19 Everyday Heroes Who Deserve To Be World Famous
Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai often tells a story about a hummingbird. In the story, the hummingbird's forest catches fire. It's burning out of control. And while the larger stronger animals cower, the hummingbird flies back and forth, putting drop after drop of water on the blaze. The big animals ask the hummingbird why it's trying to put the fire out, since it seems too little and small-beaked to accomplish anything. The hummingbird's simple reply: "I am doing what I can."
On this week's episode of The Cracked Podcast, we're turning a listener suggestion into a joyful hummingbird hour. On the heels of our latest episode indexing little-known badasses of history, Alex Schmidt and Kristi Harrison are celebrating little-known badasses of life right now. Find out how Los Angeles priests, Turkish garbagemen, Japanese scuba enthusiasts and more regular folks are spreading their little wings, picking up their water drop, and finding out just how big of a fire one hummingbird can fight.
Footnotes:
Special thanks to Nicholas Speer for suggesting this week's episode topic.
"I will be a hummingbird" - Wangari Maathai (YouTube)
Hawa Abdi + Deqo Mohamed (TED Talks)
In Somalia, Mother And Daughter Are 'Keeping Hope Alive' (NPR)
Outcry in the Barrio by Freddie GarcÃa and Ninfa GarcÃa
Creating an oasis in a Southern 'food desert' (CNN)
'Little Miss Flint' Says Hugging President Obama Was 'Amazing' (ABC News)
Turning Kids Into Readers, One Barbershop At A Time (NPR)
Garbage collectors open a public library with discarded books (Boing Boing)
The Woman Who Stood Between America and a Generation of 'Thalidomide Babies' (Smithsonian Magazine)
Honoring a decision that made history: Frances Oldham Kelsey (The Washington Post)
The Heroic Effort to Digitally Reconstruct Lost Monuments (Smithsonian Magazine)
6 Awesome Stories of Bystanders Becoming Heroes (Cracked)
6 Sworn Enemies Who Teamed Up and Kicked Ass (Cracked)
Estella Pyfrom's Drive for Brilliant Ideas (Pacific Standard Magazine)
How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes (NPR)
Join us for our next LIVE Cracked Podcast! It's happening this coming Saturday, April 14th at 7pm at UCB Sunset Theatre in Los Angeles. Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians Matt Lieb, Jenny Jaffe, and Carey O'Donnell for tales of the world's most bizarre celebrity origins & backstories. Tickets are $7 and available here.
