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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (46945)	2/18/2000 2:15:00 AM
From: Constant Reader	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

I expected nothing less from someone who likes fowl language!

To: epicure who wrote (46945)	2/18/2000 9:23:00 PM
From: nihil	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

I don't think human beings can be criticized as a species for the unpleasing behavior of some of them. 1. We are violent. Most of the time we are gentle and complaisant. In my entire life I have been in maybe 50 fights with other boys and young men. None as an adult. I have never hit a woman or (as an adult) a child. As a child I was considered violent. Most boys I knew were much less violent than I. It is not the species, but kings and dictators, and revolutionary leaders that make war. Most people are innocent of that charge. Few volunteer. Most have to be drafted. 2. We lie. But most of us try not to lie. Most consider it immoral to lie. A study shows that at the 100 or so colleges which have honor systems where the students have to sign a statement on every piece of work that they have not cheated or received illegal help that cheating is almost non existent, while maybe 60 % of students without honor systems admit (anonymously on surveys) that they have cheated. 3. We commit suicide. Very very few people commit suicide. Most of them are mentally ill (depressed) or at the end of a life which no longer has meaning to them. I think, on the whole, a person who commits suicide despite receiving first rate medical treatment probably has his or her reasons. I can't imagine that suicide under these conditions sucks. Jane Goodall documents depression in apes that eventually results in death. 4. We are rapacious. (2. AMD: existing on live prey; 1. greedy, avaricious). This is simply not true. Most people are generous to their families and friends. Parents support their children and give them what they can. Sometimes children even support and care for their parents. A man may nurse his injured wife. A woman may care for her mother. A child may give up a career to nurse her aging parent. 5. We are dangerous to ourselves and others. True, but we are learning, most of us, that peace and environmental consciousness and planning ahead are better ways. 6. I've always wanted to be a different kind of animal. "How far can a wild goose fly?" (question on an engineering examination.) How far, X, can you fly? I can fly much farther, higher. faster as a human being than as a goose, and I've always hated raw corn, grass and pond weeds. I love people, almost as much as I love dogs.