Everybody wants to be a hero - or why I'd ban all reality TV, and why the cult of celebrity is so dangerous.......

yes, muttering madly today - about the festivities (I use that word advisedly)around September 11. I quite agree with the view expressed by one woman saved from one of the towers that the nature of human existence is such that sooner or later such an event will happen again (Albert Camus's book La Peste - The Plague - is an excellent literary example of the principle whereby when the present outbreak is over and the disease seems to have vanished it is in fact returned to the ground and will lie dormant until conditions are right for it to re-emerge)but it worries me how the idea of vigilence gets practiced. This story about how one ex-policeman's over enthusiasm nearly ruined an innocent man's life is just the latest example of how the idea of being a superhero predominates over the option of keeping an open mind and getting to know those of other cultures and life experiences and not jumping to hasty conclusions.