Lifted from my good friend Bart's faboo site

http://www.bartcop.com

Excerpt:
Robin Williams was invited to meet Koko, the gorilla who is fluent in American Sign Language.
They discovered they had a lot in common, and Robin decided to help Koko and her Foundation
save gorillas from imminent extinction by becoming honorary co-chair for the new Maui Ape Preserve.


We've talked about Koko for years. It's the only animal I know with documented amotions.
She had a little kitty friend that died, and Koko kept signing, "I'm sad, I want my kitty friend back."

From what I undertand, Koko isn't stomping her foot on the floor when asked "What's 2 and 2?"
They ask her, "What do you want to do?" and Koko will say, "I want to eat a grapefruit," or
"I want to go outside and play with my ball."

I don't think enough has been made of this.
The only time you hear about something like this is when Rush says, "Screw the dolphins,"
when he reads a report than somebody has made progress communicating with a dolphin.

In our lifetime, apparently, we've broken the language barrier with animals.
Is that right?
In ten years we might be able to communicate with other species?

Is a "gorilla's rights" movement starting to hatch?

If a gorilla can look you in the eye and sign, "I miss my kitty friend,"
how are you going to dismiss that as some kind of "liberal trickery?"

Let's say you're babysitting the gorilla in a cage in a hotel room (it could happen)
and Koko signed, "It's kyna (Koko is street) warm in here - could you make it cooler?"


We live in strange times, and this isn't Issue Number One,
but I went to http://www.koko.org and bought the DVD of Robin Williams talking to Kono.

Closing Sidebar:
This is in the back issues somewhere, but Koko has been using the Internet to teach
sign language to the other gorillas watching on their computer monitors at their home zoos.

This is not a gag.

Koko has had live, online video conferences with other online gorillas and taught them to sign.

This is not a gag.


...yet gays can't form a civil union because "...that's not how God planned it?"