It is the end of another week and boy was this a long one! Monday I woke up to about a foot of snow on my driveway. Thank goodness I had the day off; it was my monthly furlough day. I had Alex stay home from school as there was no way I would have been able to shovel the driveway and take him to school in a timely manner. As it turned out all schools were closed as were all state offices. I had planned on spending the day writing two final papers for school but ended up with a migraine. I stayed home Tuesday to finish my papers. Wednesday saw me rushing to a tire store after work to have snow tires put on my SUV. My incredible boyfriend bought the tires for me and escorted me to have them put on. After we had dinner I finished up my papers and turned them in. Thursday and Friday brought more snow but at least I felt safe knowing I had proper set of tires to drive on. I already wrote about Friday, so we will jump to Saturday. We had a break in the weather so I braved the roads and headed to the library to pick up the book Lady Macbeth by Susan Fraser King. My review of the book will come out this week. I tried to do some Christmas shopping but so many stores have closed in our small town it was hard to find what I was looking for. Saturday afternoon I was up on a ladder chipping away at the ice forming on my rain gutters, not what I expected to be doing, but it had to be done. I made some brownies and baked a Sheppard’s pie. By bed time I was exhausted!
Today I did the usual house chores and finished Lady Macbeth. I logged onto my school’s website and found out I earned As in both of my classes! You can bet I did the happy dance, as my class Visions of Creation was really mentally taxing. I honestly thought I would earn my first B, but no, somehow I managed to pull off an A.
So as you can see I have not had a lot of time to study this week’s news. I looked for news articles on the latest experiments with the Hadron Collider but did not find anything new. I am amazed at how much anger there is over the Tiger Wood’s scandal. I have read several articles and professional blogs devoted to tearing him apart. I do not understand this or I guess I do not understand why the public holds professional sports figures and celebrities to incredibly high standards then is “shocked” when do not live up to them. We see this time and time again. A celebrity is loved and venerated for nothing more than possessing a gift or skill, yet when the said celebrity shows human qualities he or she is treated like a monster. We are forgetting that the celebrity never asked to be worshiped for anything other than his or her skill, yet we the public go way beyond honoring talent mwe demand the talented behave saint like. When did this start? Why do we do it?
If Woods had endorsed monogamy or sold products promoting family values then I could understand the backlash he is facing now, but he did not. Woods promoted capitalism; buy this buy that. None of which has anything to do with being a good husband or moral person. Yes I know there is an ad out there aimed at children that says “Be like Tiger”. Again this is referring to his skill and hard work, not his personal value system.
I have a secret to share with my readers; many, many sports figures cheat on their wives. Why? Because there are hundreds of willing women who have no morals and see nothing wrong with sleeping with a “name”. Some even pride themselves for this practice.
My family owned a resort Called The El Rancho Tropicana (sadly it was sold and now is a mega mall) and from 1963 to 1983 The Oakland/LA Raiders used it as their summer training camp. I have met many football giants from Gene Upshaw to John Matuszak (who in turn introduced me to Ringo Star!). Every summer it was the same thing; single and married women hung out at the resort hoping for a chance to meet and sleep with a famous football player. Professional prostitutes would try to rent rooms hoping to make easy money all summer. With all these women around it was no wonder many players fell victim to their libido; it was way too easy to have one night stands since there were so many women willing to “service” these men if only for a few hours.
I am not saying what Woods did was right or am offering excuses for him. Cheating is never right. What I am saying is as a society we have to stop treating celebrities as if they were our local religious icons. They are human and have human failings. Maybe if we did not hold them high on pedestals they would not fall off. Perhaps if we stopping treating them like rock stars women would not be lining up for a chance to sleep with them. We need to find our heroes in other places (like the men and women who protect our country), but please when you do find a real hero keep in mind he or she is just a human being.
So ends another weekly wrap up. All I can hope is this week will be less hectic but I somehow I doubt it. I still need to find one more item for my secret santa then send it off. I looked all over for the perfect gift for my son Alex, but so far what I want cannot be found in my town. Yes, I could order it online, but it is the type of thing I want to see and ask questions about. Best Buy is my last resort so this week I will brave the crowd and spend some time and money in this most hated store. Yeah Christmas and the stress it brings. Thankfully it only comes once a year.
The View From Sari's World 
I was exhausted just reading about your week, Sari. Congratulations on your A's! This whole Tiger Woods' fiasco is getting way more attention than it deserves. I really have nothing to add to what you've written here about it, Sari. I pretty much agree with you on the subject.I hope you are able to find Alex's gift!
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I know that sports stars and what not are not obliged to be good people. There are two reasons, though, why I can understand people's anger over the whoel fiasco. First of all – NOONE'S job duties includes 'be a good person' in it. And, I understand that it 'takes two to tango', of course. But, the only people who are 'supposed' to be moral people are priests. And that doesn't always work out, either. Children – and adults – want heroes, and culture is built ina way to provide heroes to fill that need. One of the main social purposes of professional sports is to provide role models. Now, one can argue that perhaps this isn't fair, that skill in hitting a golf ball should have nothing to do with being a good person, but then who DO we expect to be heroes? Political Leaders? Movie Stars? Every position of power comes with temptations, but I can understand the feelings of someone who feels like these folks are being paid millions of dollars for a skill, given an opportunity that is extremely rare, and offered the adulation of millions of fans. Not being a jerk might just be an attendant secondary duty of the job?The other reason I can understand this anger is because we, as a culture, have changed to where we don't live in small communities where we know everybody's business, and can discuss each other as moral examples. Perhaps for the better. But, what this means, is that we no longer have small, local examples to teach moral standards with. You no longer take your kid to come throw eggs at your next door neighbor when he/she is unfaithful to his/her marriage and is placed in the stocks. But, at a primal level, this is how we as a society reinforce our social mores: by public crucifixion of the wicked. I don't think this is RIGHT, per se, but I also don't think that this is something that will stop happening anytime soon.
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Jason, nice response, but I still have to ask; why do we look to others for role models for our children? Why do we feel we must judge our neighbors? Our divorce rate is up to around 50%, the porn industry is booming and we allow our girls to walk around with T-shirts that read "future porn star" and short skirts. Our culture is all about sex so why are we surprised when powerful men have a lot of sex partners? Who are we as a society to judge others for doing what we all seem to venerate? Before we look to others for our moral compass we should look at ourselves.
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Wendy,Yes I had a long week. This week looks like it will be calm. I found Alex's present tonight and tomorrow my boyfriend is coming over and making me dinner. Imagine a man making me dinner? I am so luck to have found this guy! I can relax and get ready for another round of frantic last minute Christmas shopping; as long as the weather holds up.
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Well, I think children need a role model outside of their parents – not that this gives parents an excuse for being bad, of course, because kids use their parents as role models as well. But, every kids is growing up to be something different and not necessarily something that's what their parents are. So, if my son, say, likes sports, a lot, he wants to look up to someone who understands what he understands, and can teach him how to be the kind of person he wants to be, you know? Fame has rewards, but it also has certain terrible responsibilities.
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What I wonder is when did this kind of thing become newsworthy?! Is it just me, or is it getting much more coverage then it deserves. I've been avoiding it at every turn and am even a little bit thankful I'm a nobody LOL> My transgressions will remain my own and I can just be who I am rather then exchange my image for a paycheck. Congrats on the A's!!
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Congratulations on the As.Great post. I live in a sport's mad country so I have my own issues with the adoration of sports stars who seem to consistently behave badly (in some of our sports it appears that a culture of sexual assult and binge drinking is acceptable), I wouldn't care except they are held up as ideal Australians while artists, writers, intellectuals of any kind are regarded with scorn. An Australian historian, who happened to be a women once made an observation which a previous Prime minister repeated, about our national heroes questioning what it says about us that of our greatest heroes; one is a criminal, Ned Kelly, another is a sportsman, the cricketer Don Bradman and the third is a horse, Phar Lap. As to Tiger Woods, I am stunned that his private life has been so newsworthy, I just don't get it.Good luck with the Christmas shopping.
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Well I cannot say it is much better over here in the states. Our intellectuals are ignored by the media and the masses. It is so sad that those who posses acting skills and sport skills are held up as heroes while those who work to make our world a better place are pushed aside. I just received a message from Neil Degrasse Tyson, the famous American astrophysicist. I wrote him via Facebook asking which of his books I should buy my boyfriend for Christmas and he answered me! He is my hero.
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