If a chimpanzee shares 99% of its genetic material with a human, is it cannibalism when a chimp starts gnawing on a human?And if that chimp surfs the net and drinks wine from a stemmed glass?
Enter Travis, a heretofore fairly domesticated beast who went wild on its master's friend, mauling her so badly that nurses at the hospital have had to go for counseling. The chimp, you see, had taken his prey's eyes, nose and jaw while intermittently chewing on other parts of her body. Her hands, for example....
A cop had to shoot the animal after it had a go at him. It made its way back into its home to die.
Animal experts are baffled by chimp attack says one headline from the AP.
But let's go back to 2005: AP reported Chimp attack doesn’t surprise experts after an attack on St. James Davis. It was reported that chimps "chewed most of Davis' face off and that he would require extensive surgery in an attempt to reattach his nose....the chimps also tore off Davis' testicles and foot."
As of February 19, 2009, 2017 GMT, CNN International's exclusive is this story about a young Iranian woman blinded and mutilated by an acid attack from a spurned man, wooing her with unwanted contact and stalking, the kind of stuff all girls love, right? So our lad attacks her with acid:
"What felt like fire on her face was acid searing through her skin.
"I was just yelling, 'I'm burning! I'm burning! For God's sake, somebody help me!' "
The acid seeped into Bahrami's eyes and streamed down her face and into her mouth. When she covered her face with her hands, streaks of acid ran down her fingers and onto her forearms."
Disfiguration could well be the name of this year's new fragrance.
Gotta be careful which stories to juxtapose. You might find yourself being accused of comparing a Persian guy to a chimp.
Editors all across the country are screaming at their cartoonists: "For God's sake! Chimps are out! For the next four years at least, got it? Chimps are out!!"
We are actually living in a odd time that finds only one species of the genus Homo on Earth. Historically, there have usually been none -- or more than one.
ReplyDeleteAs the only "intelligent" species currently on earth, we try to imagine that chimps are like us, when this story ought to be no more horrifying than imagining being eaten by a lion.
Imagine how much more horrifying it must have been to battle a band of Neanderthals, so genetically close that we could have mated, but distant enough to be, perhaps, like the chimp, legitimately beyond good and evil.
See the future of Homos on Ted
The Neanderthal thing is pretty wild. There are a lot of theories that they did interbreed with homo sapiens of the more modern sort. I'm not very up on it, to say the least. Tim and Sven would come in handy here. Something to look into.
ReplyDelete