Representative Alan Grayson (Dem- Florida) has recently been supporting the Democrats health care plan. Well, 'support' is an understatement. His first speech on the subject outlined the Republicans plan: "Don't get sick. And if you do, die quickly." After mass outrage from the GOP, Grayson made an apology, but not to the GOP. Instead, he apologized to the 44,000 Americans who die each year due to lack of insurance. Yesterday, Grayson took the floor and named the number of people expected to die in each Republican representative district. This time, the Republicans tried to stop him.
posted by Taft on Nov 5, 2009 - 168 comments

"The Kindest Cut" A Colorado surgeon is helping to restore sensation, biological structure and self-esteem to victims of female genital mutilation. She's "Trinidad's Transgender Rock Star"

Bowers performs the surgery free of charge, and the hospital caps its fees at $1,700. "...you cannot charge money to reverse a crime against humanity," she says. "Sexuality is a right."

[more inside]
posted by zarq on Oct 21, 2009 - 51 comments

Karen Gaffney swam Boston Harbor to raise awareness about Down syndrome. [more inside]
posted by plinth on Oct 13, 2009 - 4 comments

Basava Premanand, rationalist and founder of The Indian Skeptic, is dying. [more inside]
posted by vanar sena on Sep 28, 2009 - 17 comments

Norman Borlaug, "the plant scientist who did more than anyone else in the 20th century to teach the world to feed itself," has died at age 95. On the staff of the Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico, Borlaug "developed a “miracle wheat” that tripled grain output and moved the country to self-sufficiency. Dr. Borlaug then took his high-yield, disease-resistant wheat to Pakistan and India, averting the mass famine and starvation that had been widely predicted." Yet, despite his achievement, and being one of only five people to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, Borlaug was hardly a household name: a 1997 Atlantic profile described him as the "forgotten benefactor of humanity."
posted by NotMyselfRightNow on Sep 13, 2009 - 118 comments

This is a firsthand and frantic video of a group of people coming together to rescue a mother and two children who were trapped in an overturned and burning SUV.
posted by SpacemanStix on Jul 21, 2009 - 73 comments

Contenders for this year's Badass of the Year award will have a tough time topping Italian surgeon Claudio Vitale, who completed a delicate brain surgery despite having a heart attack during the procedure. He pushed himself to complete the surgery when he realized that his patient was unlikely to survive if he halted the operation.
posted by baphomet on Mar 27, 2009 - 46 comments

Charley Fox, two-time recipient of the Distinguished Cross, died on October 18th in a car accident. Another WWII veteran gone, and as with many, an interesting tale exists in his past. Credited with injuring Rommel (although he didn't know it at the time and it was denied by Germany), it's often thought that the loss of Rommel from Hitler's strategy team helped sway the war for the Allies (though it's wondered if has Rommel lived the July 20 plot against Hitler might have succeeded). After the war, Charley was an advocate for veterans and trained many. He died wearing his uniform.
posted by Kickstart70 on Nov 11, 2008 - 12 comments

Flawless Aircraft Emergency Landings (QLYTP). Breatheless reporting aside, it looks like when a pilot can control the landing, these aircraft are tough enough that no one need be hurt. Many more excellent videos in the post-video links, too.
posted by five fresh fish on Oct 21, 2008 - 40 comments

"Girl, he died a hero with tons of people loving him." A jack-of-all-trades worker from Florida came to Houston to help clean up in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, and was killed while trying to save three dogs on a freeway. At first, it seemed the man, while praised as a local hero, and receiving tons of support in death from animal lovers, would remain an unknown loner in death as he had been in life. Then a Google search and an exchange of e-mails led one Houston woman to the man's daughter, living in Pittsburgh. The young woman had been searching for her father for thirteen years.
posted by WolfDaddy on Oct 8, 2008 - 37 comments

Escapes in inner tube in "the slowest getaway ever" . [more inside]
posted by fiercekitten on Oct 3, 2008 - 31 comments

Del Martin, with her partner Phyllis Lyon, were pioneers in so many fields that it's hard to do justice to all of it in one post. [more inside]
posted by gingerbeer on Aug 27, 2008 - 78 comments

The Joker is Batman's main nemesis. Why him? Why not some other villain?
posted by painquale on Aug 14, 2008 - 118 comments

The King of the Ferret Leggers Reg Mellor has been a hero of mine ever since I first heard of him, maybe ten years ago. A total whack-job, it's true; a hero nonetheless. I've been a member here for a while and hadn't posted anything, thought of Reg, searched and found nothing posted here about him; I'm hoping some of the rest of you will enjoy reading about him as much as I have.
posted by dancestoblue on Jun 18, 2008 - 25 comments

Most of the news stories about the release of failed assassin Sara Jane Moore mention that her attempt at President Ford was foiled by Oliver Sipple (wikipedia), who is generally described as "a disabled Vietnam Veteran/Marine". The current news stories don't mention that he was gay, but neither did most of the press accounts at the time, except for San Francisco's legendary columnist Herb Caen. An infamous, and ultimately tragic, 'outing'.
posted by wendell on Jan 7, 2008 - 31 comments

Real Life Super Heroes! Perhaps you've heard of Angle Grinder Man, Superbarrio and Terrifica. How about The Eye, Tothian or Mr. Silent? There is, of course, the Wikipedia page for Real Life Super Heroes. A Myspace group chock full of spandex and gadgets. The member list is a great place to start browsing.
posted by loquacious on Jul 25, 2007 - 29 comments

From Hunter to Hunted "In his quest to free slaves around the world, Aaron Cohen thought he’d seen it all. Then he went to Myanmar."
posted by homunculus on Jul 1, 2007 - 25 comments

"I like to think that there'll always be a place in our universe where a kid can look and see reflected in the mirror an idealized form of themselves." Hero Deficit: Comics Books In Decline is an article, by freelance journalist Brad Mackay, exploring the challenges of superhero relevancy in a diverse society. Previous comic book and superhero-related posts on Metafilter. Wikipedia also has a very informative superhero page.
posted by amyms on Apr 23, 2007 - 48 comments

Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision 1978 BBC Omnibus documentary (Google Video)
posted by Elmore on Feb 14, 2007 - 10 comments

“Maybe, yes, I am a diva.” Meet Ali Saleem, known on Pakistani TV as Begum Nawazish Ali, hostess of a popular talk show. Mr. Saleem’s portrayal ... a middle-aged widow who, in glamorous saris and glittery diamonds, invites to her drawing room politicians, movie stars and rights advocates from Pakistan and India.
posted by amberglow on Jan 3, 2007 - 21 comments

Two stories of personal heroism, with 2 sadly different results.
posted by theora55 on Jan 3, 2007 - 53 comments

She would rather die than become a torturer.
posted by empath on Nov 2, 2006 - 133 comments

6 years after being given 6 months to live , Jane Tomlinson has raised shedloads of money for charity. In doing so, she cycled from Rome to Home (yorkshire - 2500 miles), was the first terminally ill person to complete the Florida Ironman Triathlon, has completed numerous marathons and half marathons (she's the first person to have completed the London marathon whilst on chemotherapy). Her current challenge is to cycle across the US finishing on the 6th anniversary of her diagnosis. It's not all fun. Yesterday, she had a bottle thrown at her, was followed by a cop, and sprayed with road chippings by a lorry.
posted by handee on Jul 20, 2006 - 42 comments

Hero Tomorrow. Superman Returns had a budget of $260M. X3? $210M. So what kind of superhero film can you make for a mere $100K? Check out Hero Tomorrow, making its big screen debut next week at the San Diego ComicCon.
posted by grabbingsand on Jul 10, 2006 - 31 comments

Shuttle crew faces 1-in-100 chance of dying. "Discovery astronaut Mike Fossum described how his family is dealing with the risk: 'I have to look my wife in the eye. ... We've had those discussions. It's not one she is really comfortable with. It's not one anybody really is.' " Launch decision ignores advice of safety officer and engineer. Vaya con Dios, Discovery.
posted by paulsc on Jun 30, 2006 - 52 comments

Leonardo is overrated: the steam turbine was invented two millennia ago by Hero of Alexandria who developed the aeolipile as a toy. Hero was also responsible for the first vending machine (for holy water) and hydraulic automatic temple doors, along with advances in areas as diverse as physics and mathematics. A translation of Hero's influential Pneumatics is available online, featuring illustrated examples of many of his inventions, many of which are related to clever devices for drinking or prayer, or both.
posted by blahblahblah on Jun 20, 2006 - 18 comments

And so begins the startling adventures of the most sensational strip character of all time : SUPERMAN!
posted by crunchland on May 7, 2006 - 24 comments

Scott Crossfield, Pilot, Pioneer. (1921-2006) "In the days of the research airplane program, things were somewhat different than the bureaucracy that we find ourselves in today. For instance, there could be a day where I would do an X-1 launch early in the morning, fly the X-4 over lunch hour, and do a D-558-II launch in the afternoon."
posted by grabbingsand on Apr 20, 2006 - 13 comments

Rudolf Vrba-RIP --he escaped from Auschwitz with another guy, Wetzler, in April 1944 and got to Slovakia and Hungary, telling the world of the atrocities in the Auschwitz Protocol. Some Hungarian community leaders, however (Hungary was the only country that hadn't had its Jewish population deported yet), were busy making deals with Eichmann for safe passage away. In any case, the result was that about 1,700 Hungarian Jewish leaders, with their families and friends, ended up in Switzerland, while almost half a million unsuspecting Hungarian Jews ended up dead in Auschwitz. Vrba's report first alerted the world (including the Vatican, Red Cross, and US and British authorities) to exactly what was going on, and helped prosecute some who were tried later. ...Knowing perfectly well that it was the secrecy surrounding their actions that allowed the Nazis to herd unsuspecting Jews and transport them like sheep to slaughter, Vrba and Wetzler — as soon as they got in touch with Jewish community representatives in their native Slovakia — compiled a detailed report. They wrote about Auschwitz and what awaited Hungarian Jews once they arrived: immediate death by gassing.
posted by amberglow on Apr 11, 2006 - 17 comments

Effa Manley. Pioneer then. Pioneer still.
posted by grabbingsand on Feb 28, 2006 - 6 comments

Eroica. Film director Andrzej Munk’s tragic death at age thirty-nine might have formed the plot for one of his own darkly sardonic works: a Polish Jew and an active resistance worker during the war, he was returning home from shooting his film Passenger at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1961 when an oncoming truck struck his car. He left behind only four feature films, but his influence was prodigious. As one of the key figures of the postwar “Polish School” of filmmaking, along with Wajda and Kawalerowicz, he helped to shape a vision that broke with the official social realist optimism of Eastern-bloc dogma and cast a skeptical eye on official notions of heroism, nationalism, and life in the Stalinist-occupied state. Mentor to Roman Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski, his influence can be felt even in the films of a later generation of Polish filmmakers — directors like Zanussi and Kieslowski. More inside.
posted by matteo on Dec 7, 2005 - 7 comments

Tibor "Ted" Rubin, survivor of a Nazi concentration camp and United States Army hero in World War II, received the Medal of Honor today from President Bush, 55 years after earning it. Rubin, a Hungarian Jew, was never submitted for a medal during the war due to anti-Semitism.
posted by cerebus19 on Sep 23, 2005 - 35 comments

Pat Tillman's memorial ceremony was going as planned: John McCain spoke, American flags waved, the Army and the NFL stood together, all mourning their lost colleague. It was going as planned until Pat's brother spoke: "Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's f -- ing dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's f -- ing dead.''
posted by falconred on May 4, 2004 - 115 comments

Who's a hero now? (NYT reg. required) It has been a year since the 9 miners in Quecreek were rescued after spending 77 hours underground. One of the rescuers, Bob Long, recently committed suicide. He was the only rescuer to get cut in on the $150,000 deal from Disney. According to the linked NYT article:
Vaughn Donaldson, district chief of the fire department in Midland, Tex., knows very well the stress that traumatic events, combined with sudden celebrity, can put on people. In the years after the rescue of baby Jessica from the well in Texas, Donaldson watched the man who saved her, Robert O'Donnell, become a national hero, before declining into substance abuse; seven years after the rescue, he shot himself. There have also been suicides among rescuers at Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center. ''Whenever you elevate one person as a hero, you necessarily leave others out, and that leads to jealousy and alienation,'' says Donaldson, who speaks to fire and police departments all over the country.
Hmm, That's enough to make you hesitate the next time you see someone who is in trouble.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink on Jul 28, 2003 - 33 comments

Heroes Are Only A Letter Away From Herpes: You catch them and you keep them and they more or less follow you through life. But heroes are good for us. Anyway, I came across this neat little exercise by Phespirit and perhaps because I share more than a few of his heroes - like Mark E. Smith [ get his font here!] and Peter Cook [A little taste here!] - it got me thinking: to what extent do our heroes, as they change or remain steadfast over the years, help define our personality? Are they who we'd like to be or be like or just be with?
posted by MiguelCardoso on May 7, 2003 - 30 comments

My hero is... found in a series of essays. Maybe we can learn from the lives of each other's heroes. Somewhere is a mention of yours. Where? (Comic and game characters, gyros and other sandwiches need not apply.)
posted by ?! on Feb 8, 2003 - 7 comments