from the awesome TMQ: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrookpreview/070828

The disgusting thing about dogfighting isn't that animals battle and
die -- after all, animals fight to the death in nature, tearing each
other's flesh with heartless violence. The disgusting thing about
dogfighting is that supposedly intelligent members of Homo sapiens add
sadism to the natural equation by starving dogs to make them extra
aggressive, filing their incisors to make the fights bloodier, and
engaging in other acts unbecoming any man or woman of ethics. What
Michael Vick confessed to Monday ought to disgust you, regardless of
whether you are a dog lover. Include me. The Official Dog of TMQ -- a
Chesapeake retriever, noble state dog of Maryland -- slumbers happily
near my feet as I write this.

But the punishment expected to be imposed on Vick -- one to two years
in federal prison, and perhaps never playing in the NFL again -- seems
out of proportion to his actions and his status as a first-time
offender. The situation is confusing because the federal crimes to
which Vick pleaded guilty turn as much on gambling and racketeering as
dogfighting; gambling and racketeering concern federal prosecutors
because of their relationship to organized crime. Racketeering can
lead to jail terms even for nonviolent first-time offenders not
involved with drug sales, such as Vick. The NFL, for its part, has
very strong reasons to detest gambling, and elaborately warns players
they will be harshly penalized for associating with gamblers. Yet I
can't help feeling there is overkill in the social, media and legal
reactions to Vick, and that the overkill originates in hypocrisy about
animals.

Thousands of animals are mistreated or killed in the United States
every day without the killers so much as being criticized, let alone
imprisoned. Ranchers and farmers kill stock animals or horses that are
sick or injured. Some ranchers kill stock animals as gently as
possible, others callously; in either case, prosecution is nearly
unheard of. As Derek Jackson pointed out last week in the Boston
Globe, greyhound tracks routinely race dogs to exhaustion and injury,
then kill the losers, or simply eliminate less-strong pups: "184,604
greyhound puppies judged to be inferior for racing" were killed,
legally, in the past 20 years.

Hunters shoot animals for sport. They do so lawfully, while the manner
in which Vick harmed his dogs was unlawful. But from the perspective
of the animal, there seems little difference between a hunter with a
state game license zipped in his vest pocket shooting a deer as part
of something the hunter views as really fun sport, and Vick shooting a
dog as part of something Vick views as really fun sport. In both
cases, animals suffer for human entertainment. The animal-ethics
distinction between Vick's actions and lawful game hunting are murky
at best. A first-time offender should go to prison over a murky
distinction?

Much more troubling is that the overwhelming majority of Americans who
eat meat and poultry -- I'm enthusiastically among them -- are
complicit in the systematic cruel treatment of huge numbers of
animals. Snickering about this, or saying you're tired of hearing
about it, doesn't make it go away. Most animals used for meat
experience miserable lives under cruel conditions, including
confinement for extended periods in pits of excrement. (Michael
Pollan, who enthusiastically consumes meat and fowl, describes the
mistreatment in his important new book The Omnivore's Dilemma.) Meat
animals don't magically stop living when it's time to become a
product; they suffer as they die. One of Vick's dogs was shot, another
electrocuted. Gunshots and electrocution are federally approved
methods of livestock slaughter, sanctioned by the Department of
Agriculture for the killing of cows and pigs. Regulations under the
Humane Slaughter Act of 1958 give federal sanction to shooting cows or
pigs, or running electrical current through their bodies. Shooting and
electrocution are viewed by federal law as humane ways to kill animals
that will be consumed. Federal rules also allow slaughterhouses to hit
cows in the head with a fast-moving piston that stuns them into
semiconsciousness before they are sliced up. Being hit in the head
with a powerful piston -- does that sound a bit painful, a bit cruel?
It's done to tens of thousands of steers per year, lawfully.

Don't say "eew, gross" about how meat animals are butchered, then
return to denouncing Vick. If you're eating a cheeseburger or BLT or
steak or pot roast today, there's a good chance you are dining on an
animal that was shot or electrocuted. You are complicit. You freely
bought the meat, you did not demand Congress strengthen the Humane
Slaughter Act. Livestock can be calmed and drugged before being slain.
A few slaughterhouses do this, but most don't because it raises costs,
and you, the consumer, demand the lowest possible price for your meal.
Now about your turkey sub or coq au vin. Federal slaughter regulations
apply mainly to large animals, leaving considerable freedom in the
killing of fowl. Many poultry slaughterhouses kill chickens by
slashing their throats rather than snapping their necks. Snapping the
neck kills the bird quickly, ending suffering, but then the heart dies
quickly, too. Slashing the throat causes the bird to live in agony for
several minutes, heart still beating and pumping blood out of the
slash -- and consumers prefer bloodless chicken meat.

Further, the Humane Slaughter Act exempts kosher and halal slaughter.
In both traditions, the cow or lamb must be conscious when killed by
having its carotid artery, or esophagus and trachea, slashed. The
animal bleeds to death, convulsing in agony, as its heart pumps blood,
which is viewed as unclean, out of the slashed openings. The delicious
pastrami we consumed at a kosher deli, or the wonderfully good beef we
could buy at a halal butcher, comes from an animal that suffered as it
died.

Yes, Vick broke the law; yes, he arrogantly lied and refused to
apologize when first caught; and yes, his actions before and after the
dog killings indicate he is one stupid, stupid man. But Vick's
lawbreaking was relatively minor compared to animal mistreatment that
happens continuously, within the law, at nearly all levels of the meat
production industry, and with which all but vegetarians are complicit.
There is some kind of mass neurosis at work in the rush to denounce
Vick, wag fingers and say he deserved even worse. Society wants to
scapegoat Vick to avoid contemplating its own routine, systematic
killing of animals. We couldn't all become vegetarians tomorrow: that
is not practical. But American society is not even attempting to make
the handling of meat animals less brutal, let alone working to
transition away from a food-production order in which huge numbers of
animals are systematically mistreated, then killed in ways that
inflict terror and pain. We won't lift a finger to change the way
animals die for us. But we will demand Michael Vick serve prison time
to atone for our sins.

Legal note: Vick might be compelled to repay the Falcons a huge amount
of bonus money, and will lose $25 million or more in endorsement
income. I have no sympathy for his loss of endorsement income: Vick
was hired to bring Nike and other companies he endorsed good
publicity, and instead brought them bad. But think about the income
loss in the calculation of overpunishment of Vick. One or two years in
federal prison, and perhaps state prison time if state charges are
filed as well; plus $25 million in lost endorsement income and, oh,
$50 million in lost or returned NFL income. That's overkill! Often the
indirect financial consequences of legal proceedings are worse than
the official ones, in the same way that a speeding ticket might cost
you $75 but add $1,000 to your annual insurance bill.

In effect, the federal indictment of Vick is resulting in him being
fined around $75 million, which is far too much retribution. The legal
hang-up is that since 1984, federal courts have been forbidden to
consider monetary loss in private life as counting toward punishment.
But a year of banishment from the NFL, a guilty plea with suspended
sentence and probation (meaning the sentence is imposed if probation
is violated), seems plenty of punishment for a first offense by
someone who has not harmed another human being. Prison time and a $75
million fine? What Vick did was indecent, but now excessive punishment
is being imposed, and two wrongs do not equal one right. Justice,
after all, must be tempered with mercy. That's what you would think if
you stood in the dock accused.

Hypocrisy note: Look who's advertising on a Web page extolling the
cruel crossbow killing of animals for sport -- the NFL. Oh, that
Michael Vick, he's evil, he's bad. But buy NFL Shop items to wear when
you shoot deer with arrows so they slowly bleed to death!

Falcons note: I know Atlanta fans are desperate for non-Vick news. OK
-- Atlanta had 11 draft choices, so Bobby Petrino practically starts
off with a recruiting class.

--rafiki

Thank you drive through.

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