Hero Worship
Chalk me up not only as a heartless cad, but as someone who hangs around with unfeeling ingrates. In casual conversations with people over the last couple of days, I have tentatively let it slip that I am surprised and increasingly annoyed at the wall-to-wall hero worship that the media has given vis a vis the Columbia disaster. I guess I am also surprised that people have almost unanimously agreed with my callous attitude.
That seven people from NASA were killed in an unfortunate accident is clearly news, and deserving of page-one, top-story coverage, at least for a 24-hour period. But the breathless depth, breadth, and length of time given over to this story feels like overkill--pun intended. Yes, this was a tragic event. But what is the greater resonance here? Why are these peoples' lives worth more, in a media sense, than, say, the U.S. soldiers who have blown themselves up in military hardware over in Afghanistan, or the people who were killed last week in that chemical explosion in North Carolina? If it were to call into question our commitment to NASA and space exploration, then why has there been of chorus of support for NASA, from President Bush down through the families of the deceased who have chosen to go public with their feelings? Why do the media want us to wallow in the intimate details of lives that nobody would know or care about had they made it back to earth safely?
There is some weird, patriotic vibe at work here that I don't trust. It is almost like the nation--and the backslapping, pro-government media--is having a dry run of grief in anticipation for the heroes who will lose their lives in Iraq in the next few months.
1:07:46 PM 
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