A number of months back, after his name started making news for reasons other than gold, a number of magazines and publications are still dedicating a fair bit of space to Tiger Woods’ off the golf-course problems. Guess what: I don’t care.
A number of months back, after his name started making news for reasons other than gold, a number of magazines and publications are still dedicating a fair bit of space to Tiger Woods’ off the golf-course problems. Guess what: I don’t care.
To be perfectly frank, I don’t really understand much about what he was alleged to have done. I know there was talk about some sort of car accident and about him having done something that might have disappointed his wife.
The reason I don’t know more about it is, whenever I see a piece of writing with "Tiger Woods” in the headline, I pass over the article. Why? Did I point out that I don’t care?
If you live in at least a moderately densely populated area, there’s an excellent probability that someone living within a few meters of you, did something much more morally reprehensible than whatever it is that Tiger Woods was supposed to have done.
Why the hell do you care any more strongly about what Tiger Woods did or did not do, than you care about someone living within a few meters of you who did the same thing or worse?
I’m not a golf fan, so my lack of caring is doubled in this instance. But, taking a broader perspective, I think there is something terribly sick about the media’s priorities or, more to the point, the priorities of the audiences the media cater to. I only half blame the media–or probably much less than half.
The media wouldn’t report on this crap if they didn’t think people wanted to read/watch it. They’ve got expenses to cover and they’d like to make a profit. In fact, they’d like to make an enormous profit if they can. But that’s just my opinion.
There are wars and insurgencies going on in various parts of the world that might spill over and have implications for the rest of us.
I can’t come close to naming all of the conflict areas because many of the sources I turn to for news, think that those conflicts are less important than the doings of a golf star.
And it’s not just Tiger, but the whole bunch of celebrities; however the Tiger saga doesn’t seem just about to get off the scene.
Some countries that aren’t the most democratic, don’t have the highest of ethical standards, and don’t have the most peaceful of intents are developing nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons have a potential to cause considerable inconvenience if they are, say, exploded on someone’s forehead. But, based on what you read or see in many "news” media, you would think that I should care less about that than I do about Tiger Woods or Beckham or Rihanna or even Tom clause (okay…not that one).
Um, I don’t think so.
Without considering climate change, which does get adequate press, there are likely a few environmental issues that we should pay attention to if we think it noble to attempt to avoid the premature extinction of Homo sapiens, even though that premature extinction isn’t likely to happen during the few decades that we would normally expect to be alive.
I’ve never had the problem myself, but I imagine that premature extinction would be a serious impediment to your enjoyment of a full and healthy fun-life. Then again, I’m not exactly enjoying a full and health fun-life either, so maybe premature extinction wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But I digress.
I said, "there are likely a few environmental issues” rather than "there are a few environmental issues” because the truth is, I’m not certain of that.
Why? Because the news media ran short of electrons or paper and ink as a result of how much of those commodities they spend reporting on Tiger Woods, so they don’t get many opportunities to report on those environmental issues; that’s why.
I don’t mean to pick on Tiger Woods. He’s only the latest example of this nonsense. What’s more, the amount of coverage that the news media devote to him is certainly not his choice.
There have been many other examples in the past.
For instance, I also didn’t care when a celebrity or two attempted to adopt one or two kids from some African country or countries. Why can’t I tell you if it was one or two celebrities and if it was one or two kids? Want a hint? It’s spelled "I D-O-N-‘-T C-A-R-E.”
I don’t have the slightest of ill-will towards celebrities that adopt needy children from some not so nice places all over the world. If I ever got to know those celebrities personally I might come to think that they were the most wonderful people alive.
If they also turned out to be the few people in the world to have the hots for me, that would seal the deal! However, none of that’s going to happen, so, not to put too fine a point on it, I don’t care.
And if those celebrities are trying to help the one or two children they adopted and they give them unconditional love, that’s great. Good for them.
However, there are thousands of people—no, make that millions of people— who devote much of their lives to helping deprived children in desperate situations. These people build orphanages.
That set up, stock and staff feeding stations. They establish schools. Collectively, they’ve probably improved and saved millions of children’s lives.
Many of these humanitarians toil anonymously in their heroic efforts, struggling to raise funds that, I suspect, are equal to only a portion of what those celebrities earn from each concert tour or CD release. Maybe, just maybe, a reporter will stumble on one of these tireless humanitarians and write a two-column "human interest” article on their work. But that is about it.
Yet, when some celebrities try to adopt a kid or two from some country it’s front-page news for weeks. I think that’s wrong. Why? I might have mentioned this before, but in case not, allow me to say, I don’t care.
I could probably come up with dozens more examples of excessive "news” irrelevance if I wanted to think about it. But I don’t want to think about it. Why? You know why. It’s because I don’t care.
So, what is my point? I’m glad you asked. To my mind, the time and resources that the media spend investigating and reporting on the foibles, peccadilloes, and even the major crimes of the rich and famous is excessive to the extreme. Why do I think that?
At the risk of being redundant, I think that because I don’t care about that nonsense. Not in the least.