Enough is enough

Imagine if you will, yourself in a cage the size of a large mansion. Some authority figure then asks you to perform several tasks over and over again, let's say jumping from your bed to the floor or going up and down the stairs while balancing a ball on top of your head, and you would only be fed if you performed the said tasks properly without fail. Imagine you doing this for just a year. Oh and you're not alone in your house. You have other people like you being trained to do other things. The point is, you're sharing the limited space with others.

Imagining? Had enough? I thought so.

A trainer drowned when a "trained" killer whale suddenly leapt out of its tank, grabbed the trainer by the waist and then violently shook her until she drowned. This may very well be the frustrated action of an animal who has had enough of the life he or she was forced to live.

We have always said that mammals have the most evolved and most intelligent brains of all living creatures. It is the only species of animal that can be trained to do skilled tasks. And of all the mammals, whales and dolphins come second only to man in terms of intelligence.

So what makes anyone think that years of captivity and monotonous routine will not have an adversary effect on these animals? Who says they don't get crazy over time? We've seen the same behavior in other animals.

The video of a circus elephant who turns his ire on his trainer, trampling him and even pinning him down until he was dead, after which it escapes the confines of the circus and heads out on to the street, also trampling cars and people, until it was put down. We've heard about the tiger who pummeled its owner while performing in a show, almost killing him.

Everyone has a breaking point, including animals. Even for a killer whale, an elephant and a tiger, enough is enough.

It took us twenty years to say that enough is enough. That we no longer wanted a dictator to rule the country. That we wanted democracy in its full form and substance. That we wanted justice and freedom. Twenty years.

Then we allowed another president to rule the country for nine years. Nine years fraught with anomalies, irregularities, accusations of cheating in an election, corruption. Perhaps our brains haven't evolved that far up? For we did learn to count money, but not votes. We learned to vote, but not wisely. Enough is enough, right?