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An eagles fan in Peru preparing to eat brutally murdered alpaca, lamb, and guinea pig, as wel as some seriously large papas

MICHAEL VICK & SERIOUS CARNIVOROUS ACTION EVERY SUNDAY

Hey there, sports fans! The above pic shows me in Peru overawed at the prospect of downing alpaca, lamb (spelled "lamp" on the menu), and guinea pig.

Here's a question for ya: how many TONS OF ANIMAL MEAT are consumed every Sunday during football season? 

I can't find that exact answer fast enough. (Let me know if you find it.) But, according to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, "More than 25 billion are killed by the meat industry each year, and they're killed in ways that would horrify any compassionate person." 

At tailgate parties before games, how many murdered, plucked-clean chickens are slapped over fiery grills after having a can of beer rammed up their butts?
 

 
Yet everyone gets all self-righteous about Michael Vick's dog-killing operation?! 

In some cultures (ie, superwealthy athlete subcultures of the southeastern states of America), the practice of gambling most people's annual income on the outcome of a dog fight is common. 

In other cultures (ie, rural areas everywhere), the practice of purchasing rifles and ammo and camo and cruising out into the woods (fathers and sons often do this in American Minimalist Fiction of 1980s) on seek and destroy missions, shooting dead all sorts of innocent animals, is common. In Tolstoy, one of the most vivid, memorable scenes involves hunting pheasants, with dogs. And there's another great scene involving a fox hunt.

Shooting animals with rifles is OK because these animals are "game," not "pets."

Hunters support the NRA, which lobbies against gun laws, understandably. But in urban areas, human beings kill each other with hand guns

In 2006, in Philadelphia -- an urban area in a state so rural that some call the areas west of the city "Pennsytucky" -- 344 of 406 homicides involved firearms. 

(Check out this lovely interactive "Murder Map" from the Philadelphia Inquirer.)

Vick killed dogs and now he's in a city nicknamed "Killadelphia" for its history of inhumane treatment of humans. 

So it seems a little screwed priority-wise to worry so much about a few dead dogs when HUNDREDS OF HUMAN BEINGS (mostly in Vick's 18 to 35 year old African-American demographic) are murdered each year, right?

It is not a sort of cultural condescension (and hypocritical) to continue to judge Vick so harshly after he's served 18 months in prison when millions of football fans PAY GOOD MONEY every Sunday to consume the wings of gazillions of brutally murder chickens? 
 

 
Just because these chicken parts are prepared in the undeniably tasty Buffalo style (don't get me started re: what the American settlers -- most likely relatives of those who enslaved Vick's forefathers -- did to the buffalo: "it is estimated that over 7.5 million buffalo were killed from 1872 to 1874") doesn't make poultry genocide any more just. 

Or any more environmentally sound: PETA in fact keeps a running tally of farm animal excrement produced since 2000. 

Really good stats over at PETA: "Raising animals for food requires more than one third of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the United States." 
 
 

Really, it just strikes me as hypocritical BS that millions of Americans overstuffed with bird and cow and pig (and sometimes ostrich) judge Vick, a man who did the time for his crime re: a handful of unfortunate pups. 

I love dogs, by the way.

Here's a relatively recent picture with the new family pup, Dreyfus (thus named 'cause he looks sort of like a lion and my parents got him around the time of the stock market collapse).

In no way do I want to eat him, though I do occasionally jaw his jugular when we wrestle. I also realize how he immediately became a loved one, an essential part of the family for the next ten years or so. 

Dogs define family eras. And for football-obsessed dudes, so do quarterbacks.

As a lifelong Eagles fan, we look forward to watching a renewed Vick morph from dog killer to supreme wildcat.

And now, after writing this, I wonder whether I'll eat those chicken breasts in the fridge. Probably. Meat is murder, but it's so damn good. 

Maybe one day I'll morph from an idiot carnivore into a self-righteous, environmentally enlightened, morally sound vegetarian . . .

Last time: Werner Herzog: Conquest of the Useless


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