Sunday, December 5, 2010

These primates are busy!

I realized I have not updated my blog for almost a month now, so first and foremost, apologies to my avid readers. I know I have left you high and dry without any post! Since my last post, I have started volunteering at Prospect Park Zoo. The zoo has a special place in my heart (especially the hamadryas baboons) because it is there that I did my research for my Honors Thesis. I never thought I would enjoy working with kids but they DO ask the darndest things. Of all the kids that had asked me questions or talked to me, one really stood out. The kid asked if I know who Steve Irwin is and that he (the kid) enjoys his (Irwin's) work. Can you believe it? The kid even recited how primates are different than other mammals. I think he's gonna grow up to be me. I'm cereal.

Have you seen the new ASP website? It's quite spiffy. I actually contributed some photos to the site ... can you spot them?

The annual Monkey Day is fast approaching. Celebrated annually on December 14th, Monkey Day not only celebrates the simian that lend its name to the festival, it also celebrates anything primate (prosimians, monkeys and apes). Over at Serious Monkey Business, Ashlee is starting a Monkey Day Blog Carnival. If you are interested in contributing to the carnival, please contact her.

A friend of mine started a new blog, The Primate Chronicles. Kayley is a graduate student at University of Calgary and does her fieldwork in Belize. Check it out.

Call for submissions: The next edition of Four Stone Hearth will be hosted by Archive Fire on December 8th. If you have wrote or saw interesting Anthropology posts around the web, please send it to ambientdisorder at gmail dot comAfarensis, current host of the blog carnival, needs hosts for future editions. If you are interested, please email Afarensis, afarensis1 at sbcglobal dot net.

All over the blogosphere and Twitter-land, Anthropological primates are choosing sides. Are you "Team Jacob" or "Team Edward"? Errr .... I mean, are you "for" or "against" removing the word "science" from  American Anthropological Association (AAA)'s mission statement. The controversy with removing the word "science" from mission statement even reached CNN. Some of the interesting blog posts on this subject matter includes:

What's your stand? I don't really have a strong reaction to this, probably because I am not an AAA member. I understand the initial shock of disbelieve or just a general WTF to the decision. But seriously, are they just fishing for publicity? Those damn non-science Anthropologist!

Last but not least, to my Jewish readers, Happy Hanukkah. Chag Sameach!

4 comments:

Raymond said...

Nice to see young kids are actually interested in real life as opposed to being an expert on Call of Duty … I live about 40 minutes from Steve's Australia Zoo and you would love the place.

Raymond Vagell said...

Indeed. I was throughly impressed with him. He also told me that his favorite channel is Discovery and that he only owns animal toys.

I would love to come down to Australia some day.

Michael- said...

Hey there, just though you’d wanna know, call for submissions for Four Stone Hearth #107 is here: http://conflictions5.blogspot.com/2010/12/call-for-submissions-blog-carnival.html

Raymond Vagell said...

Thanks Michael.