Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Posted: **February 19th, 2010, 1:27 pm**

I was raised in the game of golf. All the men in my family and many of the women played avidly. My grandfather and two of my uncles were pros. It was the family game. I learned the rules of life on a golf course.

I was never that good at the game; I was too small. Even Chi Chi Rodrigues, my hero and the smallest guy on the PGA tour, outweighed me by 20 lbs. But I could hold my own against opponents who were much larger than I was because golf is very much a mental game and while size matters, it's not everything.

I remember a day when my grandfather and I were playing a round and he was talking about golf pros and the game. He said, 'You watch. Some little Japanese or Chinese guy is gonna show up on the tour and just win everything. They have mental discipline." This was before Tiger Woods was a gleam in Earle's eye.

When Tiger burst on the scene and owned the game, I nodded and thought about my grandfather's words. Tiger was the fulfillment of his fairway prophesy. His mental discipline and zen-like concentration had made him ruler of the tour.

It is fitting that Tiger should mention his Buddhism during his Mea Culpa statement today. One thing that has always attracted me to Buddhism is that it is not a belief but a practice, a Way rather than an Answer. I think that Tiger's statement showed him to be the warrior-monk that he is and also an exemplar of the 'gentleman's game.'

Posted: **February 19th, 2010, 3:10 pm**

Tiger Woods's disgusting apology

I've never been more disgusted with Tiger Woods.

I found his apology unbelievable, insincere, self-serving, self-indulgent, and narcissistic. (Long winded and repetitive, too.)

The more he spoke about redemption, about becoming a better man, a better husband, a better father, a better Buddhist, a better role model for your children and mine, the more I wanted him to just shut up.

He's not a public official or a spiritual or civic leader in whom we placed our trust and faith. He didn't campaign for votes on a family values platform. Nor was he standing behind a pulpit preaching the virtues of fidelity while carousing about town. He did not disgrace the country. He did not disgrace golf by falsifying scores or taking performance-enhancing drugs. This man, who is likely the most gifted golfer ever to play the game, cheated on his wife. And he got caught.

He did not owe us -- you and me -- an apology. That he delivered one just shows how meaningless it really was. You don't need an internationally televised apology to become a better man, a better husband, a better father -- the things he claims are most important to him. But you do need such a spectacle if you're going to remain a multi-billion dollar marketing machine. And that's what this pathetic display was all about.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpa ... inionsbox1

Posted: **February 19th, 2010, 3:33 pm**

It wasn't worth my time to listen to it. It's insulting to my intelligence and my human dignity to even be bombarded with the so-called news about his personal lifestyle when I turn on the TV.

That's not news. Who cares? Really. I don't.

Tonight, it will be the lead "news" story. As if there's no war in Afghanistan. As if people aren't dying in both Afghanistan and Iraq. As if nobody's out of work. As if the economy is repaired. As if some wacko didn't fly his airplane into a building in Austin Texas. That was yesterday's news, the wacko. Today, we'll get the poor-poor-i'm-so-sorry-i-screwed-up middle-aged horny athlete who happened to cheat on his wife repeatedly as IF ... as IF it's anybody's business except him and his wife's!

Millions of guys do that every day. AND they have to have the partners to do it with so millions of women are doing it, too.

So what?

Again, I didn't listen to it and I hope I don't have to hear it when I'm trying to hear some real news stories tonight when I turn on the news.

I agree with the Washington Post blogger quoted by Jack. He doesn't owe us an apology. He doesn't owe me an apology.

His personal life is none of our business.

Who cares? That's not news.

Posted: **February 19th, 2010, 4:59 pm**

Aldous Huxley vs. George Orwell--

Compared to Orwell's regime, Huxley's fictionalized absolutism does not depend exclusively upon the power of fear and violence. The masses are not handed soma to tranquilize them, but they are given plentiful cheap gin.

---from Chris Hitchen's review of "Brave New World Revisited." Orwell was a student of Huxley at Eton. They "debated" back and forth, for a while, which of their visions was truer. But really, they both seem to apply.

Orwell sent Huxley an advance copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four. In late 1949, Huxley wrote back to say "how fine and profoundly important" the book was. However, he was convinced that future rulers would discover that: infant-conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience ... "the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblances to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency."

(from the same article).

of course this has nothing to do with the lurid foibles of tiger woods dominating the news for weeks and months over such things as continual, ongoing corporate welfare and bailouts and joblessness and wars being continually fought in faraway places and people dying and going bankrupt from lack of basic healthcare. nothing at all, really. damn dystopian nutcase thinkers.

yeah, you know. it's Tiger Woods for godsake, so yeah, we need to see it, hear it, we gotta know.. not me, necessarily (not a golf man), but you know...

Posted: **February 19th, 2010, 7:23 pm**

Are we blaming Tiger Woods for consuming the news like a rampant forest fire during a three year drought... or the media dissemination of his public apology, this public figure that has dominated the world of golf and sports in general like no other before him?

If the man wasn't involved in SEX this would be a non-subject. But we all know how interesting SEX really is.

Bottom line, it matters little to most other than to hear him speak, hear his apology and make our own conclusions like Eva Rodriguez had the privilege to do.

How often we seem to either forget or worse, ignore the fact that the media is the singular voice of one person using the media to opine to the public... standing on a podium with a microphone aimed at their mouths trying in vain to convince us that what they have to say is the final word. It ain't always necessary, but it helps pay the person's bills. Wouldn't we do the same if that was how we paid our bills?

Posted: **February 19th, 2010, 7:47 pm**

the mainstream media seem strictly about profit (thus, sensationalistic). you're right. they're just "giving us what we want," which is no intrinsic big problem, agreed. but they're also not giving us "what we need," i.e., true "journalistic" and truthful reporting, which is a little more insidious (according to those aforementioned "dystopian" wackos above, at least). or something like that.

and in defense of "the media," some of the issues they should be covering in more accurate detail are complex or arcane enough in some ways to make eyes start to glaze over, so yeah..

where was I going with this?

Posted: **February 19th, 2010, 8:04 pm**

Yeah, I guess a lot of people want it or they wouldn't cover such inflammatory privacy-invasive stories. It sells toilet paper and pharmaceuticals.

I'm not one of them, though.

I guess I just don't understand why other people's personal lives interest people so much. I'd rather read fiction.

Posted: **February 19th, 2010, 10:52 pm**

so you prefer fiction over non-fiction?

i'm one of those 'stranger than fiction' types, myself, with a few exception, of course. i do enjoy fiction in movies, which the majority are come to think about it.

re: tiger's apology - Soo and I were at one of a favorite restaurants this afternoon for lunch and in the bar area where we usually sit they had the tv on... tiger was apologizing, after we'd seen 10 minutes of it at home earlier. this was on ESPN and right after it was over they RERAN it! couldn't believe it... overload... why twice and in a row?

Posted: **February 19th, 2010, 11:44 pm**

I read both.

Mostly the non-fiction stuff I read is philosophy-oriented books or self help books. Hahahah... I need a lot of help!

Or poetry, of course... but poetry is often fiction ... often non-fiction, too... a mixture of both, which is one of the things that's so cool about it. You can't tell which it is.

What I like about fiction is where the author's imagination takes you. Entire worlds are created from someone's imagination. The author is like a God. Yes, movies are fiction, for the most part... except documentaries, of course. I'm really getting into reading short stories.

......

They'll probably be running the Tiger apology repeatedly for the next week. I hope I miss it.

Wish I went out to lunch with you two. Next time you go, pull me up a chair and imagine I'm there. I could use a lunch out with some friends.

Posted: **February 20th, 2010, 12:12 am**

Of course the whole broughaha is silly. Tiger Woods is not on the Supreme Court. He's an athlete and a private citizen. I think it's terrible how the press is gawking at the whole affair. It's the media fetish of the moment. People love to hear this story, that's why it gets told so often. And sold so often.

My reflection had nothing to do with Tiger's sex life. It was about Buddhism and the game of golf. Golf is a difficult game. If you doubt this, try it. It is also a Zen game. It takes an amazing amount of concentration and detachment to do it well. I'm sure that Tiger's Buddhist indoctrination has helped him in the game.

As to the rest of it, even the Buddha strayed into frivolity in his youth. Give the man a break.

Posted: **February 20th, 2010, 12:22 am**

Yeah... I know.. there's one thing we all hate. It's when people miss our point.

Sorry, Lrod, I didn't comment on your cool Buddism/Golf analogy.

Posted: **February 20th, 2010, 2:51 am**

It's very odd, this fixation w/Tiger Wood's affairs.
I could care less really.
And Golf bores me.
H

Posted: **February 20th, 2010, 12:33 pm**

LR: It was about Buddhism and the game of golf.

What you see is the power of sex... even good ol' Buddhist thought takes a second row seat just behind sex... just as Tiger inferred.

I did a double-thought when he publicly stated his Buddhism background and his mother's teachings. I wondered how many of his fans were taken back by that declaration? "No wonder he went to hell, he's a damn buddhist...!"

Posted: **February 20th, 2010, 5:04 pm**

haha. yeah, the only thing worse than being a depraved buddhist would be a bible-thumping, philandering right-wing congressman. or a catholic priest? or a liberal for godssake. nothing is worse than a liberal...

Posted: **February 20th, 2010, 6:29 pm**

liberals act so free.

Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright

Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright