I'm so disappointed in Michael Vick

sweet tea

okay, but maybe partly no one doubted how the judicial system, the press, etc. would deal with brutal baby killing.

also, people have said they didn't used to know dog fighting was bad or illegal, so there is some case to be made for talking about it more than infanticide, which our society is in widespread agreement on.

yes, the press runs away with things and LOVES and fallen hero, but the comparison above is a little shaky.

sprite

MichaelKeys wrote: There was a judge on Larry King the other night who said he'd gotten hundreds of letters condemning Vick but has yet to recieve a word about the brutal murder of a baby in his district.

I remember seeing a similar observation in an article about Life magazine photos. Apparently a photo of swans lying in snow (facing the wind so they wouldn't freeze to death) provoked hundreds of outraged letters, but the photo of a dead Vietnam soldier prompted, like, five.

The other night I mentioned this in passing to a foreign relative who hasn't lived in the US in 30 years. "I'm not surprised," she said. "Everybody knows Americans care more about animals than people." Wow...

Kinda puts the the pigeon-killing kid thread into perspective, no?

poppy13

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/224/story/118246.html

"He offered to apologize "for all the things that -- that I've done and allowed to happen," but didn't itemize them because, let's face it, he'd have a lot of territory to cover with the Ron Mexico civil case, the dual Dirty Bird obscene gestures, the trick water bottle, the lying to the league commissioner, the lying to the team owner, the apparent indifference to his teammates and, last but not least, the cruelty to all those animals."

sweet tea

mod note:

i'm loving the pit bull conversation that's started here, so i've split it off to its own thread, so people can continue it without feeling they have to stay on the michael vick topic.

pit bulls here: http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=37472

doublediamond

MichaelKeys wrote: You know, there are people genuniely disgusted with dog-fighting and Vick's involvement in it that feel the press has gone a bit overboard in this case. There was a judge on Larry King the other night who said he'd gotten hundreds of letters condemning Vick but has yet to recieve a word about the brutal murder of a baby in his district. The other night I mentioned this in passing to a foreign relative who hasn't lived in the US in 30 years. "I'm not surprised," she said. "Everybody knows Americans care more about animals than people." Wow...

Livetotravel wrote: I have to agree - I think the greatest outpouring of sympathy post-Katrina was for the pets left behind and finally rescued. And in fact, there was a greater outreach by Americans to house and adopt them, then there was for the human victims.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that domesticated animals are our dependents, much like children in the sense that we are responsible for their lives. There is also the unconditional love we receive from them and how, like children, animals are innocent. Plenty of people have no compassion for other living creatures, so I'm glad to have seen people rescuing pets post-Katrina and I'm glad that the MV incident is getting wide media attention and hopefully it will encourage more awareness and action in stopping dogfighting. Fines and sentences for animal cruelty are far too low.

I disagree that Americans care more for animals though, but I understand the underlying thought behind that statement (after all, Leona Helmsey left $12 mil to her dog). Only now are Americans starting to care on a mass scale about how animals are treated before they're slaughtered for food.

michaelkeys

Interestingly, Amores Perros aka Love's A Bitch, has been on TV quite a bit lately...

quijibo

Whoopi Goldberg had her first day on The View today and she's excusing Michael Vick

"You know from his background this is not an unusual thing for where he comes from," said Goldberg.

"There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of our country."

Co-host Joy Behar seemed shocked at Goldberg's statements."How about dog torture and dog murdering," Behar asked.

"Unfortunately it's part of the thing," Goldberg replied.

"You're a dog lover. For a lot of people dogs are sport," she added.

Behar continued to shake her head in disgust.Goldberg said it seemed to her that it took a while for Vick to realize that the charges against him were serious. "It seemed like a light went off in his head when he realized that this was something the entire country really didn't appreciated, didn't like," Goldberg said, referring to Vick's guilty plea.

She said if the case had involved somebody from New York City her feelings would have been different. Goldberg pointed out that Vick was raised in the South. "This is part of his cultural upbringing," said Goldberg.

sevenoneeighty

Yea,

I think she was just being honest about something that is part of southern culture, but I don't think she was saying it was cool or anything.
Vick may be the most famous one caught and convicted, etc. but he is not the only person dog fighting in this country...or worldwide.

sweet tea

um.... i grew up in the south. this was never, ever, ever presented to me as part of my culture or as acceptable in any way. nor was it something i was aware of other people doing even though we didn't, like, say, hunting.

understand, i don't mean that someone else from the south didn't have a different experience, only that we are not a dog-torturing monolith. (and that i'm tired of "from the south" being a shorthand for "backward".)