I abhor ultimate fighting, or whatever it’s called, but I can tolerate it just a trifle more now that I’ve seen dogs fight.
CNN showed dogs fighting so that, as NFL quarterback Michael Vick awaits his jail sentence for participating in this nonsense, us viewers could get a sense of just how inhumane, heartless and grotesque it is.
Ultimate fighting, in my view, is barbaric and I think it should be banned simply because the objective is to beat one’s opponent senseless or to death. At least, however, the participants are human beings who, presumably, know they’re taking crazy risks under the guise of sport.
But dog fighting, folks, is no sport. It’s pure evil. Dogs do what their trainers order them to do and, in this case, that means scratching, clawing, biting and eating their fellow dogs.
Still, a shockingly large number support Vick and deride his deriders.
I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard callers defending Vick on radio. But then, when I checked my e-mail, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was inundated with messages attacking me for what I wrote about Vick on Wednesday.
“I don’t agree with you calling Vick ‘scum of the earth’ and ‘sicko’ and ‘heartless criminal,’” said an e-mail with the name Colin Pryce attached to it. “If you have done your research you would know, in the south (dogfighting) is common practice. I am not condoning what Vick did. I personally am not an animal-rights person and grew up in the Caribbean where animals are just that — animals. They do not come in the house … I don’t know who made you judge, jury and executioner, but you are not, and he will play again, and I hope someone gives him another chance…”
And this e-mail with the name Kelechi Chiadi Nwokonta attached to it: “I am yet to read one sports columnist/broadcaster that has even a little good thing to say about Vick, let alone have human empathy for him … There are people shooting squirrels, hunting all sorts of animals and birds and they are not scorn of the earth. Only Vick is today. I guess the only explanation I have for all this outcry is this society is fueled by a hateful media…”
I cannot explain this to my children.
Must we adore athletes no matter what they do? Is the media overblowing this? Does New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury speak for a majority when he suggests dogfighting is a sport and that Vick’s “a good human being”?
Am I wrong to consider Vick a disgraceful idiot?
