Friday, July 20, 2007

I don't know why I read this article, and now I'm offended.

Still, the fact is, there is no way for Vick to win here. Even if he wins in court, the damage will be severe. A bar fight, a substance abuse problem, all of that can be dealt with. But in the public's mind, dogfighting is somewhere between wife-beating and the ultimate sin, point-shaving.


I came upon this by accident, read it by freak coincidence, and had to pause before I fully grasped what the author was saying. Perhaps the author Mark Kriegel's idea of the public's mind is actually his readership, and perhaps he assumes that the readers of a sports column indeed think fixing a game is more sinful then spousal abuse. I take objection to that opinion. To add to that that he firmly puts animal abuse as more less sinful then point-shaving, but less the spousal abuse.

Am I missing something here? I love my cats, I really do, but I actually happen to love my wife more. In the more general case, yes I value human life over animal life. I find both forms of abuse reprehensible, but the people abuse more so then animal. In both cases on some grand scale of sins, I put physical hurt of a living creature as far worse than any gambling, or game fixing. Cheating, sure its wrong, but its just not in the same freaking league! Perhaps I am just not a good bell weather for the "public's mind" but something inside me says that Mark Kriegel owes women, and dogs a big apology, and that his wife (if there is a woman who suffers him) should probably give him a swift kick in the nuts (I do recognize the hypocrisy of that statement.)

Why so harsh? Well its not like he has actually done these deeds (I hope,) but its the casual degradation and dehumanizing of these crimes that worries me, these shouldn't be bandied about in public discourse as quaint inconveniences. We should firmly plant our feet and say "this is wrong," otherwise we are just implicitly endorsing it, and that should not be acceptable in our society.

Because these things our WRONG!

*edit, puts here can't write a title, what the hell is an artcile?*

2 comments:

Jennith said...

You're not allowed to abuse your wife - she's my shopping buddy now and I'll beat you up if you do. (I'm not really worried that I'll have to go through with the threat.)

Its really a weird choice of words.. perhaps he was drinking and meeting deadlines when he wrote it... or he was trying to be funny (ha.... ha...) or sarcastic... implying the opposite of what he said?

Ah well, back to work for me... you'll have to share pictures when I get back...

Unknown said...

Abusing my wife really wasn't high on the list of things to do.

As for your shopping buddy, if she can bring home value like that every time she is shopping with you, then shop on. Each item she drew from the bag made me question if we could make our next mortgage payment or not.

When the bottom of the bag finally arrived, I was flabbergasted at how little she spent.

As for pictures, they are coming, slowly coming.