This one's for my wife.
As always, I recommend picking up and reading the hardcopy Knoxville Voice -- lots of commentary and articles not found elsewhere in local media. At the least, go check it out on line:
http://www.knoxvoice.com
And the editorial in the latest KV is being discussed on line over at the "other" KV, Randy Neal's Knoxviews:
http://www.knoxviews.com/node/5327
Battlin’ Babies
by Scott McNutt
Local baby "fight club" ring busted
From APB wire report -- KNOXVILLE, TN. Today, federal authorities here charged Michael "Vapuh Rub" Vicks, a celebrity athlete who played ball with the local university, with running a "baby fight club" ring whose bouts ended with the torture and murder of the losing infants. Officials at the university here deny rumors that Vapuh Rub set up and extended his fight club circuit through connections with the university’s athletic program.
Charges against the Vapuh Rub ring include cruelty, abuse, neglect, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Vicks asserts that the babies were unwanted anyway, having been picked up as newborns off the street or through the state foster care system. The babies, with ordinary names like Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Sluggo and Nancy Boy (a tag-team tandem), and Jane, ranged in fighting age from 6 to 24 months.
Federal authorities dispute Vicks’ contention that the babies were unwanted. A federal spokesperson said they will charge Vicks with at least one count of kidnapping, in the case of the baby Jane Doe. A federal spokesperson reported that the heartbroken parents had reported the child missing months ago. Said the spokesperson, "Over the course of the investigation, the parents often lamented, ‘Whatever happened to baby Jane?’"
Authorities say no weight classes were set between babies of differing ages, meaning that helpless infants often went into the cage with careening toddlers. "It was inevitable that carnage would ensue," said the spokesperson.
One investigator at the scene was appalled by the horrors that confronted her. "It seemed like an ordinary tract house anywhere in Suburb, USA," she said. "But once we got inside…there were playpens everywhere filled with writhing, naked, scrawny, starving, neglected, abused, battlin’ babies. It was ghastly and grotesque. One two-year-old was using ‘Tickle-Me Elmo’ to bludgeon a six-month-old to death. In my 12 years on the Special Victims Unit, I never seen anything remotely like it."
Vicks claimed that his group was not being intentionally cruel to the babies, because they didn’t know babies could feel pain. He insisted that the babies were well taken care of. "If they didn’t win, they were taken care of real well," he said.
"Look here, babies cry all the time, am I right?" Vicks continued. "You ever hear a baby not cry? I didn’t think so. So, if we was electrocuting them or burning them or using them for target practice or hanging them or drowning them in jelly or whatever, we didn’t know they was in pain. And when we poured gasoline down their throats and dropped a match down it and taped their mouths shut, then cut their arms off and put battery acid on the open wounds and then disemboweled them and finally strangled them to death, it’s not like we could tell they was hurting, you know. They might have just been hungry for all we knew."
Vicks denied that he or any in his ring had actually killed a sentient being during the aftermath of the baby fight matches. "These were just really late, late term abortions," Vicks scoffed. "Look, man, I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s not like we were eating them or anything. And they’re just a bunch of fucking babies, anyway."
Officials with the local university publicly denied having any knowledge of Vicks’ underground activities. But one official, speaking anonymously, acknowledged that federal authorities had alerted the university to their ongoing investigation.
"Michael was contacted by us," the anonymous official said. "Michael was urged to seek counseling. In fact, for all athletes with ties to the institution, we held a consciousness-raising seminar titled, "Hurting Babies Could Get You into Trouble," and he was invited to that. He didn’t attend.
"We pled with him. We used every emotional appeal we could think of. ‘Think of the university,’ we said. ‘Think of our reputation if this gets out. Think of what this will do to our fund raising. Think what this will do to revenues from athletic event attendance.’ We even talked about how it might be affecting him. ‘Sure it feels good now,’ we said. ‘But think how this might hurt your future signing bonuses. Think how it might impact your lifetime earnings from endorsements and promotions, calculated over an athlete’s average career span and takinginto account salaries, investments, stocks, fees from potential movie rights and public appearances, and minus the cost of diapers and upkeep of playpens.’
"Nothing moved him. Michael was always stubborn. It’s what made him an exceptional talent. He said, ‘I gotta show them babies who’s boss.’"
A Federal spokesperson noted that anonymous sources tended to be long-winded.
When asked what steps the university was prepared to take to ensure that none of its other former athletes were involved in the baby fight club ring and to investigate the charges that its athletic program was used to set up the ring, a university spokesperson was remarkably candid.
"What steps will we be taking? We’ll be dragging our feet, but circling the wagons," he said. "We’ll suspend ties with Michael pending the outcome of his case, of course, but we’ll hedge our bets so that if it appears that his reputation can be rehabilitated, we’ll leave the door open for re-instituting our connections at some later time. That is, if it’s profitable for the university to do so. If he’s going to cost us money, we’ll drop him like a fly ball.
"As for the assertion that other former athletes might be involved and might have used connections within the athletic program to further the ring, we’ll deny that. Naturally, if the feds find that any of our other former athletes are involved, we’ll suspend connections with them too. And we’ll throw them to the wolves if need be. At all costs, the institution must be insulated from bad publicity.
"We’ll resist federal authorities if they try to do an investigation into our affairs. We’ll claim that we’re handling the matter internally and conducting our own investigation, same as we always do. And our investigation will conclude that, with a few doublespeak tweaks that won’t amount to anything, the system of checks and safeguards already in place against this sort of thing is sufficient to prevent it from happening again.
"In short, to preserve short-term earnings potential, we’ll deny, obfuscate, distract, stonewall, cast blame elsewhere, and absolutely refuse to accept any responsibility for this affair. The survival of the institution as a viable moneymaking entity is at stake.
"And long term? Ultimately, the institution will survive. Because the public’s appetite for Michael Vicks-type ‘warriors’ to engage in gladiator-type exhibitions is insatiable, over and above any petty concerns of morality or decency.
"Besides, they’re just a bunch of fucking babies."
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