(no subject)

There's a commercial currently running on CTV that really annoys me. In it, the wife of a racecar driver talks about how a religious publication helps her deal with the fact that her husband risks his life with every race. It's great that her faith helps her, but it brings me back to the way people assign the words "hero" and "tragedy" to things that aren't. (This is something I may have written about before, or at least I thought about writing about it. Just humour me.)

Case in point: racecar drivers who die on the track. I'm not trying to belittle the loss their friends/families go through, but to speak of such an event as a horrible tragedy is pushing it. You know how fast those people go? Of course it's dangerous, but they know that full well. No one is forcing them to race and no one races because it's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Also, people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time: you don't become a hero because you were killed by a terrorist attack. You're a hero if you do something heroic, such as run into a burning building to save someone.