Michael Vick's American Dream

There have been numerous things written about Michael Vick ever since the dog fighting scandal broke. That being said, there are very few that match up to the one published today by Andrew Sharp. To anyone who has looked down upon Vick for his past actions, this article puts everything into an amazing perspective and if you are still down on him and/or the Eagles organization for signing him, hopefully this new perspective will change how you feel and make you finally understand the other side. Here is a very small snippet with a link to the full article at the bottom.

Our understanding of animals is relative.

So that judging dogfighting has nothing to do with how you value the life of a dog. It's about sociology, and understanding that in different places, different animals mean different things. For someone like me, who grew up with two dogs and projected human qualities on them for my entire life, dogfighting is unimaginable. The thought of using them for sport and disposing of them afterward... It produces a physical shiver.

But if I'd grown up in a place where dogfighting was a regular occurrence, I suspect I'd feel that sensitivity would disappear. In the same way I see a cow and have no idea what to do or how to interact, but a midwestern farmer sees a cow and knows to feed it and care for it, so that one day that cow can be sold and brutally slaughtered.

We understand animals differently, and for someone like Vick, dogfighting wasn't foreign and barbaric. It's a disturbing notion, and indeed, the culture of dogfighting indicates a callous, ignorant slice of society. But it's ignorance, not evil. And for all the rhetoric we've heard about Vick's inhumanity and inhumanity of his crimes, it's sort of ass backwards.

Ultimately, demonizing Michael Vick demands a willful disregard for understanding humans. How we behave, and why in some places, that behavior deviates from the accepted norms of a sophisticated society. Dogs aren't meant to be fought, we say.

But in backwater Virginia, clearly, nobody got the memo about respecting animal rights. And a few hundred miles away, on the racetracks in Kentucky, they're still racing horses every weekend, euthanizing the ones that pull up lame. So wait a second: Who sets the standard? Why don't all these angry sportswriters have a problem with the Kentucky Derby?

I'm not advocating dogfighting here, but horse racing's mentioned as an instructive example. If we're going to talk about Vick's crimes, it's a conversation that requires a far more nuanced outlook than most of us are ready to dedicate to this.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF ANDREW SHARP'S ARTICLE!

Ed. Note.: I am hosting the NFL Week 3 live blog on Sunday. I will also be hosting a Mets-Phillies live blog tomorrow night if and only if the Nationals defeat the Braves earlier in the afternoon. Should that happen, then the Phillies will be a win away from clinching their 4th straight NL East pennant.

Does The Simon Gagne Trade Justify Deserting The Flyers?

With the events leading up to the Simon Gagne trade and the actual trade itself, talks have begun about deserting Flyers fandom. Homer is an incompetent moron, yes, but his incompetence is causing people to want to leave Flyers Fandom, desert the team, boycott the team until Homer is fired, etc. As you may remember, such talks revolved around the Eagles when they did not re-sign Dawkins last off-season, when the Eagles signed Michael Vick last pre-season, and as mentioned, Homer has driven some people to that edge with this off-season.

And once again I find myself needing to re-iterate I do not think completely deserting a team over off-season moves is ever justified. That’s not to suggest that some people won’t get away from the sport and the team over time, that happens, but to go from completely supporting the team to no longer supporting the team over 1 move and/or a string of moves in a single off-season is ridiculous for me. When the Eagles signed Vick, James Craven decided to “boycott” the Eagles over it, did not watch a single Eagles game last year, and will not watch one until Vick is off the team. To me, something like that is completely ridiculous. Not every move a team we support makes is going to be a good move, but when the bad ones or the controversial ones come along, that does not mean one should forget about them completely.

Another thing about boycotting and/or deserting the Flyers is that it takes you away from the other players on the team that you love. Now whether or not the Flyers are a better team now than they were in June can be a point of great contention, but this still is a talented team with Pronger, Timonen, Richards, Giroux, Leino, JVR, Lappy, Betts, Briere, Carbomb, etc. Just because Homer backed himself into a corner and traded Gagne to get himself out of it, does not mean you should give a big “fuck you” to the entire organization, which would extend to the above players who at some point or another last year we grew to really love watching.

That being said, I think there is room for 2nd team fandom. I know that not every sports fan believes in this, but personally I always find room for 2nd teams, especially when Philly teams are out of it. That is not to say it can or has to take anything away from one’s Flyers fandom, but supporting an additional team, especially one like Tampa Bay (though the cities have had pretty interesting relationships in sports this past decade) where there aren’t any harsh feelings, isn’t out of bounds. The Hurricanes were my 2nd team in the Eastern Conference for the past decade or so (Brindy FTW!), and now that team is Tampa Bay. It does not take away from my Flyers support, it does not take away from reveling in the Flyers achievements past and present and future, it does not take away the pain of being so close in 2004, but it gives me another team to be happy for when they succeed. And I truly believe this Tampa team will be a force to be reckoned with this coming season.