marie colvin

One of the problems with being a political animal, as most of us who frequent this site are, is that we spend significant amounts of time analyzing the behavior of low-lifes and freaks, whether it's the garden-variety hypocrisy of people like Obama and Chris Dodd, the embezzlements and burglaries of thieves like Jon Corzine, the exotic insanity of Republican psychotics such as Gingrich and Rick Sanatorium, or the impenetrable stupidity of bimbos like ex-gov. Palin.

With our minds occupied by the foul deeds of criminals and lunatics, it's easy to forget that there are still truly great people in the world -- people whose courage and dedication to ideals makes them heroes and giants. These people are not usually as well known as famous politicians. We should change that.

Marie Colvin, a war reporter killed in Syria a few days ago, was such a person. She was an American, but lived and worked in England since 1985 when she wasn't reporting from the world's war zones, which was most of the time. In 2010 she gave a speech in which she explained why she did such dangerous work. If you don't believe there are any virtuous people left, give it a read.

One of the things that really disturbs me about her story was that she was doing what I should have done with my own life. She lost an eye in the Sri Lankan civil war 11 years ago. If it had been me, that would have been a career-ender, but she continued with her work.

There are probably heroes and giants close at hand in our own communities that we don't know about, sacrificing for the sake of work that is important enough to warrant sacrifice. Thank God for such people.