The stink of the missing link

The Burning Taper has long been fascinated by monkeys, and has written many times about them.

I believe it was the late Robert Anton Wilson who once wrote that the basic difference between monkeys and men is that monkeys mark their territory by flinging feces, and men mark their territory with ink on legal documents.

The two concepts clashed on Monday in San Diego when a defendant in court suddenly smeared his attorney with feces, then hurled poo at the jury box.

The judge declared a mistrial and increased his bail from $250,000 to one million dollars.

Monkeys | Feces | Anthropology | Robert Anton Wilson | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Chimps choose more rationally than humans

The Burning Taper is known across the Milky Way for its never-ending coverage of monkey business. If it's about a primate, we'll print it.

Our masthead should be "By monkeys. About monkeys. For monkeys."

(Read more RAW.)

In the past we've brought you cutting-edge monkey business including:

• Peaceful, sex-loving chimps being eaten to extinction
• Chimps making monkeys out of humans?
• Planet of the Crazy Apes
• Evolution, schmevolution! We're all apes inside
• Princeton University shows how to hack an electronic voting machine
• Do Masonic monkeys hold banana-split fundraisers?
• And of course, Burning Taper's 500th post, where I admitted I am, in fact, a semi-literate simian.

Now we learn that chimps are more rational than humans.

Chimpanzees make choices that protect their self-interest more consistently than do humans.

Researchers used a two-player economic game where each player, either chimp or human, receives something of value and can then share it with the other player.

If what is offered is rejected, then neither player gets anything.

Humans typically offer half of the booty, and typically reject any offer significantly less than half, even though rejecting it means neither player will get anything.

Chimps, though, will offer much less than 50%, but will accept any offer.

What's this mean? Researches think it means that humans will go without to punish another person, or to keep him from getting more than his "fair share."

Chimps don't care about being fair. They simply protect their self-interest, and they are unwilling to lose something simply to punish someone else who is being unfair.

Chimps, like most "lower" animals, live in the Now, and are concerned with their immediate present, unlike humans, who constantly live in the past or the future, worrying excessively about other people, both in their attempts to be fair to them, and to punish those who they perceive as unfair.

(Read more Tolle.)

Monkey Business | Chimpanzee Studies | Rationality | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Raise a toast to Ron Bonds' 55th birthday

Today, Sept. 1, one of my closest friends should be celebrating his 55th birthday.

But he can't. He's dead. Ron Bonds died on April 8, 2001, after eating bacteria-laden burritos at a Mexican restaurant in Atlanta.

The restaurant is still in business, and was never closed, not even for a day, by the Fulton County, Georgia health department. The Fulton County medical examiner determined he died of internal bleeding caused by toxic bacteria in contaminated ground beef. He ruled the death accidental and listed the scene of the accident as 939 Ponce de Leon Ave.: El Azteca.

I hope Ron's "up there somewhere" having a party, sipping his red wine with Aleister Crowley and Robert Anton Wilson. Happy Birthday, Ron.

Ron Bonds | Food Poisoning | Aleister Crowley | Robert Anton Wilson | El Azteca | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Great things are afoot

While I sit here making fun of conspiracy-minded fundamentalist anti-Masons, other people are doing and writing about much grander things, both inside and outside of Freemasonry.

I found on California Freemason Online a 2003 article by Bro. Jay Kinney titled "Is Freemasonry Afraid of Its Own Shadow: Masonry's Love/Hate Relationship with Esoteric Traditions," wherein he explores why mainstream Masonry tends to "consign to the lunatic fringe those Masons who have seen or do see connections or parallels between Masonry and the Ancient Mysteries, the great myths, and esoteric traditions." Interesting reading....

Edgewood Lodge No. 82 of Edgewood, New Mexico has republished W. Bro. Phillip Bennison's "History of the Craft." Bro. Bennison examines the different possible histories of Freemasonry, asking whether Freemasonry originated from Megalithic times, King Solomon, Athelstan, the Knights Templars, Medieval Stone Masons, William Schaw and King James I of Scotland, Box charities, the Invisible College or the Rosicrucians.

Pietre-Stone Review of Freemasonry gives us R. W. Bro. Don Falconer's "King Solomon's Temple: Symbol of Freemasonry," a look at the biblical history and Masonic symbolism of Solomon's Temple, the pillars of Boaz and Jachin, and the Ark of the Covenant.

W. Bro. Ronald Paul Ng, of Malaysia, interprets the First and Third Degrees of Freemasonry in light of Prof. Joseph Campbell's basic structure of myth, the Hero's Monomyth, in "The Philosophy of Freemasonry: Its Mythical Structure." The Burning Taper discussed Campbell's The Hero of a Thousand Faces and the monomythic structure in "The Power of Myth: Thou Art That" in February, 2006.

Earlier this week a news story that had nothing to do with Masonry fascinated me. It's about a Jewish man who grew up in a hippie commune in Oregon, who went on to become a radical Muslim, then gave it up to become a Baptist. Along the way, he became an informant for the FBI. CNN called him one of "God's Warriors." I guess some people, anyway, agree that Yahweh, Allah and Gawd are all the same God.

Earlier today, the brother who writes the From Darkness to Light blog let loose on something political he disagreed with that was on a recent X-Oriente Masonic podcast.

Bro. Brian at Grail Seekers posted a couple of interesting links, one to a site showing tattoos of Noon Blue Apples emblazoned with "to the prettiest one" in Greek. In addition to the tattoos, you'll find an interesting discussion of Discordianism and the late Robert Anton Wilson.

Another article Bro. Brian linked to is titled "Astronomy of Astrology", which explores the history of astrology from a scientific viewpoint.

And finally, for no apparent reason, I point you to a story about a cemetery in Meridian, Mississippi, that has gone to weeds since a Masonic lodge that had owned and maintained it since the 1890s sold it a few years ago.

Image: Keira Knightley as Guinevere in 2004's "King Arthur"

Masons | Masonic History | Astrology | Freemasonry | King Solomon's Temple | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com