Opinion: Jane Goodall helped humans understand their place in the world; NPR, October 4, 2025

Scott Simon, NPR ; Opinion: Jane Goodall helped humans understand their place in the world

[Kip Currier: Jane Goodall's 1960 keen-eyed field observation of chimpanzees using tools in the wild was a game-changer in how humans think about primates. It's also one of the great moments of scientific research in the past century. We should deeply consider what other scientific insights we are likely to miss when cuts to scientific research are made and the pursuit of knowledge is devalued.]

[Excerpt]

"Outside the Field Museum in Chicago, a bronze sculpture by artist Marla Friedman captures a moment a friendship was made.

It's called "The Red Palm Nut." A young woman sits barefoot on the ground, reaching out her hand to a chimpanzee, who sits about a yard away. And he lightly, seemingly shyly, takes her human fingers into his own. A bright, red palm nut has dropped on the soil between them.

The woman in the sculpture is the great primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall, at the moment she first earned the trust of a wild chimp. "He reached out and he took and dropped that palm nut," she later remembered. "But then very gently squeezed my fingers and that's how chimpanzees reassure each other. So in that moment we understood each other without the use of human words, the language of gestures."

Jane Goodall called the silvery-chinned chimp David Greybeard. She met him when she was in her 20s, a former secretary from Bournemouth, England, who saved cash tips she'd earned as a waitress to journey to Africa, where she talked herself into a job as assistant to the famed anthropologist Louis Leakey.

She had no college experience. But Jane Goodall convinced Leakey she would be just the person to live among and study a group of chimpanzees he had discovered on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.

And on what she recalled was a rainy morning, November 4, 1960, she saw David Greybeard and other chimps take twigs from a tree, pluck their leaves, and use them as sticks to pierce a termite mound and slurp the insects off the end — almost like how those primates called human beings might lick peanut butter off a spoon.

What she saw and documented was startling: the chimps had made the twigs into tools. When she wrote about it to Louis Leakey, he famously replied, "We must now redefine man, redefine tools, or accept chimpanzees as humans."

By the time Jane Goodall died this week, at the age of 91, she'd been honored around the world for her work with chimps and people, and established animal sanctuaries and forest conservation programs.

David Greybeard, I think she'd want us to note, died in 1968. Jane Goodall and her friend saw strangers in a jungle, reached out their hands, and began a friendship that changed how humans understood our place in the world."

The U.S.-Canada Border Runs Through This Library. That’s Now a Problem.; The New York Times, May 30, 2025

Norimitsu Onishi, The New York Times ; The U.S.-Canada Border Runs Through This Library. That’s Now a Problem.

"“I think there’s a sentiment of this little library being bullied by this powerful administration, and that helped encourage people to contribute,” said Steve Timmins, a Canadian visiting the library. “In light of what’s going on, it’s an important symbol of the friendship that cannot be taken away.”"

We will survive this; Washington Post, August 1, 2017

Garrison Keillor, Washington Post; We will survive this

[Kip Currier: Interesting insights from Garrison Keillor about taking a long-view of life, as well as voicing a carpe diem gratitude--embodied in the perfect imperfections of an heirloom tomato.

I first learned about "heirloom tomatoes" from a 2015 radio episode of The Splendid Table (Thanks, National Public Radio!), featuring tomato expert Craig LeHoullier. 

[Aside: Great quote by The Splendid Table host Lynne Rosetto Kasper, after LeHoullier notes that tomatoes are "very perishable": 

"But I think some of the best things in life have to be fragile. We appreciate them more."]

Soonafter, I tried my first heirlooms from the incredible year-round open-air Freshfarm DuPont Circle Market in Washington, D.C.: it was love at first bite.

A week ago I picked up these beauties in DuPont for a killer (Fair Use-transformed!) Caprese Salad:

"It’s a privilege to know people over the course of a lifetime and to reconnoiter and hear about the ordinary goodness of life. By 75, some of our class have gotten whacked hard. And the casualty rate does keep climbing. And yet life is good. These people are America as I know it. Family, work, a sense of humor, gratitude to God for our daily bread and loyalty to the tribe.

If the gentleman stands in the bow and fires his peashooter at the storm, if he appoints a gorilla as head of communications, if he tweets that henceforth no transcendentalist shall be allowed in the armed forces, nonetheless life goes on.

He fulfills an important role of celebs: giving millions of people the chance to feel superior to him. The gloomy face and the antique adolescent hair, the mannequin wife and the clueless children of privilege, the sheer pointlessness of flying around in a 747 to say inane things to crowds of people — it’s cheap entertainment for us, and in the end it simply doesn’t matter."

An Abused, Dishwashing Robot Dreams of an Escape; Slate, 12/17/16

Madeline Raynor, Slate; An Abused, Dishwashing Robot Dreams of an Escape:

"Hum," above, is a science-fiction short from director Tom Teller and Frame 48. It follows a robot that works as a dishwasher in a restaurant, confined to a small, poorly lit room and abused by a cruel human boss."

Jared Kushner Considers Losing Democratic Friends “Exfoliation.” But What Kind of Exfoliation?; Slate, 11/23/16

L. V. Anderson, Slate; Jared Kushner Considers Losing Democratic Friends “Exfoliation.” But What Kind of Exfoliation? :

"Asked by Forbes’ Steven Bertoni about the friends who have cut ties with Kushner since he began advising the Trump campaign, Kushner sounded blasé. “I call it an exfoliation,” he replied. “Anyone who was willing to change a friendship or not do business because of who somebody supports in politics is not somebody who has a lot of character.”

Exfoliation is an apt choice of metaphor for Kushner, who was recently described by a journalist as having “an eerily flawless complexion.” Surely someone with such glowing skin has ample firsthand knowledge of removing dead surface cells to boost skin’s health and appearance. But Kushner’s metaphor raises more questions than it answers. If losing friends and associates who value equality, tolerance, and inclusion more than social climbing is akin to exfoliation, what kind of exfoliation is it?"

Hodor on Hodor: Kristian Nairn Discusses His ‘Game of Thrones’ Fate; New York Times, 5/24/16

Jeremy Egner, New York Times; Hodor on Hodor: Kristian Nairn Discusses His ‘Game of Thrones’ Fate:

"The twist, which recast a figure of fun into a tragic hero, sparked an emotional online outpouring that has continued unabated, at times crossing creatively into the real world. Even David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators of the show, called it one of the most shocking revelations they ever received from George R.R. Martin, who writes the books the series is based on and conceived the details of Hodor’s origin.

[SPOILER BELOW]

“There’s a very nice thing going around the Internet that says, ‘Not all heroes hold weapons, some hold doors,’ ” Kristian Nairn, the 6-foot-11 Irish actor who played him, said on Tuesday. “He is a hero now, but I think he always was, in his own way.”"