Made me CRY!!!! Michael Vick - Country Boy (oh come on....)

QueenOfCalifornia

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Fri Jul-20-07 01:06 AM
Original message

Made me CRY!!!! Michael Vick - Country Boy (oh come on....)

Edited on Fri Jul-20-07 01:30 AM by Gilligan

You Can Take the Boy Out of the Country .... or somthin' like that.
by Pamela Kraemer, July 18, 2007

It's part of our culture as country boys to throw dogs into a pit and watch them shred each other to pieces, fighting to the death, while wagering ginormous sums of money on the outcome ... This was Atlanta Falcon's quarterback, Michael Vick's explanation for having 66 dogs on his property along with a dogfighting pit and voluminous piles of equipment used in the blood-sport on his property in Virginia. Okay, I'm paraphrasing but that really was his explanation. In this case, the sums of money, wagered by Michael Vick on his dogs while fighting, is estimated to be $30,000 to $50,000 per fight. Okay, so if you believe that it's part of country culture, then you may also want to take the anti-abortion-evangelical-christian, Reverend, Neal Horsley's statements regarding having sex with farm animals as the gospel truth for growing up in the country, Horsley claimed that if you grew up on a farm in Georgia then your first girlfriend was a mule. Come on Country Folk, doesn't this just rankle you a bit? (Hey, I got to use the word "rankle") The subterfuge surrounding the weak explanation for pitting dogs against each other, so grown men can get some sadistic charge out of watching animals tear each other to pieces, is an obvious smoke screen for guys who have borderline personalities and lack a conscience. Why are the people involved in dogfights trying to explain their behavior as part of growing up in the country? If it's a culture-thing then where is the pride? I've never seen the dogfighting people marching in the St Patrick's Day Parade with a big float being represented by Princess-Pit-Bull and her court. Where I come from, we have chile cook-offs and invite friends over for a few adult libations and a steak, we don't breed animals so we can get our rocks off watching them rip each others appendages off. We reserve that for Mike Tyson pay-per-view fights.

Country people should be up in arms, grabbing their pitchforks and storming the court house to defend their wholesome country ways. After looking into the ugly story and the reality of dogfighting I found that this practice is widespread and worldwide, reaching all parts of the globe. It's a big deal in Asia and Eastern Europe. Banned in the UK, fighting rings still thrives there underground. Dogfights take place in Latin America and the Philippines. It happens in Australia and Spain. Here in America, I picture wide-eyed white guys standing next to wide eyed black guys, both with a trace of drool they keep wiping with their sleeve, holding a wad of cash in one hand and a bottle of Coors in the other while screaming and pounding their cash filled hand down on a blood stained table, cheering for their favorite dog to kill the other dog. I picture them dressed in bubba overalls and work boots. I imagine the dirt filled lot next door filled with Ford Super Duty F-350's punctuated by the occasional Hummer along with the scent of oil and gasoline. A dark, little, latino man gives a knowing wink to some of the regulars as they saunter and stumble into the pit area and place their bets and grab a brew. By the way, since when do country folk have thousands of dollars to throw around at any sporting event, much less a dog fight in some Virginia back yard? I think someone is trying to pull the proverbial wool over my grey-blue eyes. The country people I know work hard for a living and the most they spend going out, is an annual outing to the County Fair and maybe a family day at the ballpark to watch the home team maybe win. Okay, so I don't know "lots and lots" of country people but I have some Dolly Parton on my iPod, that counts doesn't it?

Not only did the feds find the 66 dogs and fighting paraphernalia at Vick's house they uncovered an extensive gambling operation and informants told tales of how Vick and others killed dogs who were not performing up to par. The methods of euthanasia varied from slamming the dog against the ground, hanging them and wetting down the dog and then electrocuting it. This was all done without benefit of a trial there was not a jury of 12 like-minded dogs- these dogs were just executed for not being mean enough to kill their own kind. If the cigar smoking dogs in those paintings had anything to say about it then the outcome would have been a lot different. Those damned woodsy folk sure know how to spend a day in the country. Out of the 66 dogs, 55 were pit bulls. They were starved prior to fights and chained to car axles in a yard unable to reach each other, a typical method insuring that the dogs would not become socialized and grew particularly aggressive. Sounds like a real love-fest.

Doesn't the NFL pay these guys enough to keep them from resorting to killing animals for the fun of killing? Michael Vick's multimillion dollar salary should have covered all kinds of outrageous activities so why the dogfighting? Couldn't Vick just buy a few hookers and an eight-ball like other sports figures, D.C. Mayors and a few congressmen? Did he have to go off the deep end and further embarrass the state of Georgia? Didn't Georgia have enough to cope with from it's past? The Reverend Neal Horsley and Wayne Williams of the Atlanta Child Murder fame should have been enough to keep Georgia busy for years to come in the scandal department.

Why, if I were a country girl I think I'd have to get spittin' mad. In fact, I think I'll cancel my subscription to Country Living Magazine. I'll never look at a country fried steak the same way again.