February 3, 2009
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Lucy pulls the football away from Illinois museum-goers
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
The tanking stock market has hit the Field Museum's endowment, which has dropped about $95 million -- 30 percent -- leading to salary cuts, layoffs and buyout offers to scientists and other employees. While most of the planned upcoming exhibits will be presented as scheduled, financial belt-tightening contributed to the museum's decision not to present Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old fossil of an ape-man species that was to debut here this fall, Field president John McCarter said Tuesday.
An ape-man species? They couldn't have written Australopithecus Afarensis? I know it's a dumbed-down culture and all but "ape-man species" for most people conjures up images of Land of the Lost episodes and the Geico cavemen. Anyway, this is thoroughly disappointing. When the tour was announced a few years back, I was committed to making the trip up north. Lucy's first stop in Houston was successful, but attendance in Seattle has been sparse. Now, the whole tour is in jeopardy. Poor Lucy - dead for over 3 million years and she still gets hit by the US economy. As a souvenir from her trip to the states, someone should get her a shirt that reads:
I was a key step in the evolutionary ancestry of all humankind and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!
Comments (3)
Have you ever heard the song "Apeman" by the Kinks? I think you'd enjoy it. I have it on CD. You can get the lyrics to this and other songs at http://www.lyricsdownload.com/bobs-naming-the-band-lyrics.html
"Fast Food Nation" is one of the most provocative books I've ever read and a big reason why I seldom eat at fast food restaurants. (I'm using the term "restaurant" loosely here.) Though they are fast (usually), cheap (thanks largely to government subsidies), and convenient (they're just about everywhere), the damage they do to our environment (destruction of rain forests), diet (enough said), and economy (mostly low-wage, low-benefit jobs) far outweigh the benefits.
@youarehere72 - I was substitute teaching the other day and the teacher had that book on her shelf. I started reading it, got 40 pages in, and asked the teacher if I could borrow it. It's kind of addictive. I got your message about the Carlin special and recorded it but haven't seen it yet.
peace_oneil11@hotmail.com
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