Talking with Maya last night and discussing a mutual friend who we both looked up to at one point in our lives, and who has since become a broken hollow man. I raised the question of whether we should have heroes at all. Maya argued that there should be people who are not your parents (because they are the people whose flaws we notice first and most acutely) that you look up to. I'm not sure how I fall on that topic. Perhaps it's the relentless cynicism, but I tend to think that considering someone a hero is simply setting myself up for disappointment. Or perhaps it's just the terminology. There are certainly people I am aware of who represent one or another aspiration that I have for myself-I would like to be as arresting a writer as Charles Bukowski, but I have no illusions about what he was like as a person; I would like to make films that are as meaningful as any number of filmmakers whose work I respect, but I am also aware that all of these people are flawed. I tend to think that a personal hero represents a paragon-one whose life you feel you should emulate, and there is no one who fits that bill for me.

On another note, I have seen in two different locations a billboard for Wendy's that advertises buying a coupon for four "Frostys," the proceeds from which purchase will go to research and combat diabetes. It struck me both times that this is rather insulting, somewhat like advertising that a portion of the proceeds from sales of beef lard will go to combatting heart disease, or that the purchase price of a carton of cigarettes includes a donation to the American Lung Association. (Actually, I'm pretty sure that Phillip Morris-no wait, Altria has actually run that racket. Sickening.)