Some people are just clueless, and that includes the entire Philadelphia Eagles football team.
It was bad enough that Eagles management signed Michael Vick to the team after he got out of prison for running a dog fighting ring. As I posted on August 24, 2009, in Can Michael Vick change his behavior?, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), sent a letter to the NFL stating that Vick fit the profile of antisocial personality disorder, aka a sociopath.
I mean, the guy rewarded the animals that lost by personally electrocuting, hanging or drowning them—shoving their heads into five-gallon buckets of water.
So now, after sitting on the bench for most of the season, the Eagles players say Vick should win the Ed Block Courage Award. According to the foundation that presents it, “the Ed Block Courage Awards honors those National Football League players who exemplify commitments to the principles of sportsmanship and courage. Recipients are selected by their teammates for team effort, as well as individual performance.”
Many people, including the American Kennel Club, are outraged. On January 22, 2010, the club sent a letter to Jeff Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles. It stated:
On behalf of the American Kennel Club, our 5,000 clubs nationwide, and the millions of responsible dog owners we represent, we are writing to ask you to withdraw Michael Vick as the Philadelphia Eagles’ recipient of the Ed Block Courage Award.
We understand that his teammates selected Mr. Vick for this honor, but in doing so they are demonstrating a lack of understanding about the nature of both animal and child abuse, and are trivializing Mr. Vick’s heinous actions. Michael Vick horrified the world, and especially those of us who devote our lives to promoting the health and welfare of dogs, with his engagement in dog fighting. In addition to the bloody fighting contests, reports indicate that many dogs were electrocuted, drowned or hung for underperformance.
A man who has been convicted of these atrocities should not be held up as a role model of sportsmanship and courage. Further, Ed Block, the award’s namesake, dedicated his life to ending the vicious cycle of pain and despair suffered by children at the hands of their abusers. It is unconscionable that a man who tortured and abused helpless animals be honored by an organization dedicated to ending abuse.
Vick says he deserves it
So what does Michael Vick have to say about winning the award? According to NFL.com:
“I’ve overcome a lot, more than probably one single individual can handle or bear,” Vick said. “You ask certain people to walk through my shoes, they probably couldn’t do. Probably 95 percent of the people in this world because nobody had to endure what I’ve been through, situations I’ve been put in, situations I put myself in and decisions I have made, whether they have been good or bad.
“There’s always consequences behind certain things and repercussions behind them, too. And then you have to wake up every day and face the world, whether they perceive you in the right perspective, it’s a totally different outlook on you. You have to be strong, believe in yourself, be optimistic. That’s what I’ve been able to do. That’s what I display.”
The guys on ESPN’s Mike & Mike in the Morning talk radio show were incredulous. They talked about the men selected by other football teams. One football player been shot 14 times in a drive-by shooting, was paralyzed and lost a leg. Another player created a foundation to support at-risk youths. Another was well-known for his community service.
“Here’s the bottom line: Did Michael Vick exemplify courage?” one of the Mikes asked. “I gotta say the answer is no!”
The video clip is entertaining. See it at Mike and Mike: Vick Courageous?
An online petition against awarding Michael Vick the Ed Block Courage Award is available on Change.org.
Michael Vick on TV
And just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does—Michael Vick has his own reality TV show on BET.
The Michael Vick Project premieres next week, on February 2, 2010. Here’s what BET.com has to say about it:
In this eight-part series, produced by DuBose Entertainment, MV7 Productions and Category 5 Entertainment, cameras will not only capture the NFL star’s return to football after a two-year prison term stemming from his association with a dog fighting ring, but they will also focus on much of his life prior to that turning point. Viewers will be given an unfiltered and personal experience of Vick as he restores his past and starts fresh for the future — not only for himself, but for his family and fiancée, Kijafa.
“It’s our hope that this documentary series will serve as means towards Michael Vick’s search for his personal truth, what led to the choices he made that ultimately changed his life and also, enlighten viewers that every decision you make in life matters. We hope his story will be one in which years from now, people particularly young men, will view and learn valuable lessons from, James DuBose, CEO, Dubose Entertainment. “Mike’s life may be unique, but his story is one that could be told ten times over by young men who find themselves faced with trials and tribulations. His truth has come by way of bad choices. His triumph will come by way of his commitment to change.”
No role model
We all know how charming, charismatic and convincing sociopaths can be. They are experts at impression management. Vick must have put on a heck of a performance, and the Eagles players didn’t realize that it was only a performance.
It seems that Vick has stayed out of trouble for at least the length of the football season. And honestly, we know sociopaths don’t change, so if he’s not hurting other people or animals, it’s about all we can expect of him.
But Michael Vick as a role model? That’s just too much.
I urge ALL of you to sign the petition against the lunatic getting nominated for the award- just click online petition at the top of this blog!!
Courage? ha ha no…Brass neck, cheek, arrogance….the dog killer should get an oscar for his performance at pretending he has changed. Sorry to all the animals out there, it’s a dark day.
hey bulletproof – how goes it?
hey One Step i was responding to your post on January 29th but then it disappeared when i refreshed: here goes again: in response to it Starts at Home (but I can’t find it now)
autisticsouls says:
wow one step. this is intense. i haven’t posted in a bit as i’ve been terribly busy. also some of us and the kids in our group started a website going. took some time to get all into it as we are very waldorfy so not only didn’t the kids learn to read at the same rate as average but they also didn’t have much access to technology for quite some time, took some time to commune with nature in their childhood so we didn’t want to toss them into the technology age until ready. also most are autistic so we are way behind on things.
plus i was reading up on the latest posts and it was way too intense for me to grasp. i feel guilty for coming on with just co-worker issues. my problems are so very small in comparison.
i can’t even begin to imagine what you and some others have gone through or even imagine what kind of childhood that must have been like. to feel something i have to somewhat have to match it to some experience i’ve had. and having nothing that even comes up close to some of the stories posted here leaves me useless to offer anything to folks.
my childhood was very nurturing. my father grew up in israeli kibbutz. so he was literaly raised by an entire village. not much parental abuse could happen when children were in essence ’everyone’s children’.
My parents did lose all their family members in the holocaust but my grandparents were the only ones to survive from their respective families but they didn’t say much while i grew up. pretty quiet and introverted they were. my parents were open optimistic people who always taught me the world was a good place, living was good, people don’t mean to be evil and all of that. which seemed strange being that they both grew up on stories of family members they will never see or meet because they were slaughtered.
i think that was the closest thing i could to try to match things up to. but it falls empty. i never knew those family members so i don’t feel any loss over them. Also the stories told about them were always very vibrant so can they really be dead anyhow?
strange musings. the only difficult thing i’ve had to overcome is my autism. and that isn’t even half as bad as having a childhood stolen. Shit i stayed a child a lot longer than most, by my condition and by how my parents did what they could to shelter me from the uglyiness of the world for as long as they could.
i would agree it must start at home. growing up the way i did in a nurturing supportive environment i couldn’t really have remained with a psychopath. the world is hectic and chaotic enough. so my home life has to be stable and secure. any deviations would not be tolerated. sure my wife can’t tie her shoe laces, loses speech and bites psychopaths if they come too close, and sniffs folks in public but none of that bothers me.
emotional inflicted trauma i would have a very short tolerence of. i don’t care if i have to tie my wife’s shoes for the rest of our lives. i’m loved and valued and supported at home. geez. she even came to this list to find help for me. so i did marry someone who was much like the people who raised me. so alot does start at home i agree.
i think it’s tragic that you didn’t have that. that you didn’t grow up with that. because all people deserve healthy childhoods. and a disrupted childhood seems to follow folks for the rest of their lives.
i am so sorry One Step you know you deserved so much better than what you ended up with. i don’t know what to say. it’s just a complete crime what happens to children. and so little is done about it. i read a book recently called “kadish for a child not born” and it’s about a guy who chose not to have children because he could not bring children into a world where the holocaust happened. he cared so much about protecting his children against the evils of the world he didn’t even have them and mourned never having them. i guess it’s easy to have children when they don’t really care about them. me, i worry about this world too and my childen in it. our children today in this cruel world. how are the psychopaths children faring? it would be too painful to contemplate. their young lives destroyed. how will they ever recover their loss of childhood and innocence?
hey look at our website maybe it will keep your mind off things. the kids have been putting all our resource links there. some that can be useful to you maybe or at least interesting. http://www.autisticdimensions.webs.com
Mike
Are they crazy? Sick?? Without a clue??? Exactly how much “courage”, and I use the term very loosely, does it take to kill a defenseless animal??? I hope the team loses revenue and anything else that matters to them. Pity the owner of the team – they are reprehensible and as such not worthy of anything. Sad, very, sad.
Hi One step!
I am one stepping it at the moment, trying to manage the rage! I still get intrusive flashes of every moment with the P!!
layers of images coming back, the time he said that the time he did this, the hair on the back of my neck still stands on end as I make the links, see the pieces clicking into place..people I thought were evil prior to this, now seem harmless….and people who appear harmless I am suspicious of, usually rightly so…I am so much more attuned to human beings now and how they operate. Beware of the crocodile tears and the sob story, there could be a psychopath at work so I test it out…never taking it at face value again.
Hey thanks for asking!! how are you ? I have missed your posts due to a heavy work schedule, will get around to catching up this evening and sunday
Hi Bulletproof ”“
Rage: my friend, my 2 second lover.
I want to hack the spath into small portions of roasting ribs.
I feel blue flamed anger at any disrespect I experience with new people in my life.
I have walked away from a friend ”“ I cannot deal with the ’look’ right now. I am not going to cope with the lack of caring to listen and have compassion for where I am.
I have had 2 intense energetic experiences of the spath since November ”“ one in which she came to me in her boy form. Rushed toward me, startled me awake, gasping for air. And the other a week ago, when I found out I didn’t get a job I had interviewed for. She came to me in her true form, rising up into my face as I looked down ”“ and I felt TRAPPED.
An devery day, things shift, get knocked loose and move about inside of me, collding with new wisdom and information ”“ and I have, without trying, self arising knowledge about her and the whys ands where ofs of the story and timeline. It’s breaking down, further and further.
Today, I was thinking, about some of the things that she did and I was ruminating and realized that it was her mask slipping. And that’s probably why ’he died’ when he did. She couldn’t keep up the façade. I also found out today that she was running a parallel con at the same time, and that her time of getting hot and heavy with me, probably coincided with the other story’s #1 character dying.
There are lots of bad people out there. I don’t know if I even see them right now ”“ I see the N’s and spaths now. I watch how people make themselves prey (me included). Fuastian knowledge we carry now. And now we have to learn how to deal with these fucks ”“ cut them down at root, before they grow into our lives, and root them out on a societal level. Man, we better rest up!
A Lama I know says: ’everything is a blessing or a purification. Know that with all of the difficulty, you are seeing the back end of the animals leaving the zoo.’ I thought of this when I read you post.
Keep on one stepping!
Best,
One Step
onestep
She is a creative con woman- with more than one character, how confusing. Yes they really do get exhausted keeping the facade up, it must kill them to ACT 24/7
Yes, I have zero tolerance for any bullshit these days and walk away without guilt. I have developed a very direct way of speaking and if the people in my life have a problem with that then go away.
Well the word PURIFICATION strikes a chord!!! I think you are onto something there.
I feel purified!! conned, lied to, betrayed, abused….and yet I’m still here!! All thats left is the real me….every false frill has been ripped off and now I stand here vulnerable but myself….that has to be a good thing
bulletproof,
you said: every false frill has been ripped off and now I stand here vulnerable but myself”.that has to be a good thing .
i think so, too.
I am having a really hard time with enviro toxicity the last few days, and i feel just fucking nuts today – i TRULY thought today was Thursday, which is having some repercussions.
funny the shifts that can happen in a couple of days. I went from the fantasy of chopping the spath into bits, to feeling like i would like to REALLY punch her. many times. i think i have a bit of a desire for her to ‘get it’, to acknowledge the suffering she causes. – i KNOW she can’t, but i sometimes arrive at things a bit backwards (like, i almost always go to acceptance when in grief). ahh, i know what happened, I found out about another of her cons and got to see, yet again, the damage she has done to another one of her dupes. So, I just wanna all out beat the woman, as punishment.
this stuff is very interesting.
best,
one step
Michael Vick on TV….
BET has their reasons for giving him a reality TV series, but here’s what PETA says about it (and I agree):
PETA spokesman Dan Shannon said:
“People who abuse animals don’t deserve to be rewarded. They shouldn’t be given multimillion-dollar contracts . . . or given the privilege of being a role model. We don’t believe Michael Vick understands the seriousness of his crime. I think he’s sorry he got caught, but only time will tell if he’s truly remorseful.”