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.
whoa, this thread blows me away- just read my February 3, 2010 at 6:01 pm post – I WAS MUCH MORE TOGETHER THAN OTHERS WOULD HAVE ME BELIEVE, and i almost don’t recognize my voice.
very very interesting.
Onejoy,
You’ve always had it together. You take care of yourself. Your downfall came when a spath saw your strength and envied it. She wanted to reduce you to her pathetic state so she targeted your strength, asked you to extend it to her and take care of her, just so that she could suck it all down and flush it down the toilet. Because she never wanted your strength for herself, she prefers the life of a parasite. She just didn’t want you to have it.
She uses the pity ploy because that’s her lure for strong people and it worked on you. Inadvertantly, she has given you more strength, though, because now that you know of her kind, you’ll never fall for that again. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Ana, of course it was laid boiled! And chocolate milk comes from brown cows, and sour milk comes from cows with an attitude! LOL 🙂 Nah, just joshing! But one of my friends who is a science teacher for high school kids was joshing some kids about “duck milk” and some of them believed her!
My x husband was a city boy, and he went to get some milk at a dairy with Holstein cows (black and white) and I asked him if he saw the cows and he said yes, so I told him I could tell the COLOR of the cows by tasting the milk (sometimes you CAN tell the breed of cow and/or what they have been fed) so I pretended to sniff the milk and do like a wine tester does and I said “black and white” and he was DUMB FOUNDED that I could tell the color of the cows. LOL I finally had to tell him I cheated and tell him the truth because he started to brag about his wife being able to tell the color of the cow by tasting the milk! LOL Holstein milk has very little cream in it, plus in this area there are very few dairies that have any other kind of cow, so it was pretty good chance I was right even if I hadn’t seen how little cream was in the fresh milk.
One Joy, it is interesting to go back and read some of our old posts sometimes, to see just how far we have come from where we started out.
I think I am so much more at ease in my own skin now than I was even a year ago….and I think that each day that goes by I learn more about myself, take more pleasure in just life and living, enjoying the small things.
you know sky – i may be safe now. i may actually not fall for that again. but life is full of icky people and some of them are kind of ‘grey area’ and i guess they scare me most…
but the hardcore spaths – probably safe from them.
i’d still really like to whack her.
i keep thinking about finding out when the trial is, and taking a trip…truly.
one – I can not read my old post, it makes me very uncomfortable. But I can say you have changed, worked through some anger, you seem to be in a better place. Me too. But I have never been good at expressing anger, I just stuff it inside. I think my angry outburst ( when the X was here ) was from some deep internal fight for survival. I had never expressed such anger before or after that.
One joy,
they scare you because? do you think you will allow them into your life and they’ll hurt you?
I already know what you mean, I’m only asking the questions to get you to contemplate this.
Kathleen Hawk helped me see that we can use all of our tools together to protect ourselves, we don’t have to use them one at a time. So using your knowledge and your gut instinct together and you have a better early warning system than most people walking around.
Don’t be scared (OneJoy), I’ve got your back! And BTW, where is this trial taking place, may I ask? A road trip would be fun!
One/joy, yes, I told you quite a while back that you had started to sound SANE in your posts…..in pain sometimes, angry sometimes, but SANE. We can experience every emotion from joy, to sadness, anger, rage, pain and still be SANE….but sometimes in the early parts of the betrayal and in semi-denial when we are grappling with the reality of the BETRAYAL we are NOT SANE—I know I was crazeee as a sheet house rat, I couldn’t think straight and I was going through emotions like”sheet through a tin horn” and so were you, but now you may be frustrated, or sad, or mad, or discouraged, but you are SANE about it….you can work through it, do something about it.
Same with Hens, we have all three of us CHANGED in the time we have been here, we have worked through the insanity, the denial, the crazees and come out the other side where we can cope with life, even things that frustrate us, or cause us problems we can deal with LOGICALLY, RATIONALLY, AND SANELY.
We still make mistakes, and make some poor choices sometimes, like me sending D’s friend over to egg donor’s to get the portrait of my late husband—it was a trap for information and it caught my “emotional toe” and I hope I learned from it not to do ANYTHING but business in correspondence with her.
But when I do something that is a mistake or a bad choice, I don’t HAVE A MAJOR MELT DOWN any more over it. I handle it in a mini-melt down, but not a soul wrenching, gut pulling, disemboweling lying on the floor in the fetal position sucking my thumb…..melt down.
I’m stronger now, and more resilient and so are you One Joy, and so is Hens. There are others here too that I have seen great growth in since they came here….I’m, not going to name them all because sure as heck I’d leave someone out and hurt someone’s feelings and I don’t want to do that….but many of our regular posters here have GROWN and I’ve seen that growth and I do a happy dance when I see someone getting it and starting to become sane again after the insanity of the abuse and the gaslighting and the lies and more lies.
You guys don’t know just how much pleasure it gives me to see you not only healing but reaching out to others to help them heal as well. Those of us that have been around on a regular basis for several years, for me going on I guess 4 now and Hens not much less than that, we’ve seen a lot of people come and go and some are still here. We’re at a point now that we are I hope not only helping ourselves more but “training the trainers” who will in turn train others how to survive psychopaths, so that it spreads to our friends, business associates, neighbors, children, family, and educates others who will in turn educate still more.
So maybe some day the “15% club” can become the “85% club” instead.((((((group hug))))))) I love you guys., but gottta go to beddie by! Nite
hens,
i understand about not being able to read your old post.
i was quite surprised by my old posts mentioned – i truly don’t remember writing those two.
stuffing anger is dangerous. i still do it. for as much as i express, i also stuff. that’s part of what overeating is about. stuffing it down.
the deep internal fight for survival – you put this so eloquently – it will make us rise up and care for ourselves. can we make ourselves rise up and defend ourselves before things get that far? can you? it is the challenge.
sky – in Illinois. i don’t know when.
((((((So down with the group hug!))))))))