Word: toying
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Imagine my wife's anguish and alarm when our beautiful brown-skinned three- year-old daughter made that declaration. We thought we were doing everything right to develop her self-esteem and positive racial identity. We overloaded her toy box with black dolls. We carefully monitored the racial content of TV shows and videos, ruling out Song of the South and Dumbo, two classic Disney movies marred by demeaning black stereotypes. But we saw no harm in Pinocchio, which seemed as racially benign as Sesame Street or Barney, and a good deal more engaging. Yet now our daughter was saying...
...light of the new insights, museums around the world are revamping musty exhibits or installing new ones. They are rearranging the old stilted skeletons on display into new dynamic poses and adding such modern attractions as robotic dinos and interactive computer games. Dinosaur theme parks are booming, while toy stores overflow with stuffed stegosauruses, dinosaur puzzles and models, not to mention the omnipresent videosaurus Barney. And early in June, dino-mania will reach fever pitch with the premiere of Steven Spielberg's long-awaited movie version of the Michael Crichton thriller Jurassic Park. (See following story...
Funny, then, that I found myself standing in the expensive new shopping mall in EI Prat de Liobregat, Barcelona's international airport--fresh-faced for the 1992 Olympics--and staring at little figurines of a saluting Adolf Hitler in a toy store's display case. The absurdity of finding Nazism trwsalued in the mudst of stuffed ducks jarred...
Everyone knows parrots can talk, but for the past 15 years, ethologist Irene Pepperberg has been working with Alex, exploring the degree to which the birds understand what they are saying. Pepperberg picks up an object from a crowded tray and inquires, "What toy?" Alex promptly answers, "Block." He then responds to questions about the plaything, describing its color, shape, what it is made of ("wood") and whether it is bigger or smaller than other objects on the tray...
...knew a golden retriever named Newton who had a perverse sense of humor. Whenever I tossed out a Frisbee for him to chase, he'd take off in hot pursuit but then seem to lose track of it. Trotting back and forth only a yard or two from the toy, Newton would look all around, even up into the trees. He seemed genuinely baffled. Finally, I'd give up and head into the field to help him out. But no sooner would I get within 10 ft. of him than he would invariably dash straight over to the Frisbee, grab...