Tiger Woods is not Bill Clinton

by Rosie Githinji, Alestle Opinion Editor

Rosie Githinji

Anytime I try to watch TV these days, it seems like what is making up most of the news is Tiger Woods and his recent transgressions. Even listening to the radio is getting ridiculous with talk show hosts and their jokes about what he allegedly did.

At one point did the news gatherers decide that talking about the affairs of Tiger Woods was newsworthy enough to talk about on something other than the E! Network?

If there nothing else that could be talked about, then maybe those reporters are not working hard enough to find something.

Maybe the car accident was news, but it should have ended there. After that, only the tabloids should cover what they are deeming “news” in the Tiger Woods arena.

There is no reason a mistress should go in between the story of a shooting and the weather. That has no effect on my daily proceedings or even what is going on in my community.

The story is turning into something akin to the Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal. And he was the president, who ranks a little higher than a pro golfer. It is one thing to feel like your trust has been betrayed by the man running the country you are living in. It is a completely opposite issue to tell people a pro-golfer cheated with multiple women when what he does is not going to affect most people, just his family.

Cheating is not news. People do it, they get caught and life goes on. We should not have to listen to yet another unfortunate story of deceit when there are other stories that are much more interesting in our world.

Anonymous secrets unite an online community

by Kelly Walsh, Alestle copy editor

I had the opportunity to see Frank Warren, founder of PostSecret give a lecture and hold a discussion with audience members on his experience as “America’s most trusted stranger,” Tuesday night in SIUE’s Meridian Ballroom of the Morris University Center,

The PostSecret phenomenon is a project allowing anyone to anonymously send Warren a decorated postcard with his or her untold. The community project really took hold and has spawned into several books and a Web site, which Warren updates every Sunday displaying chosen secrets.

Not being familiar with the project beforehand, I was unsure of what to expect Tuesday night. After a brief description of PostSecret from a friend, I expected to see secrets about funny sexual taboos, common guilt-ridden family issues, etc. However, what I experienced was something much more informative and heart-warming.

I realized how Warren’s PostSecret blog actually turns the common perception of new technology as isolating people on its head. Here this Web site, uses the Internet to form a virtual community. Sometimes Warren uses related secrets to create a dialogue between strangers, showing others they are not alone and helping people in the real world.

Warren also brought to light the overrepresentation of crime and murder in the media. In reality, self-harm is far more serious and prominent problem. Recalling serious statistics of suicide and attempted suicide, Warren explained how letting others unleash these kinds of feelings and seeing others with similar feelings does a great deal of help.

I was surprised by Warren’s laid back attitude and sense of humility, despite being what I see as an almost “saintly” figure. He takes on some pretty heavy confessions from a great number of people.  His project offers positive, non-judgmental, and most importantly, a secular way for the individual to unburden something long stifled.

The time allotted at the end for the audience to ask questions or share a secret moved me the most. After hearing some hilariously honest or tear-jerking stories, I realized how easy it is to become alienated from people within my everyday life simply due to a lack of communication. It really struck me to see something as genuine and positive as real people with real problems reflecting on their feelings in a crowd of strangers.

While the project does reveal a suppressed reality of the dysfunction in everyone’s lives, it was not a negative experience. In fact, it was the first positive connection between strangers I’ve witnessed in a long time, and it gave me a much more optimistic view of the human condition than I believe is generally expressed these days. It was refreshing see a little hope in something as simple as sharing a secret.