I spent one of my boyhood summers on a farm where chickens were raised for their eggs.
But I will never forget how, one day, the farmer decided that one of his chickens would make a perfect dinner.
He chased a chicken down, grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and after about 30 seconds of loud death cries from the poor bird... There was no more life.
Michael Vick had not yet been born, but now, decades later, I thought of that crazy farmer when I read of the misdeeds Vick is going to cop to.
Apparently now-former NFL star Michael Vick is going to serve time on that dogfighting rap. You know, forceably killing pit bulls that he and his friends decided weren't mean enough to excel at that disgusting non-sport.
Vick's accomplices said the dogs were dispatched by means that could only be described as highly barbaric. Shooting, electrocution, even repeatedly hurling one dog to the ground until it breathed no more.
But as a society, we should not be so quick to condemn Vick and his friends without looking in the mirror.
Not being a vegetarian, I'd like to shine the mirror not on our eating habits, but the way so many of us hunt and select live beings for slaughter. To me, there is a profound difference.
This very weekend, numerous "game ranches" will host high net-worth, highly ammo'ed "hunters" who will track jungle cats and other exotic creatures down, and kill them for sport.
These assassins of creation's creatures are at least as bad as Michael Vick and his bunch.
Probably as I type this, greyhounds whose "entertainment" racing days are behind them and have not been adopted will be given a "mercy" killing. No, they won't be flailed to the ground until their skulls are crushed, but the "mercy" killings will leave them just as dead as the canines in Vick's "kennels."
Come to think of it, what about the animal shelter who cannot place the stray dogs in their custody? Is the gas chamber or fatal injection any more "humane" than what Michael Vick and his posse are accused of doing?
This weekend, much of our recreational countryside will be killing fields for deer and airborne game dispatched by hunters with telescopic sights. As these creatures experience a nanosecond of pain while their life ebbs away, they may just feel a type of fear and dread similar to the dogs that Vick and his companions are believed to have killed.
Or what about you and me? Maybe we're going to the seafood restaurant this weekend. So which lobster shall it be that is lifted out of the tank, suffocated from lack of water, and then placed on our plate?
For the "entertainment" of our palate?