Serious news is rarer in the dog days of summer, so journalists fill their pages, pixels and airtime with silly stories. This week’s big news: An airline steward quit his job.

Here’s a sample of the praise being heaped upon the man who brought to life the message of “Take This Job And Shove It“:

I’ve got no problem with JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater grabbing a cold brewski before popping the disaster slide on Flight 1052 and kissing his airline career goodbye. In fact, the guy is a hero.

That’s right, act like a child and commit a crime in the act of quitting your job and you, too, can be a global hero.

Or how about this spin? “It’s refreshing when someone decides to flourish his way out of a job instead of taking the now-cliche mass-murder suicide route.” Have we sunk so low that the only two options for quitting a job are mass murder and obnoxious, self-indulgent behavior?

I behaved that way once. The band director in high school rightly scolded a few classmates and me for talking out of turn on the field at the end of practice. I had been ready to quit band at the start of that season anyway and was surprised and embarrassed by the lecture. So when the band director publicly invited any of us who couldn’t stop talking to leave and not come back, I walked.

I thought I was so cool at the time. A few of my classmates did, too. But most of them knew what I refused to see until years later when I recounted the story to my wife and she enlightened me as to what I really had been: a stupid 17-year-old kid and a disrespectful punk.
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