19 December 2009

GIVE IT A REST


How naive Americans can be. We adore and venerate the famous -- in sports, in entertainment, in politics -- until the famous make a slip, then we're all over them like flies on honey. Hypocrisy and greed drive the media scandal machines to sanctimonious sensationalism. Someone of lesser note who makes the same lapses in judgment, doesn't have to see his/her face and name plastered all over the tabloids and TV. We drive ourselves into rabid fits of self-righteousness over events which most Europeans only shake their heads at, knowing that humans are fallible and imperfect.

Tiger Woods, arguably the best professional golfer ever, and a pure athlete in the mold of Michael Jordan, is living in hell right now. Woods has admitted to marital infidelities, and has left his sport to pay full attention to his family, which appears to be coming apart at the seams. He is visibly, genuinely tortured. Those who live in glass houses might say, "and rightly so." Be careful what you wish for.

For a different, less rigidly judgmental view, i offer Dick Cavett's column in today's online NYTimes. Cavett is intelligent, witty in a quiet understated manner, and has been around long enough to have witnessed the rise and fall of countless careers and reputations. His observations don't so much focus on Tiger, as shed light on our own hysterical, irrational double standards.

No comments:

Post a Comment