Talking elephant amazes keepers

"If we could talk to the animals... just imagine it; chatting with a chimp in chimpanzee..."

So I'm surpised a certain linguist has not been posting about more talking animals...
This elephant has learnt to mimic it's trainer's speech. Now they are trying to determine whether or not the elephant understands human language.
Screw that, lets just conclude with out proper evidence that elephants can talk and understand us -it's what all the cool kids do (and just quietly, I think the elephant is psychic!).

I do not like dreadlocks unless they are on him

"I was wanderin' along, minding my business... when out of an orange coloured sky..."

They are the kind of dreadlocks that are clean and well maintained...

Tonight I saw my true love again; a beautiful, gentle, clean hippie who wears collared shirts and studies environmental law.

...he loves a girl who is not me because I was too scared...

But he smiled at me and my heart skipped a beat :)

Making kids cry is the new black...

So apparently I'm a bit behind the times with this, but it appeared in the news today:



This is one of the most beautiful photos I've ever seen, it made me cry... along with the 27 others in Jill Greenberg's 'End Times'. But making children cry to express a politcal opinion?

Greenberg's inspiration was a little boy who was upset during a photo shoot.

"It reminded me of helplessness and anger I feel about our current political and social situation," she said.

Then cry about it and we'll take photos of you.

Assumingly Greenberg does not intend to harm the children she works with.

The children I photographed were not harmed in any way. And, as a mother, I am quite aware of how easily toddlers can cry. Storms of grief sweep across their features without warning; a joyful smile can dissolve into a grimace of despair.

Watson probably did not intend to inflict harm upon Little Albert either, but we can now clearly see the potential psychological effects of these experiments.

Critics are calling for Greenberg to be arrested for child abuse... you do have to worry about her own two children and their wellbeing (one of which is in the collection). Maybe some therapy and some good parenting courses are in order? Or maybe Thomas Hawk is right and she is a sick woman.

She argues she is capturing pure emotion and then defends herself on BBC saying that the children look more disressed than they were really due to post production. Inconsistent?

Apparently the photos are selling well. I'm actually not surprised... We are drawn to children, especially those in need, of course people will buy moving beautiful pictures of babies.

This experience may have no effect on any of these children, but it might. I suspect the latter is more likely. However, we do not know the effects then how can it be ok to subject children to such a thing.

The Joys of English

We are singing a number of French pieces at the moment and just as I'm thinking about how French is a stupid bloody language and so hard to read, I am sent a little something:

The Joys of English:
The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
After a number of injections my jaw got number. (I've never actually thought about number and number being the same.)
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.


Poor French people trying to get their head around this crazy language and here I am whinging!

I know the date but I'm not going to post about it... my roof leaks...

My roof started leaking in the middle of the night.
You can see where the water has buggered up the wallpaper.
Yes I have wallpaper.
A photo of a 1yo faerie and her nana that nan sent me was underneath the leak!

playing

I hope this is still readable even though it's funny colours... I've been playing. I have no idea about computers and the internet etc. It does what I need it to do. However it would be good to know more; I think I'll go some kind of computer unit next semester.

I saw Tetrafide play tonight... go check them out. They have clips on their website... do it! If you can go and see them it's well worth it; they've got some seriously funky percussion going on. Lovely peoples too- except for that Neville character... tssh! ;)