The Reluctant Whore

After Michael Vick stood up and gave a 4 minute speech where he apologized for being an animal murderer and directly addressed kids who might emulate him (he told them they shouldn’t emulate him) he left his speech notes behind on the podium, someone found them and now they are being auctioned off to raise money for the Humane Society. That sounds essentially grounded in good. Yes.
The image of it is startlingly bleak in its matter of fact damage control type bluntness though. I mean, it could almost go on to say things like “don’t smile”, “buy milk”, “buy razor blades”, “start carving out pocket in cheek in which to keep said razor blade prior to incarceration”, “call therapist”. Surprisingly enough, there was no mention of the part Jesus played in his realization and there was no room set aside to tally up how many times he was to have mentioned some kind of Anglo-Christian God during the speech (in some circles, if you get to ten it means you’ve done enough penance to ensure a place in heaven, at least for the next week or so).
Even though it’s totally lame and pathetic that idiot Catholics will race to the other side of the world to look at a piece of grilled cheese that might have a burn on it that looks like the Virgin Mary, it’s sort of understandable that they would do that. After all, they’re flocking to a symbol that saves them from apparent eternal damnation.
With this note containing scribbles that rank the importance of certain statements in an attempt to minimize further damage to his already obliterated marketability, the only thing you’re really buying here is confirmation that culture is heavily legislated and controlled by corporate execs, lawyers and publicists and that – even after Vick had been raked through the coals and fired, the fact that the dogs he killed may have suffered as they were forced to attack each other for his friends’ entertainment, was only really an afterthought. The fact that the dogs actually suffered was the last sub-point on the list.
Plus, what the hell would you do with a letter like that? Put it on your wall and proudly point it out to guests and the odd camera crew from Oprah when they come through? Actually, there are totally people who would do that in the US, what the hell am I acting so surprised for? [source]


UPDATE: Whoopi Goldberg has stated on The View that Michael Vick's upbringing probably involved dog fighting and as such, it's not entirely surprising that he'd be involved in dog fighting. As would be expected, this is immediately being interpreted as an endorsement of his behaviour. [source]