But are they heroes, as indicated in the headline? Whenever I see that word applied to people in the news, I always think of this exchange from an old "Simpsons" episode:
Homer: That little Timmy is a real hero.
Lisa: What makes him a hero, dad?
Homer: Well, he fell down the well and ... can't get out.
Lisa: How does that make him a hero?
Homer: Well, it's more than you did!
Tom Snyder, Ingmar Bergman and Bill Walsh did more than fall down a well, and they did more than I'll probably ever do. Their work is significant, their lives newsworthy. But I am not sure they match these definitions of hero:
- a person distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength;
- a being of great strength and courage celebrated for bold exploits; often the offspring of a mortal and a god (classical mythology)
Excellent point, Andy. We've taken to labeling all sorts of people as heroes, some of them simply because they were somewhere at the wrong time.
Want to start a fight? Ask whether every first-responder killed on Sept.11 was a hero or simply someone standing at the scene when the building came down.