Michael Vick

[arnie.k]

crustaceans < insects

Craziness! How did you reach the conclusion that crustaceans are further down the pole than insects. And monkeys over puppies? What kind of world are you living in?
.

Yeah, insects HAVE to be lowest because I don't want to eat them. I DO want to eat crustaceans.

you didn't read my post.

[docellis]

crustaceans < insects

Craziness! How did you reach the conclusion that crustaceans are further down the pole than insects. And monkeys over puppies? What kind of world are you living in?
.

Yeah, insects HAVE to be lowest because I don't want to eat them. I DO want to eat crustaceans.

you didn't read my post.

I did so.

[arnie.k]

crustaceans < insects

Craziness! How did you reach the conclusion that crustaceans are further down the pole than insects. And monkeys over puppies? What kind of world are you living in?
.

Yeah, insects HAVE to be lowest because I don't want to eat them. I DO want to eat crustaceans.

you didn't read my post.

I did so.

lower on the scale = more edible. i thought that was clear.

for me:

i too eat crustaceans. and i have eaten insects (crickets are delicious when prepared right).

birds and fish i eat once in a while.

mammals i won't eat.

(these are just my preferences, i am not preaching. don't take it as such).

[docellis]

lower on the scale = more edible. i thought that was clear.
for me:
i too eat crustaceans. and i have eaten insects (crickets are delicious when prepared right).
birds and fish i eat once in a while.
mammals i won't eat.
(these are just my preferences, i am not preaching. don't take it as such).

Oh I must have mis-read it. I just mostly wanted to talk about eating shrimp.

[omaha_red]

lower on the scale = more edible. i thought that was clear.
for me:
i too eat crustaceans. and i have eaten insects (crickets are delicious when prepared right).
birds and fish i eat once in a while.
mammals i won't eat.
(these are just my preferences, i am not preaching. don't take it as such).

Oh I must have mis-read it. I just mostly wanted to talk about eating shrimp.

quote from doc...

Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sautee it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.

[arnie.k]

lower on the scale = more edible. i thought that was clear.
for me:
i too eat crustaceans. and i have eaten insects (crickets are delicious when prepared right).
birds and fish i eat once in a while.
mammals i won't eat.
(these are just my preferences, i am not preaching. don't take it as such).

Oh I must have mis-read it. I just mostly wanted to talk about eating shrimp.

i prefer them prepared japanese tempura style.

hmmm... i know what i'm doing tomorrow for lunch...

[Radbird]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20082273/

'Keepin' it real' has ruined Vick, Pacman
NFL stars, like others, have let black culture be hijacked by thug image
OPINION
By Bryan Burwell
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 3:56 p.m. MT Aug 2, 2007


Bryan Burwell

Before much longer, the Michael Vick saga will probably give us all something to shout about. It’s been barely two weeks since he was indicted on felony dogfighting charges, and in that time the defrocked Atlanta Falcons quarterback has become a symbol for just about everybody and just about everything.

PETA thinks he’s a villain. The NAACP thinks he’s a victim. The NFL and his corporate endorsers think he’s poison. Most of us, though, just think he’s a damned fool. Yet as the carnival unfolds, and the madness mounts, and the sublime slips smoothly into the ridiculous, tell me haven’t we seen this act before?


Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick is escorted by U.S. Marshals
as he leaves a federal courthouse following his arraignment on federal
dogfighting charges.

The actors change, the plot remains the same. Here we are with another high-profile athletic indignity that will surely give us the same queasy feeling as the others. Chart a line through the absurdity of the O.J. trial, slash a path through the Bonfire of the Vanities sensationalism of the Duke lacrosse scandal, then weave it through the Pacman Jones insanity. By the time that line reaches the disturbing case of the United States versus Michael Vick, we can see the familiar ties that bind them all together.

Every last one of them gave us that old fashioned instant offense for anyone with a healthy sense of knee-jerk reactionary in them. Celebrity. Power. Wealth. Class. Culture. Sports. Privilege. Politics. If you substitute “animal cruelty” for “sex,” then the Vick saga is nine-tool extravaganza sure to incite and delight everyone and anyone with Jerry Springer sensibilities.

Before this is over -- in fact before it barely gets started -- there will be those out there more than willing to fan the flames of stupidity, trying to craft this into something it is not. There will be idiots out there who will attempt to diminish the severity of the crime, as if despicable acts of cruelty against dogs are merely some cultural and class-based misunderstanding.

This is not exactly what I would call a smart line of defense. I’ve heard from rednecks and country boys and inner-city underground cultists who swear dog fighting and [expletive] fighting isn’t much different from ultimate fighting, and that anyone with a healthy blood lust would understand. That of course is preposterous. Animals have no free will. Humans do. If a man chooses to engage in a no-holds-barred caged brawl, that’s his business.

But animals have no such options in the fight business.

So before we go much further, I want to stop all the silliness. Michael Vick will have his day in court, he will have every opportunity to prove his innocence or expose his guilt in a court of law. But it does little good for anyone to try to cast him in the role of victim. He’s too wealthy to be a victim in the American justice system. Just like OJ, he has the cash to buy a strong defense.

But there is no obligation by the corporate world to stick with him, even if his toadies and sycophants choose to remain loyal. If Rawlings and Nike, Reebok and Upper Deck have joined the National Football League in putting him and his damaged image at arm’s length, this too is part of the American way. Money can buy you a lot of things in this country, including a damned good defense (which after reading the indictment, he’s really going to need one). But it can’t insulate you from the wrath of an angered public. And right now, everyone in the real world can understand why no one in Corporate America wants to have Michael Vick’s toxic image attached to its products.

The presumption of innocence does not extend to the world of print ads and TV spots. It stops at the courtroom steps, and if he didn’t know it before, Vick surely knows that now.

But here’s something a bit more substantial that we need to be talking about. Let’s talk about how men like Vick keep finding themselves in these sad and disturbing situations in the first place?

We’re about to go into some very deep waters here. I am getting ready to talk a little family business, which means some of you will actually be eavesdropping on a conversation. I don’t expect some of you to understand where I’m coming from. I don’t expect some of you to relate to what I’m saying, even though in many ways this crisis actually cuts across all racial and social barriers.

I want to talk about why too many young black athletes in America keep finding themselves in these messes.

I’m old school enough to remember when we had no shortage of black athletes of true substance and positive images. We had men with social conscience and resolve like Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Muhammad Ali, Curt Flood, Jim Brown, Bill Russell and John Thompson who used to be our heroes. They were athletes and coaches with social consciousness who felt a responsibility to portray themselves with a sense of dignity, pride and purpose.

It wasn’t all about a multimillion-dollar shoe contracts. They had far more significant issues to handle. But somewhere between Jackie Robinson and Michael Vick, too many black athletes have gotten lost. In the words of Malcolm X, things have run amok, and we’ve been led astray.

I’ve written about this before, and so I want to be very precise with my words. For far too many modern black athletes, “keepin’ it real” has become the dangerous anthem that is threatening to destroy all the good that the previous generation of black athletes helped create.

“‘Keepin’ it real’ is one of the most dangerous phrases in our language,” St. Louis Rams Pro Bowl running back Steven Jackson says. “It puts us in situations we have no business being in, then makes it almost impossible to get out of.”

This is the misguided notion that the only way to appeal to the young demographic of the sneaker-buying public is to adopt the negative attitudes of the thug life popularized by black gangster rappers. It is all part of the systematic hijacking of the Black American culture. And the worst part is, too many of us just let it happen. We let it happen by passively condoning this mess. The minute we started embracing the images of Allen Iverson as the edgy iconoclast, but sniffed our noses at a straight arrow like David Robinson as “too soft” and lacking in “street cred,” we helped fuel this mess. We fueled it every time we sanctioned the repeat violations of stupidity by Vick and all the other new athletic minstrels every time they stumbled and we accepted their sorry alibis.

It didn’t happen overnight. It was an insidious virus that spread over the past 20 years and has flowed through every bit of our culture. What has happened is that we let the real African American culture get buried under the darkest element of a hip-hop generation that glorified and perpetuated all the worst racial stereotypes our parents, grandparents and great grandparents took their lifetimes to erase. It’s not the music that did it, okay? It’s the culture that it spawned.

It’s a culture that created a new generation of minstrels who are just as dehumanizing as Amos and Andy or Stepin Fetchit. Now they come glamorizing thug life and prison fashion, legitimizing derogatory racial insults into the mainstream, and convincing an entire generation that the only measure of true blackness is a hard-core gangsta edge, and anyone who rejects this is either hopelessly out of touch or a sad Uncle Tom. So the Pacmans and Michael Vicks just can’t pull away from the street, can’t tear themselves away from so-called friends who have rewarded them for that loyalty by escorting them to a front-row seat in a federal courtroom, then rolling on them to the authorities.

So due process might still be in effect with Michael Vick in the U.S. vs. Michael “Ookie” Vick, but in the court of common sense, he and too many men in his generation are guilty as charged for the crime of living life under the wrong influence.

Bryan Burwell writes regularly for MSNBC.com and is a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

[clement]

Rad, that's a really interesting and well-written article by Burwell. I wonder if you should post it as its own thread for discussion. It's certainly more thoughtful and intelligent than most of the pundits I've seen discussing this issue on Fox and CNN.

I only now have read this thread. First of all, I think it's important that this story has come to the forefront so that people can discuss it and think about it. My concern is that people will just look at Vick and the dog-fighting and torturing issue, label it (and him) as the evil workings of morally sick individuals, and not think about their own complicity in our culture. Peta gets lambasted all the time (including in this forum) because people are uncomfortable with a group that condemns things they might themselves do.

I don't know about magneto, but my point was that in a society that is filled with violence of every sort why does it suprise anyone that people would play upon a dog's natural territorial inclinations as a form of entertainment?

Would I ever enjoy watching dog fighting or condone someone else doing it? No. That's not the sort of thing that interests me. But to sit here and be shocked or apalled by a dog-fighting ring when our race was developed on taking advantage of animals and we have thousands upon thousands of instances where animals are treated inhumanely is just being ignorant.

Exactly. I think Magneto could have (or should have) chosen his words more carefully, rather than making a single-line blanket statement that could easily have been picked apart. G.Keenan was making a similar argument, only less forcefully and less extreme.

But what is the reaction to the points they are being made? Should we be less outraged at what Vick did because of all of the hypocrisy in our sudden concern for these animals? Or should we start to become more outraged at some of the things that we presently tolerate, and even either engage in, or derive benefit from?

You cannot put "humane" characteristics on animals because there not human. We can use our natural sense of compassion and sympathy, which is obviously what people are using in this circumstance, to conclude that something isn't morally right and something we would stay away from. Everyone in this thread has already agreed that dogfighting is wrong and not something a strongly moral person would enjoy.

Agree, but... the term humane being thrown around in regards to this situation is not about animal characteristics, it is specifically about human characteristics. It is about the humane (i.e., humans) treatment of the creatures put on this earth, creatures whose lives are every bit as important and valuable as any humans. (dictionary.com "humane" = characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals.)

But Magneto brings out a strong point in that the butcher industry is just as bad and is even regulated with a lot of leniances that many think are cruel. When Peta protests against KFC because there not taking care of their chickens before there slaughtered people talk about how Peta is taking it overboard, but when people find out a people are using dogs attacking eachother as a means of entertainment they act as if this has never happened before.

This is indeed a good point. Magneto talked about hunting. Is hunting (for sport only) really much more humane than what Vick has done? Especially when considering that one is completely legal and sanctioned and its everyday occurrence doesn't so much as create a blip in anyone's mind, and the other is considered a heinous felony and derives this level of outrageous reaction from society.

(anecdotal edit: I'm reminded of that boy who shot that gargantuan pig a few months ago. How many gunshots did it take to the kill the pig? And not only were his actions not criticized, he was heralded as a hero of sorts, and probably made the rounds on Regis and Larry King type shows)

Michael Vick and his little ring of dogfighters is hardly a shock when it comes to how animals are viewed in American subculture...

I'm just disappointed in everyone else that you're being so unkind to Magneto for pointing out the honest truth of the situation. Just because you choose to put rose colored glasses on and pretend that this sort of animal cruelty doesn't happen throughout the world doesn't mean that the attitudes others have for animals is going to change. As a race we have always had an inclination to taking advantage of those that we can control and have less power than us, and just because we've done a better job of masking this as our society has progressed doesn't mean that the problem has gone away.

Which is why I wish this occurence would get people to think about some of those other instances. There is little doubt that bullfighting in Spain is insanely cruel and inhumane treatment of animals. It's legal, it's applauded, it's held up as a proud cultural iconic activity among Madridians. But it is without a doubt cruel and inhumane.

Foie gras is another example. In the above example, people get entertainment from it. In this one, they get some sort of culinary pleasure. But the making of foie gras involves a cruel and inhumane treatment of animals. Sure, someone can label it as the consequences of us (humans) being at the top of the food chain, but it doesn't make it any less cruel or inhumane.

And then that gets us to the part where we are almost all complicit. That is the worldwide (especially corporate) farming industry. Take a tour of a pig farm, or worse, a chicken farm, and tell me if you think that the treatment of those animals, not in death, but whilst they are alive is cruel and inhumane or not.

And if you think it is, what are you doing, or going to do about it?

And if you think it isn't, I'd sure like to hear your explanation of how it isn't.

[Arthur Dent]

It is about the humane (i.e., humans) treatment of the creatures put on this earth, creatures whose lives are every bit as important and valuable as any humans. (dictionary.com "humane" = characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals.)

See, this is the problem with PETA. I agree that as a society we need to rethink our treatment of animals and that we are uncomfortable talking about the topic because we don't want to think of ourselves as being responsible for immoral treatment of animals, but the right solution to this is going to be a lot more complicated than a belief that all animal lives are as valuable as human lives. Very few people will or should believe that. Do you really have trouble sleeping if you discover you've accidentally crushed an ant? And why stop at animals? Some plants show symptoms that could be interpreted as suffering. There are no simple answers here.

[clement]

It is about the humane (i.e., humans) treatment of the creatures put on this earth, creatures whose lives are every bit as important and valuable as any humans. (dictionary.com "humane" = characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals.)

See, this is the problem with PETA. I agree that as a society we need to rethink our treatment of animals and that we are uncomfortable talking about the topic because we don't want to think of ourselves as being responsible for immoral treatment of animals, but the right solution to this is going to be a lot more complicated than a belief that all animal lives are as valuable as human lives. Very few people will or should believe that. Do you really have trouble sleeping if you discover you've accidentally crushed an ant? And why stop at animals? Some plants show symptoms that could be interpreted as suffering. There are no simple answers here.

I think you're really over-stating what PETA is about. And even if so, what is wrong with the principle that animal lives are as precious and valuable as human ones? It doesn't mean that death doesn't occur, or that you have to anguish over the death of an ant. Nobody is that naive. There needn't be simple answers but I'm just not sure what you would expect an organization dedicated to ethical treatment of animals should do instead. And actually I think there is nothing wrong in having a more inclusive attitude, including plants. Maybe the planet wouldn't have been ravaged so badly if we treated animal AND plant life with more respect.

It seems like PETA has been demonized for so long by conservative groups that people begin to see them as the problem. And you don't have to agree with everything that PETA stands for - I don't - but I'm not sure what problem they have with their approach. That is, unless you are opposed to protest and civil disobedience of any form, which of course I know you aren't but some people are (amazing to think that in America of all places, but alas it's true).

PETA's mission statement from their website:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), with more than 1.6 million members and supporters, is the largest animal rights organization in the world.

PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds and other "pests," and the abuse of backyard dogs.

PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.