What the popularity & infamy of a cage-free Michael Vick says about our America.

Should we forgive Michael Vick?

NFL fans already have: Vick tops NFL jersey sales list.

Update:

Eagles Give Michael Vick ‘Courage’ Award

It’s amazing. Michael Vick’s heinous crimes (involved in hanging, drowning, electrocuting dogs) may still be controversial in half of America—but as far as NFL fans are considered, it just makes him bad-ass. Evidence? Vicks’ Philly jersey, above is selling top two in the NFL, along with Brett Favre.

(With thanks for the tip to Mr. Graham Markel)

Photo below via The Onion:

I love how self-righteous we Americans are when it comes to our pampered, billion-dollar-industry-many-times-over pets. But when it comes to other animals, it’s out of sight, out of mind.

In a society that murders, and tortures, millions of animals a year and doesn’t even really notice it’s doing so, Michael Vick’s crimes—

including betting on fight to the death matches, electrocuting, hanging and drowning dogs

—while dramatic and wrong, clearly, still pale in comparison to the crimes of any one of us—you or I—who eat meat that’s more than one or two steps removed from our plates.

Why? Our massive industrial agriculture system is an annual animal holocaust. We grind up alive chicks, simply because they’re useless to our bottomlines. We dip still-alive yet skinned pigs in boiling vats of water. Just go to PETA, and you’ll get an idea of the long list of atrocious crimes.

If we ain’t eating truly free-range meat, you and I are responsible for playing demand to the world’s supply—an animal crime, by an order of 1000,000,000, in America—that makes Vick’s look small, if dramatic and wrong still, by comparison.

What we can do, to start, is avoid eating any meat that isn’t free-range, and hopefully local. If you are inspired to go vegetarian or vegan, great—but the main thing to do is to be mindful of what you eat and where it comes from. It’s our karma, our responsibility—and it’s more fun being alive when we’re not living at the expense of others.

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For more: read Mister Hipsterrunoff himself’s commentary here.

Via Huffington Post (where the following post has 2,500 comments)…

These chicks, which a narrator says are males, are then shown being dropped alive into a grinding machine.

In other parts of the video, a chick is shown dying on the factory floor amid a heap of egg shells after falling through a sorting machine. Another chick, also still alive, is seen lying on the floor after getting scalded by a wash cycle, according to the video narrator.

Hy-Line said the video “appears to show an inappropriate action and violation of our animal welfare policies,” referring to chicks on the factory floor.

But the company also noted that “instantaneous euthanasia” – a reference to killing of male chicks by the grinder – is a standard practice supported by the animal veterinary and scientific community.