How I Hurt My Neck

Now, this isn’t a Top 5, nor a Moral Question of the Day, and it’s a little outdated, but I hope that those of you who are still reading enjoy it anyway. This actually happened toward the beginning of the summer (I believe it was in June sometime). To give some background, I had spent the previous weekend driving to Akron to help my older brother move into his new place, and then I had driven 6 hours back to Chicago the night before, followed by an hour of trying to find a parking spot in the city where I was supposed to meet my friends for dinner. needless to say, all of the driving (particularly city driving) had elevated my stress levels significantly. The next morning was father’s day, and my family was going out for a celebratory brunch, which was rendered even more special by the presence of my brother and his wife who had recently flown in from Atlanta.

That morning I got into the shower feeling a little off. I hadn’t slept well, and the muscles in my back were a little tighter and stiffer than usual.  A hot shower helped me to relax a little, then when I reached out for my towel and began to dry my hair. Now, I don’t know how everyone else dries their hair, but according to my twin brother, my methods are a bit unorthodox (I find them simple and effective). I grab the towel with both hands, and rub it back and forth quickly across my scalp until my hair is dry — this usually takes somewhere from 10 to 20 seconds. Normally  a short, sweet, simple way to get my hair dry. Not this time, however. On the morning in question, for some reason, either the already tense and fragile state of my neck muscles and vertebrae, or an overabundance of vigor in my hand motions (possibly a combination of both), something went terribly wrong. I felt something move in a way that it wasn’t supposed to, and suddenly I was in sharp, terrible, dehumanizing pain. I let out several shrieks, shouts and curses as I tried unsuccessfully to move my neck back into place, many of which were heard by my sister in law (who said later that she felt sorry for me when she heard the noises coming from the bathroom, but I’m sure she was probably more weirded out than anything).

When I came out of the bathroom, the nerves in my neck had settled down some, but I could feel that something was still noticeably wrong. My family members pointed out to me that my neck was crooked, a fact that I later verified to myself in the mirror. Instead of coming out of my collar bone at the usual angle — I I — my neck stuck out at a diagonal angle like this: / /. In order to keep my vision angle straight, I had to constantly tilt my head to the left to compensate. I tried as much as I could to relax, hoping that the problem was muscular and with time my bend would right itself, but by the time I got home from brunch the pain was so bad that it was a colossal effort for me to even change position from sitting to standing, and vice versa. I spent the majority of the next two days lying on the floor with a rolled towel under my head, hoping my spine would right itself, and wondering how on earth I could possibly injure myself so badly with nothing more than my hands and a towel.

I called the chiropractor’s office Monday morning , but they couldn’t see me until the next day, so I just waited on the floor, reading a book, occasionally getting up to take eat something or take pain pills. The chiropractor was very nice, he used electro-stimulation to loosen the muscles in my upper back, and then cracked me all over the place. However, even after my first appointment at the chiropractor, I found I couldn’t turn my head to the right without turning my entire body, a fact which brought great amusement to my twin brother and his wife. Two more appointments later, I had all my mobility back, and only minor pain and swelling in my neck. I told the chiropractor that he was a lifesaver, but honestly I hope I never have to see him again.

Now, of course, I’m back to pretty much one hundred percent, but I’m still somewhat circumspect about how I dry my hair. My mother says I should blot it rather than vigorously rubbing it, she says my way causes split ends and other hair woes, not to mention the perils to my upper spine and vertebrae. I still maintain that my way is quick and effective; I just have to be a little more careful from now on.

I hope you have all enjoyed my thoroughly ridiculous story. Now whenever your friends are trading anecdotes about ridiculous ways in which their friends got hurt, you can say, “Well, I have a friend who incapacitated himself for nearly 3 days just by drying his hair!” This ranks right up there with my friend who broke his arm running into a parked car, or my dad, who broke his nose running into a tree. You know, maybe I could have made this into a top 5. Oh well. Tootles.

Top 5 Questions About Michael Vick

Okay, I know it’s been a while; at this point, I’ve given up on making resolutions to post on any schedule, and I’ll just post when I can, and I feel like it. Anyway, I assume all of you have heard about Michael Vick and the allegations facing him, but in case I still have any readership abroad here’s a quick summary. Michael Vick is a Quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, an American Football team (basically one of the biggest names in one of the biggest sports in the US). He has been charged with being the ringleader of a dogfighting organization in Atlanta, as well as assorted gambling charges which would obviously accompany a sport like dogfighting. The most gruesome charges against him describe what he did to the dogs after they lost fights, including executing them by shooting, drowning, electrocution. This has obviously aroused quite a response from animal rights activists, and Vick’s skin color has added to the controversy, because many Falcons fans in Atlanta feel Vick is being unfairly condemned because he is black. This story has dominated the news here in the States, especially on espn (my tv channel of choice), and many of the facts and opinions I have seen on these news programs sometimes boggle my mind. I have many questions about this case, and I have compiled a list of the most persistent and pressing ones.

Note:  Many of these questions presuppose Michael Vick’s guilt. I am not trying to assert that I am sure he is guilty, although the evidence against him certainly looks pretty condemning. If you like, you may insert a “Assuming the allegations against Michael Vick are true,” in front of any of these questions. I just thought actually typing it might make the questions a bit redundant to read. On to the questions:

5. Why did he do it in the first place?

It can’t be about the money, can it? I’ve heard on the news that the average pot size in a given dog fight is in the thousands, or tens of thousands.  Given the fact that there are only two dogs in fight, and everyone who is betting can only choose one or the other, I would imagine the individual winnings a gambler could make from this would be greatly diminished from the total pot size. Even if Michael Vick were the “bookie” of such an event, and he made more from each fight than any individual better, I can’t imagine his share of a ten-thousand dollar pot would even approach significance when compared to his $100 million football contract and his mutli-million dollar endorsement deals. Even if Vick made money from selling the dogs he bred and raised in his kennel, it would all have to be chump change to him, wouldn’t it? This would be like a GM executive getting busted for selling marijuana to college students. Why would anyone risk such a lucrative legal job for petty criminal activities? Maybe it was motivated by a compulsion to gamble, but then why not play poker or something legal? The only remaining explanation is that he just enjoys watching the dogs suffer, which could be corroborated by the unusually cruel treatment detailed in the charges against him. But if that is really the explanation, then he needs some serious counseling, and I hope he does go to prison.

4. Why leave so much evidence?

It boggles my mind to think how stupid some people can be while breaking the law. When I was in high school, a nearby high school girls’ soccer team videotaped a hazing session in which older girls hit younger girls on the team with baseball bats and dumped pig entrails on them, while parents stood by watching and distributing alcohol to minors. This tape was copied and released to the media, and everyone got in big trouble. You would think if you were headstrong enough to commit to a large lawbreaking activity like that, you would be shrewd enough to cover your tracks, or at least not dumb enough to bend over backwards to give the police something as damning as video evidence.

In the case of Michael Vick, he has been interviewed multiple times on national television talking about his passion for breeding pit bulls (the primary dog breed used in dogfighting). Federal agents found dozens of dog carcasses on his property. So far all three of his co-defendants in the federal case have agreed to testify against him. However, in spite of all of this, Vick claims that he has nothing to do with dogfighting, and that any dogfighting that has happened on his property was organized and carried out by relatives that he trusted to run his property, which he rarely visits.  If everything Vick says is indeed true, then either his relatives really didn’t merit his trust, or someone did a really good job of framing him.  And if no one framed him or betrayed his trust, then Vick ranks right up there with the people who videotaped their hazing, or the soldiers in Iraq who took pictures of all the perverted things they did to the Iraqi POW’s. Why would people do this kind of thing? Your guess is as good as mine.

3. What were they thinking?

This question is not actually about Michael Vick himself, but rather about other NFL players and sportswriters I’ve seen making comments on espn. Thee players and commentators make observations to the effect of the following hypothetical quote: “I don’t understand why everyone thinks that dogfighting is such a big deal. I mean, they’re just dogs”. First of all, having witness the fire and fury of PETA and similar organizations that the Vick controversy has stirred up, do you really want to attract any of this negative attention to yourself? Second of all, even if you don’t value dog life in the same way as human life (which you probably, and perhaps justifiably, don’t), wouldn’t you at least find the way in which Vick allegedly killed the dogs disturbing? For example, I’m not a big fan of insects, but if any of the kids I watched in Day Care had ever killed ants slowly and deliberately by drowning and electrocution, I might have voiced concern to their parents. Can you really dismiss something like that as “not a big deal”? I have no problem with the people who defend Vick using claims such as “innocent until proven guilty”, but at least recognize the heinous nature of the alleged offense.

2. Why are we responding only now?

Now, this question has been posed in many different ways on espn discussion shows, such as First Take, PTI, Outside the Lines, etc. The gist of it comes down to questioning an apparent double standard in the sporting world, which can be phrased in the following way: “If sports stars like Ray Lewis can be implicated in the murders of people, then why is the media suddenly so concerned with someone who may have killed dogs? Do we value canine life more than we value human life?” Other commentators say that other human-related offenses, such as spousal abuse, are more severe than dogfighting and regularly overlooked. Hence, is it really fair to come down so harshly on Michael Vick. The way I see it is this — Yes, the situation may be unfair or hypocritical, but the problem is not how we’re treating Michael Vick, it’s how much we’ve coddled the other people. If Ray Lewis killed somebody, that’s a big deal. If Kobe Bryant raped somebody, that’s a big deal. They should be punished accordingly. However, if others have avoided punishment because they were star athletes, that doesn’t mean Vick should as well. You have to start correcting the problems somewhere, even if there’s no precedent and it seems “unfair” to the person you crack down on. Thus, I worded the question,  “Why are we responding only now?”, to reflect the fact that the problem lies in our past favoritism of athletes, not an unfair strictness toward Michael Vick.

1. Where are our priorities?

Now, the last question already hinted at this. The obvious broad question would be, “Is watching athletes excel at a sport really worth giving athletes legal leeway and preference?” However, the misplaced priorities I wonder about are much more specifically Vick-related. As some of you may know, there is a concurrently running sports scandal right now involving an NBA referee named Tim Donaghy. He recently pleaded guilty in a federal case in which the allegations leveled against him were largely gambling-based. Vick currently faces a possible guilty plea to dog murder and gambling, with jail time estimated at under a year (I’ve heard 10 months). Donaghy, who pleaded guilty to gambling and wire fraud, faces up to a possible 25 years of jail time. Also, Vick faces a possible 2-year suspension from the NFL if he pleads or is found guilty of the charges against him, but not for the dogfighting, which is only a misdemeanor in the state of Georgia. Rather, the act of gambling can cause a player to be banned for life from the NFL, at the discretion of the commissioner, and so the suspension would likely be gambling-related.

Really?

Do we really punish gambling more harshly in our society than we punish animal murder? I mean, I guess since we kill animals for food and sport, punishing people who kill animals for sadistic pleasure could be a slippery slope. But really, punishment 25 times greater for someone who fixed basketball games than for someone who organized and carried out the mass murder of dogs that he bred for the express purpose of killing them? Also, the fact that Vick gambled on the fighting is the only reason that his crimes include felony offenses, and the only reason the feds got involved in the first place. If Vick had run the dogfighting league without actually betting, his crimes would have been limited to misdemeanors and he might not be facing any jail time.

Personally, given the nature of our relationship with dogs over history, we should give them a little more respect. At least in the western world, dogs and horses have a privileged place in our society. We use them as helpers and companions, and in return we don’t eat or hunt them. Yet, if someone wants to murder them, that’s not even a felony? Killing dozens of dogs with your bare hands isn’t as bad as beating your wife? When we put dogs to sleep, it’s merciful, but if a suffering cancer patient asks to be euthanized,  it’s murder? Okay, that last one isn’t exactly Vick related, but it still represents the same double standard (for the record, I think euthanasia can be merciful for both people and animals in the right circumstances).

Don’t get me wrong, gambling is bad, but is it really as bad as strangling, drowning and electrocuting innocent creatures? Or 25 times worse? I realize a referee fixing NBA games could have damaging effects on the whole league, and thus countless jobs, but something about these hypothetical sentences still sits wrong with me. I’d be interested to hear any of your opinions on this (assuming people are still reading this blog).

This is all, of course, assuming that Vick is guilty of the charges set out against him. If he’s been framed, I hope he is exonerated. But if he is indeed guilty, I certainly hope he goes to jail for more than 10 months, with the promise of lucrative NFL seasons when he gets out. Well, that’s all for now, and hopefully sometime soon in the future I’ll write some more. Tootles.