Was the tiger from the woods?

Tiger Wood

I have often ruminated over why people get curious about the private lives of big shots and celebrities.

These are ordinary people except that they have one gift or talent, fame or wealth someone else does n6t have. But that doesn't make anyone special.

So why should Kwame Alomele care about what the most talented sprinter does with his life? Of course, if I sprint for only 30 metres and do not collapse face down, them God's anointing is upon my head. But that doesn't make me think Usain Bolt deserves any more attention than his athletic prowess warrants.

I don't know what the paparazzi wanted with Lady Diana. For goodness sake she was only a woman married to a prince. And so what? What was so special about the wife of a prince as to engender such crazy attention; paparazzi falling over themselves to get a shot? Well, that is newspaper business, but the guys surely drove her to death! That is pretty nonsensical!

I believe that people no matter who they are or others claim they are should be given space to lead their lives no matter how badly. Everybody has a private life arid it can be amazing what people do in private. But that is in private and they deserve their privacy.

Of course, public office-holders are expected to conduct themselves in ways that will not bring governance into disrepute: So when a minister is fond of banging prostitutes curing weekends and public holidays, it should be of concern to all, especially if he has become notorious for such romantic escapades.

But that gives nobody the licence to keep hounding Hie honourable minister to find out the next call-girl he is about to pick, and what he is going to do to her. If what he is going to do will tell on his ministerial performance, then of course, we must start getting worried, especially if the minister doesn't believe in condoms. But that is a different ball-game-from the sheer harassment that celebrities have to contend with half their lives.

Morality is a prerequisite for governance, but are those who claim they are the paragons of morality, the holier-than-thou judges of human morality, prepared to say with all sincerity that in their private moments they have been saint all their lives?

But that gives nobody the licence to keep hounding the honourable minister to find out their next call-girl he is about to pick, and what he is going to do to her. If what he is going to do will tell on his ministerial performance, then of course, we must start.getting worried, especially if the minister doesn't believe in condoms. But that is a different ball-game-from the sheer harassment that celebrities have to contend with half their lives.

Morality is a prerequisite for governance, but are those who claim they are the paragons of morality, the holier-than-thou judges of human morality, prepared to say with all sincerity that in their private moments they have been saint all their lives?

Everyone has a private life. It is just expected that some private lives will be dangerously uncomplimentary. For example, some people are bi-sexual, a very degradable mania that has afflicted humanity. They have normal sex partners and homosexual or lesbian lovers depending on their gender. Some wives do not know their husbands are homosexuals and never will. Some husbands don't know about the lesbianism their wives practise when they are with their so-called best friends.

There are people who cannot sleep unless they feed on pornography for hours on end, of course in private. It will not do to let their wives or children know they are pornographic psychos. Others cannot enjoy sex unless it is fetish, kinky or a perversion.

That means the sex act must be bizarre, out of the ordinary and basically mind-blowing.

I hear some men cannot attain orgasm unless they are caned severely by their sex partners. Some women have to scratch red and bite their partners before they can explode into a climax People have turned the reproductive organs into machines of pleasure and sin. In public, everybody looks nice and decent hi private, it can be horrifying to behold. Luckily, God has given man that ability to manage himself so as not to misbehave in the public glare. The dog and other animals have not been endowed with such classified ability. That is why they think copulating in public is just in tune with natural behaviour.

Just very recently, Tiger Woods was found semi-conscious at about 2:20 am after his car run into a fire hydrant. I'm surprised to learn that many people want to know what the golf maestro was doing at that time. I don't want to believe that people think Tiger Woods is a teenager in a boarding school under strict entry and exit rules.

For goodness sake, the man has been an adult many years ago, is married and knows how to manage his own affairs. So if he is out at 2:00 am, should people be overly curious to know why? Since when did people stop minding their own business? And if a golf champion is in a minor accident, should that become an issue of debate? Everybody can be in an accident! Of course, we empathise with him, but going beyond empathy to enquire what the hell he was doing at 2a.m. is technically an invasion of his privacy.

Well, the world is such that the average human being is prone to making a storm in a teacup. And because the media have always known that of human beings, they thrive on that human weakness and feed society with trivialities and call it sensationally horrific, horrendous, horrid, horror and all the horrifying adjectives and nouns they can conjure from their fertile imaginations.

In some countries, reporters disguise themselves as garden-boys, get employed in ministers' homes and do all the taping and video-coverage when the minister consorts with prostitutes on his marital bed. Very funny things happen to celebrities. They have no space to breathe the air of freedom. Man indeed is born free but is always in chains!

That sometimes gets .on the nerve of people like Mike Tyson who recently gave a cameraman an upper-cut because he felt the paparazzo was all over him.

Of course, Tiger Woods has released a press statement just short of saying that people should mind their business because he was literally minding his.

I'm not sure, though, that the tiger was coming from the woods at that hour. May be he went partying or beach romping. But that isn't my business either, is it?

Credit: Merari Alomele/The Spectator
E-mail: [email protected] Web site : www.merarialomele.com