Hero (noun): a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability; an illustrious warrior; a man admied for his achievements and noble qualities; one that shows great courage.
This is the definition of a hero according to the Webster-Merriam online dictionary. Look at those words. What do they suggest to you? Hercules, perhaps, slaving away on one of his trials, or one of the mythological warriors of the siege of Troy battling for the hand of Helen the fair. If you're looking for a more up-to-date version of the hero, you only have to look at our brave servicemen and women fighting in Afghanistan, or our firefighters or paramedics. These days even footballers can pass for heroes, although given the national team's dismal performance at the World Cup this year, I wouldn't be expecting Wayne Rooney and co to be featuring too high on the popularity lists. But I'd lay money on the fact that when I said think about what the word hero suggests to you, one person you didn't think of was Raoul Moat.
Unbelieveably Moat, who hit the headlines last week after going on the rampage in Rothbury before finally shooting himself in a stand off with the police, now has a Facebook page in his honour, proclaiming him a legend and a hero. There are no words to explain just how sick that makes me feel. Here is a man who, on his release from prison discovered that his girlfriend had moved on and his children had been taken away from him and, instead of thinking that maybe he needed to take a good long look in the mirror and work on his problems, he decided to go shoot his ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend and then - thinking that she was dating a police officer - proceeded to go and shoot a cop. Because of course thst's completely rational and what we all do when times are bad [/sarcasm]
So apparently because he shot and seriously injured a police officer, murdered the new partner of his ex-girlfriend and went after her as well, this guy is now a hero. Excuse me if I don't jump on this particular bandwagon; as far as I'm concerned, he's nothing more than a cowardly thug. If he was that determined to kill himself, he could have done it without dragging the police into a situation where he tried to provoke them into doing it for him; suicide by cop is pathetic. Just as pathetic are the morons who think this waste of space is some sort of legend; comments like "she deserved it for dating someone else while he was inside" and "it's a pity the cop didn't die too" just goes to prove that this country really has gone to the dogs. I'm so outraged and disgusted at this that I can't actually write anything else, so instead I'm going to close this post by sending my thoughts and sympathies to the victims and their families...
This is the definition of a hero according to the Webster-Merriam online dictionary. Look at those words. What do they suggest to you? Hercules, perhaps, slaving away on one of his trials, or one of the mythological warriors of the siege of Troy battling for the hand of Helen the fair. If you're looking for a more up-to-date version of the hero, you only have to look at our brave servicemen and women fighting in Afghanistan, or our firefighters or paramedics. These days even footballers can pass for heroes, although given the national team's dismal performance at the World Cup this year, I wouldn't be expecting Wayne Rooney and co to be featuring too high on the popularity lists. But I'd lay money on the fact that when I said think about what the word hero suggests to you, one person you didn't think of was Raoul Moat.
Unbelieveably Moat, who hit the headlines last week after going on the rampage in Rothbury before finally shooting himself in a stand off with the police, now has a Facebook page in his honour, proclaiming him a legend and a hero. There are no words to explain just how sick that makes me feel. Here is a man who, on his release from prison discovered that his girlfriend had moved on and his children had been taken away from him and, instead of thinking that maybe he needed to take a good long look in the mirror and work on his problems, he decided to go shoot his ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend and then - thinking that she was dating a police officer - proceeded to go and shoot a cop. Because of course thst's completely rational and what we all do when times are bad [/sarcasm]
So apparently because he shot and seriously injured a police officer, murdered the new partner of his ex-girlfriend and went after her as well, this guy is now a hero. Excuse me if I don't jump on this particular bandwagon; as far as I'm concerned, he's nothing more than a cowardly thug. If he was that determined to kill himself, he could have done it without dragging the police into a situation where he tried to provoke them into doing it for him; suicide by cop is pathetic. Just as pathetic are the morons who think this waste of space is some sort of legend; comments like "she deserved it for dating someone else while he was inside" and "it's a pity the cop didn't die too" just goes to prove that this country really has gone to the dogs. I'm so outraged and disgusted at this that I can't actually write anything else, so instead I'm going to close this post by sending my thoughts and sympathies to the victims and their families...
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