tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post7728777626085690521..comments2024-03-17T08:27:53.658-05:00Comments on Stonekettle Station: Steve FossettJim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-35545761843762078142008-10-02T18:58:00.000-05:002008-10-02T18:58:00.000-05:00Eric, Jeri - I don't know that popular stars neces...Eric, Jeri - I don't know that popular stars necessarily make poor heroes for young people.<BR/><BR/>Some do, some don't. Typically, young people have little or no experience in the world, music and TV and movies nowadays often raise horizons that kids might never otherwise see. Because they have little other points of reference, those media stars (or more realistically, the characters they play) often become people we admire and wish to be. So, from the perspective of opening vistas and driving youngster towards discovering who they truly wish to be, I think that they are indeed a role-model hero-archetype for many of us. For me, it was books - and in particular the Heinlein Juveniles - I don't recall a TV personality or a musician I particularly identified with, but I felt as if I was every protagonist in RAH's YA book, it was if he wrote them with me particularly in mind. <BR/><BR/>My admiration for Fossett was not necessarily for the things he did per se, but because he we <I>willing</I> to do them, to push the edges of the envelope, to do the things people said could not be done - because he <I>inspired</I> me, and filled me with wonder and awe for what human beings can accomplish, and for what one man alone can accomplish.<BR/><BR/>If a musician or a media personality can <I>inspire</I> other to push beyond their self-imposed boundaries, well, perhaps they too deserve the same admiration.Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-24740510126811849112008-10-02T18:22:00.000-05:002008-10-02T18:22:00.000-05:00Jeri: is that a bad thing? You sound as if it is....Jeri: is that a bad thing? You sound as if it is.<BR/><BR/>One of my heroes is Chuck Jones, because he brought such joy into the world. Sure, MLK is a hero of mine, too, and Charles Darwin. But so is David Gilmour, just because his guitar playing so often has expressed what I felt but couldn't say--especially when I was younger and really needed that to get through living.<BR/><BR/>Artists make life bearable and the future worthwhile. Nathan Filion isn't likely to be a <I>hero</I> to me, personally, but I'm not going to knock what he does: the act of merely making somebody happy for the length of a <I>Firefly</I> episode is significant and important and means something, no matter how small it seems.<BR/><BR/>One other personal note: tho' I'm likely to curse George Lucas whenever his name comes up these days (that fucking bastard), when I was a kid I wanted to make movies in large part because of what <I>Star Wars</I> did to me when I was five. That obviously didn't happen, but: if I love to write today (and I do) and to make visual images (and I do), it's due in no small part to the ways in which Lucas inspired me when I was a child. Do I think that's as significant as discovering the double-helical structure of DNA or launching the first powered heavier than air flight (or even, for that matter, writing <I>Hamlet</I>? Of course not. But that doesn't make it unimportant to me or to anybody <I>I</I> happen to pass a splinter of joy to in my turn.<BR/><BR/>Sorry for the hijack. I can shut up now.Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18275812152895151542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-6589276504527206722008-10-02T16:33:00.000-05:002008-10-02T16:33:00.000-05:00Small mini-tangent..Why is it, when asked to name ...Small mini-tangent..<BR/><BR/>Why is it, when asked to name a hero, my children think of Johnny Depp, Nathan Fillion and George Lucas? People who spend their whole lives int he entertainment industry?<BR/><BR/>Rather than Fossett, or Richard Branson, or other adventurer. Or a scientist, activist, martyr, revolutionary, tycoon or etc. Because really - what do actors truly contribute to our world at the end of the day, but 1s and 0s on a DVD somewhere?<BR/><BR/>Fossett was an awesome man. I hope he and Amelia Earhart are hanging out together at that great saloon in the sky, telling stories with their feet up.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-84480284269510157422008-10-02T16:17:00.001-05:002008-10-02T16:17:00.001-05:00"Vaster"? That's not even a word, is it? Dammit...."Vaster"? That's not even a word, is it? Dammit.Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18275812152895151542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-23128903080845008632008-10-02T16:17:00.000-05:002008-10-02T16:17:00.000-05:00You might be surprised what's sort of under our no...You might be surprised what's sort of under our noses. The seafloor remains a vastly unexplored frontier. And central Africa and South America are still offering up new frontiers that have at most rarely seen humans, if ever. Even places we think we've explored--Antarctica comes to mind--are proving to be mysterious and unvisited (we continue to find complicated and alien worlds within the ice sheets we'd walked over and flew over and thought were "covered"). That's not to diminish the vast frontiers beyond our gravity well; if anything, it's to accenuate them by pointing out that our own <I>world</I> is vaster than we can get our little apish brains around, and the <I>universe</I> is only vaster. We know less than we give ourselves credit for, and wonders remain to be found.<BR/><BR/>Fossett, from the sound of things, lived well, and his life celebrated and not mourned. Thank you for the fine tribute.Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18275812152895151542noreply@blogger.com