h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Somewhere in America, 1972:

'All new! The revolt of the apes. The most awesome spectacle in the annals of science fiction!'

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068408/


Somewhere in America, 2005:

'Hospital officials say St. James Davis is in critical condition with massive injuries to his face, arm and leg. His testicles and a foot were severed and he will require extensive surgery to re-attach his nose.'
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/03/04/chimpanzee-attack050304.html

"Keep your paws off me, you damn, dirty ape!"

yeah I saw that. Amazing how many bad sci-fi stories are coming true...


(p.s. cl - how come you have a post 'just now' but no eyes? Are you channeling your posts?)

I close my eyes while I type. See what a good edumacation can getcha?

I was called away as I was typing so I signed off right after I finished. As a matter of fact I'm waiting for a phone call to go and take pretty pictures of flowers for a commercial so it may happen again....

I have to admit, it is a damn good cheshire cat impression!

Here I go again....

very good!
amazing how pervasive that reference is.

So is this working daytime for you then? (hope anhaga forgives the drift!)

Chimps are vicious creatures. Gorillas on the other hand are calm and placid. Humans are reckoned to be closest related to chimps.

DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!

Zube

My immediate thought when reading the story (apart from 'that's gotta hurt!) was that it had all the marks (if you'll pardon the expression) of human ritual violence, of the type committed by psychopaths, a number of fairly highly developed civilizations, and some members of the military. We are, indeed, more alike than unalike, it would seem.


I can't believe I'm sitting here with the boxed set of Planet of the Apes movies and I wasn't the one to post the two most famous lines.

But, think about it: You've caged up two creatures each of whom have intelligence at the lower end of the human scale, the strength of two or three men, four hands (each) and jaws and teeth pretty similar to those of a lion. Do you really want to get into a fight with both of them somewhere in rural California? And I haven't even mention that they've got testicles like tennis balls. Well, now I have.

'hope anhaga forgives the drift!'



Keep your paws off my thread, you damn, dirty ape!

Where there is fire, there is smoke. And in that smoke, from this day forward, my people will crouch and conspire and plot and plan for the inevitable day of Man's downfall--the day when he finally and self-destructively turns his weapons against his own kind. The day of the writing in the sky, when your cities lie buried under radioactive rubble! When the sea is a dead sea, and the land is a wasteland out of which *I* will lead my people from their captivity! And we will build our own cities in which there will be no place for humans except to serve our ends! And we shall found our own armies, our own religion, our own dynasty! And that day is upon you NOW!

Okay, who let Roddy McDowell in here?

Beware the beast man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, for he is the harbinger of death.

I think chimpanzees will kill for fun as well. But it is fairly rare.

They do. Rarity of the event is a diufficult thing to measure. I mean, it was only recently that the footage of the mobbing and assault of another chimp was seen, so who knows what other behaviour we don't really know about.
Wasn't NZ or somewhere trying to give basic 'human' rights to chimps in law?

http://www.greatapeproject.org/

cheers anhaga!
You seem to have become something of an Internet-Link-Finder-General

(fast connection and quick googling. Although, I've been aware of the Great Apes Project for a number of years.)

It seems we are not alone:

'Stone "hammers" uncovered in the rainforests of the Ivory Coast are the first prehistoric evidence of chimpanzee technology, a University of Calgary archeologist says.

Julio Mercader and co-investigators last year uncovered primitive tools in the Tai rainforest of the West African nation that date back 4,300 years and appear to have been used exclusively by chimpanzees.'

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/02/12/science-chimpanzeestools-2007.html


I wish some of us would finally get down off our high horses and admit that we're not such a ripping great deal.