(Ah, I'm so much better than that! But hell, it's a Friday and amiability is out the winda like a mota memory.)
I've sat on this for awhile; I like Whoopi. She's a Peanuts freak like me. Even has a Woodstock tattoo. Most tellingly, she was a friend of Charles Schulz, and I mean a true friend. If someone says they were a friend of Schulz but they didn't call him "Sparky"...not a true pal.
But I cannot defend any of this:
"You know from his background this is not an unusual thing for where he comes from," said Goldberg. "There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of our country."
Well, of course. That's kind of what gives America flavor. It is in fact the reason no one ever makes good on their blustery promises to move to Canada. Take Milwaukee. I have been there enough times to know this for sure: no one there is ever sober. The destitute people there drift in and out of comas as they rest on car hoods, and the successful people get to call in sick to work if they score blood alcohol levels of less than .014 on their breathalyzer/bottle opener. The natives could immediately identify Patrick and I as outta-towners due to the fact we could walk relatively straight lines and actually recoiled in horror when asked whether or not we considered Brett Favre the Second Coming.
Goldberg, in her half-minded defense ("half" comes from the fact she got the words out coherently) of Vick, indicates the Southern region of this country as a place where dogfighting is routine. I would not disagree. I would also say that another deeply-embedded Southern tradition is racism. And not that garden-variety "prejudice" y'all Northerners walk around with...this is blatant, top of the line, Gordon Young-approved hatred. They don't say "wow, isn't Barack Obama so articulate?" They say, "I can't believe a n****r could really get into the White House". Now, is this true of everyone in the South? Course not. But I say that to say this.
Whoopi Goldberg's statements indicate flexible morality. She states that if Vick were from New York and committed such atrocities, she would not give him a pass or come to his defense. Ah, so it's a disgusting act only if you weren't raised to know that it was. Mike Vick, I mean, yeah of course making dogs fight and killing them is wrong. But he was raised that way! Man, Jesse Helms...sure, he's a hateful man. Walking detritus, even! But look at when and where he was born. I mean, you gotta feel for a guy like that.
Or not. Neither Vick nor Helms stayed in hermetically sealed environments. Both men have lived enough life (or too much life, in the case of Mr. Helms), and have travelled far enough in that life, and met enough people outside their milieu, to get a grasp on the myriad differences that exist among all people. More to the point, Mr. Vick must have learned at some point that his "hobby" was illegal. As he "learned" that pitting dogs against one another was a "sport."
Mike Vick Whoopi Goldberg The View Jesse Helms
Goldberg, in her half-minded defense ("half" comes from the fact she got the words out coherently) of Vick, indicates the Southern region of this country as a place where dogfighting is routine. I would not disagree. I would also say that another deeply-embedded Southern tradition is racism. And not that garden-variety "prejudice" y'all Northerners walk around with...this is blatant, top of the line, Gordon Young-approved hatred. They don't say "wow, isn't Barack Obama so articulate?" They say, "I can't believe a n****r could really get into the White House". Now, is this true of everyone in the South? Course not. But I say that to say this.
Whoopi Goldberg's statements indicate flexible morality. She states that if Vick were from New York and committed such atrocities, she would not give him a pass or come to his defense. Ah, so it's a disgusting act only if you weren't raised to know that it was. Mike Vick, I mean, yeah of course making dogs fight and killing them is wrong. But he was raised that way! Man, Jesse Helms...sure, he's a hateful man. Walking detritus, even! But look at when and where he was born. I mean, you gotta feel for a guy like that.
Or not. Neither Vick nor Helms stayed in hermetically sealed environments. Both men have lived enough life (or too much life, in the case of Mr. Helms), and have travelled far enough in that life, and met enough people outside their milieu, to get a grasp on the myriad differences that exist among all people. More to the point, Mr. Vick must have learned at some point that his "hobby" was illegal. As he "learned" that pitting dogs against one another was a "sport."
Mike Vick Whoopi Goldberg The View Jesse Helms
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