On Michael Vick and animal cruelty

One of my friends, Roseburg, mentioned to me the hypocrisy inherent in the uproar over Michael Vick. Let's review the facts:

1)Animals are kept in conditions and treated at least as inhumanely, and on an incredibly larger scale, in the meat packing industries as opposed to Vick's dog factory;

2)People are hypocrites as to where they get their meat, versus cruelty towards animals who can be kept as pets;

3)People fucking love the shit out of their dogs;

4)Puppies are cuter than chickens or big fat cows.

I think eating meat is inhumane, and in the near future, when suitable replacements can be synthesized, our era will be looked upon as barbaric in much the same way that we look upon the prior generation's penchant for slavery.

But, and this may be the romantic in me, I think dogs are special. Through the tens of thousands of years of man's existence there has been only one animal who came out of the darkness to sleep by our fires, to share our beds (if we let them), and has unequivocably joined our pack and devoted their lives to us. To harm a dog is, to me, to abuse a symbiotic relationship unique in nature; dogs have given us far more than we have given them, and love and trust us so unconditionally that they will forgive our abusing them.

But while the dogs may forgive, America will not. Mike Vick will soon learn that, if he hasn't already.