Selfishness of Tiger Woods is news but real hero isn't?

Selfishness of Tiger Woods is news but real hero isn't?
by
Chaplain Kathie

Tiger Woods making a speech yesterday about cheating on his wife, carried on every channel in the country, came a day after another human committed a selfish act and flew his plane into a building after setting his house on fire with his wife and step-daughter inside. While both stories dominated the news, it seemed as if the celebrity of Tiger Woods meant more than anything else. Why? He plays golf!

While Tiger is a great golfer, apparently he was also very selfish in his personal life and that's the part we seem to be missing. His personal life. This was not about something he did that was heroic, wonderful or helped a single human on the planet. It was about his sex life. Did he feel ashamed enough to want to keep his family out of the spotlight while he tried to stop acting like he was "entitled" in his own words? No, he called a press conference and reporters from around the world showed up, glued to monitors, writing down every single word he spoke. Should we really care that much? Or is it that the media want us to care about this?

What is wrong with their sense of values these days?

At the same time every station carried Tiger, they are repeating what he said today but a story that is really touching, shows a real hero's actions following the plane crash in Texas, is not carried on the national news.

Robin DeHaven, an Iraq veteran saved 5 people. It should be obvious to all that this man was not selfish in the first place or he wouldn't have joined. Then he made it even more clear that other people mattered to him enough that he would risk his life to help instead of just driving by the burning building. This is what's wrong when the national news decides that the real actions of regular people doing something for someone else don't matter as much as a celebrity cheating on his wife.

After crash, Iraq war veteran sprang to action with ladder to help 5 get out of building

12:00 AM CST on Saturday, February 20, 2010
Kelley Shannon and Jay Root, The Associated Press

AUSTIN – Robin De Haven was driving his truck to another job for the glass company he works for when he saw it – a small plane, flying low over a heavily congested area.

De Haven, a 28-year-old Iraq war veteran, recalled Friday that he then saw black smoke billowing from the office building and rushed to the scene. A pilot furious at the Internal Revenue Service had slammed his plane into the building Thursday morning, killing himself and one other person.

At the building, De Haven said, he hurled his 17-foot ladder off his truck, helping to rescue people peeking through broken windows as thick smoke poured into the air.

"I don't feel like a hero. I was just trying to help," he said.

De Haven retold his rescue efforts outside the Echelon 1 building as investigators picked through the wreckage. About six miles away, arson crews also inspected pilot Andrew Joseph Stack III's red brick home – which Stack apparently set on fire before taking off in his single-engine plane from Georgetown.
read more here
Iraq war veteran sprang to action

How many months has the Tiger Woods story taken over the TV coverage? How many times have we turned on a program to hear from some woman about the number of times she had sex with Tiger even though everyone in the world knew he was married with kids? How many times did we have to channel surf to get some other news when Tiger was spotted somewhere only to discover every station was looking for him? Two wars on but Tiger matters more.

I don't blame Tiger for what producers send reporters to cover. I blame the producers and the advertisers for this. How can they totally avoid coverage of Afghanistan and Iraq as easily as they avoid coverage of what is happening to the wounded when they come home and face financial ruin, waiting for months and years to have claims approved as they live with their wounds? How can they avoid the suicide rate going up every year as if none of them matter? As if the families don't matter?

The nation is ill served by a media consumed with celebrity coverage instead of news coverage. Everyday heroes putting their lives on the line just don't matter as much as someone like Tiger putting his own life and lust above all others.