Idle Words has a quite marvellous post reporting on a public lecture given by the great Jane Goodall in Beijing. One feels for the translator (but not too much). And as Maciej Ceglowski (the brain behind Idle Words) says:
You get the impression that her tolerance for human imperfection comes from having seen some very dark things, and not just from our own species. After studying chimpanzees for over ten years and coming to see them as peaceful and benevolent animals with a bit of a temper, Goodall witnessed a four-year chimpanzee war of extermination, and discovered a mother-daughter pair who liked to kill and eat babies. To someone who always had higher expectations of chimpanzees than people, the petty hypocrisies of Western consumerism or even Chinese repression must seem like small potatoes in comparison. Her resilience and optimism are remarkable; they reminded me of how many times I have been content to adopt a convenient pessimism in the face of the terrible environmental damage taking place, and made me ashamed of it.
Amen to that.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 
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