New Hero Worship

Now that the Olympics are underway, the intense boohooing and platituding over Philip Seymour Hoffman's heroin overdose has ceased abruptly. Giving us some indication of how authentic it was to begin with. The media attention anyway.

Those close to him are certainly pondering what they could have done to prevent his death, and will undoubtedly alternate between anger and guilt, self-recrimination and disparaging the self-indulgence of his act--seeking ever higher highs--for as long as they live.

Or was it desperation? That he had not reprised his 2005 Academy Award win. Neither? Who will ever know?

This much is certain: we've already returned to business as usual and the media is offering us new a raft of new heroes and I suspect that was the problem to begin with.

A culture with a critical eye would certainly not be so easily deflected