An Elephant Tears His Handler in Half for Making Him Haul Wood on a Hot Day

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If there's one common through line that runs through all religious texts that discuss how the universe began, it's that mankind had a creator, and that creator gave humans dominion over the animals. 

Not coincidentally, every religious text was written by - you guessed it - humans. If the Old Testament was written by Golden Retrievers, the Book of Genesis would mention how the Almighty created humans and gave us hands so that we'd give belly rubs. And if it were cats? The Psalms would all be about how we need to work a can opener and then fuck all the way off. The point - assuming I actually get to one - being that the whole "dominion" thing is a one way arrangement. No other species signed onto this. Mick Jagger sounded plenty happy to be someone's Beast of Burden, but the animals didn't get a vote. If they did, we'd be pulling their fat tourist asses around the park in Handsome Cabs instead of the way we've got it worked out.

Accordingly, different critters lose their patience for this bullshit arrangement humans cooked up at different moments. And right now, it seems like the biggest of them all is fed up to their giant floppy ears with our shenanigans. Elephants are going full Twisted Sister on us as we speak. Beginning with this one, who was so done with the human race he killed one lady twice:

And now comes word of this one:

Source - An elephant ripped its handler in half with its tusks in southern Thailand last week after being made to carry wood in the hot weather, according to a report.

The body of 32-year-old Supachai Wongfaed was found in a pool of blood after police responded to a rubber plantation in the Phang Nga province, Thailand news outlet the Thaiger reported.

Police said that a male 20-year-old elephant named Pom Pam stabbed the man with its tusks multiple times, tearing his body in half. …

Police said the hot weather may have made the animal “go crazy” and attack the man.

Livestock officers had to sedate the elephant with a dart from over 1,600 feet away so that Supachai’s body could be recovered, according to the report.

And from the same article:

Another incident occurred last month in the Nakhon Sri Thammarat province. Police suspect that the elephant, in that case, was stressed from work, stabbed its handler to death and stood over his corpse for hours, the outlet reported.

Which officially makes this a pattern of behavior. And can only mean one thing: We've got a full scale Elephant Uprising going on. 

It's happened before. Back in the 90s, there was a series of elephants attacking and killing their handlers, primarily in circuses and zoos. I seem to recall an X-Files episode about it, where Mulder concluded they were related. Like the beasts were part of a collective hive mind or something. And now it's happening again. 

When it comes to humans versus animals, I'm rooting for my hometown team practically all the time. But this is one of those cases where you can pull for the other side. Not that Supachai Wongfaed deserved to die, mind you. But it's not hard to see where Pom Pam was coming from. Here's this majestic, noble, astonishingly powerful creature, and Supachai is treating him like a dinosaur on The Flintstones. Only to have him react like a dinosaur in Jurassic Park.

As any of us would do if we were forced into servitude like that. I mean, sure, you'd like to have seen these two resolve their differences peacefully. But it's a little hard to use your words when you don't have them. Pom Pam used what evolution gave him, and won the argument. You mess with the elephant, you're gonna get the tusks, and all that. 

So just beware everyone. If you're someone relying on forced elephant labor at the moment, ease up. They're getting sick of doing all the manual prehensile trunk labor around here while you get the benefit of all the firewood. And as long as we puny, hairless monkeys are punching up about 20 weight classes, they have the advantage in every fight. And it's hard to argue we don't have it coming. #FreePomPam