Once again, it occurs to me that everybody is asking the wrong question.

What everybody, it seems, is talking about is Tiger Woods. The Washington Post has a piece saying that Walter Cronkite is no longer the place America should turn to for brealomg news, but rather Twitter, A churl would say that we turn to Twitter for gossip but another churl would ask in what way "news" differs from gossip.

I guess news is sometimes something the subject wants people talking about, while gossip has a darker reputation. Still, getting it right beats getting it first, if one wants to sleep easy.

The discussion about Tiger focused early on his condition. Serious condition means that vital signs are unfavorable but steady. Critical condition implies that the unfavorable signs are unstable. Guarded conditions suggest that vitals are not quite as unfavorable, but they could go either way. This morning, he's supposedly in fair condition, not serious. An oddity of our language: "fair" condition is unfavorable, while a fair-haired child, in fair weather, is fortunate indeed.

The question that quickly emerged was "why was he leaving the house at 2:30 in the morning?" I can only assume that people can conceive of too many possibilities, rather than none at all. The networks and the cable channels appear reluctant to hint at what TMZ is flatly stating: there was a "domestic disturbance" preceding it.

There are domestic disturbances, and then there are domestic disturbances. In the news, they are telling of a man in Florida who killed his twin sisters, and other family on Thanksgiving. Doesn't it seem odd that it's only one? When there is a murder, police look first to family to find suspects - and Thanksgiving forces many families together that were doing quite well apart, thank you. Add together a return from the Orient only to find that the National Enquirer has a story on his marital infidelities, and even if it's as questionable a source as the National Enquirer, I can guess what the disturbance might be about.

My question, however, is what happened? Hr hit a hydrant and a tree. He was going slow enough that the airbags didn't deploy, hard enough that he was dazed and confused.

Or was that it? What caused him to hit the tree and hydrant? The roads were clear and dry. He wasn't losing control because the car was going too fast. Nobody, surely, attempts suicide at low speed. Police say alcohol wasn't involved. Did he have a stroke? It seems beyond belief that the greatest athlete in the world might be using recreational drugs.

But nobody is looking at that question....

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