In reality, I don’t care. But it seems a lot of folks do. And, for sure, a lot of time — a huge amount of time — is being spent on the Tiger Woods fiasco on television and radio “news” shows. The tabloids are having a field day with the situation and the Web is blazing (as it usually does when the IQ level required to understand the issue du jour falls into single digits)..

This says so much about this culture. Perhaps about the species, don’t you think? A professional golfer might have been fooling around on the wife, might have gone through a bit of a nine-iron-fueled tussle with the missus, and the event gets darned near as much coverage as the decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. And a great many people care more about it than they do about a conflict that has now lasted twice as long as World War I.

It gets a whole lot more attention than the news that Bank of America intends to pay back its TARP funding in order, in part, to escape government imposed compensation limits or the fact that the big banks are hoarding cash and not doing all that much to help the economy with critical loans.

A golfer’s alleged indiscretions and his vaunted early-morning auto escapade gets far more air time than four policemen gunned down in a restaurant and receives a great deal more attention than do the young men and women damaged and killed in a war a world away.

The man plays a silly game in which he knocks a teensy ball around a freakishly designed and manicured lawn and he is doing what for the world? Did I miss something?

Then again, how could I miss this? It’s everywhere. As is the fact a couple of alleged sleazoid fame grubbers managed to sneak into a White House event. Granted, the gal looked mighty slinky in that red dress, but who, aside from the security people and the Secret Service, is truly affected by it?

Sure, some extremist whack-job commentator will try to reshape the party hijinks as an indicator of the utter failure of an administration, but that is to be expected, and (for any sensible person) to be ignored.

That’s just the problem, though. When we get down to it, how many sensible folks are left out there? From the looks of things, not all that many.

This Tiger kind of crap, this obsession with trivia, the addiction to hyperbole, the cults of personality that single out vapid film stars and adults who make a billion dollars hitting a little ball around the lawn ... what does it say about us?

What does it say when all too many Americans, with their cell phone Star Wars headsets and their text tethers and Twitters, are all abuzz about possible adultery by an obscenely wealthy golfer, yet have not read a book in years — who, with their continuing passion for texts and tweets, are fast losing the ability to communicate or understand anything but the most primitive and vacuous of ideas.

Oh, Tiger ... how could you?

And now, you’re being devoured by a beast that makes even a tiger look tame. A huge, lumbering and dull beast dialed in to immediate gratification and charmed by any and all bright, shiny objects.

I wonder who gets eaten next?