Bong-gate + Watergate = BongWaterGate?

So it seems that the Michael Phelps "Bong-gate", as it has so cleverly been dubbed by the press (and by "press", I mean PerezHilton.com) is coming to a close. There will be no charges pressed against Phelps for the photo of him hitting a bong full of "a tobacco like substance".  However, EIGHT students from South Carolina were arrested on charges relating to marijuana. 

Really? Am I the only one who thinks this is totally nonsensical?  We are living through the worst economic crisis since the Depression, finishing up (hopefully) a war, watching essentially as the Middle East implodes and all the while cops in the US are arresting college students for having enough pot to fill a bong? Hopefully these kids have parents smart enough to start threatening the SC police department with never-ending law suits. 

And thankfully, at least Phelps was let off. I say that because we expect so much of celebrities in this country and the second they do something "normal" (yes, smoking pot isn't normal for everyone but lets just go with this one, shall we?), we jump on them like hyenas on an elephant (this is a reference based solely on the film The Lion King, please check your encyclopedia for verification).  Phelps won like 12 gold medals, has been practicing swimming every single day for years, and we begrudge him a bong hit once in a while? Please, could that be any more ridiculous? The people who are the most vehemently opposed to his pot smoking (SC cops, city councilmen, various "religious" white trash) are probably among the fattest, laziest, slobbiest people in the country, who couldn't swim one lap in a pool if their lives depended on it!  I can see these people now, fried chicken buckets resting on stomachs, drunk on a few King Cobras (thank you, Adam, for teaching me about that) and ranting and raving about their "hero" getting stoned.  Somehow these people find justification in demonizing a world-class athlete for taking a break after completing the most grueling training anyone could imagine, and being a normal 22 year old. 

To emphasize the ridiculousness of the above, I have come up with a list of things more "dangerous" to society than a Michigan University-educated, goofy as hell, record breaking athlete getting high off of a bong:

1)      Bill O'Reilly left without cue cards

2)      An angry Latino woman on the subway

3)      Lindsay Lohan being told its "last man standing" at a casting call for the next Hanes spokesperson

4)      A kitten with a sharpened pencil

Until cops start arresting the abovementioned characters, I think it's pretty safe to leave Michael Phelps and other college kids to their pot-smoking ways.  (Editor's Note: you probably shouldn't give a sharpened pencil to either a kitten or a stoned college kid – just to be safe).

-Lindsay