Role models
I remember clearly being in the grocery store just days after Dale Earnhardt had crashed his car in the Daytona 500 and died. There on the magazine rack was a one-off publication with the headline “Dale Earnhardt: American Hero.”
What a crock. Earnhardt drove fast in a sport where people don’t want to watch drivers crash and die – they want to watch drivers crash and walk away. He failed even in that measurement. And to say that endless fast left turns are the criteria for an American hero is, frankly, insulting.
So last night my mother calls me, all upset at Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps for taking a few bong hits. “Doesn’t he know he’s a role model? He should be more responsible than that,” she said, passionately.
Well, in this I have to disagree with her. Michael Phelps wasn’t a role model to anyone, except perhaps people who want to win swimming competitions. He’s an expert in a vanishingly narrow field, with a talent that is never going to advance the course of humanity in any respect. That’s not what makes a role model.
Let him smoke in peace. And let’s buy a sense of perspective as a nation, shall we?