Today a jury is being convened in Denver to make a decision about whether Taylor Swift was inappropriately touched on her butt a few years ago.  President Donald Trump is hold up at one of his golf resorts sending out nasty Tweets about a Missouri Senator Roy Blount who has joined a bi-partisan effort to make sure the Special Prosecutor for the Russian investigation, Robert Mueller, is not fired for trying to produce a factual record of Trump’s association with Russia.

Then there is James Gorman, science reporter for The New York Times, and Lauren Esposito.  She is a scorpion expert from California whom Gorman interviewed at length for a written story via a twenty-five minute video that featured her showing three scorpions and sharing her research from the last ten years into a creature who preceded the dinosaurs on planet Earth.

Straight up reporting.  Arachnology  Fascinating.  The essence of The New York Times.

My first heroes were mainly Yankee players like Mickey Mantle and NBA stars like Bill Russell.  My first legitimate hero was Martin Luther King.  I came to him at the transition from boyhood into manhood just as has he was leading the most profound change in American life in the twentieth century.  He remains a pivotal figure in my life.

In my less emotional and more cynical years I still find enough wetness in my soul to keep the moist youthful dewy idea of hero alive.  About two weeks ago I watched Judy Woodruff’s extended interview of Warren Buffett on The Newshour.  A couple of days ago I finished my latest book, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet by Carl Pope and Michael Bloomberg.

Buffett, Pope, and Bloomberg are heroes of mine.  What makes Buffett larger than ordinary to me is his ordinariness.  The interview was conducted in the world’s largest furniture store.  Buffett admired the Belarus immigrant lady who founded it and backed the  Nebraska store in the middle of Nebraska because he liked her philosophy: tell the truth and sell cheap.  Rose Blumkin’s original store sits on 70 acres of land and occupies  420,000 square feet.  The place has a real plain Buffett ambiance.

Were you to look up the interview(s), you would not be impressed by Buffett’s squeaky voice, appearance, and clothes sitting in a warehouse story in the middle of a mainly empty state.  You would likely come to be charmed by how very ordinary one of the richest men in the world is.  He still lives in the same modest house as he has for half a century.  He answers questions directly, avoids sharp criticisms, fails to preach, and speaks directly from his heart without deception.  His unaffected ordinariness and belief in fairness for all is what draws me to him.

Michael Bloomberg is among the planet’s richest billionaires himself, but his passion is the environment.  Cities are inherently superior places environmentally because of the their density.  Bloomberg harvests that idea through smart buildings, transportation systems and public policy initiatives.  He gives his money and expertise to city planners across the world who wish to emulate NYC’s reputation for saving the planet while improving life for its citizens.

Carl Pope, like many people’s heroes, represents an alternate self or version of me, a person close to my age I might have become if I had joined the Peace Corps and committed myself to the Sierra Club.  His fingerprints are all over big issues from saving the Grand Canyon to the shift away from coal as a primary energy source.  He led the organization that helped the environment more than any other.  The chapters of Climate of Hope alternate between the two but the tone of each man is the same.  Both project passion and idealism that is bound up in pragmatism.

I still have heroes.