In Brecht’s play, Galileo chooses an agreeable old age rather than torture and death at the hands of an outraged papacy. So he recants his finding that the Earth is round.
His disciple, Andreas, laments: “Pity the world that is without heroes.”
Galileo replies, “No, pity the world that is in need of heroes.”
That lollipop man, Reg Brown, 91, is retiring, shouldn’t sadden us. What should depress us, and make us fight for change, is the rule of priority that makes roads dangerous in the first place. If the onus for road safety was on the driver, toddlers wouldn’t need to learn age-inappropriate road safety drill to help them survive (many don’t), and we wouldn’t “need” lollipop men and women to protect them from drivers licensed to ignore them.
