Idol Worship
Idols are falling before us right and left, particularly in the grotesquely skewed reality which governs the world of sports. Sadly they are too many to number, but those most celebrated in these ranks include O.J. Simpson, Pete Rose, Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, Joe Paterno, Oscar Pistorius, and stars in the pantheon of professional soccer who have yet to be named. Focusing on the Pistorius, the excitable British press has one of the better stories on the phenomenon, whose title reads in part "another fallen idol mocks our hunger for demi-gods." "To an extent," that story in the Independent reads, "we elevate every sporting idol above real life no less artificially than do the blades of Pistorius. It is pointless, plainly, to ask whether this same catastrophe might have been avoided by its protagonists if they instead began Valentine's Day, say, frying eggs and washing up in a diner. But other lives have certainly unravelled -- if not in quite ...