CRYBABIES

Rousseau's got us thinking about the origins of language. If human speech begins with the natural vocalizing of infants, what are babies with colic trying to say? Check out the article by Jerome Groopman in the New Yorker of September 17, 2007. It's not online yet, but it will become available through Lexus Nexus any day now, so I'll post a link when it's up. The caption to this image from the article reads: "According to one scholar, the sound of a wailing infant is 'about the most disturbing, demanding, shattering noise we can hear.'" (47)

And for the latest proof that the image of the extremely sensitive loner outcast persists as a central image in modern Western culture, check out Isabel's latest posting.