Who is Your Hero?

RECENTLY, I asked a class of University of California undergraduates to name their heroes. Ten years earlier, their counterparts had listed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Vaclav Havel. This time, they mostly named celebrities who were famous -- well, for being famous. Sure, it's a sign of the times, a result of our pervasive celebrity culture.
But we need heroes. Celebrities teach us about glamour and appearance, not how to reach deeply and draw upon inner strengths.
· Vaclav Havel [CommonDream]