Now, a gentle reminder that while the dogfighting charges against Michael Vick are disgusting and make you wonder exactly how callously cruel a person can be, bad things can happen to humans, too, and that those acts should be regarded with the same level of disgust.

So, I suggest we take a brief break from coming up with imaginative ways to punish Vick (OK with the working for the Humane Society, but the other suggestions aren't as "clever'' as the author thinks), displaying our ignorance of the judicial system (hello, Tim Donaghy isn't going to spend 25 years in jail; he cut a deal, just as Vick reportedly plans to do) and displaying how inhumane we can be in showing how "humane'' we are to other living beings (letter-writers and e-mailers, you know who you are).

During that break, check out HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, after the reports on dogfighting and on Pacman Jones. Andrea Kremer interviews Javon Walker, the Broncos player who was sitting in the limo last New Year's morning next to teammate Darrent Williams when Williams was shot to death in a drive-by. She also talks to his friends in Fort Worth, Texas to find out what they knew and what we might not know about Williams (try to get through her mildly patronizing questions about whether he or they were gang members). The whole thing is heart-wrenching, especially as Walker describes the scene that night, says that he feared for his own life for weeks afterward, and talks of how he still has his shirt covered in Williams' blood. Kremer closed the report by saying that police have men in custody for the murder but have not charged them yet.

This week, the Broncos worked out with the Cowboys in Dallas, near where Williams grew up, and here's a great column about what they're going through. And here's a story about how the Broncos invited Williams' mother, Rosalind, to practice yesterday and brought her onto the field to break the final huddle of the day with one of her son's catchphrases.

It won't make you feel any better about either the fate of those dogs or about Michael Vick. But it might make you work up a similar level of rage when a person has his life pointless and senselessly taken away. The next email or reply that I get that is even half as inflamed about Williams' murder than about the dogs Vick abused, will be the first.