Go Off the Path OR Why I Read, "Natural History: The Bonobo Connection"

Humans may not know exactly what a bonobo facial expression means,
but it would be hard not to feel a connection with this adult male.

 

This is the second week in my "Going off the Path: Magazine Series" as inspired by The Happiness Project. The last post ended by saying that Danny was going with me to The Tattered Cover, a Denver institution and an all-around fun bookstore. We went to the location on Colfax Avenue ("A Theater of Ideas") that is located in the historic Bonfils-Lowenstein Theater. I loved seeing the remnants of the theater, including some of the original red velvet seats.

 

After finding the magazine section, Danny helped me try to pick three publications in the most random ways possible. For anyone who happened to see us, we looked pretty ridiculous. The first try yielded a fantastic (read: ridiculous) find that I will highlight next week, which was found with both of  us putting our backs to the racks and walking 15 or so steps before turning around and pointing at a magazine. The next magazine I chose came at the suggestion of a friend (and fellow blogger, Traveler for Good) who thought it would fit my quest. The third one was sure hard to find. Danny and I tried all kinds of methods including, but not limited to, him spinning me around "pin the tail on the donkey style;" looking at what others were buying, which did not work as well as the first time. Our fellow shoppers were paroozing a sports magazine, which of course I wanted but admittedly would not fit the theme, and a comic book enthusiast. Amidst the search, there were a couple real bombs. Such as an academic journal that made my brain hurt just reading the cover, plus as Danny pointed out it did not have any pictures, as well as an espionage magazine that I feared would put me on some kind of government watch list.

 

I finally settled on Natural History with the theme, The Bonobo Connection.

 

Here is what I learned:

 

• Owl monkeys - one of the few monogamous pair-living mammals - have intense fights when an interlopers attempt to split up a couple.
• Eosinopteryx, a flight-less ground dweller, is the latest feathered, birdlike theropod dinosaur to emerge.
• I read more than I care to revisit on the African ball-rolling dung beetles. If you are truly interested, let me know and I will send you the page.
• Donald K. Yeomans, who manages NASA's Near-Earth Object Program, has a new book called, Near-Earth Objects, Finding Them Before They Find Us. While Danny may read that one, I believe I will skip it. I would rather hide behind the veil of ignorance on that one.

 

• A bonobo is a great ape that bears a striking resemblance to chimpanzees, but is quite different in behavior.
• Anything can be made into political fodder, including a bonobo with its strong erotic reputation seems to have made some people uncomfortable. There was even a conservative commentator (Dinesh D'Souza) that accused "liberals" of having fashioned the bonobo into their mascot, and he urged them to stick with the donkey. How did I miss this, or perhaps it is better that I did.
• Knowledge of the wild bonobos has been at a virtual standstill for over a decade due to the civil war that killed an estimated 5 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
• I am giving serious consideration to reading, The Bonobo and the Athiest: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates by Frans De Waal.

 

• Las Vegas, one of the fastest growing places in America, depends on coal and natural gas because the city fathers did not ask for a greater allotment of resources after the Hoover Dam was built. Their allotment covers the population then, which was 6,000 people!
• The National Park Service has a Submerged Resource Center (SRC).
• This particular article was talking about a group whose project was a sunken airplane, a B-29 Superfortress from the Cold War era.
• This plane crashed (fortunately the crew survived) due to a miscalculation of depth perception because a body of water without any ripples can cause havoc for low-flying pilots.
• Their task was to continue mapping and photographing the plane to nominate it for inclusion in the National Register for Historical Places. Lake Mead National Recreation Area works with dive shops to devise guidelines for underwater visits to the plan by sport divers.
• The Hoover Dam is on the list for the Department of Homeland Security for fear of being susceptible to an act of terrorism. It was also heavily guarded during World War II. Seems obvious when one thinks about it, I had just never really thought about it.

 

• A subspecies of  gray wolf has been identified across Africa, but it was not proven until 2011.
• This is odd since there was an Egyptian Wolf God named Wepwawet who bore a striking resemblance of the jackal god Anubis (of The Mummy Trilogy fame, at least in my own mind).
• Biologists are now asking: how many golden jackals across Africa are in fact African wolves? The world may never know...
• A conservation strategy needs to be developed for the African wolf as many are mistaken for jackals, and are killed to protect livestock. Although its allusiveness may be its salvation.

 

• I struggled with the final article when it opened with the line, "One late April day when I was teaching a plant identification class for the Georgia Department of Transportation..." Nope, just could not do it. I originally blamed the dung beetle article, but actually it felt quite similar to the information on Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam, only this one is about the Okenfenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Of course I must admit that Okenfenokee sure is fun to say. My biology teacher would be disappointed, but not terribly surprised that I had my fill.

 

• I hope to make it to Alaska someday soon, and if I go I would like to try Expedition Alaska, according to this beautiful ad it is, the difference between admiring the scenery and immersing yourself in it. Yes, please!
  





I have always wanted to say the first part of this statement, I hope you will join me next week for Garden and Gun: The Soul of the South, but using the words garden and gun together is not something I ever thought I would utter. This project has sure taken me off my usual path.