+Animal Consciousness: Corvids Demonstrate a Sense of Fairness
a pair of biologists at the University of Vienna trained six carrion crows and four ravens to exchange pebble tokens for food. The researchers then created same-species pairs for a series of experiments. When the birds saw their partners getting food for free, without having to exchange tokens, they tended to exchange tokens less often. Sometimes the birds that got the short shrift even gave away tokens, but refused to take their reward. Other research has suggested that a sense of equity evolved several times in unrelated animals, the University of Vienna researchers write. Knowing what’s fair is linked to cooperative behavior in species, they say, and that makes sense with crows and ravens, which form alliances and share food and information.
(via New Study Says Unfairness Really Ruffles Crows’ Feathers | Popular Science)
+SO THIS WASN’T JUST A BRITISH THING?!
IT WAS NUMBER 1 IN AUSTRALIA FOR LIKE 3 WEEKS AND THEN IT WAS CRAZY FROG…. fucking 2001
a ringdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingding daaaaaaaaaaaadaaaaaaaaaa
+favorite artists: Claude Monet (1840-1926)
“Without the water, the lilies cannot live, as I am without art.”
“I will paint almost blind, as Beethoven composed completely deaf.”
Consider how textbooks treat Native religions as a unitary whole. The American Way describes Native American religion in these words: “These Native Americans [in the Southeast] believed that nature was filled with spirits. Each form of life, such as plants and animals, had a spirit. Earth and air held spirits too. People were never alone. They shared their lives with the spirits of nature.” Way is trying to show respect for Native American religion, but it doesn’t work. Stated flatly like this, the beliefs seem like make-believe, not the sophisticated theology of a higher civilization. Let us try a similarly succinct summary of the beliefs of many Christians today: “These Americans believed that one great male god ruled the world. Sometimes they divided him into three parts, which they called father, son, and holy ghost. They ate crackers and wine or grape juice, believing that they were eating the son’s body and drinking his blood. If they believed strongly enough, they would live on forever after they died.” Textbooks never describe Christianity this way. It’s offensive. Believers would immediately argue that such a depiction fails to convey the symbolic meaning or the spiritual satisfaction of communion.
Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen (via whoistorule) +
+“The first time Kurt and I slept together was at a Days Inn in Chicago, we were having our first postcoital moment, and we’re watching MTV and the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ video came on. I pulled away from him because it was his video, his moment, he was the king of the fucking world, he put his arm around me and pulled me closer. Which was symbolic, like, I’m letting you into my life. That really endeared him to me,” - Courtney Love.
- student: can i borrow a pencil
- teacher: i don't know, CAN you?
- student: yes, also colloquial irregularities occur frequently in any language and since you and the rest of our present company understood my intended meaning being particular about the distinctions between "can" and "may" is purely pedantic and arguably pretentious
+Rapture by James Roper
Says James about the Rapture series: “This is explicitly symbolised in the Rapture series by the use of porn stars as the vehicle for the expression of this ‘spiritual’ emotion, the shedding of carnal bodies giving way to an abstract purity beneath. The idea of release from the material to the spiritual is apparent in many religions as if there were a divine soul trapped in our earthly bodies, this is analogous to contemporary imagery found in comic books specifically the way in which Clark Kent, a normal man, sheds his clothes to become a Superman”. Prints available at inprnt.
