Why won't this story die? You know, like the dogs?

I'm posting about Michael Vick again. Kick me in the nuts the next time you see me. But apparently, it's all anybody wants to talk about. Every Vick post on this blog has a bunch of pissed-off comments. ESPN has a different Vick-related story top dead center every day. Right now, it focuses on the future of the dogs in question. (And the front page headline steals one of my story titles, goddamnit.)

Since apparently suggesting this in my last post irked so many people, let me just say it: nobody involved in the Vick case cares about the dogs. Not Vick (obviously), not the prosecutors (who care about their careers), not the media (big story), not even PETA and all the "dog lovers" who are up in arms (it's an excuse for self-righteousness).

And you know what? I don't. I don't fucking care about the dogs. There, I said it. I don't care. I don't want to hear about it anymore. Those dogs are going to be euthanized, and I don't care. Eights others were killed by Vick and/or his codefendants, and really, when it comes down to it, I don't care. He's pleading out, and he'll get sentenced, and that's all I need to know. I don't need all this goddamned hypocritical outrage.

(This is really beside the point, but to tell the truth, I think those pit bulls ought to be euthanized. They're never going to make suitable pets. I don't think pit bulls in general should be pets, either, but I deleted a long aside that used to be here because that issue's not really relevant and I don't want to get off track here.)

But whatever. Like I said, the pit bull thing is beside the point. If you're outraged by the Vick situation, or if you're outraged that I would say that I don't care about the dogs, you might be saying right now, animals were killed in gruesome fashion! I care about animals!

Bullshit. You care about dogs. And you care about dogs for two reasons: because they're cute, and because they make you feel important. It's not just the cuteness -- horses are far better-looking and more majestic than dogs, but they don't come when you call them or fetch a tennis ball, so far fewer Americans love or own them. A horse loses its utility -- breaks a leg, say -- and you kill it or sell it to a slaughterhouse, and nobody says a thing. Trust me, I've seen it happen. You kill Fido because he loses his sense of smell, and you're inhuman.

Or maybe you want to try the brain-size argument. Dogs are smarter than cows, so their pain is worse, and their lives are more important. First of all, that's asinine, because you have no way of knowing what the pain of any animal is like, and you have no authority to place importance on it. Second, even if you did, dolphins are a whole lot smarter than dogs, and most of you dog lovers don't give a rat's ass where your tuna fish comes from. So save it.

The food thing is where people often get pissed off at me (I'm thinking of a person, and his name rhmes with Lyan), because I think you can't honestly wring your hands over Michael Vick's pit bulls unless you're Vegan. "Oh, oh, but you're not Vegan, Pepe, you hypocrite!" Well, I'm not pretending to care about the dogs! I eat a steak, I realize the cow suffered and died ... OK, now this sounds too much like Mass, but you get the idea. I know the chicken didn't want to die to feed me. And I'm OK with that. I don't get outraged about the chicken, I don't get outraged about the dogs. I don't think either one is morally correcter.

"But the dogs suffered! Cows don't suffer!" First of all, yes they do. I'm not going to link you to the videos because I don't want to hear how shrill I'm being. But you can find them. Just because you want to think all the cows and chickens and turkeys and pigs you eat die instantly from a shot to the head and go to livestock heaven doesn't mean it's true.

It's been mentioned here on the blog that beating a dog to death is sadistic, whereas eating meat is not. What a load of shit. So it's really so morally superior to eat the flesh of an animal that somebody else killed by stunning it with a bolt gun applied to its forehead, or by electrocuting it (fitting, considering so much of the Vick uproar regarded the electrocution), then slitting its throat while it was still alive and hanging it up to bleed to death? Why is that better? Because it's feeding you? I've got news for you -- the cow doesn't feel better because it's serving your purpose. And your purpose of enjoying a dead animal's flesh is no nobler than Michael Vick's purpose in killing dogs that were no longer useful to him.

(And by the way, we don't know that he did it sadistically, as some have so hyperbolically stated. We don't know that he enjoyed doing it, or that he tortured them. His plea agreement admits to killing dogs, and the indictment said that eight dogs were killed, using various methods, by a group of three people. This whole hyperbolic notion of him slamming a dog against the floor and laughing has no basis in fact at this point in time. Read the documents. Yeah, maybe shooting them would be more humane, but shooting cows and horses would be more humane, too! Oh, but now I'm defending Michael Vick, because if you don't act outraged and exaggerate what's actually known, that means you must be defending his actions. That's right, I love dogfighting! Sort of like I'm a traitor because I've never supported the Iraq war.)

Would I want Michael Vick to dogsit for me? No! But neither would I want my local slaughterhouse worker to do it! And I know this concept is just absolute anathema to America, but just because you make somebody else do your dirty work doesn't absolve you!

But here's the last and biggest reason I don't care about Michael Vick killing dogs, and I don't want to hear anything more about it, not another word, not another raised indignant voice. Leonard Little killed a 47-year-old wife and mother while driving drunk, did 90 days in a work house, got another DUI years later, and still plays in the NFL. And you've probably never been this outraged about that. Rae Carruth played in the NFL and had his wife murdered. It was in the news, but the outrage was nothing compared to the Vick response. Dwayne Goodrich, a former Cowboy, was speeding in his BMW and mowed down three men who were trying to free a person from a burning car. Two of them died. Very little outrage. Giants DE Jeremiah Parker and his girlfriend beat her 4-year-old son to death, and you've probably never heard of him. The list goes on: 46 domestic violence arrests for NFL players since 2000. NFL players hurting people, killing people. Not dogs -- humans.

And there's been scant national outrage over that. So please, everyone, shut up about the fucking dogs.