Charles Ramsey: Cleveland's real life hero

It's like an TV crime show episode playing out in real life but I'm not going to recap the escape of the three abducted women after 10 years in Cleveland. This will be a big story for days and the details will be well covered. But huzzah for Charles Ramsey who chose to intervene in what he assumed was an ordinary domestic dispute. These days most people would have ignored the cries of Amanda Berry, not wanting to get involved. So I do want to preserve his epic interview for the archives.



And a transcript of his 911 call is here.

If he hadn't acted, those women could still be prisioners or worse, have been killed for trying to escape. Ramsey was especially brave to get involved because he's a black man rescuing a white woman. Just being on a street while black and poor is a risk in a big city. One of the most telling moments in the video was when the police siren bleeped twice and you could see his flight instinct kick in for a few seconds. But he heeded the plea for help and took the chance. He saved their lives.

We need more Charles Ramseys in the world today.

Pure Loyalty

Stories like this just make me sob in empathy for these poor critters:



Story here but since YahooNews links are so notorious for rotting in a short time, I'll post the English translation of the voiceover exchange between the two reporters in the clip (translation courtesy of Toshiyuki Kitamura):

We are in Arahama area. Looks like there is a dog. There is a dog. He looks tired and dirty. He must have been caught in the tsunami. He looks very dirty.

He has a collar. He must be someone's pet. He has a silver collar. He is shaking. He seems very afraid.

Oh, there is another dog. I wonder if he is dead.

Where?

Right there. There is another dog right next to the one sitting down. He is not moving. I wonder. I wonder if he is alright.

The dog is protecting him.

Yes. He is protecting the dog. That is why he did not want us to approach them. He was trying to keep us at bay.

I can't watch this. This is a very difficult to watch.

Oh. Look. He is moving. He is alive. I am so happy to see that he is alive.
Yes! Yes! He is alive.

He looks to be weakened. We need to them to be rescued soon. We really want them rescued soon.

Oh good. He's getting up.

It is amazing how they survived the tremendous earthquake and tsunami. It's just amazing that they survived through this all.

Happy ending too. The dogs have been rescued since the footage aired, and are both receiving veterinary care. They're in separate places though. I do hope they'll reunite them once the sick one recovers.

Twain in his own words

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. ~Mark Twain

I love Mark Twain. I've had that quote on the sidebar since I opened up this blog, so I'm really looking forward to the release of his new unexpurgated autobiography. Think it's going to be great:

Whether anguishing over American military interventions abroad or delivering jabs at Wall Street tycoons, this Twain is strikingly contemporary. Though the autobiography also contains its share of homespun tales, some of its observations about American life are so acerbic — at one point Twain refers to American soldiers as “uniformed assassins” — that his heirs and editors, as well as the writer himself, feared they would damage his reputation if not withheld.

“From the first, second, third and fourth editions all sound and sane expressions of opinion must be left out,” Twain instructed them in 1906. “There may be a market for that kind of wares a century from now. There is no hurry. Wait and see.”

Of course, I have no budget for book buying these days, but the library will get it eventually and in any event, I'm glad I lived long enough to read it in it's unabridged glory. [graphic]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

US Air pilot lands in Hudson River - Updated

This is the kind of pilot you want on your next flight. The media is calling it a crash but really the pilot landed that plane safely. A US Airways twin engine plane carrying 150 passengers apparently hit a flock of geese as they were gaining altitude and lost both engines over Manhattan. The pilot managed to land the plane in the only safe place possible -- the Hudson River. All passengers reported injuries but none appear to be major. Incredible. As one airline consultant put it, "Ditching an aircraft is a significant accomplishment on the part of the pilot, as opposed to crashing one. There’s no place for an airplane of that size to land in Manhattan.”

Really. If he had hit a building they would all have been dead. The pilot deserves a commendation. [photo WNBC]

Update: I'm glad to see the pilot, "Sully" Sullenberger, is being hailed as a hero. He already has a fan club on Facebook. He deserves it. I'd also note in passing that no one seems to mention that the Hudson River is a very busy port and it just adds to the awesomeness that he managed to land that plane safely without hitting any boats either.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]

We don't need another hero

by Capt Fogg

The English language isn't what it used to be. It's not as much the expression of a culture but more and more a tool for manipulation. Take the word hero. It used to connote a doer of bold and noble deeds; someone favored by the divine, but as with most things these days, the requirements have been dumbed down and conferring the title of hero is a way to make the exploited seem, well, less exploited.

The guy who runs into a burning building to save someone else can fairly be called a hero but what about the guy who unwittingly holds the door for the guy who runs in to pillage the place before it all burns up? Is he a hero if he's killed so that others may steal during a fire that was set for the purpose? Most people wouldn't say so; they'd say he was a victim and the law would agree, but if we talk about soldiers and not firefighters, everyone is a hero now.

I was struck by an article in the Miami Herald this morning about Staff Sergeant Lillian Clamens, wife and mother of three, killed in Iraq by a missile. Lillian was a personnel clerk only three days away from coming home to her family. Her three children have already bought the costumes for the Halloween party planned to celebrate her return. Her husband, a logistics manager for the Army ROTC program seems stoic, or so the Herald plays the story. They're all heroes, you see and heroes don't cry and consequently neither should we. We should celebrate the heroism of another senseless death, another casualty of the Neo-con crusade to make the world free for exploitation by the rich and corporate; another destroyed family and three more orphans because of a colossally mismanaged power grab by a government that never sheds a tear unless it has to pay for some kid's medical insurance or old person's medicine.

Maybe it's OK to be stoic; to act as though it was important that men and women are dying, but it's not OK for us to pass by it all, to absolve ourselves by calling her a hero, to pretend her children aren't crying, because she's a hero, that we haven't lost one of our own forever, because she's a hero, because soldiers are warriors and warriors are heroes even if they die for someone else's ambitions, our arm chair patriotism and our apathy.

What have we done to ourselves if fathers and mothers, sons and daughters and husbands have to believe that our government hasn't got the blood of their families on their hands and in their wallets; what has become of a nation that it can't cry for someone's mother, someone's wife? What of a culture that has to hide contempt for what they know is wrong; hide grief for what they know is a tragedy behind the cult of Bush and the myth of the warrior hero?

Cross posted from Human Voices

Youssif

by Capt. Fogg

If you're a human being, you are saddened by the story of Youssif, the Iraqi boy set on fire by unknown assailants. His face is deformed and we can only imagine how this child's view of the world is deformed by the pain he's been through and the ugliness he sees in the mirror. Of course you and I are pleased to see that some American hearts bled enough that he will receive the best in burn treatment and reconstructive surgery in the US.

Dr. Peter Grossman spoke on CNN this afternoon, outside the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks California, about the course of surgery that will probably involve more pain and as much as a year of treatment, he seemed a bit non-plussed when the reporter asked him how seeing Youssif had changed his views. For a second I half expected a denunciation of war, of violence, of the unthinking, uncaring horror of using massive military force to bomb crowded cities, but no, Grossman gave CNN what CNN wanted.

Cross posted at Human Voices

Who is Norman Borlaug?

By Libby

Oh just a guy "widely credited with saving the lives of 1 billion human beings worldwide, more than one in seven people on the planet." As Eric puts it, "An elderly agronomist doesn't make news," ... but his "success in feeding the world testifies to the difference a single person can make."

Norman is a hot ticket but nobody is going to his show. More the pity since he has some wise thoughts on the mono-ag corporate welfare bill currently before Congress. I'm all for farming but $95 billion a year in subsidies has been going to a handful of corporate execs who have never even seen the farm.

Norman thinks it's silly to be subsidizing them. I think he's right.

The Last of the Bedford Boys

There was a touching story published in the Richmond Times Dispatch on June 6, 2007 about Ray Nance, the last of the famed "Bedford Boys" that stormed the beach at Normandy on D-Day. Nineteen of the young men cut down that day were from the small central Virginia town of Bedford. The saying has been oft repeated that Bedford suffered the greatest loss of any town in the U.S. that day, per capita.

I grew up about 20 miles from Bedford and my uncle trained with Company A, but went into Normandy on D-Day plus one. Before D-Day was over 90 per cent of Company A was dead or wounded and Ray Nance was their lieutenant. He is now 93 years old and failing.

His life since D-Day has been haunted by bad dreams but sleep comes easier now, the ravages of time offering blessed forgetfulness.

Ray Nance, who is about to turn 93, sleeps peacefully, largely because his failing memory no longer summons many images from June 6, 1944, when 19 young Bedford men were killed on the beach at the start of the D-Day invasion.

During recent interviews, the memory that shone through brightest for Nance was his rescue from the beach, where he had lain wounded for hours.

"I looked up, and there was a sergeant -- he was from Roanoke -- he said, 'Get up on my back, and I'll take you out of here,'" Nance recalled. "He carried me almost piggy-back all the way along the beach, maybe 300 yards. And don't you know, there wasn't a shot fired at us."

I went to high school in Bedford and have been well schooled in the sacrifices of that day and the way that little town was torn apart. I recall the story of the Western Union telegrapher taking notice after notice of the deaths and how they just wouldn't stop coming.

I went to school and grew up with their cousins and nephews and nieces. Some of my teachers were their sisters. And now all the boys of Company A are gone, but one, and he's fading away and soon he'll be gone.

Until a few years ago, those memories haunted Nance's dreams. He would wake up and replay the events in his head, asking himself what he might have done differently to save some of his men. Nance was a lieutenant.

But he can no longer access those dark memories, he and his wife, Alpha, said in recent interviews. As a result, his wife said, "Ray is much more at peace."

Nance, who still has a boyish face and penetrating blue eyes, said he would prefer to remember everything -- "the good and the bad." Then he added, "Maybe some things are better forgotten."

Ray Nance still visits the National D-Day Memorial that sits on a beautiful hillside there in Bedford on a weekly basis with Alpha, his wife of 62 years. He is a smiling and pleasant gentleman and the last time I saw him was at the memorial about a year ago.

These men weren't heroes, they were just teenagers and young men answering the call when their country needed them. But when you think of what they accomplished, those cut down so young, the ones that have passed on and the one that is now left, they ended up being giants.

Jim Martin

Walter M. Schirra, Jr. R.I.P.

And then there were two.

Walter M. Schirra, Jr., astronaut and one of my childhood heroes died today completing a long and productive life.

There was no bigger astro-geek than your's truly and I knew everything about the first seven astronauts. At one point in my life, well into my adulthood, I could list the names of every astronaut on every mission. I watched or listened to every manned launch until the Challenger blew up. I got into trouble when I was in the sixth grade for listening to a Mercury launch on my little transistor radio. The fact that I was using the earplug so as not to disturb anyone else went unappreciated.

When Neil Armstrong took that one giant step, Wally Schirra was there as Walter Cronkite's technical expert. Mr. Cronkite really didn't need one, but every great play-by-play announcer needs a great color commentator and Wally was the best. As the only astronaut to fly in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs there was no one who knew more about space flight.

Only the great John Glenn and M. Scott Carpenter are left.

Bon voyage Wally. I will miss you.

Jim Martin