Because the SF Chronicle has been fawning over James Kim (he's the local guy who took his family for a trip to Oregon, got lost in the boonies and died), I've been taunting our old friend,
MidlifeinMarin (with a more than capable assist by Boise Mike). It's not that I don't have sympathy for the family but the way the Chronicle has been spinning this story is beyond my ability to tolerate.
The Chronicle has come out and said that anyone who criticizes Kim for his mistakes is evil (well, it wasn't that overt, but they've been editorializing all over stories, insisting that Kim didn't do anything wrong). They then go on to insist that Kim is a hero.
Kim wasn't a hero. He was a poorly prepared winter traveler who made a series of very stupid mistakes.
The mistakes he made are too many to list...he set off for winter travel in Northern Cal/Southern Oregon without knowing his route. He didn't have proper emergency supplies, including food, water and a CB radio as well as sleeping bags, weapons, etc. He chose a route in an area that he didn't know and didn't check with locals to see whether the route made sense. He got lost and didn't turn back when he knew he was lost. He didn't keep his gas tank as full as possible. He stopped his car during a storm and then, rather than turn around and use the remaining fuel to get as close to the main road as possible, he just sat there. He destroyed the car, his one means of escape. He didn't stay on the road when he began hiking out. He didn't leave a copy of his route with friends or relatives. It goes on and on.
So he makes all of these stupid, amateur mistakes and gets his family into a situation that was deadly and he leaves them. He then, for some reason never to be known, refuses to stay on the road that he came in on and instead descends into a wildnerness canyon, as if climbing down into a canyon is going to result in a greater likelihood of being found. Every move he made was wrong and he ended up dying as a result.
His actions didn't save his family. His actions are the ones that put them at risk. So how is he a hero? Because he ultimately died? Is that what passes for heroism in the Bay Area?
It's interesting to note that in San Francisco, soldiers who go off to war to defend this country are not considered heroes but people who make stupid mistakes, one after another, and are so clueless about dealing with the real world that they get themselves killed are heroes. I don't get it.
And because I dared to question the Chronicle's claim that Kim was a hero, MidlifeinMarin claimed that I was a mean, heartless scumbag.
I'm still confused as to why a moron who can't follow the basic rules of safe winter travel is a hero but soldiers who lay down their lives in defense of this country are not heroes, but I am more than happy to be called cruel for pointing out this issue.
But in a creepy coincidence, I took a quiz this morning, one that analyzes your answers to certain questions to tell you which historical figure you most resemble, and this was the result...

| You scored as Adolf Hitler. Con-grat-u-lations! You are Der Fuhrer.
Your statue will be well adorned with medals and decorations at the steps of Valhalla. Most of humanity will hold you in the lowest opinion they possibly can long after your dead. But...infamy is better than being nameless...sides which, without you, morality would be much more difficult to define.
O.J. Simpson | | 67% | Adolf Hitler | | 67% | Dante Alighieri | | 58% | Sigmund Freud | | 58% | C.G. Jung | | 50% | Stephen Hawking | | 50% | Jesus Christ | | 50% | Miyamoto Musashi | | 42% | Hugh Hefner | | 42% | Elvis Presley | | 17% | Friedrich Nietzsche | | 17% | Charles Manson | | 17% | Mother Teresa | | 17% | Steven Morrissey | | 8% |
What Pseudo Historical Figure Best Suits You? created with QuizFarm.com |