SPONSORED CONTENT
SLUG SIGNORINO
DRINK SPECIALS
STRAIGHT DOPE By Cecil Adams Q : Why are lemmings famous for running
LINCOLN PARK
ALIVEONE
2683 N Halsted 773-348-9800
THU
LINCOLN SQUARE
BERW YN
4757 N Talman 773-942-6012
6615 Roosevelt 708-788-2118
MONTI’S
$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, $4 Lagunitas drafts, $4 Absolut cocktails, “Hoppy Hour” 5pm8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales
FITZGERALD’S
WICKER PARK
PHYLLIS’ MUSICAL INN
1800 W Division 773-486-9862
SOUTH LOOP
REGGIE’S
2105 S State 312-949-0120
$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits
Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5
Bombs $4, Malibu Cocktails $4, Jack Daniel’s Cocktails $5, Tanqueray Cocktails $4, Johnny Walker Black $5, Cabo Wabo $5
$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits
Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5
Wine by the Glass $5, Jameson $5, Patron $7, Founders 12oz All Day IPA Cans $3.50
$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits
Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5
Heineken Bottles $4, Bloodies feat. Absolut Peppar Vodka $5, Original Moonshine $5, Corzo $5, Sailor Jerry’s Rum $4, Deschutes Drafts $4
FRI
$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, “Hoppy Hour” 5pm8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales
S AT
$6 Jameson shots $3 PBR bottles
SUN
$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, $4 Temperance brews, $5 Absolut bloody mary’s
$4.75 Bloody Mary and Marias
$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits
Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5
Buckets of Miller & Bud Bottles (Mix & Match) $14, Guinness & Smithwicks Drafts $4, Bloodies feat, Absolut Peppar Vodka $5, Ketal One Cocktails $5
MON
$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, $4 Half Acre brews, FREE POOL, “Hoppy Hour” 5pm8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales
$1 off all beers including craft
CLOSED
Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5
All Draft Beers Half Price, Makers Mark Cocktails $5, Crystal Head Vodka Cocktails $4
TUE
$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, $2 and $3 select beers
$2 off all Whiskeys and Bourbons
$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits
Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5
Jim Beam Cocktails $4, Jameson Cocktails $5, Cabo Wabo $5, Malibu Cocktails $4, Corona Bottles $3.50, PBR Tall Boy Cans $2.75
WED
$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, 1/2 price aliveOne signature cocktails, $4 Goose Island brews, “Hoppy Hour” 5pm-8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales
$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits $10 classic cocktails
Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5
Stoli/Absolut & Soco Cocktails $4, Long Island Iced Teas $5, Herradura Margaritas $5, Stella/Hoegaarden/ Deschutes Drafts $4, Goose Island 312 Bottles $3.50
$5 Martinis, Lemon Drop, Cinnamon Apple, Mai Tai, French, Cosmo, On the Rocks, Bourbon Swizzle, Pomegranate Margarita
OUR READERS LOVE GREAT DEALS! CONTACT YOUR READER REPRESENTATIVE AT 312.222.6920 OR displayads@chicagoreader.com FOR DETAILS ON HOW TO LIST DRINK SPECIALS HERE.
40 CHICAGO READER - FEBRUARY 18, 2016
off cliffs? I’m assuming this is an urban myth. But where does the idea of suicidal lemmings come from? —OWAIN EVANS
PHOTO: ALEXEY LYSENKO/ GETTY IMAGES
A : Let’s begin our investigation with a little
Google search, shall we? The popular line on the lemming-suicide myth, found easily on debunking sites like Snopes, plays as follows: (1) White Wilderness, a 1958 Disney documentary about arctic wildlife, contains a scene showing lemmings taking the plunge you describe, to florid narration: “Carried along by an unreasoning hysteria, each falls into step for a march that will take them to a strange destiny,” etc. (2) However, the whole thing turns out to have been faked. Filmmakers ran the little guys around on a lazy Susan and tossed them manually into a river shot to look like the ocean. (3) “Thus,” Snopes concludes, “did Disney perpetuate for generations to come the legend of periodic, inexplicable mass suicides by lemmings who die by hurling themselves off of cliffs.” Perpetuate, sure. But such accounts give Disney undue credit for a misconception that was already going strong. The lemming mass-suicide story had been in circulation for a while, as Edmund Ramsden and Duncan Wilson report in a 2010 paper in the British historical journal Past & Present. Scandinavians in the late 1800s recorded observations of the lemmings’ grim march to the sea, struck by the animals’ violent disinclination to be impeded, which inspired the common Norwegian phrase “angry as a lemming.” According to Ramsden and Wilson, “The lemming became the totemic animal in an age of cultural pessimism, a symbol of an unconscious and mindless urge towards mass self-destruction, and references to its suicide are legion.” Well, as a matter of fact lemmings do sometimes end up underwater, but far less melodramatically than all the hubbub suggests. Their populations operate on a regular boom-and-bust cycle. At the end of a boom, which puts pressure on nearby resources, they disperse in search of food. Some wind up at the ocean and attempt to cross it—lemmings can swim—but drown in the process. You’ll notice the Norwegians don’t say “smart as a lemming.” So, with respect to a weighty word like “suicide,” lemmings don’t really qualify. Do other nonhuman animals? The issue has captivated thinkers as far back as Aristotle, who
described a tormented stallion throwing himself into an abyss. Certainly animals take actions that lead to their deaths. Fifty dogs have jumped off Scotland’s Overtoun Bridge in as many years. Pods of whales heave themselves onto beaches; captive dolphins drown themselves. But does that merit the term “suicide”? The traditional argument against this is that animals are thought to possess senses neither of self nor imagination, both facets of higher-order cognitive functioning required for suicide: you must envision the end of life and understand its implications. So, such thinking goes, when an animal offs itself there’s always some biological or mechanistic reason: Navigation error, in the case of those beached whales. Underneath that Scottish bridge investigators found a colony of mink, whose anal scent glands apparently drive dogs wild— the pups were just lunging after a good smell. But this proposition has been called into question by cognitively complex creatures like dolphins, who can recognize themselves in a mirror, suggesting that crucial sense of self. All the same, until an animal manages to leave a note, the jury’s probably going to remain out. Ramsden and Wilson suggest that rather than trying to puzzle out whether animals conform to human notions of suicide, we invert the question: What if we conceived of human suicide—a behavior that’s long perplexed scientists—less as an a willful act of imagination and more as a mechanistic response to conditions? Take, for instance, Toxoplasma gondii, known to cause rodents (to their mortal detriment) to lose their fear of cats, in whose stomachs the protozoan prefers to breed. In humans it’s been linked, a bit more tenuously, to schizophrenia and, yes, suicide. A 2012 study of 45,000-some Danish mothers reported a “predictive association” between T. gondii infection and “self-directed violence.” Far from causation, yes, but as T. gondii continues to spread, it might be helpful to get a clearer picture. v Send questions to Cecil via straightdope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 350 N. Orleans, Chicago 60654.