The reality is that this story is likely to give wing to the ugliest aspects of the entertainment media. A man’s most personal of choices will become our collective source of comedy for a few weeks. After that, it will be his life again. And we will have contributed a good deal of pain, cruelty and selfish indulgence to the karma of the universe.
And so he tortures himself about whether to tell the story:
But I have to be aware of my own ego in writing this story. Am I really writing this because I want to make my small effort to shape how you look at this issue? Am I doing this man a favor by framing this before the tabloids do or am I starting a bigger snowball down the hill a little faster than it need be rolled? Do I just want to be first?
I could just rationalize the idea that he wants to be open and honest and that I’m a ray of the disinfecting sunshine. I could claim it is news and news is news and that is my job. But whenever someone tells you that, pay the check and leave quickly, you are about to be bent over in an unpleasant way.
I could just walk away from the story… pretend that it is beneath me and my column… hold my nose high in the air while Jay Leno stoops to gags that Johnny probably would have passed over.
So, of course, he doesn't tell the story, and takes the high road, right?
Of course not.
For all of the self-righteous pondering about whether to publish the story, it turns out Poland wasn't the first to tell the story in the first place. Or even the second.
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