Before I begin, I would like to preface with the following:

I am about as interested in the Tiger Woods scandal as I am in spending a day playing with my own excrement. I had no intention of writing this article. This whole thing bores me into a coma. (And not even the good kind. Even though I’m asleep, I’m still in excruciating pain.)

But, then I realized that even though the story itself doesn’t interest me, the reaction sure does. It’s one thing to see the mainstream media go nuts on this for days and days. That is to be expected.

In my opinion of that matter, I see it as a smokescreen that the media can use to hide real news from us, i.e. the true status of the universal healthcare debate, or accurate reporting on our foreign entanglements. I firmly believe that the mainstream media has become an arm of our current government, and I have written it off.

However, (and let me be explicitly clear that this is not a personal “call-out”) when I see a text conversation between Tiger Woods and one of his mistresses pop up on a tech blog, that is exactly the point where my head begins to teeter off its moorings.

Now, just for fun, I’m going to disclose something. We’re all supposed to be into disclosure nowadays anyway, right?

The stories I comment on here at SA are pitched to me. I accept them or refuse them based on my level of interest, which is admittedly more often than not, on the low side. Every once in a while I’ll have to have certain angles presented to me too, because I don’t easily see how every little story on the planet can be tied to technology.

Say what you want to say about me, but with the majority of my work takes a greater interest in Al-Qaeda acquiring technology, not how (or what) Tiger Woods thumb-types. That notwithstanding, I shall now take the arguments that were presented to me, and deal with them all, one by specious one. (Again, this is not a slam on anybody specific, because if one person makes these arguments to me, that means that they are being made in other places too. Any angle at all to turn a pop culture story into a tech story, right?)

“This is a violation of privacy.”

Well, duh. I suppose on the surface that it indeed is. But everybody keeps forgetting one very simple fact. Be it right or wrong, privacy is not a “right” in context of a legally protected aspect of life. The most any of us can hope for is a “reasonable expectation” of privacy. This of course, is open to interpretation. Guess what, kids? When you’re as famous Tiger, that “reasonable expectation” goes way, way down. His face is/was everywhere, and by his choice, at that. Privacy Nazi says, “No secrets for you!”

That being said, yes, it is terrible a terrible betrayal of trust which allowed us to see these messages. But that in itself is another thing that some of us may be missing:

People are terrible. I don’t know how the text messages were released, because I find the story inane and refuse to follow it, but what I can tell you with utmost certainty is that one person can, and often will turn on another if that person thinks that doing so will benefit them socially or professionally. Sometimes it’s even less than that. Some people get their jollies from destroying others. They gain nothing personally, but delight in the misery of others. The world is cruel, okay? So, give up on privacy, will you? I think I’ve told you this once already.

“Tiger is computer illiterate.”

Oh, for the love of God, who cares? This just in: Tiger Woods is worth about a billion dollars. A billion dollars! That’s a lot of money! Do you know how he makes that money? He travels around the world slapping a little white ball with a bent stick until the ball falls into a hole in the ground, and then in his “free” time he stands in front of “Product X” and smiles while being photographed.

Imagine that. His net worth has nine zeroes in it, and this guy didn’t write one line of code or pass even one certification test. That bastard! How dare he do that! For that transgression we shall all cast a blindness spell on you with our d20’s Tiger! You just wait until we level up and kick your ass! You’ll rue the day, dude!

Couple that with the fact that Tiger probably has a management staff that rivals most heads of state, being “computer literate” as defined by the tech elite, probably doesn’t enter into his daily life equation.

Seriously, let me ask everyone a question. Aside from your online “friends” how many people do you know in your daily circle who are genuinely computer literate? I’m talking about people in your actual real-time orbit? People you telecommute or partner with online don’t count. Just people in your space maybe two or three at the outside most? Personally, I know a lot of tech people, but there’s only one on in my local circle of friends who truly knows what he’s doing. It’s a safe bet that is that way for most of us, so let’s drop the phony (perhaps wistful?) amazement over the prospect that Tiger may not know how to use a computer. Other than checking his messages, and from the looks of it, maybe surfing porn, he obviously doesn’t need to know much, does he?

“He’s juggling (at last count 10 11 12 women) digitally.”

Wait, how can he be computer illiterate, then? Tiger would have to have some serious “inbox management” skills to pull that off, wouldn’t he?

Actually, this is the easiest one of the bunch. This is nothing more than “Jealousy 2.0”. It was bad enough that he got rich without a computer or VC money but now, instead of playing role playing games and asking the Game Master, “Are there any girls there? If there are I want to do them”, Tiger is obviously chatting up a ton of real girls on his handheld and actually doing them. That’s gotta chap some seriously pasty-white nerd ass, doesn’t it?

Look, none of this has anything to do with technology, or privacy or anything else. What is has to do with is that a guy worked hard, got rich, got bored, and then somehow became a bad person who couldn’t control his urges. Because of that, he may lose his family, and his career. That’s the real story. It’s about what he did. Not the “technological circumstances” that may or may not have precipitated the fallout.

Those are all silly arguments that were only made as an attempt by some people in an effort to somehow make the topic du ’jour correlate with their corner of the world. Sorry, didn’t work.

Now, who wants a ride on the Fail Whale? I’ve got lots of complimentary tickets.