While getting ready for the day this morning, I listened as the local TV wonks commented on the Michael Phelps Internet photo debacle.  If you have been under a rock for the last week or so, you can see the story here. The gist of the story is someone got a picture of Phelps with a bong last  November at a college party, and it showed up on a tabloid site. I’m not here to discuss the legalization of marijuana, and won’t even venture an opinion on it. However, I will say that if you don’t think this kind of thing happens every night at nearly every college of any size in the country, you should probably consider asking your kids if they can give you a talk about drugs. To his credit (possibly), and apparently as a smack in the face of one former Illinois governor, he actually did not try to deny it happened.

Well, last night it was announced that USA Swimming was giving Phelps a three month ban.  Additionally, Kellogg is pulling their endoresment deal. Are these actions fair?  Similar to my stance on legalization of marijuana, I’m not really interested in discussing that. People will form their own opinions — and I don’t really care to waste time on an argument where neither side will yield and feels that they are absolutely right.

So what the heck am I here to talk about?

Actually, I am really here to wonder out loud… how long before these Internet photo outings will become so overplayed that the general public views them briefly and then moves on as if nothing happened? I mean really, how long before we become so de-sensitized to this stuff that we just give a “oh, is that so” reaction?

It seems that everyday another high school or college kid has a scandalous photo posted on MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr, or a personal blog; a pro athlete has a photo posted with a drink in one hand and a hot chick on each arm; a teacher somewhere has a photo posted somewhere while doing something amoral like having a beer (gosh forbid); or some moron puts together a video of themselves acting like a fool for 15 minutes of fame

The viewing public, after pausing The Jerry Springer Show on that there Tivo machine, acts outraged that this kind of thing can happen in America — somehow America is plunging in to an ever apocalyptic spiral to hell. Oh, then Bubba presses play on that there Tivo machine and gets back to their own version reality.

Every night on my local news I hear breaking news of people getting killed by a estranged spouse. Teens get murdered at 3 in the morning on a street corner (there are no motives and the mom can’t understand why someone would do that to their precious son — don’t get me started on that). And my point? After these reports, the talking heads move on to the next story with no indication of impact over what they just said. We have become de-sensitized to those stories because they happen every day in every city, and we’ve seen the dead bodies on the street for years now.

It is only a matter of time before we just turn the page after each public Internet photo outing. Please, I hope this happens tomorrow.

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