New LJ Theme

I've changed my LJ theme for the month of December. Ho ho ho and all that.

... I have no life, have I?

The wrong thing, seen at the wrong time

So there I am, working on the computer and listening to the studio TV. There's a special on National Geographic Channel about emotions in animals called "Why Dogs Smile and Chimpanzees Cry", and I happened to look over just as they're showing footage of Harry Harlow's experiments with infant macaque monkeys. You know, the ones where an infant monkey was given the choice between a cold, hard wire mother that gave milk and a soft, cuddly cloth mother that had no milk to offer.

Seeing a baby monkey clinging to the closest thing it had to a loving mother -- a creation of wood and sponge rubber and terry cloth -- I started to sob, because it reminded me that I'll never, ever see my own mother or get a hug from her again.

That, and what those baby monkeys were put through is just awful. They grew up to be hideously maladjusted adults.