By Ken Hackman, U.S. Air Force (http://www.defenseimagery.mil; VIRIN: JCCC92080016) [Public domain

Now, Philadelphia and the Eagles will obliging remain in denial, probably through the rest of the season, about the $100 million Curse of Michael Vick, but a nice long losing season created by their ‘dream team’ might eventually get through to them.  The media might have dubbed the Eagles, the dream team, but they did the Eagles no favors.

Real dream teams (memories of Michael Jordan) do something the Eagles can barely fathom, they win.

Cursed teams blunder and lose.

What do you think the Eagles are doing right now?

Update

USA Today now refers to them as the Broken Scheme Team.

Related posts:

1. The Curse of Michael Vick Starts to Haunt Eagles Season Michael Vick was a relatively talented quarterback, but those talents...
2. Another Week of the $100 million Michael Vick Curse Yes, we still believe in the premise that Michael Vick...
3. Curse of Michael Vick Costs Eagles 4 Players and Andy Reid’s Mind The curse of Michael Vick on the Philadelphia Eagles cost...

Yes, we still believe in the premise that Michael Vick should not be in the NFL, and it is not simply because of the many many crimes he committed breaking Virginia, Federal and possibly other state laws as well (see the story on the murder of his partner in NC).

All that said, Vick should also be out of the NFL based on the way he treated everyone in the NFL.  He’s not only a killer of dogs, he’s a killer of the NFL.  Give the guy $100 million dollars and watch him and the organization he works for start to go down the drain.

So starts another week, where Michael Vick was  unfortunately injured.  We don’t want to see the guy injured nor harmed.  We don’t want to see him in the NFL at all.  That hasn’t really changed.

What has changed is that he has once again been over paid, and is once again under performing.

Can he blame his injuries on his team mates?  (Who cares)

Can he blame them on himself?  (Doesn’t matter)

Would the Eagles, the NFL and the rest of America be better off with him gone from the NFL.  (Yep!)

So there will be irrational people that want to give an NFL player who funneled his earnings into illegal activities on the East Coast a second round of financing.  To you, I hope you get a chance to invest your life savings with Bernie Maddoff when he gets his second chance. You deserve each other.

Related posts:

1. The Curse of Michael Vick Starts to Haunt Eagles Season Michael Vick was a relatively talented quarterback, but those talents...
2. Michael Vick Curse takes Eagles to 1 and 3 The Philadelphia Eagles aka the anti-dream team was hit by...
3. No $100 million Michael Vick Curse to see here, Please Dispurse The Falcons helped the Eagles to see the true value...

Yep, that’s right if Michael Vick has redeemed himself, where is his puppy?  After all we are entitled to second chances.  It’s in the ten commandments and repeated in the US Constitution. 

Any Man Convicted of a Crime that serves out his punishment in full, should be given the opportunity to repeat his crime after his punishment is served as his debt to society is paid and he can only be fully redeemed once he is capable of demonstrating his own command of his person not to repeat his crime.  This should be true in all cases whether they be murder, rape, incest, theft, graft, treason, assassination, adultery, or porcupine buggery.

Sounds like a load of horse shit doesn’t it?  Well it is.  Lately people have been trumping the redemption card, and the second chance is an American Right card like there was no tomorrow.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they also believe that or forefathers believed in Santa Claus too. 

I’m sure they didn’t think Santa Claus wore a red coat.

It almost makes you think that this whole redemption business must be a game. 

People often refer to prison as a ‘system’ or ‘the system’.  You have to work the system, you have to survive the system, don’t let the system eat you up, play the game (and you will survive the system).

I have long commented on the belief that Michael Vick or someone working for or with Michael Vick has been working the PR system very heavily.  If we think about how that might be possible, we can look back over the last few years and see an evolution of events that include a Michael Vick who assured us that he was not guilty, promised us that he would be found innocent, before he promptly plead guilty in a plea bargain.

Was that a guilty person that did not want to admit they were guilty, or did Michael Vick just want to wait for the right time to fess up, put a few months of distance between the images of the dogs found on his property in April and the confession early the next fall?

Then he moves to bankrupt proof Florida, files for bankruptcy, by some accounts withdrew a lot of cash first, and the next thing you know he’s in prison, where he diligently begins to play the redemption game.  Before long he’s out early on good behavior and promises to avoid the bad life.  He works for a month or so doing the type of job that is typical for a parole and then BAM he wins the NFL lottery for the second time in his life and gets pulled back into the life.  He gets a fat (for an ex-con) contract for about $7 million dollars

Guess what, he never gave up any names to the Feds.  No convictions or investigations seemed to have been initiated or brought based on the information that Michael Vick provided as part of his plea agreement.  Good job, keep your mouth shut.  A couple years later, he’s back in the life with $2 million in teaser money to check and see if he can ‘play ball’ and then a follow up $5 million dollars if he does and can continue to play ball.  (approximate amounts, the details are mentioned in this blog elsewhere).

The blitzkrieg of media starts right away after prison as well.  He goes and delivers ‘god’ awful presentations and speeches to kids and teenagers.  The type of talk that looks like lip service, sound like lip service at best and like a person the kids probably know doesn’t feel sorry for anything except getting caught.  He’s speaking their language and they eat it up, because they can see he played the game well enough to walk away with an extra seven million.  GO VICK!

He is then seen in his own TV series on BET where he both gives his side, but plays to the heart strings of his base about his path towards redemption, codeword for salvation in some circles.  If he can only get his strength back, if he can only get his speed back, if he can only study the game and become smarter than he was before, if if if Rocky can just run faster than a car spinning its wheels in the snow…

About now you would expect a miracle if this were a movie.  You would expect the star performer to suffer an injury and the lowly asshole trying to redeem himself would get his next last chance, and so Michael Vick fit the bill and did.  He then continued to do what every person that needs to redeem must do(if you are thinking of Job and suffering, that’s old testament wrong story) he must win! 

There is no redemption if Burt or Adam or Mike loses (unless they get to make the warden look stupid, ergo stick it to the system).  No he simply has to win because in the real America the system is not about redemption, it has nothing to do with religion, it has everything to do with money. 

The paths of redemption and the path of the system only cross, when the system of money needs to put more asses in seats with a good old fashioned redemption works, redemption is possible, our asshole is the worst person on Earth almost but our good old system could still redeem him.

The reality is that Michael Vick can’t be trusted.  I read this HNN book review tonight by a college professor, named Jennifer Graber who teaches at Wooster College in Ohio (not Worcester of the same pronunciation but different spelling, it was probably Americanized) that teaches some interesting sounding classes on religion in the USA. 

She has a blog at http://jennifergraber.net/ 

note the History News Network got the citation for her link wrong, but this is a book review and not an investigation into the facts of the past.  ;0

Now the book isn’t out yet, so obviously I haven’t read it, but according to the book review it talks about America’s transformation from a country that harshly punished criminals to one that attempted to religiously reform and redeem criminals to our system today that just tries to reform, enter Michael Vick example of the fury over redemption. 

The current absence of redemption in the system, must leave some sort of hole in our American psyche as evidenced by the plethora of

• comments,
• articles,
• interviews,
• questions,
• diatribes and
• general gibberish about the idea that Michael Vick paid his time,
• paid for his crime,
• made things right,
• won the damned games,
• kept up his speed,
• played smarter,
• didn’t go to Mexico this time,
• didn’t flip off his fans,
• didn’t shoot that guy in the leg at his birthday party,
• didn’t get caught juicing,
• didn’t go off on a bender with a suit case of cocaine and a pack of strippers.
• yada yada yada

He played the redemption part just right (enough), and then shuffled off and got the hell out of the way with an ankle sprain or something.

Who the hell knows what or why or if it was real or if it was a Falconesque choke or what.  Who really cares, which should be the new title for this blog anyway!

The point is that the system has a flaw.  It might be possible to take a criminal and return them to society, reformed.  It is possible that they may avoid all of the situations that led them to commit their crime in the first place. They might stop hanging out with the wrong people, taking the wrong drugs, or not taking the right drugs that keep them sane.  They might not go broke and get desperate, or they might win more football games and not feel the urge to go pummel helpless dogs to death with their bare hands, but I digress.

Nothing in the system redeems anyone.

For redemption, you have to play into the religious connotations that transformed our prison system a hundred years ago, probably the type of stuff that Assistant Professor Graber talks about in her book.

Did I mention the book review was written by Jennifer Graber? I guess it’s less a book review and more of an essay about how Michael Vick fits into the subject of her book, not that there is anything wrong with that or any connection to Michael Vick or the NFL that I am aware of.

We’ll assume (until or if she proves us wrong, goes to prison, comes out and has to redeem herself too) she’s on the up and up and just hounding for some of that Michael Vick media attention. 

Speaking from experience, that and five bucks will get you a cup of expensive coffee.

So if the system doesn’t redeem, you where is your average no-good-shit fresh out of prison, can’t get their dog blood fix, nor fund their buddies to crank up an illegal dog fighting ring, supposed to go for the official seal of public approval?

The media, pure and simple. 

This isn’t about the fans, it’s not about the sponsors until the media says that it is ok.  You have to run the media gauntlet and show that you are a good story.  Good story as defined by someone that went from rags to riches to rags (with accusations of cash hidden away) and back to official bankruptcy court cleared riches again.  You have to be able to ‘perform’ not necessarily be a good athlete, but if you don’t perform then you will be kicked to the curb like all those NFL players sent off to die very, very early in their retirement years.

If Michael Vick is redeemed now, and I’m sure as hell not saying he is.  But for the sake of argument, let’s say that since his stats were ok before the post season started, lets say that that was enough to redeem him.  He’s not Jesus Christ and didn’t die for our sins, but he passed and ran for his own sins, so that’s got to be good enough, right?

As anyone know that has ever read this blog before, I am not religious.  I believe in no religion.  If you do, well your belief and five dollars will get you an expensive coffee.

So if he is redeemed, here is what I want to know…

Why doesn’t anyone trust Michael Vick with a dog anymore?

• Let the rapist out of jail, he’s served his time.  Will you let him room with your sister, mother, daughter?
• If Bernie Madoff got out of prison next summer on good behavior, would you invest your life savings with him a month later?  What if he had a reality show on BET that talked about how he was trying to redeem himself?

If Michael Vick is redeemed, how come the President of HSUS didn’t go to the courts and petition the judge to let Michael Vick get a puppy for his kids?  For that matter why didn’t Roger Goodell or Tony Dungy ask the courts to lift the court requirement against Vick as dog owner?  If President Obama, whom I voted for, thinks that Michael Vick is redeemed by his play on the field, why doesn’t he trot his dog Bo over to Vick’s place and have him dog sit this weekend during the Super Felon Bowl? 

Go for it, I’ll take the hint and remove this site if the President trusts Vick enough to let him dog sit his own dog. 

Assuming Bo survives.

After all, Michael Vick served his time, paid his debt to society.   He’s not going to go electrocute, drown, or beat on that new puppy for fun is he?  What type of man newly reformed and out of prison with a fat NFL contract would beat a dog anyway?

He’s OK enough to talk to at risk kids, but you can’t trust him with a puppy?

It’s not like Michael Vick doesn’t want a dog.  He was talking about it not so long ago and how that would you know, be able to, show people.  Show people what? That he can physically restrain himself from choking the puppy to death in front of his kids?  Show people that he’s not a dog killing monster?

No, Michael Vick is NOT a monster.  He’s just a man.  He is one of us.  The reality is that people in the best and worst of situations can do terrible things.  Studies show that almost anyone is capable of doing some of the worst atrocities ever dreamed of.

America wants to see their redemption story, not because they really give a shit about Michael Vick.  They just want to know that if the worst came to the worst and they completely screwed up themselves on any given Sunday and went to prison, they might have a hope at redeeming themselves Just Like Vick.

But that’s a farce too.  Michael Vick is not redeemed.  Most people that get out of prison never find redemption.

Most of them probably don’t even find a lot of trust from their fellow human beings.  This is not a bad thing.  There is nothing wrong with a person that fails to trust another person that has committed a violent crime.  Some people might even call that wise.

Einstein had a famous quote paraphrased ‘doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity’. 

You can seek out a redeemed child molester and hire them as a baby sitter if you are a God Damned fool, but you and the child molester, both, would probably be locked up afterwards.  That type of thing shouldn’t happen for a good reason.  The people that commit atrocities without any outside force compelling them to do that are a little more dangerous and unpredictable as compared to the rest of us.  Society beware and not in a fearful ignorant way but in a self aware that dangerous people do dangerous things over and over again.  University studies as well as an evaluation of actual events in most historical prison camps teach us that almost anyone can eventually and rapidly be turned into a brutal guard that will do just about anything. 

The difference between Michael Vick and most of the rest of is that most of us don’t go out and do that on any given Monday – Saturday when we are not playing football.  We don’t invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in furthering such an enterprise either.

So we can read books about reform and redemption from now until the cows come home, but the wise person will be a little more careful around the products of these reforms.  You can send your money to the NFL, you can buy Michael Vick’s jersey if you like, you can support his new Nissan sponsor (regardless of the spanking), but we choose not to, because it was this funding and this type of encouragement from Michael Vick’s fans and sycophants that gave him the ability to do what he did for six years. 

Emphasis on:  gave him ‘the ability’ not forced him to do what he did)

Michael Vick is not redeemed and neither is the NFL nor his fans that fueled his blood letting fury.  We all have blood on our hands for that past, but so far, Michael Vick and some of our readers may be the only ones that have not acted as a repeat offenders.

Now go and enjoy the Super Felon Bowl if you want to be part of the problem

No related posts.

Normally a quote from Tucker Carlson would not warrant any attention at all, but a funny thing happened to Dave Zirin the other day on his way to work apparently.  He decided to spend seven paragraphs of The Nation space with name calling and general bitchyness directed towards Tucker and his employer Fox News.

He could have just simplified things by stating, ‘Tucker Carlson is an asshole’ and moved on but he didn’t.

After his diatribe against Tucker that was reminiscent of a gay basher spouting off after missing his meds, Dave Zirin then proceeds to quote Dostoevsky, an antisemite known for his christian platitudes made famous by his book Crime and Punishment, which is ironic as the book was written by Dostoevsky after the writer gambled away all his money.   Now Zirin quotes him in defense of a man that ran a gambling ring in Virginia for years before filing bankruptcy himself.

The problem is that Tucker Carlson is likely guilty of saying something sensational and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if it was intentional.  I personally don’t think it is the first time either.  But hey, I think he’s an asshole and I generally ignore him.  Regardless, Michael Vick is a person and we have long advocated that he should not be harmed or injured as a punishment for his crimes.

The other problem is that Dave Zirin has attempted to defend Michael Vick from Tucker Carlson accusing Tucker, the US Government and US society in general of dehumanizing African American men and locking them up disproportionately as compared to men of other races(note in this limited article there was no mention of women).

Now it is true that Michael Vick is African American.  In my humble opinion, African American men ARE locked up at a shockingly high rate and at very disproportionate percentages as well.  A reform of this system is long over due as well as a fundamental need to reconsider what is effective and appropriate in regards to crime and punishment.

There are many factors that contribute to the imprisonment of African Americans at disproportionate rates.  One of those factors is people that encourage African American males to engage in criminal activities whether it’s the gangs that virtually impress kids in grade school to faux gangster rappers that glamorize gang life as opposed to creating art that is an outlet to express the reality of gang life.  They prey upon kids and help to recreate and re-enforce the cycle which Zirin lightly references as the new Jim Crow system.  A system that has unfortunately too many African American males contributing and feeding the system.

That’s where Michael Vick stepped in many years ago.  Michael Vick came from a very poor area, grew up witnessing the worst aspects of this system.  He unlike the lion share of his fellow African Americans won a lottery with far longer odds than any other.  He made it into the NFL.  He grabbed the winning ticket and signed amazingly large contracts.

He attracted a following of young boys and girls from all races and almost as fast as he did that, he started funding the Jim Crow system that helps to dehumanize African Americans.  He funded dog fights and purses for dog fights which enticed drug dealers and criminals to come to his house and bask in the presence of his celebrity.  He worked to legitimize these illegal activities showing the kids just how cool it was to be Mike, to be in his presence doing what he did, fighting and killing dogs for fun.  When his plea bargain was scripted, Michael Vick was supposed to provide evidence against other criminals, but he didn’t deliver.  (debt not paid)

He came out of prison and won the lottery for a second time.  But this time he won a lottery with even steeper odds than the most difficult lottery on earth.  He won a job back in the NFL straight out of prison.  There are almost no other professions on the planet that pay more than $30k a year that will give you your old job back if you can still do it after you kill a bunch of dogs by hand for sick fun and fund an illegal gambling operation like Michael Vick did.

I’m not asking that you do it yourself, but hypothetically ask yourself, would my boss or company hire me back if I did what Michael Vick did?

You can bet your sweet ass that the answer to that question is No!

Vick toured a number of middle schools and his old house and dog fighting barn and kennels but never asked after his dogs again.  He talked to kids about how he was sorry that he got caught and how they shouldn’t do what he did because of what happened to him.

He’s not the most eloquent guy, and I don’t fault him for that very much.  Or rather, I wouldn’t care if he weren’t going to schools and talking to kids where his poor choice of words will probably result in more kids getting in trouble. 

Michael Vick is a loser with a long history of harming the people he influences.  He seems to be a psychopath or what is referred to these days as a sociopath, a person with a personality disorder.  Not exactly so much of a medical disorder but a description for the way this type of person acts.

“Psychopath – A person with a personality disorder indicated by a pattern of lying, exploitativeness, heedlessness, arrogance, sexual promiscuity, low self-control, and lack of empathy and remorse.” ~ Princeton Wiktionary

But the thing is that Michael Vick is still human.  He’s all too human with all of his flaws and the reality of his history and accumulated misdeeds.

No Tucker Carlson he shouldn’t be killed for what he did, and no Dave Zirin he doesn’t get a pass for what he did because he was the victim.  Michael Vick was the victimizer of both dogs and people and for that we should all be wary of him and not empower him to repeat his past misdeeds which is why we advocate that he should not have the soap box of the NFL and the millions of dollars of spending power that come with it, because year after year after year in the past Michael Vick used that platform and that money to guide people down a path straight to prison.

Michael Vick could have before he went to prison and since he got out of prison, worked to help African American males avoid this New Jim Crow system, but he didn’t do a damned thing to undo his handy work.  On a very bad day, Tucker Carlson may be shocking and possibly border line racist and Dave Zirin, who might be jewish, may be a little confused as he quotes an anti-semite on the topic of racism in prisons.  But odds are that neither of them are as bad as Michael Vick was on any good day in the last 10 years.

In short, I think Michael Vick is an asshole too.

No related posts.

Over the last few years, we have heard some stupid arguments in defense of Michael Vick’s actions running an illegal dogfighting/gambling ring and killing dogs himself. Stupid arguments that we do not agree with what so ever such as:

• Its common for people coming from poor areas to fight dogs (run illegal gambling operations with endorsement and NFL money and pay their friends and family to keep this up year after year for 6 years or better)
• Michael Vick didn’t know what was happening at his house (despite his own confession and multiple witness testimony and evidence)
• Michael Vick’s father wasn’t around enough
• Dogs are not as important as people so who cares what he does
• No people actually died (not including a witness that provided evidence to the Feds and who was a business partner /buying/selling dogs for the fights )
• If you eat meat, then you shouldn’t care if Michael Vick kills dogs
• Michael Vick has no influence over children so it shouldn’t matter (followed quickly by)
• Michael Vick has brought more attention to dog fighting and animal abuse which is good for children hence it helps when he speaks to them (most of these people have never heard Michael speak publicly I suspect.  It is painful, almost as bad as listening to George W Bush speak publicly.)
• Other celebrities fight dogs, why pick on Michael Vick?  (stupid is as stupid does in company?)
• There are even worse felons in the NFL (Great excuse this one, kind of like saying Stalin wasn’t so bad as long as Hitler was around or vice versa)
• Other people fight chickens, and bulls and Sarah Palin likes to shoot or kill just about everything that is big enough to hit with a bullet (just a reminder these are stupid excuses and we do not agree with them)

All that said, one of the most tired excuses of late is the excuse that Michael Vick has paid his debt to society after serving time in Federal prison plus a month or better on house arrest.  After paying such a substantial debt to ‘society’ he should be allowed to play in the NFL and earn as much money as he can get for what’s left of his possible career.

Well, I’ve got news for everyone.  The debt is not paid off yet.  He is still on probation until November of 2012.

He’s got to stay out of trouble, criminal trouble mostly, but other types of trouble as well for two more years before his penalty will be complete.

At that point this argument might hold just a little bit of water, but until then.  Its complete crap.

On an Unrelated Note – President Obama thanked the owner of the Eagles for giving Michael Vick a second chance.  I’m going to save the ‘second chance’ conversation for another day, mostly.

However, I would like to ask President Obama when millions of unemployed workers, who have been out of a much lower paying job longer than Michael Vick was in prison, when will they get a second chance?  When will all of those people that lost their homes in scandalous foreclosures due to bank’s forging documents and utilizing predatory practices, when will those newly homeless people get a second chance at a home?

For that matter, why doesn’t President Obama let Charlie Manson out of jail on a pardon to go out into the world and receive the second chance that is obligatory in American culture?

The reality is that we don’t get second chances.  Second chances are not normal, they are not natural, and most people of every stripe and financial background rarely get a second chance.  There is a perfectly valid reason for this.

Sometimes a person can screw up so badly, they can make so many mistakes (for six or seven years) over and over and over again that ultimately all the people around them, all the people that know of them or read about them in the news, all people will learn that these people cannot be trusted in certain circumstances.

Charles Manson is a good example.  I wouldn’t trust Charles Manson in almost any circumstance.

Michael Vick is a different example.  He may not be as bad as Charles Manson, but the courts have decided that he is never to be trusted with a dog again, no matter how much he wants another dog to help improve his image.

Many people also think that Michael Vick is a terrible role model for kids, teenagers and young people in general, because for years he ran an illegal dog fighting and gambling ring where dogs were killed, tortured, fought against each other, where illegal gambling activities were sponsored and probably a lot worse.

You do something like that for 6 or 7 years and it is not a mistake that you might get a second chance to do better next time.  You did very very wrong many many times.  Charles Manson didn’t even get to commit his crimes for that many years in a row!

Resetting the clocks back to zero and ignoring everything that has passed is completely ignorant.  You can bet your sweet ass that President Obama is not going to forget the past and give Kim Jong Il a second chance to start all over.  He might negotiate from where we are, but start over with a second chance.  No way in hell.  Same goes for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran.  Are we going to suddenly trust that nut job and give him a second chance?  I doubt it.

Let’s bring this a step closer to home.  How about Mark Fuhrman?

Would we trust Mark Fuhrman to go work as a detective again and provide testimony in a case involving a minority?

You can if you want to, but I wouldn’t trust him again with that type of thing.  I wouldn’t send him out to high schools either to talk to kids about race nor would I have him go talk to kids about why using the n word in every day speech is a bad thing.

That’s the point, there’s a line that a person can cross and after that point, their trust worthiness is gone.  Or at least it is gone for anyone that has enough brain power left to recall what they did.

Ignorance may be bliss, but it is ignorant first and foremost.  There is no wisdom in trusting the fox in the hen house after he’s killed your chickens for six years running.

To recap, the Debt is not paid off, there are no second chances in life for anyone (except Michael Vick) and anyone that tries to tell you different is either a politician, a pr firm for the National Felon’s League maybe or a liar.

No related posts.

Michael Vick sucks as a NFL football player.  His televised ‘comeback’ is about as important or impressive as a well scripted WWF WWE (insert any wrestling network acronym here) match.  That’s all that really needs to be said. 

Unfortunately, the press is winding Michael Vick up just like they loved to do when they helped make George W President in 2000(didn’t vote for him and I did live in Palm Beach County at the time) or marching us along the path of hope and hype with Barack Obama 8 years later (did vote for him).

The press loves to knock down any celebrity that comes along, let the public grovel in their down fall, and then like an epic tale help build the same celebrity up out of their own ashes.  In a news cycle that is compressed into shorter and shorter intervals every year, its no wonder that they are doing the same thing with Michael Vick just over a year after he got out of prison.

Well, truth be told they have to.  There probably won’t be a season next year.  No season, no Michael Vick resurrection.  So its got to be this year.  Sure the NFL knows this too, because it sells a lot more tickets and puts a lot more asses in seats and in front of the TV if there’s a sensational come back story that is being played out in front of them during a season when most teams are playing some of the worst football that has been played in decades.

Enter Michael Vick.  You may recall Michael, he’s the guy that during his entire previous time spent in the NFL set up an illegal dog fighting ring in his home and when he had extra time on his hands used to beat, mutilate, hang and drown his pets for fun.  He’s the guy that helped pay for big stakes in dog fighting matches and legitimize the events with his presence luring teens and young men and drug dealers etc to come hang out together and watch the blood spill on his carpet (that he later went back and displayed on his BET reality show).  Classy.

So I had to laugh today when I read the New York Times article chiming in to help push Michael Vick back up onto a pedestal, a public position that he has proven so good at handling in the past.

Of all the hype that writer (lets call him a writer and not a reporter, I don’t know his work but judging by this article . . .)  John Branch, indicates that Michael Vick’s countless detractors (I guess I’d fall in that category) really are only worried about one thing.

That feeling might also describe the sickened feeling of Vick’s countless detractors, those disgusted that someone who systematically tortured dogs is back making millions of dollars in the N.F.L.  NYT article by John Branch

Yep, that’s right.  We are apparently concerned that Michael Vick is making millions.  (Snort)

There is some incisive analysis and consideration that went into that now isn’t there.  After all, this was never about the NFL’s piss poor standards, this was never about sponsors promoting a person that enticed young people into a life of crime and drugs, this was never about a guy that never gave a shit about his fans, his team etc.  This was never about breaking the law, involving himself with drug dealers and at least one murder(one of his partners was murdered within a few days of the raid on his home in April of 2007 still an open case), this was never about the type of psychotic that can torture and murder dogs with his own hands and then go out and shake hands and speak with kids at local schools and clubs in Philadelphia. 

Nope this was always about the money that goes into Michael Vick’s pocket.  All of us ignorant detractors only wanted to see Michael Vick working a menial minimum wage job at McDonalds.

WRONG.

I will be the first to say that this tale of Michael Vick is about as stale and rotten or rotted as a story can get.  But there is little wonder that the NFL would capitalize on Vick’s return financially.  He was a cash cow before he went to prison and every corporation likes to have that kind of meat around to milk more profits into the bottom line.

And just like professional wrestling the story line of the golden boy, turned bad boy, turned felon, resurrected and turned golden boy all over again is about as tired as Michael Vick himself.

There’s no story here, this is just the same BS on replay in a season that is headed towards a dead end of a nasty contract fight.  And contract fights don’t sell tickets, they don’t endear fans to anything, but if the NFL can go out on a note of impossible odds, a rags to riches to rags to riches redemption story featuring Michael Vick and the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl, you can bet the league will pull out all the stops (bad calls) to make that happen.

I’m not calling the NFL corrupt anymore than I’m calling Michael Vick a psychotic felon.  Ethically challenged corporations can get away with far worse things than dog fighting, and the NFL is hardly a bastion for ethics.

As for Michael Vick, on a personal level, truthfully I hope he doe take the money and run(frankly its not in Michael Vick to do something good with his money, prove me wrong on that and Michael Vick can have this website), because the NFL is going to capitalize on him left and right and he essentially doesn’t have many options for endorsements anymore.  He can only suckle from the breast of any owner that will let him. 

He’s basically at the mercy of the NFL without any other options, they are pimping him out like a sex slave and making all the money.  Their only incentive is to prop him up more and more.

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The Curse of Michael Vick hit Philadelphia hard this week, but it was hardly a surprise for anyone.  Its not difficult to conceive of a universe where doing bad things over and over again brings about a bad end result.  That’s just what happened to the Philadelphia Eagles today.

Coach Reid continued to demonstrate just how a morally bankrupt judgment can bite you in the ass later.  First he brought a violent felon straight from prison onto the team, thinking that Michael Vick was a bargain to buy up out of his chains.  Then he sold off Donovan McNabb to a rival team just down the way.  His idiocy and lack of leadership didn’t stop there.

Reid then proceeds to groom Kevin Kolb to take the reigns and just after giving him the job, as soon as the wind blew in a slightly different direction, he sacked his ass and replaced him with Michael Vick.  Sure it could be argued that Michael Vick was performing slightly better when he got the umpteenth chance of a lifetime.  However, Reid had given his word privately and publicly apparently and that word wasn’t worth much. 

Then the rug pulled out from underneath Kolb was placed under Michael Vick’s blooded feet.  Vick was ‘the guy’ for a couple weeks.  Then when Vick was working his predictable running magic, the defense stepped in and put the squeeze on, resulting in Michael Vick leaving the game in obvious pain.

For the record, we do not condone nor wish any type of violence, pain or suffering.  We don’t want to see Vick ‘literally’ sacked or injured.  We do not want to see him on the field period.  That said, now that he is injured, we DO wish Michael Vick a speedy recovery.  We do not wish him to suffer, and especially do not want to see him suffer as his dogs would have suffered if they had lost a competition due to an injury.  We do not want to see him return to the field, but that has nothing to do with injuries.

At this point the impact of the Michael Vick Curse really hit the Philadelphia Eagles.  Reid and the Eagles have been talking a bunch of nonsense about having two great quarterbacks at bargain prices.  That’s nice talk and seemed possibly true while Vick was performing well and Kolb was healing.

The reality is that Kolb suffered a much more problematic injury.  After he received his concussion, he was screwed over by his coach.  That type of mental wound is going to screw with even the most seasoned and professional of athletes or anyone for that matter.

You can’t be told, “You’re the one.” over and over and over again, then only to discover, “Well, we lied, you are not the one.”

and then…

When the chips are down, and you are pulled in to be the one, shortly after being knifed in the back . . . its going to screw with your ability to think, act and perform.

Its just pitiful and stupid and a sad.  The Curse of Michael Vick is hitting full stride at this point.  Its difficult to tell how much more havoc it might bring.  Philadelphia has fought curses in the past, even worked to nullify them.  Its likely this time that Philadelphia’s interests would be in line with those of the public.  Get rid of the violent felons from the NFL, promote those players that are good for society, and reap the rewards of having a positive impact on society, team and fans.

MICHAEL VICK CURSE UPDATE

Michael Vick has a rib cartilage injury between his second and third rib and his status this week is uncertain. LeSean McCoy broke a rib and may also be unavailable.

On Vick, Reid said, "The cartilage looks like it’s cracked there a little bit." He said the bones were not broken.  src Philly.com

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