A certain ruthlessness

Oscar Pistorius is not the first sporting superstar to have fallen from grace in recent times. Nor is he likely to be the last. Child molestation, domestic violence, rape, murder, they’ve done it all. When caught, they feign remorse, but none appears genuinely contrite.

What drives them to it? Is it because you need a certain ruthlessness to be the very best in the world; and it is that ruthlessness leads you to care a damn about everyone else? If this is the stuff that our sporting heros are made of, I’m sure we are better off not hero-worshipping them?
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A Drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Real courage

“But what’s so great about it”, my son asked when he heard me talking about a lady who single-handedly faced up to a mob, and got them to calm down before they had a chance to turn violent. “If she was a hero, she would have beaten up those people, wouldn’t she?”

Like so many others, she could have chosen to distance herself from the scene. Instead, she did what she knew was right. But how do you explain to a child that standing up for what you believe in sometimes takes far more courage than bashing up villans does.