Wow, I just can't help thinking about that story of a crazed astronaut. Can you imagine if you wrote a fiction novel about this, with the same plot, no one would read it. They would say that it was too far fetched. Just in case you are the only one on the planet who hasn't heard about this tale, here it is in the short form. A female astronaut. was in love with a space shuttle pilot. It didn't seem to matter to her that she was married and had three children. This space shuttle pilot had either a girlfriend or a second girlfriend if we count the astronaut. The second girlfriend was a pilot in the Air Force. The two women had at least one run in before, where the astronaut went over to her car, got her to roll down the window and sprayed pepper spray in her face. In the beginning of February of this year, 2007, the female astronaut. decided that she would drive twelve hours to where the female pilot was and confront her. She put on her diaper, yes you heard me right, and grabbed certain things that she thought were necessary for the trip, such as a new knife and some tools. Astronauts wear diapers in space where there are no facilities and she had decided that she didn't want to stop except for gas. You must admit, this is dedication to a task. She got to where the female pilot was living and began to threaten her. The pilot called the police and arrested the astronaut. NASA claims that this is the first time an active astronaut has been charged with a crime. The astronaut. claimed that she had nothing with her, but there was a slight problem, the police secretly watched as she threw the knife and tools into a garbage can. The police believed that she was going to kidnap the pilot, which she denies.

What is this world coming to? Astronauts are like gods to most of us and this incident is so out that it is almost unbelievable. Maybe I have lived too long, but I see authority figures all around me falling. I remember how shocked we were when President Nixon was said to have authorized the Watergate break in. He denied it as they all do, but he kept tapes of his conversations. Another stupid move by someone that you would think would know better. Here was a president and a lawyer and yet he made one of the most basic of mistakes and was caught in a crime. I am not saying that he should have committed the crime and protected himself better, I am just saying that it is surprising that he would make such an amateurish mistake. You would think that he might have thought that hey, these tapes are dangerous and might be used against me someday or at least turned the machine off when he was plotting. I guess it was a case of thinking that he was SO important that no one would dare ever ask to hear these tapes. This was politics at it's worst, but we all know that a lot of stuff goes on in politics, so in a way, this type of crime should not be as surprising as what the astronaut. did.

I remember when I was in the service. I went into the U.S. Army and was very green. After basic training I was sent to a fort where I was moved around a few times until I landed up in the motor pool. I soon found out the once you were in the motor pool, you weren't paid much attention to. The motor officer was what is know as a Warrant Officer. I didn't care for him much, but that is neither here or there. Once every couple of months he would load up a truck with tires and take them somewhere. I didn't think much of it at the time since we had contracts with many of the civilian auto dealers in town. I sort of got suspicious when he was told he was being transferred in a few days and rushed to load up the truck again. As I look back on this I can't help but think that he must have been selling the tires to either gas stations or auto dealers. This was a man that was supposed to have our respect and who we were to obey in combat.

Then there is the clergy. The clergy has received much bad press in the last thirty years or so. Much of it has fallen on the Catholic Church, but there has also been bad press about the Protestant Church and Jewish Religion. I remember when one didn't dare question a member of the clergy when you were told to do something. Today, you almost have to. We seem to have reached a point where we have to make sure there is no ulterior motives for the advice we are being given.

Sports heroes are always big, not only with the children, but also with the adults. We seem to like nothing better than to be able to shake hands with our favorite football player and if we get really lucky, to get his autograph on a jersey with his name or number on it. The NFL has it's problems with creating heroes today. Many of them are getting into trouble and even arrested and charged with crimes. This has become a very big problem. Drugs, rapes and shootings are only a few of the crimes that some of our football heroes have been charged with. How bad is it? According to a recent book titled Pros And Cons by Benedict and Yaeger, 21% of NFL players have been charged with a serious crime. Can you believe that figure? That is greater than 1 in 5 players. Oh Broadway Joe, what has happened to football? Baseball is supposed to be the most wholesome sport and the most grass roots of them all. Heroes have been falling in that sport for many years. Pete Rose was one of the greatest and everyone thought that he would surely get into the hall of fame, but gambling was his downfall. I am not saying I agree with what happened to him since he stated that he only bet on his team to win, but he shouldn't have bet. This cost him not only the hall of fame, but also the respect of the younger generation. If you go back far enough in baseball you will find out about the Black Sox scandal. This was where all or most of the Black Sox team fixed a world series game and the result was players, like Shoeless Joe Jackson, being banned from baseball forever.

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Even the medical profession has let us down. Oh it certainly is not everybody involved or even most, but there are those that are ruled by money or think that they can get away with committing crimes on our person when we are unconscious. Several years ago there was a doctor who was performing an abortion on a woman in Brooklyn, N. Y. In the middle of the procedure he asked her for his fee, when she said that she didn't have it, he left her without finishing the operation. He became known as the butcher of Brooklyn and was rightfully kicked out of medicine and sent to jail. Another doctor started a lab and was bringing in the homeless and performing all sorts of lab tests on them and billing Medicaid. He was caught and also sent to the clink. Then there were a few dentists that thought that they could take advantage of women who were unconscious waiting for oral surgery. They got caught and are now serving time.

So many of our heroes have fallen. Many we were a lot more naive years ago, or maybe we just didn't have such a good news network, but many of our hero figures are gone today. I feel sorry for the kids, it seems like everyday someone ruins it for them. Yes there just doesn't seem to be that many people to look up to today.