The Amazing Race 12

A pair of donkeys was the undoing of the two most dysfunctional teams in the debut of The Amazing Race 12. A donkey doesn't tolerate bitchy even when its the "aren't-I-cute" bitchy often adopted by a segment of the gay population.

The 12th season of The Amazing Race launched Sunday night with eleven new naive pairs of racers. As a seasoned viewer, I laugh at the teams who are frustrated finding LAX from the Playboy Mansion in Hollywood. This is their easiest task and they're crying mad now?!

Flashback to the pre-race interviews in which teams declare how they will play the race. I'm going to be a bitch, says Ari. We're going to flirt and no one is going to be able to resist us, says this season's team of blondes, Shana and Jennifer. Uh-oh, here comes Jennifer and Nathan, the couple that is using the race to work out their issues.

In Ireland, it was no coincidence that the Ari/Staella and Jennifer/Nathan teams got the donkeys that wouldn't move. The teams' screaming and pouting just made the donkeys dig their heels in the mud and allow the sweet talking teams to overtake them.

As I hoped, Ari and Staella finished the race leg last and were eliminated.

Goodbye, Washoe

Washoe, 42, died Tuesday night.

The first chimpanzee to learn American Sign Language, Washoe shot to fifteen-plus minutes of fame in the late 60s, early 70s. She lived in more modest limelight at Central Washington University with her family since 1980.

Her sign language skills sparked an ongoing debate in the scientific community: what is language? what syntax is required to be defined as language?

Even scientists can be uncomfortable with the idea of chimpanzees learning skills that are supposed to be reserved for humans. Some of us can accept evolution in theory, but most are squeamish about seeing living evidence of evolution and its future possibilities.

For God's sake, one might have to consider whether chimpanzees and other animals feel emotion or have a soul.

I first heard of Washoe in the short story, In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried by Amy Hempel. I'll bet I've read the story, a masterpiece, fifty times.

Here is Hempel's passage that sums everything up:

"In the course of that experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign to her newborn.
Baby, drink milk.
Baby, play ball.
And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug. Baby, come hug, fluent now in the language of grief."

Goodbye, Washoe.