The kids and I had fun today while trying to figure out why there are no chimpanzees at the National Zoo. The ideas took on a life of their own.

First we thought maybe putting those particular primates in enclosures was frowned upon these days. This comment came after the Nat'l Zoo had a response to PETA on its chimpanzee page. Maybe we are just considered to be too closely related to the chimps, and it's considered cruel to cage our cousins like that.

Then we said, well, if we're all just primates, and we want to see chimps, can't we just pay some homo sapiens (you know, humans) to stay in a display area all day, you know, for the sake of an exhibit?

We could put them in a nice air conditioned room, and visitors could stroll past them all day and see them on the internet, programming the computer, building engines, applying medicinal cures to illnesses, reading in a phonetic language represented by signs, writing in that language, doing upper level math, and solving disagreements without curling their lips back over their teeth.  Then there could be big posters in the room of the moon landings and the international space station, etc.

Next door, visitors could see chimpanzees speaking in American sign language, choosing which pile has more beans in it, using sticks as tools, eating herbs when they feel sick, and whatever else represents chimpanzee intelligence.

Then they could put a big plaque between the two, going on and on about closely related we are. Don't you think that would give a lot of people pause?