Can We Talk?

Yesterday, the friendly folks on the radio were talking about whether or not they should be talking about Tiger Woods. Would it be sensationalist media to play the voice-mail message that Tiger allegedly left urging his paramour to take her name off her number so that his wife wouldn't be able to track it back to her? Everyone else, it seems, is talking about it. Why shouldn't they?
It's a pop culture vortex. A feeding frenzy of terrifying proportions. This one has much better traction than the balloon boy, and even the White House party-crashers have to bump up their level of annoyance to compete with the sound and fury that is the Tiger Woods Affair. He might even give Mark Sanford a run for his money. This one has, as they say, legs.
But it still pains me just a little that this tawdry bit of marital infidelity has to fill our waking hours. I admit that I am as curious as the next person when it comes to figuring out just how this all came to pass. What was going through his head? How could he let that happen to him?
That's easy enough. He's human, and therefore capable of stunning lapses in judgement and taste. Tiger Woods doesn't get to do this sort of thing in private because he is Tiger Woods. In a world that seems to have an ever-growing hunger for their heroes failures, fueled by a twenty-four hour news twitter network facebook update, stars don't get to hang in the sky very long. Over the course of anyone's life, dirt accumulates, and it would be shocking to find out that your favorite TV or sports personality really was a nice guy after all.
All of which brings us back to the original question: Should we be talking about it at all? With the world economy still on the brink of collapse and wars across the globe to keep us occupied while we try and decide whether or not to insure American children from Swine Flu, it does seem like there must be something else to discuss. But those things are too hard. Tiger and his putter getting into trouble, that's something I can wrap my head around. God help me.