Tom’s Big Picture

I think people’s pets can tell you a bit about them. I, for example, am a cat person. I find dogs to be way too needy. I like an animal with its own mind and that is pleasing to look at.

So what does Michael Vick’s choice in pets (and treatment of his pets) reveal anthropologically about Vick and Vick’s culture?

Later, authorities seized from the property 60 dogs — most of them pit bulls — along with treadmills, a stick used to pry fighting animals apart, and a “rape stand” device used to hold down aggressive females for breeding.

Perhaps his previous legal experiences foreshadow this revelation:

This is not Vick’s first encounter with negative publicity. He settled a lawsuit last year filed by a woman who said he knowingly gave her herpes. Also, last November he made an obscene gesture to Falcons fans as he walked off the field after a 31-13 loss to the New Orleans Saints. He later apologized. And in January, Vick was stopped by security screeners at the Miami airport after he boarded an AirTran flight carrying a water bottle that had a hidden compartment containing a dark substance that smelled like marijuana. He told screeners he used the bottle to store jewelry.

Reaction to the incident provides its own share of dark humor (no pun intended!):

“The only thing close to this was the John Rocker story,” said program director Matt Edgar, referring to the former pitcher for the Atlanta Braves whose racist comments in December 1999 made national news. “But this is on another level. It’s crazy.”

I’m glad that John Rocker can be retired now as the bad-PR poster boy, eight years after merely stating publicly what most normal people (esp. Georgians, who are probably less likely to fool themselves with PC propaganda to paper over observed data) feel privately about riding the subway in NYC (he forgot to mention the omnipresent smell of urine which encapsulates the subway and a 200 foot perimeter of all above-ground subway entrances!):

“It’s the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark, looking like you’re riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It’s depressing.”

For that, Rocker immediately got suspended from 14 games. Vick’s punishment at this juncture?

The league said in a statement that “all concerned should allow the legal process to determine the facts.” In a separate statement, the Falcons said they “plan to do the right thing for our club as the legal process plays out.”

Can’t jump to conclusions and suspend someone over something minor, after all…I mean, it’s just torturing dogs, not publicly expressed crimethink like Rocker.

I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding, with some racist prosecutor looking to take down promising young athletes. Kind of like the Duke Lacrosse case.