As IF Times

link Tiger Woods to Make Statement on Friday – WSJ.com.

Who cares? Ok, well that’s not true.  The real question is who really cares.  Most people clamor for their 15 minutes of fame: Tiger goes the other way and wants 15 minutes of obscurity.  The events that have come to light over the past few months surrounding Tiger’s life outside the links have more than fed people’s natural voyeuristic tendencies. People love success stories, but just as many love the crash and burn stories, if not more .  If this were not true, magazines such as The Enquirer, People and Us Weekly to name a few wouldn’t be in business.

Apart from Jen, Brad and Angelina’s permanent positions on the covers of those magazines, most stories have their limited shelf life and the paparazzi move on to the next big thing.  After the initial shock of seeing someone of Tiger’s stature being exposed for living  the kind of personal life most “celebrities” probably do, the  emerging sordid details are interesting only for those truly lacking their own lives.  Tiger’s your typical boy gets to be greatest golfer in the world, marries beautiful trophy wife, has 15 affairs story.  It happens all the time.  The fascinating uniqueness  in this case was the methodical yet reckless duplicity of his activities.  Is it really that gripping to hear what girl “a” said or what girl “b” did?  Only to their agents I suppose.

At this point, whether our hero is contrite and repentant is irrelevant.  His good guy star has already fallen irreparably and all there is for him now is to resume his golf career.  Despite the loss of Accenture as a sponsor, other corporations will line up to have him represent them.  Will Tiger care if he is tarnished in the eyes of his fans?  Likely not.  Golf is not naturally a team sport.  You strive by yourself to beat the competition, it is a selfish pursuit, but that’s the way it is.  Success in the game is somewhat ephemeral, so when the opportunity arises to distance yourself from others, you step on the gas, not let up to make a close match.  It is in Tiger’s nature to pursue wins on the course, the affection of fans is not a factor. 

Sadly, with all that’s happened, nothing that Tiger does or says from now on can be taken without some question of  honesty.  Whether through contrived speeches created for him by his management group desperate to reflate the franchise or interviews to media people, his words will always have the taint of insincerity.  You’d be wrong to think I blame this all on Tiger.  Certainly he had a role to play.  As culpable are his management team, his sponsors and the adoring media who extrapolated Tiger’s sporting achievements to real life heroism with the usual end game of commercial benefit.   Guilty as well are those in the public who bought into the fairy tale.  We all love our sports heros because we see them achieving things we aren’t capable of.  In the end…it’s only a game.

link Kevin Smith fuels row over fat plane passengers | Reuters.

You know it had to happen eventually.  Mr. Smith was informed he was a safety hazard and would be denied boarding onto a Southwest Airlines flight.  This not because of his larger than life movies, but literally because he was  larger than life; super sized.   The “world” famous director of such classics as “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy” was so annoyed with his treatment by the airline that he went all a-twitter to marshall sympathy from his rabid fans.  Apparently a “wave” of protest from angry passengers supported Mr. Smith.  Although “wave” is not defined as an absolute number, I suspect at least 2, both likely of plus size.

It doesn’t appear to be an issue of size per se: Smith himself acknowledged as much by actually purchasing tickets for 2 seats on the original flight.  On the standby flight which he wanted to board, only one seat was available and apparently the airline made the judgement call that shoe-horning him in wouldn’t do.  What’s wrong with that?  Imagine if you were the person having to be seated next to a human wall.  God forbid that in some kind of emergency, you’d have to climb over Mt. Smith to exit the aircraft. 

It looks like he was inconvenienced by having to miss the flight and so he pursued today’s popular method of retribution, trial by media.  Disregarding the fact that calling attention to his story would heap even more ridicule upon his super size, he spins the story as one of indignance and positions himself as a champion for the rights of similarly proportioned fliers.  All of a sudden, it’s his rights that are being trampled.  As if.  What if his size 14’s were on someone else’s feet and he had to be seated next to a couple of people rolled into one?  My bet is that he would be complaining about his nose being buried in someone’s armpit.  Anyone who flies knows how ridiculously small the passenger spaces are these days for even an average sized person.  Having to sit next to anyone tipping 300 pounds on a flight of any length is unbearable.  It’s like sitting in a full nelson for hours.   What if you’re claustrophobic? What if you need to see daylight?

I’ve written numerous times on encroachments on personal freedoms, but guys like Smith use their “celebrity” in order to have things their way.  For them, it’s not about personal freedoms, it’s about their personal freedoms, others don’t matter.  What if he had an afro hairstyle the size of a hula hoop?  Are people obligated to accept his individuality?  Southwest for their part were wimpy in their response, apologizing and offering a credit.  What they should have offered were tickets on Sumo Airlines.