Good Guys and Bad Guys

I was amazed at the debate that followed Bin Laden’s death about whether it was all right to celebrate his death. Excuse me?  A mass-murdering psychopath bent on the destruction of all Western society and the murders of innocents without the slightest regard for the sanctity of life?  Gee, would it be all right if we had been able to kill Hitler? Or Stalin?

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Just A Guy That Misses His Heroes

heroesI’m just a guy that misses his heroes. When I grew up, it was easy to know the good guys from the bad guys.  In some cases they actually wore white hats.  Or, in my first exposure to a movie hero that I remember, it was Steve McQueen as Hilts, the motorcycle-riding, Nazi-defying loner who comes through, in the end, for the guys, in The Great Escape.  He was the epitome of cool.  I thought policemen were also cool and politicians looked like JFK and were to be respected. Nostalgic times, for sure.

But, it changed.  Changed with the sixties, changed with Watergate, changed with Vietnam, and more.  The legacy of those years is what our children now live with.  Who are their heroes?  Do we really want them worshipping all the NBA superstars who are covered with tattoos and whose personal lives are best left for the tabloids?  My sports heroes were like Sandy Koufax who stood by his principles and didn’t pitch a World Series game on a religious holiday of significance to him.  read more