monkey business
What is the world coming to when along with stories about saboteurs exploding oil pipelines in Iraq and Chicago Public Schools losing millions of dollars in funding for Internet connectivity there is a FRONT-PAGE STORY in the Sunday Tribune (the SUNDAY TRIBUNE, people!!) about a prison in India that only houses monkeys?!?? Yes, you read correctly - MONKEYS! The story was called "Doing Hard Time in Monkey Jail" and highlighted things like:
"The thief threatened children with bricks and ripped the buttons off shirts. He stole tomatoes from one home and snatched bread from another. Down the street, he briefly fled with a differential equations book and beat a calculator with his fist.
He was one bad monkey. And last week he was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes, inmate No. 13 at the country's only known monkey jail, where very bad monkeys are sent to live out their remaining years."
Dude, if I could get my hands on some differential equations I'd be a bad monkey too.
But wait, there's more!
"This place angers people such as Maneka Gandhi, an animal-rights activist who is also the daughter-in-law of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
She said monkeys can be rehabilitated, taught in sanctuaries to live in groups and eventually released into the forest.
'You can't treat them in the same way as humans, as bad and good,' she said. 'You can't just jail them.' "
WHA?!??????
No disrespect culturally speaking. I'm all for animal protection and cultural preservation and all, but FRONT PAGE?!? I mean, is it really vital to my life to know that somewhere out there is a jail for monkeys that have gone off the deep end?
Oh my. I may need to rethink our subscription.
(btw, the link to the story only works if you have a subscription)