said on August 30, 2005 10:57:
So, coyboy, you are hoping I will get killed by some ghetto criminal, for the sake of proving your belief that humanity is worthless? Please confirm that I am properly understanding your enlightened thinking. I want to be very clear about your opinion, so that I will completely comprehend your position. You are hoping for the senseless death of a fellow human being ?
coyboyusa said on August 30, 2005 12:42:
well you just told someoen to go kill themselves so I in turn implied that someoen shoudl give you a fine example of what millions of years of evolution have done for humanity...jack
Oldag75 said on August 27, 2005 21:38:
Humans ARE superior animals. Which means we should have enough sense and kindness to NOT operate zoos. No animal wants to be a prisoner.
In my hometown zoo a few years ago, someone discovered and publicized that the coral snake on display in a thickly glassed terrarium was actually a rubber fake snake... and that fake snake had been serving duty in that glass cage for at least six years. (All you could see of the red/yellow/black-striped body was a four-inch portion, sticking out from beneath some foliage [also fake]. Given that people merely walked past, and only looked at it briefly – never taking notice that the thing NEVER moved – no one had ever detected the truth. That sort of animal exhibit suits me just FINE.)