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WITandWISDOM(tm) - May 27, 2004 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. - Wilhelm Steckel Source: Best Quote of the Day, mailto:bestquote-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: A talented young athlete, the son of a star baseball player, was struggling in the minor leagues and expected to be released any day. During one game, he came to bat having already struck out once and quickly rang up two more strikes. Then the catcher trotted away for a conference with the pitcher. The umpire, standing behind the plate, spoke to the young man. "You hold the bat just the way your dad held it," he said. "I can see his genes in you. You have your fathers arms." On the next pitch, the young man knocked the ball out of the park. His play improved remarkably, and soon he was called up to the major leagues. When asked what changed his game, the young man gave credit to the umpire's words. "After that," he explained, "whenever I swung the bat, I just imagined that I was using Dads arms instead of my own." Source: Night Light: A Devotional for Couples, By Dobson, James C.; Dobson, Shirley Published by Multnomah Pub (September 1, 2000), ISBN: 1576736741, http://isbn.nu/1576736741 ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: Cat Owners Will Recognize These Descriptions for Cats 1. a lap warmer with a built-in buzzer. 2. a four footed allergen. 3. a small, four-legged, fur-bearing extortionist. 4. a small, furry lap fungus. 5. a treat-seeking missile. 6. a wildlife control expert impersonator. 7. one who sleeps in old, empty pizza boxes. 8. a hair relocation expert. 9. an un-programmable animal. Source: Kitty's Daily Mews, http://www.katscratch.com ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: A pastor was speaking to a group of second graders about the resurrection of Jesus when one student asked, "What did Jesus say right after He came out of the grave?" The pastor explained that the Gospels do not tell us what He said. The hand of one little girl shot up. "I bet I know what He said: He said, 'Tah dah!'" Source: Judy's Jokes for Sunday, mailto:JJs4Sunday-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: New Caledonian Crows In the Brevia section of the 9 August 2002 issue of Science, Weir et al. report a remarkable observation: The tool making behavior of New Caledonian crows. In the experiments, a captive female crow, confronted with a task that required a curved tool (retrieving a food-containing bucket from a vertical pipe), spontaneously bent a piece of straight wire into a hooked shape -- and then repeated the behavior in nine out of ten subsequent trials. Though these crows are known to employ tools in the wild using natural materials, this bird had no prior training with the use of pliant materials such as wire -- a fact that makes its apparently spontaneous, highly specific problem-solving all the more interesting, and raises intriguing questions about the evolutionary preconditions for complex cognition. The crow's behavior was captured on an unusual video clip, available on Science Online. A. A. S. Weir, J. Chappell, A. Kacelnik Science 297, 981 (2002) http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/crow/weirmovie.mov Source: The Pocket Newsletter, Copyright ©1996-2004, All Rights Reserved, http://thepocket.com |