So I have a new hero. I heard about Rosa Parks' death this week. Even during the astros' game, they had a moment of silence.

I started thinking about her and what she did. While I am not African American, as a minority and the son of a mixed race marriage, I must think what this woman did not only to our country, but to my life. She decided not to get up. How simple! Even I, a lazy American, can do that! I started to wonder really what are the specifics of this...so I came to this interview.

She was a 40 year old woman. She wanted to go home like she did everyday. She had run into this bus driver before. She wanted to enter the bus at the front and usually she would head back to the then labeled "colored" seats. This was her usual battle. This is what she did this day (December 1, 1955)-- She did sit in the "correct" seat, but as the bus grew full, she would normally be forced to give their seat to any white person. There was one white man who as the music stopped did not receive a seat. The driver said that the first row of "colored" seats must give their row to them. The other three in the row promptly stood up, Ms. Parks did not. This was the beginning of the questioning of our cultural constructs, and why she is labeled the grandmother to the civil rights movement.

She did not intend to be famous; she did not intend to start a movement. In fact, she was forced walk as they begin the bus boycott and lost her job. It is interesting to think about someone who doesn't have an ulterior motive...she was just tired--tired from the day AND tired from the harassment. Was she really just doing what was best for where she was, the best for her?

To think about a woman that started a movement, one of such importance to us all, as someone just thinking about herself is almost heresy, but you must question how much of it was her anger at the previous run-ins with THIS bus driver, that she had a bag of groceries she was bringing home. That she had had a long day.

But the other side is that she was not thinking about just her comfort, but justice -- a true motive. She claimed it just was not right. Do we naturally set those two things and really think about them? Today there seems to be criticism of the pre-hurricane woman of the month-- Cindy Sheehan. She is conflicted with two motives...one of incredible grief, and one of questions of the reason why...a natural question of justice. When do we as a public get to look at her and see one versus the other?

Politics vs. answers...the thing that becomes so clear with Mrs. Parks. Her battlefield becomes as small as the bus, not being a catalyst to changing the world but having one man (the driver) respect her as any person.

How come we don't have heroes anymore without the sins of politics and fame? Why can't I see someone taking a congressman who is having his ethics questioned AGAIN, but must question who is attacking whom?!? As I re-watched Gandhi again, I was thinking that a noble man can never be connected to the political man. Is that pessimism or a statement of fact?!?

And finally, whenever I question noble vs. the political, I must extend the question to the hijacking of Christianity by politics. Can a religion about truth truly be associated with politics without being soiled by the constant spinning of the politician?

I like to think that Rosa Parks died a woman who just thought about her world...for the moment a bus and how she was being mistreated. This exploded into a quest of redefining who we are as people. Not just a categorized by pigment, money, status, job etc. but by the heart. Maybe I can be an idealist...with a hint of pessimism?!?