Michael Vick Scores 73.5% on PETA’s Animal Empathy Test
At first, when PETA offered Michael Vick a chance to star in a PSA against dog fighting, he jumped at the opportunity, probably hoping it would help clear his name.
But now, PETA is having second thoughts — saying they want him to take psychological tests and receive an MRI to show he’s physically capable of having compassion for animals — party because of Vick’s performance in a handwritten test on animal empathy. Of course, they’ve kindly released his answers to the public.
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Some are downright hilarious (“Chickens have an uncanny ability to think and are very agile. They are very athletic to me.”) while others actually make me feel bad for the guy (“Practice what you preech + don’t condone in hyp.”).
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Based on the test alone, it’s unclear whether Vick actually is “reformed,” so I don’t blame PETA for holding off on the PSA deal. His answers sound much like a 6th grade student rephrasing sentences from a text book for a take-home essay. He’s just saying what they wanted to hear.
Vick already has a universal bad rap — dog fighting isn’t a controversial topic, it’s already been decided to be unethical by the vast majority of society. There’s really no reason for PETA to even try to help him as he’s the only one who would benefit from this situation.
What do you think? Should PETA even bother fighting this battle? Check out the rest of the test here (pdf).
For Vick to truly benefit from any kind of help that is offered him, he must be open to it. From what I know of this situation, it would seem that he only is open to repairing his image. I live in an area of the country (Northern Georgia, about 2 hours north of Atlanta) where the lives of animals are not held in high regard. I worked at a local animal hospital where we would have to battle the local mentality on a daily basis just so animals could get basic health care.
I think being surrounded by any culture where dog fighting and animal cruelty is not only accepted but celebrated would be a tough thing to recover from. I think his handwritten answers also show the lack of education that exists within this culture, which is also part of the problem.
With that said, what a wonderful example he would be if PETA actually got through to him, showing that it can be done and people can change for the better. Therefore I disagree with the statement that Vick would be the only one to benefit from PETA’s help.
For this paradoxical quizzardry one would quite possibly have to take a puff of the good good gosh darn immaculate splendiforous mary jane first…here…ok…here…let me have some of that…here…let me attempt a rendering heretofore inexplicable unexplainable and albeit an attempt at wiseness…why should we even waste our fingers on the keypad of life and more gray matter in the arena of the deluded moments of various famed, be they from the gridiron or other legend or lore…I love animals all creatures great and small and have no desire to either fight them, hump them, or abuse them…I guess somewhere around the bowl, too many times, some have succumbed or slipped, ventured over that fractional crevace that falls into the center of the earth, a few too many have hung there also, by there last shreds of skin, or bony knuckle, only to fall unblinking with a shout & to there demise…I think we should begin a new age of enlightenment whereby all stupid things that happen in the world that do not inspire, nor further the advance of civilization, meaning: ideas, inventions, visions, ways to adapt the globe and civilization ie. “how to make the earth a sustainable planet forever, forever”… be banished to the bottom of the page…or some distant room marked “for bottom feeders”… where our minds have surely gone, ala the web, the media, and our blithering preoccupation with tiddlywink representational criticism/blogging as we border on a society that now can eviscerate anyone it chooses yet has forgotten how to build, let alone create, or cook a good meal…they all have my profound empathy, they should all go fetch frisbees now in the wake of my all terrain air and solar powered hovercraft that will soon if it has not already rolled over there caustic one dimensional asses, I love football and he is or was a great Qb…I think he will return if the gods have mercy…and probably open up a can of whoopass yet unseen in our time in the game of football,…if I was his agent …well you can only imagine…I would probably chew on a few skulls for breakfast…starting with the pimpled butted dumbasses who allow someone with that kind of talent and ability to end up running with the likes of such brutality…for perhaps therein is the question how does this happen to talented individuals…its not all conspiracy… or drugs…perhaps we should begin again with our minds…now what is it?…what is it this week?…what is the gossip of the day…the tabloidism of this afternoon?…Oh yea were all still rolling in the shine and glory of the new day…thank God for that…and I mean that…I love the new Pres…but what about when that wears off…give it time…soon we will awaken…hopefully…and I mean that…if not… the future vision might be bleak…we might slide back into the delusions of numbness and mediocrity, where we awake to the last metal robotic rooster, who will screech some chalk board scratch, Cockadoodledoo you dumbasses! That spine tingling squawk sends us into a jump into some lited tube, where half of our flesh is peeled away by fine sharp instruments of torture, needles dug into our private parts, every morning like a ritual, only then to devour some reptillian amoeba slug, that we wash down with something acidic… just so we can… “feel something”…our brains having long since succumbed to a numbness…a comatose zombieism, from the media jocks of spin…that ring our bells as often as they want, the unwitting participants only to have to hold a plastic phone up to there heads to take a call, “do you like getting shocked dumbass!?”… only in a newer purer way, much like now as we sit hunched over our glowing screens our fingers splayed out like weasels seeking something…as they radiate our bodies and we add to global warming, looking, searching, never to find it…whatever it is…in this technological campfire…they got me years ago, as you can tell…I’m glad you brought it up though…theres alot of things… a whole lot of things that never should have happened,to us, to all of us…for you see young skywalker…it happens…when it happens to us all… whether your a Falcons fan or not, or even like the number 7…may we all pull our heads out of asses in 2009. Peace pinky
Millions of starving children in Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, even right here at home in the United States. I would much rather save a child than a chicken. It actually sickens me to see the amount of money people are donating so a dog and some roosters have shelter, while children are sleeping out on the streets this cold winter. Disgrace.
He’s right about the chickens. Have you ever tried catching one?
Tim, I doubt you have donated either time or money to help these “starving” children you speak of. So you can take your holier than thou attitude and shove it.
For the author to think that comment about the chicken is hilarious is pretty closed minded. It’s absolutely true and insightful in ways that some just shrug off.
Sure Vick isn’t a rocket science and his writing isn’t Nobel Prize worthy. Everyone get off their high horse now.
Fact is, depending on where you live and what culture you’re in, treatment of animals is different all across the board. How is dog fighting or cock fighting any different than sacrificing an animal for religious reasons or killing something to eat it?
Vick’s done his time, let it go.
Tim,
I agree there is a lot of wasted money in this country, however, people can have influence over their destiny, animals, not so much.
Population control is at the root of many of the ills of this world. If people wouldn’t reproduce so much, resources such as land, habitat, food, shelter, etc., wouldn’t be in such short supply. Oh, i bet there would be a lot less global pollution too…
Peace,
Howie
Who cares what PETA thinks. PETA heads are a bunch of psychotic idiots who care more about animal life than human life. While I do not ocndone cruelty to animals, I certainly do not condone cruelty to humans in the name of animals.
As much as he’s done, I don’t think its right for PETA to post his scores without his consent. I never heard of paper tests or courses having disclaimers….
I have donated money to starving children and have visited the saddest orphanage in Africa. I have also saved animals and will only adopt from shelters for my family. We should have compassion for both.
We should also now have compassion and forgiveness for Michael Vick. I am also someone who has followed Michael Vick and believe him to be a man of true cultural and educational ignorance who made cruel mistakes more than a man of inherent maliciousness.
I believe Michael Vick can change his heart and truly help the cause of helping kids and other ignorant people who may look up top him understand how to treat animals with respect, if the cause weren’t so alienating and polarizing.