A. Real Space: Earth In 1984, to mark nine years of underwriting the National Geographic Society's television specials, the Gulf Oil Corporation ran an advertisement entitled "Understanding Is Everything" (Figure 7). The ad referred to some of the most watched programs in the history of public television—the nature specials about Jane Goodall and the wild chim­ panzees in Tanzania's Gombe National Park. Initially, the gently clasped hands of the ape and the young white woman seem to auger what the text proclaims—communication, trust, responsibility, and understanding across the gaps that have defined human existence.
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