Where Are the Heroes?

Marion Jones admitted to doping last week. She's been stripped of all medals going back to, I think September 2001.

I liked Marion Jones. She seemed like a perfect role model for all sorts of athletes. She was likeable, successful, pretty, and well-spoken, and she seemed down-to-earth. I remember thinking, back during the Olympics, that we need more people like her. More people we could look up to and emulate.

And now this. Personally, I think Jones's doping scandal is worse than Sammy Sosa's. Few people have ever looked to Sammy Sosa, both inside and outside the stadium, and thought "I want to be like him." But Marion Jones was, or seemed to be, a good person and a good athlete. I'm sure she was a hero to a lot of little girls.

And now look. It's no wonder that superheroes — X-Men, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Superman, even Ghost Rider, and now "Heroes" — are making such a comeback. It has become apparent that there are so very few "regular humans" out there in the real world that one can actually look up to. Only the superhuman seem to have a decent moral compass.