Chukwu believes that only by embracing technology will they finally shed the shackles of their oppressors and colonizers and take full advantage of the richness of sub-Saharan mineral resources for wealth and progress. This imbalance is exacerbated because African-Americans, Chukwu contends, prefer to pursue careers in athletics or entertainment, instead of seeking education in medicine, engineering and computer technology, and when they do achieve success in those fields they do not reinvest their money in organizations that promote science. But the author (My American Dream: From Orphan to an American Success Story, 2007) notes that blacks do not have any influence in the medical or technology arenas because they do not have any products to offer.

With apparent delight, Montgomery puts readers inside the world of these amazing creatures.Ī fascinating glimpse into an alien consciousness.Īn analysis of the failure of blacks to embrace and benefit from the technological revolution and a prescriptive to change the tide.Īccording to Chukwu, the black community is mired in poverty because it has not harnessed the promise of economic stability offered by technology and medicine. Yet in the wild, they are generally solitary and may attack and eat others of their species if placed in the same tank. Octopuses seemingly relate easily to humans, quickly learning to pick up cues from their keepers, who make a game of hiding food, and in turn play tricks on them. They recognized and openly welcomed her visits, soliciting petting and stroking as might a house pet in similar circumstances. The author describes the thrill of this and subsequent encounters with Athena and two other octopuses housed at the aquarium. Though Athena possessed the strength to pull Montgomery into the tank, she was gentle and even playful. Hosted by the aquarium's director of public relations, with other personnel on standby to ensure her safety, the author was encouraged to place her hand in the tank. On her first behind-the-scenes visit to the aquarium, Montgomery was given the opportunity to directly interact with Athena, a 2 1/2-year-old, 40-pound octopus housed in a 560-gallon tank. This ability is one of the ways in which they perceive their environment. “Was it possible,” she writes, “to reach another mind on the other side of the divide?” Their appendages are covered with “dexterous, grasping suckers” that propel food into mouths located in their armpits, and they savor the taste of food as it travels along their skin.

Naturalist Montgomery ( Birdology, 2010, etc.) chronicles her extraordinary experience bonding with three octopuses housed in the New England Aquarium and the small group of people who became devoted to them.Īs a casual visitor to the aquarium, she had been intrigued by the sense that the octopuses, invertebrates separated from us by millions of years on the tree of life, she watched were also watching her.

The soul of an octopus