Phelps smokes pot – why is this news?

The wires are abuzz with news about a picture of Olympic Gold Medal winner Michael Phelps smoking pot out of a bong. I ask you – why the hell is this news? Why does anyone care?

Yes Michael is a role model and yes he needs to act appropriately when he is in the public eye. But the picture was taken in what looks like a hotel room and behind closed doors. The real news in my mind is that there is a market for this type of privacy invading, mountain-out-of-a-molehill bullcrap. Further that some goldigging opportunist who, one can only assume was a friend to have been in the room with him, decided to snap a picture and make some money by selling it to the tabloids is reprehensible. Who among us hasn’t done something that would make us cringe were we to see a picture of it splashed across the web and print? The person who took and sold this picture is one of the lowest forms of human life and that they can make money from doing what they did makes all of us a little less safe, a little more paranoid. It’s a shame.