The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

On Saturday afternoon, the Atlanta Falcons played their final regular season game at the Georgia Dome. Among those who were invited to attend was former Falcons starting quarterback Michael Vick. While Vick received a standing ovation at the game, not everyone was pleased with his invitation or attendance, as a petition generated by Change.org received over 30,000 signatures to try and prevent the former star quarterback from attending the Falcons final regular season home game. On the petition, it said: "By inviting Michael Vick to participate in a ceremony on Sunday, the Falcons are honoring a convicted dogfighter who profited from cruelty to animals for years. Please sign this petition and let the Falcons know that NFL fans do not support Vick and do not condone his actions." Now, as far as I see it, anyone with a beating heart would likely have difficulty condoning Michael Vick's previous actions with relation to dogfighting. As a four-time dog owner myself, in...

Are there certain rules and guidelines by which to go when it comes to apologizing, accepting an apology and/or forgiving when another comes forward and apologizes? Are there events that one shouldn't even confront another about or be willing to be confronted about? I haven't seen my abuser since I was eight years old. Is it wrong of me to want to see him straighten his life out, to stand up to him face-to-face, receive an honest apology and walk away from the situation on a more positive note? Most people I know just say to forget about it, to put it behind me, that it'd be crazy for me to confront him about it. Wouldn't that provide closure, though? Wouldn't it be more likely for me to move past the situation once I received that closure as opposed to trying to deny it ever happened? If a girlfriend just up and left me without any notice, wouldn't that linger in the back of my mind until I found out what really happened? I may block it out after a while, b...