"A man is only as faithful as his options" - Chris Rock
"A man is only as faithful as his options" - Chris Rock
She used to wake me up with coffee ever morning
Yes, Tiger Woods deserves every penny, because the people who make even more than that off of him pay it to him.Tiger Woods deserve 1 billion dollars because he hits a tiny ball well? No. And there you have the life of celebrity in the year 2009.
He is the only one on the planet that can do what he does.
It may not be as noble as say, being a teacher, but I assure you it is infinitely more difficult and if you don't believe me, just tell us out of 370 milliion people in this country, who does it better than him? Zero. So yeah, he deserves the money, and it has nothing to do with being a celebrity, it has everything to do with having a skill. That's capitalism, not celebrity.
I don't think MWM was saying what Tiger has done is right- I think what he's saying is that there are a lot of people pulling out the gavels when they would fail, as Tiger has done, in the same circumstances.
Your statement that it is always wrong is dead on- however, human beings have proven time and time again that they are not perfect. And by pointing that out, it isn't to say that what he did was right, but it is to say that we fail.
You can wail about your morality, how you would never do this, how you would judge yourself the same, and I don't doubt you mean every word you say.
But you fail sometmes in your life- you do. You have hurt people. You have messed up. You have done things you probably wouldn't admit on here. You have speeding tickets, you haven't always been honest on your taxes, and I'll bet you've lied to people before.
So for you to take your little rule book, and deem someone a "Scumbag" just falls on deaf ears for me.
What Tiger did is a scumbag thing to do, but it does not make him a scumbag.
We are bigger than our worst acts, and that is the point that MWM was making.
To define someone by one act, is to say you have examined their entire life and you have reduced it to one flaw.
Tiger Woods employs people, he donates time and money to charity, he provides inspiration to millions. He is also flawed.
Such is being a human being.
Last edited by Dom Heffner; 12-04-2009 at 09:09 AM.
I heard a joke yesterday. Did you hear, Tiger is going to change his name to Cheetah.
I know, it's bad.
If a man repeatedly cheats in his business ways, is he a cheat?
If a man commits a murder, is he a murderer?
If a man repeatedly engages in sleazely activity, is he a sleazeball?
Again, I am willing to take the heat if what I am saying is unpopular. At what point is it ok to label someone? Never? Tiger has many good traits and is the ultimate competitor so its not like I think he is a sleaze and nothing else.
I'm just calling it as I see it. What if someone here found out your spouse engaged in the same activity that Tiger did...what label would you place on them...or would you think it was just one weakness in their character?
It is a sleazeball thing to do, but it doesn't mean that person is a sleazeball.
Other sleazeballs, according to you:
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Alexander Hamilton
Take their names off the buildings, work during their holidays, off the money they come, they are all sleazeballs everybody!!
Alexander Hamilton didn't just cheat- he nailed his sister-in-law.
We should all just call him a sleazeball, and forget everything he has ever done!!!
The Constitiution is a fraud becuase Alexander Hamilton had sex with someone other than his wife! Lots of times!!!!
We need to go easy on each other and love one another. Forgive. And the next time you screw up, maybe you'll be forgiven, too.
Do you have kids? If one of your kids came home and told you they did this, would you call them a sleazeball? You might at the time, but I mean, would you forget everything they ever did and just think of them as a sleazeball from here on out?
Or, you know, do they deserve your forgiveness?
Last edited by Dom Heffner; 12-04-2009 at 10:01 AM.
Amazing how much simpler our lives would be if we didn't worry about when its okay to label someone. Never works fine for me.
Of course just as its easy to come off as self righteous on a message board condemning Tiger Woods, its just as easy for me to come off as self righteous condemning the condemners.
Tiger has messed up ... everyone messes up in one way or another. What defines who we are as people is what we do about it going forward.
I think the other issue is...there is damning evidence that his affair wasn't with just this girl. Sure people can make a mistake. But repeated mistakes (ie multiple girls over multiple months)? That's more than just a "mistake." That does make Tiger a sleazy person in my opinion.
And again, I pose the question...if he wanted to sleep around with woman, why did he get married in the first place? And have kids? And further, if he realized he wanted to sleep around after his marriage/kids, why didn't he divorce his wife so he could sleep around? I still haven't heard a good explanation for this.
I think the overall reality is marriage has become a joke in this country. The divorce rate is over 50%. It's pretty clear, marriage has lost a lot of its meaning in this country and the fact that so many folks see having an affair as not a big deal or "unsurprising" helps cement that.
Last edited by fearofpopvol1; 12-04-2009 at 12:02 PM.
Everybody is wired differently.
I dunno, is there a difference between an isolated affair inspired by a true love and admiration and an affair motivated by self-gratification? Maybe there are grey areas based upon motivation but regardless of motivation, innocent people can get deeply hurt. I think the higher moral standard demands self-denial. Doing the right thing is often extremely hard, very painful and ripe with self sacrifice. I tell my daughters not to hook their wagon to a guy that can't tell himself no and to live their lives so that the guy they marry loves them because he wants them in his foxhole.
Pat Benatar got it wrong. Life is the battlefield, love is what is shared between brothers in arms....
But for me (and certainly this is just opinion), cheating is obviously wrong and speaks to a person's character. If a person would cheat on something as profoundly significant as marriage vows and thus risk his family and children (losing them via divorce is only part of it, he could bring serious diseases into his house as well as all of the other potential bad things that could happen), then what else would he be capable of doing when the chips hit the floor?
From having children it also seems clear to me that in general they (the kids) learn 90% of what they learn from watching you and only about 10% from the things we preach to them over and over. Thus the way a father interacts with their mother in essence is teaching them what to expect from others as an adult and how they should behave themselves....
Tiger modeling such casual disregard for others, embracing such risk so callously for personal gratification (it seems pretty unlikely that he has THAT much love to give), and disrespecting the ultimate promise that in so many ways affects the healthy development of his children in my mind is child abuse.
Then again the guy has leveraged his god-given ability via an almost slavish quest to become better so he obviously displays many, many admirable character traits that are inspiration in the context of his sport.
I guess all we really know for sure about Tiger after this blitz of titillating, gossipy "news" is that Tiger really, really excels at himself.
"This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner
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