I’m not sure how many sports fans are commenters on this blog. I warned Steve a long time ago that I am an sports nut (wait til my OU football blog next week). The case of the Atlanta Falcons star quarterback, Michael Vick, has transcended the lines of sports gurus into public discourse. So, I feel that it is fair game for the blog.
Mike Straka writes a regular and annoying column for FoxNews.com. I regularly agree with him, but he’s just way into his work. He wrote a good commentary on Michael Vick though. Vick is accused of bankrolling a dog-fighting operation that occured on a property that he owned. Pitbulls were set up against each other in fights. Losing pups were often killed for their failures – usually by drowning, beating electrocution and other inhumane actions. And apparently, Vick participated in killing the losers.
Sorry to sound like a leftie, but I have 3 pups that are my life. Any person who kills a dog for such a ridiculous reason in such an inhumane manner is “scum” in my book. And Michael Vick has placed himself squarely in the realm of scum.
I don’t care if he is a pzro football superstar. Fame and money weren’t enough for this jackass. He is a role model to lots of kids and young players. And this is the example they are offered.
I’ll profess right now – I am not a fan of pro sports. I am a fanatic of college and Texas high school sports. Those players mainly do their thing for the love of the game. I’ve become disenfranchised with pro sports precisely because of idiots like Michael Vick.
Consider this my sports rant for the week. Anyone who is capable of doing evil, unspeakable things to an animal is probably capable of doing the same things to a human. You wonder why folks like me are so disillusioned with pro sports?
If the National Football League reinstates this jerk after his much-deserved trip to jail, I’ll lose all respect. It’s time to readjust the expectations of pro athletes and let them know that they are to be held to the same standards as the rest of us.
Killing puppies sucks, dude. Get a life.
steveflesher
Philip
Mel Maguire
Mark Ciavola
Comments
The college football players are on steroids
The NFL players are on higher levels of steroids.
The dogs too are injected with steroids to be more aggressive, like a Sunday Game.
ESPN-Disney makes BILLIONS off steroid entertainment.
BOYCOTT this crap.
Our much beloved dog, Ike (after General Eisenhower, of course!) is a pit bull mix, although for the purposes of operating in society without people being scared to death of us, we call him a shar pei mix. Which he is.
I try to be a good Christian, but I HATE people like Vick. Hate them for torturing and tormenting dogs who have no choice in the matter, and for ruining a breed with truly wonderful characteristics with horrible breeding habits and bad publicity.
I was accused by one person of placing more value on the lives of dogs than on those of people by my vehement reaction to Vick. My response is this – we know the true nature of people by how they treat those they have power over: waiters, maids, children, and pets.
Loving dogs (as I do) is not a crime. Moreover; having compassion for drowning and torturing innocent animals is something that only a human can have the capacity of.
I am glad that we have laws that protect animals. My dogs are incredible….
Sunnie is a half golden retriever/half yellow lab.
Bob is half german shep/half doberman.
Animals depend on us to make the right choices and reward us with amazing unconditional love and forgiveness.
This is not a liberal idea, it’s just reality. Now, when we see the government spending more money and time on mountain goats than on American children is when liberalism comes in.
Steve, you said it well. I can’t add anything except that my dogs, Higgins, Texas (hook’em), Sarah and Cody are my pals. As are my horses, and if I could manage, I’d squeeze a cat in there too!
Laws can;t protect humans, let alone steroid injected dogs.
Laws against steroids does not stop ESPN & NFL, MLB, NBA from making BILLIONS off them.
Laws are a pretext.
How about looking at this episode with a view to national character. What does it say about the ‘headliners’ in our lives?
Criminal behavior, or at least behavior void of ethics, is acceptable if you’re a conditioned machine making a front office and a cluster of advertisers, and yourself, megabucks.
Look at Wall Street. Same attitude.
Steal all you can until they put in is the can.
Except in the USA—people with the money NEVER get put into a can.
Hedge Funds/Big Bankers/Brokers all cheat in a gang of thieves.
Just as Disney-ESPN does with steroids in sport.
Deca -
I’m not sure that Disney or ESPN are fully responsible for the steroids craze or pro athlete prima donas. That seems to be a hasty generalization. Some pro players are motivated by money and a desire for fame to take steroids. Television makes them popular and puts them in the limelight. So, all television is responsible for steroids??? Or more to the point of this post – all television makes pro athletes do dumbass things like killing dogs???
I don’t buy that.
It’s all about individual choices and self-responsibility. Michael Vick has no reason in the world to do what he did except that he’s stupid. He didn’t need the dog-gambling money. That’s just insane to suggest.
You obviously have a beef to pick with ESPN and its affiliates, but I don’t share that concern. People choose to do stupid stuff. Michael Vick should get the stupid award of the year for his performance. Time to quit blaming others and focus on the idiots who do dumb things.
Philip: Apathy is very uncool. Ignorance worse.
People do NOT choose in the NFL. They follow orders or people die (get sacked). Code Red.
The TV Networks fund the steroid entertainment—not the other way around. GE’s NBC, CBS, and Disney’s ESPN.
Grow up.
Without a multiple BILLION dollar ESPN TV/radio contract high school kids could not dope as much. No IOC power w/o TV.
Pete Carroll’s USC pharma freakshow would decline in power too.
TV is the ecosystem and explains how Lance Pharmstromng can use research drugs RSR-13 and cow blood based hemoglobin to win a bike race.
Nike is wholly corrupt too. LIVE WRONG!
Deca, I would have to agree with Philip. We all have free will. Perhaps the issue is that children are no longer being raised to make the correct moral choices. Money and fame should not be the sole decision factor in what we do with our bodies and to others.
Whatever the incentives are being offered, these people CHOOSE to act in a certain way and accept them. They are not victims of anything other than their own decisions. Millions of people survive without NFL contracts. It’s not too harsh to say that the athletes who choose to defile themselves or others on the altar of fame could have chosen – and at any time could choose – another career.
AFW, Philip,
Stick to your guns. People choose to act one way or another. Again, it’s free will. There are many reasonings people use to excuse their behavior; money, social status, wife and kids. Some call them “incentives”. Frequently they evolve into “motives”.
The person who doesn’t have the stuff to stand up, not only to his family and immediate society, but the bosses, and say, “I don’t think it’s right. I won’t do it.” is not the person we want on our team.
The fact that cynical Americans so easily dispatches their fates to corruption should signal something.
A man in the 1700′s didn’t say, “Give me Liberty….or the next best value..”
No offense to Deca. I appreciate the comments, but he is indicative of a group of folks ready to blame the greedy, capitalist system for all the ills of society. We are talking about Michael Vick who did something stupid.
The hosts at ESPN or ABC sports did not force Vick to kill dogs, Barry Bonds to juice up, or half the Cincinnati Bengals football team to get arrested (ok – not actually half). These idiots made decisions of their own accord just like 80 – 90% of athletes made a decision NOT to do something stupid and endanger their careers.
I’m not going to get into a back-and-forth with conspiracists who blame pop culture or the entertainment industry for all of the dumb things that people do. It’s like an old Monty Python skit about a young man who has killed someone and is being apprehended at his home by police.
One of the parents asserts, “That’s a fair cop, but society’s to blame.”
One of the arresting cops retorts, “Agreed. We’ll be charging them too.”
Where does it stop?
I’m not going to say that the media or the entertainment industry are blameless. They place many of these athletes in a precarious position where they feel the need to do whatever it takes to be the best – even if it is illegal. But that does not account for athletes who kill dogs, beat their wives or rob a convenience store. Everyone has a choice to make.
Those people maybe reacting to the pressures of fame, but they are reacting poorly in a manner that has nothing to do with advancing their careers. And society is NOT the main culprit here. It’s the idiots themselves.