Sometimes, when I am looking for people to feature on Hero/Hack, I go all Oprah and come across a story that is just...inspiring. Today is one of those times. My hero this week is Wesley Autrey, a 50 year old construction worker and Navy vet:

Mr. Autrey was waiting for the downtown local at 137th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 12:45 p.m. He was taking his two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, home before work.

Nearby, a man collapsed, his body convulsing. Mr. Autrey and two women rushed to help, he said. The man, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, managed to get up, but then stumbled to the platform edge and fell to the tracks, between the two rails.

The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. “I had to make a split decision,” Mr. Autrey said.

So he made one, and leapt.

Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train’s brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time.

Five cars rolled overhead before the train stopped, the cars passing inches from his head, smudging his blue knit cap with grease. Mr. Autrey heard onlookers’ screams. “We’re O.K. down here,” he yelled, “but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K.” He heard cries of wonder, and applause.

How can you not call that heroic?

Wes Clark worries that the Bush administration will bomb Iran and blames pressure from "New York money people" on "office seekers." Specifically, or so it would seem, "Jewish" money people. That'll come back to haunt him, I suspect. It's just a couple of steps above the fever swamp that blames the Iraq invasion on a cabal of Jewish US neo-cons carrying Israel's water.

According to Huffington, Clark also pictured negotiations with Iran as "sitting down for a couple of days and talking about our families and our hopes, and building relationships." What? No chorus of Kum bay yah? Somehow, I can't see Winston Churchill sitting down with Adolf to chat about Winston's hopes for Randolph. That's more like Neville Chamberlain's style.

Hooray for Anti-Semitism combined with naive diplomacy! We can't lose!

Posted by Ryan S. on Friday, January 05, 2007 at 10:12 AM | Permalink |