Heroes, zeroes

Ship captain Richard Phillips is being hailed as the latest national hero, and so be it.

Any man who surrenders himself to pirates to spare his crew is somebody who deserves all the praise you can give him.

Folks are even calling him “Captain Courageous,” and he’s getting the full celebrity treatment that was recently piled on Chesley Sullenberger.

“Sully,” of course, was the pilot who safely landed his plane in the Hudson River three months ago after a flock of birds used the jet’s engines for a food processor.

Again, all of this is great.

But let’s remember that a hero is rarely, if ever, an athlete, a fashion model, an actor or a singer.

Those people are famous, and sometimes they do good things.

But they are not heroes or role models. Those terms are tossed around far too loosely these days.

As a result, some people can’t distinguish between a celebrity who does something to make himself even more famous temporarily and a real hero. Like a ship’s captain who sacrifices himself for others.

There is a difference between something like that and, say, a pro athlete who plays a game with a minor injury.

Let’s keep that in mind.