Month: July 2021

Donald Trump Jr.’s post-election escapades have included amped up, slurry “Motel 6” rants and bombing at CPAC, and let’s just say that he’s extremely online these days. And not so much based in reality. However, Don Jr. wanted to tell everyone that he’s a very hands-on type of guy in terms of, like, putting hammers to wood on his own?

There’s no telling whether Don Jr. fancies himself as a lost Property Brother, but he did describe himself as a “builder.” Perhaps he thought he could make that claim because his fam has deep ties in the construction business. It’s not too clear on that front, but what’s more obvious is that the shoutiest Trump son attempted to make a terrible, no good-connection between a George Floyd mural being hit by lighting (and it’s unconfirmed whether lightning is to blame or vandalism) … and “a higher power” which he believes is attempting to confirm something unsavory about Floyd himself.

Jr.’s racially charged rhetoric continued. “When was the last time you heard of a brick building being destroyed by lightning?” Jr. tweeted. “I am a builder and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of it.”

Well from there, the question wasn’t whether lightning ever strikes brick buildings (because it does happen, as chimneys will attest) but why, exactly, Don Jr. called himself “a builder.” Social media enjoyed that claim, and it didn’t turn out well for Jr.

No “Infrastructure Week” jokes? C’mon Twitter.

With all due respect to The Godfather, The Lord of the Rings, and Back to the Future, the greatest trilogy of all-time is the Jackass trilogy. Or at least it was, because now Jackass is now the greatest quadrilogy of all-time. Sorry, Toy Story, but I don’t make the rules. To be fair, I haven’t actually seen Jackass Forever — I’m still annoyed they didn’t go with Jackass 4ever — but something tells me Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, and the rest of the gang won’t let us down.

After 2020, we need to “laugh our asses off” to Jackass now more than ever.

Jackass Forever stars returning favorites Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Dave England, Wee Man, Danger Ehren, and Preston Lacy (but no Bam Margera), who are joined by new members to the troupe, Sean “Poopies” McInerney (last seen getting bit by a shark during Shark Week), Jasper, Rachel Wolfson, Zach Holmes, and Eric Manaka. It’s directed by Jeff Tremaine and produced by Spike Jonze, which will never not be funny to me. He’s an Oscar-winning screenwriter who spends his free time watching his long-time buddies get blasted off the toilet and hit in the nuts by a softball, like in the trailer above. It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry (the Johnny Cash song at the beginning had me weeping), but most of all, it’ll make you glad Jackass is back.

Jackass 4 comes out on October 22.

This article originally appeared on 06.29.18

Many years before I got together with my boyfriend, I had a sex thing with this guy that I thought was relationship material.

He not only had an amazing body but a great personality as well. I was honest when I met him that I was looking for something more than just sex, and he led me to believe that was what he wanted, too.

Between mind-blowing sex sessions, we ordered in, played video games, and watched movies — couple things but without the label. But when I tried to get him to go to a show or out to dinner with me, he refused. My frustration grew as the months went on, and one day I confronted him.

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“Why don’t we ever go anywhere?”

“We have everything we need here,” he answered while simultaneously distracting me by caressing my shoulder blades.

“We actually don’t,” I said. “I’m hungry, let’s check out that new Indian place around the corner.”

“No! We might run into one of my buddies,” he said, moving his body further away from me. The underlining meaning was clear — he couldn’t take the chance that someone he knew would see him with me.

He needed to keep our relationship on the DL so that no one would ever suspect that he enjoyed spending time with me — a fat woman.

He was super fit, so obviously that’s the kind of woman he wanted to be associated with, the kind he could be seen with at the Indian place.

When I realized he was ashamed of being seen with me, I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach — a place where much of my pain already resided.

To him, I was fuckable but not dateable. He dumped me soon after that conversation.

He did me a favor by not continuing to lead me on. Otherwise, I might still be trying to prove to him that I was worth any shit he might have gotten from other people. If I was still his secret shame, I might not have met my next boyfriend, so thanks, athletic asshole.

I had hoped that, in this age of body positivity, men would no longer need to hide their desires when it comes to fat women.

But I was wrong.

It’s just a sad fact: Many men who are sexually attracted to fat women are ashamed of it.

They’re OK with banging a fat girl, but they don’t want to hang out with her — someone might judge them for it.

It’s one thing if you’re not into fat women — everyone has their preferences, and not every body type appeals to everyone. But if you find larger women hot and you want to have sex with them without being associated in public with them, that’s emotionally abusive.

Everyone should have the freedom to express their desires openly (as long as there’s consent from both parties). If you modify your behavior and wants to what you think will protect you from criticism and/or ridicule, then you need help because that kind of self-loathing will only grow until it has destroyed you.

Don’t act like we’re in a relationship if all you really want is to experience what sex with a fat woman is like.

I’ll tell you what it’s like: It’s as amazing and fun as having sex with anyone who’s into having sex with you. We don’t have magic vaginas, and our breasts don’t do any special tricks — well besides the usual, like feed or comfort people.

Fat women are just as hot and sexually gifted as women of other shapes, sizes, and abilities. Being fat doesn’t mean we’re so hungry for attention that we’ll put our own needs aside and do whatever we can to rock your world.

If you’re with someone who doesn’t make you feel beautiful or who isn’t proud to have you on their arm, you need to dump their ass.

Being alone is far better than compromising on what you deserve or being made to feel as if you’re someone’s big dirty secret.

You’re not only dateable, you’re lovable and worthy of being treated with respect and love.

I regret not standing up for myself when I discovered the athletic guy was only using me for sex. But at least I learned, as we all should learn, that I’m responsible for being my biggest advocate and to never accepting anything less than what I need.

This article originally appeared on 01.22.19

The legality of abortion is one of the most polarized debates in America—but it doesn’t have to be.

People have big feelings about abortion, which is understandable. On one hand, you have people who feel that abortion is a fundamental women’s rights issue, that our bodily autonomy is not something you can legislate, and that those who oppose abortion rights are trying to control women through oppressive legislation. On the other, you have folks who believe that a fetus is a human individual first and foremost, that no one has the right to terminate a human life, and that those who support abortion rights are heartless murderers.

Then there are those of us in the messy middle. Those who believe that life begins at conception, that abortion isn’t something we’d choose—and we’d hope others wouldn’t choose—under most circumstances, yet who choose to vote to keep abortion legal.

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It is entirely possible to be morally anti-abortion and politically pro-choice without feeling conflicted about it. Here’s why.

There’s far too much gray area to legislate.

No matter what you believe, when exactly life begins and when “a clump of cells” should be considered an individual, autonomous human being is a debatable question.

I personally believe life begins at conception, but that’s my religious belief about when the soul becomes associated with the body, not a scientific fact. As Arthur Caplan, award-winning professor of bioethics at New York University, told Slate, “Many scientists would say they don’t know when life begins. There are a series of landmark moments. The first is conception, the second is the development of the spine, the third the development of the brain, consciousness, and so on.”

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a human life unquestionably begins at conception. Even with that point of view, there are too many issues that make a black-and-white approach to abortion too problematic to ban it.

Abortion bans hurt some mothers who desperately want their babies to live, and I’m not okay with that.

One reason I don’t support banning abortion is because I’ve seen too many families deeply harmed by restrictive abortion laws.

I’ve heard too many stories of families who desperately wanted a baby, who ended up having to make the rock-and-a-hard-place choice to abort because the alternative would have been a short, pain-filled life for their child.

I’ve heard too many stories of mothers having to endure long, drawn out, potentially dangerous miscarriages and being forced to carry a dead baby inside of them because abortion restrictions gave them no other choice.

I’ve heard too many stories of abortion laws doing real harm to mothers and babies, and too many stories of families who were staunchly anti-abortion until they found themselves in circumstances they never could have imagined, to believe that abortion is always wrong and should be banned at any particular stage.

I am not willing to serve as judge and jury on a woman’s medical decisions, and I don’t think the government should either.

Most people’s anti-abortion views—mine included—are based on their religious beliefs, and I don’t believe that anyone’s religion should be the basis for the laws in our country. (For the record, any Christian who wants biblical teachings to influence U.S. law, yet cries “Shariah is coming!” when they see a Muslim legislator, is a hypocrite.)

I also don’t want politicians sticking their noses into my very personal medical choices. There are just too many circumstances (seriously, please read the stories linked in the previous section) that make abortion a choice I hope I’d never have to make, but wouldn’t want banned. I don’t understand why the same people who decry government overreach think the government should be involved in these extremely personal medical decisions.

And yes, ultimately, abortion is a personal medical decision. Even if I believe that a fetus is a human being at every stage, that human being’s creation is inextricably linked to and dependent upon its mother’s body. And while I don’t think that means women should abort inconvenient pregnancies, I also acknowledge that trying to force a woman to grow and deliver a baby that she may not have chosen to conceive isn’t something the government should be in the business of doing.

As a person of faith, my role is not to judge or vilify, but to love and support women who are facing difficult choices. The rest of it—the hard questions, the unclear rights and wrongs, the spiritual lives of those babies,—I comfortably leave in God’s hands.

Most importantly, if the goal is to prevent abortion, research shows that outlawing it isn’t the way to go.

The biggest reason I vote the way I do is because based on my research pro-choice platforms provide the best chance of reducing abortion rates.

Abortion rates fell by 24% in the past decade and are at their lowest levels in 40 years in America. Abortion has been legal during that time, so clearly, keeping abortion legal and available has not resulted in increased abortion rates. Switzerland has the lowest abortion rate on earth and their rate has been falling since 2002, when abortion became largely unrestricted.

Outlawing abortion doesn’t stop it, it just pushes it underground and makes it more dangerous. And if a woman dies in a botched abortion, so does her baby. Banning abortion is a recipe for more lives being lost, not fewer.

At this point, the only things consistently proven to reduce abortion rates are comprehensive sex education and easy, affordable access to birth control. If we want to reduce abortions, that’s where we should be putting our energy. The problem is, anti-abortion activists also tend to be the same people pushing for abstinence-only education and making birth control harder to obtain. But those goals can’t co-exist in the real world.

Our laws should be based on reality and on the best data we have available. Since comprehensive sex education and easy, affordable access to birth control—the most proven methods of reducing abortion rates—are the domain of the pro-choice crowd, that’s where I place my vote, and why I do so with a clear conscience.

This article originally appeared on 07.19.17

When we recognize kids’ unwelcome behaviors as reactions to environmental conditions, developmental phases, or our own actions, we can respond proactively, and with compassion.

Here are 10 ways kids may seem like they’re acting “naughty” but really aren’t. And what parents can do to help.

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1. They can’t control their impulses.

Ever say to your kid, “Don’t throw that!” and they throw it anyway?

Research suggests the brain regions involved in self-control are immature at birth and don’t fully mature until the end of adolescence, which explains why developing self-control is a “long, slow process.”

A recent survey revealed many parents assume children can do things at earlier ages than child-development experts know to be true. For example, 56% of parents felt that children under the age of 3 should be able to resist the desire to do something forbidden whereas most children don’t master this skill until age 3 and a half or 4.

What parents can do: Reminding ourselves that kids can’t always manage impulses (because their brains aren’t fully developed) can inspire gentler reactions to their behavior.

2. They experience overstimulation.

We take our kids to Target, the park, and their sister’s play in a single morning and inevitably see meltdowns, hyperactivity, or outright resistance. Jam-packed schedules, overstimulation, and exhaustion are hallmarks of modern family life.

Research suggests that 28% of Americans “always feel rushed” and 45% report having “no excess time.” Kim John Payne, author of “Simplicity Parenting,” argues that children experience a “cumulative stress reaction” from too much enrichment, activity, choice, and toys. He asserts that kids need tons of “down time” to balance their “up time.”

What parents can do: When we build in plenty of quiet time, playtime, and rest time, children’s behavior often improves dramatically.

3. Kids’ physical needs affect their mood.

Ever been “hangry” or completely out of patience because you didn’t get enough sleep? Little kids are affected tenfold by such “core conditions” of being tired, hungry, thirsty, over-sugared, or sick.

Kids’ ability to manage emotions and behavior is greatly diminished when they’re tired. Many parents also notice a sharp change in children’s behavior about an hour before meals, if they woke up in the night, or if they are coming down with an illness.

What parents can do: Kids can’t always communicate or “help themselves” to a snack, a Tylenol, water, or a nap like adults can. Help them through routines and prep for when that schedule might get thrown off.

Image via iStock.

4. They can’t tame their expression of big feelings.

As adults, we’ve been taught to tame and hide our big emotions, often by stuffing them, displacing them, or distracting from them. Kids can’t do that yet.

What parents can do: Early-childhood educator Janet Lansbury has a great phrase for when kids display powerful feelings such as screaming, yelling, or crying. She suggests that parents “let feelings be” by not reacting or punishing kids when they express powerful emotions. (Psst: “Jane the Virgin” actor Justin Baldoni has some tips on parenting through his daughter’s grocery store meltdown.)

5. Kids have a developmental need for tons of movement.

“Sit still!” “Stop chasing your brother around the table!” “Stop sword fighting with those pieces of cardboard!” “Stop jumping off the couch!”

Kids have a developmental need for tons of movement. The need to spend time outside, ride bikes and scooters, do rough-and-tumble play, crawl under things, swing from things, jump off things, and race around things.

What parents can do: Instead of calling a child “bad” when they’re acting energetic, it may be better to organize a quick trip to the playground or a stroll around the block.

6. They’re defiant.

Every 40- and 50-degree day resulted in an argument at one family’s home. A first-grader insisted that it was warm enough to wear shorts while mom said the temperature called for pants. Erik Erikson’s model posits that toddlers try to do things for themselves and that preschoolers take initiative and carry out their own plans.

What parents can do: Even though it’s annoying when a child picks your tomatoes while they’re still green, cuts their own hair, or makes a fort with eight freshly-washed sheets, they’re doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing — trying to carry out their own plans, make their own decisions, and become their own little independent people. Understanding this and letting them try is key.

7. Sometimes even their best traits can trip them up.

It happens to all of us — our biggest strengths often reflect our weaknesses. Maybe we’re incredibly focused, but can’t transition very easily. Maybe we’re intuitive and sensitive but take on other people’s negative moods like a sponge.

Kids are similar: They may be driven in school but have difficulty coping when they mess up (e.g., yelling when they make a mistake). They may be cautious and safe but resistant to new activities (e.g., refusing to go to baseball practice). They may live in the moment but aren’t that organized (e.g., letting their bedroom floor become covered with toys).

What parents can do: Recognizing when a child’s unwelcome behaviors are really the flip side of their strengths — just like ours — can help us react with more understanding.

Image via iStock.

8. Kids have a fierce need for play.

Your kid paints her face with yogurt, wants you to chase her and “catch her” when you’re trying to brush her teeth, or puts on daddy’s shoes instead of her own when you’re racing out the door. Some of kids’ seemingly “bad” behaviors are what John Gottman calls “bids” for you to play with them.

Kids love to be silly and goofy. They delight in the connection that comes from shared laughter and love the elements of novelty, surprise, and excitement.

What parents can do: Play often takes extra time and therefore gets in the way of parents’ own timelines and agendas, which may look like resistance and naughtiness even when it’s not. When parents build lots of playtime into the day, kids don’t need to beg for it so hard when you’re trying to get them out the door.

9. They are hyperaware and react to parents’ moods.

Multiple research studies on emotional contagion have found that it only takes milliseconds for emotions like enthusiasm and joy, as well as sadness, fear, and anger, to pass from person to person, and this often occurs without either person realizing it. Kids especially pick up on their parents’ moods. If we are stressed, distracted, down, or always on the verge of frustrated, kids emulate these moods. When we are peaceful and grounded, kids model off that instead.

What parents can do: Check in with yourself before getting frustrated with your child for feeling what they’re feeling. Their behavior could be modeled after your own tone and emotion.

10. They struggle to respond to inconsistent limits.

At one baseball game, you buy your kid M&Ms. At the next, you say, “No, it’ll ruin your dinner,” and your kid screams and whines. One night you read your kids five books, but the next you insist you only have time to read one, and they beg for more. One night you ask your child, “What do you want for dinner?” and the next night you say, “We’re having lasagna, you can’t have anything different,” and your kids protest the incongruence.

When parents are inconsistent with limits, it naturally sets off kids’ frustration and invites whining, crying, or yelling.

What parents can do: Just like adults, kids want (and need) to know what to expect. Any effort toward being 100% consistent with boundaries, limits, and routines will seriously improve children’s behavior.

This story first appeared on Psychology Today and is reprinted here with permission.

This article originally appeared on 06.22.18

Imagine you’re sitting in a pub and Sir Paul McCartney walks in.

That’s exactly what happened when he guested on an episode of “Carpool Karaoke.” The legendary performer rolled through his hometown of Liverpool with host James Corden, sharing memories of the city, surprising fans in his favorite pub, and bringing all of us a badly needed emotional release with his music.

McCartney’s trip down Penny Lane was poignant, and his message of positivity brought James Corden to tears.

The most prevailing themes in The Beatles’ music are those of love, peace, joy, and togetherness. It’s the kind of music that you put on during the happiest times and when you’ve had a really rough day.

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One of the most comforting songs in difficult times is “Let It Be,” and that’s no accident. During their road trip, McCartney told Corden it was inspired by a dream of his late mother.

“My mum, who died, came to me in the dream and was reassuring me, saying it’s gonna be OK, let it be.” McCartney said. “I wrote the song ‘Let It Be,’ but it was [inspired by] her positivity.”

“It got me emotional there, Paul,” Corden said, echoing the feelings of everyone watching.

“That’s the power of music,” McCartney replied. “It’s weird, isn’t it, how that can do that to you?”

Photo by Craig Sugden/CBS via Getty Images.

McCartney’s reminder that things will be OK is something we all need.

“All you need is love” might sound a little sappy, but in these times, that message is more important than ever. And the Beatles’ continued success is a testament to how much we all need to work toward the joy the group so often sang about. To achieve it, we’ve all got to come together (right now).

Watch the full video below, free your tears, feel the full spectrum of your emotions, and then get to work making the world the awesome place we all know it can be. (The story starts at 4:50.)

This article originally appeared on 01.11.19

Disney princesses are a magical thing, sometimes most of all for the princesses themselves.

Amber Shaddock Roberts used to visit Disneyland every year as a child. And from ages 2 to 15, she stopped to say hello and take pictures with the woman who was dressed as Snow White.

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

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Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Roberts says the park employee remembered her by name each year, something that made her annual visits even more magical.

Fast forward several years and Roberts heard that the woman who portrayed Snow White was still working at Disneyland, only now portraying the Fairy Godmother. Roberts was able to track her down and brought her photo album of their shared memories in tow. What ensued was pure, magical bliss. As Roberts wrote in her Facebook post:

When I was 2 years old, I met Snow White. Every single time I saw her until I was 15, she recognized me and knew me by name. She made my Disney childhood so incredibly magical. I haven’t seen her in person since, but I knew she was now the Fairy Godmother. Today I tracked her down & got to hug her neck. Best day ever!!(And yes I cried!)

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

We hear you, Amber. We hear you. Is that fairy dust in our eyes?

And so does the world. The post has barely been up on Facebook for 24 hours and has already been shared more than 80,000 times with no sign of slowing down.

This article originally appeared on 02.07.19

Anyone who owns a dog can attest to the amazing comfort they provide during times of stress or discomfort. Research shows that dogs have a biological effect on us that elevates our levels of oxytocin, which is known as the “love hormone.”

Unfortunately, most of the time, dogs aren’t allowed in the place where people need comfort the most: hospitals. Even though evidence suggests that that visiting with a pet while hospitalized improves a patient’s mood while reducing their anxiety.

A story shared by Reddit user Mellifluous_Username on the online forum is going viral because of the lengths he and his dog went to to visit his sick wife.

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For brevity’s sake, we’ll refer to Mellifluous_Username as “Mel.”

“My wife was in the hospital after a very invasive surgery, which after a few days, looked like it did not produce ideal results,” Mel wrote. “The prognosis was not good. She was able to speak, but was not eating or drinking, and relied completely on her IV and hard pain pills. In one rare instance of cogent speech, she convinced me to sneak our dog into her private room, so she could see her ‘one more time.'”

Mel decided he could sneak their 50-pound Austrian Shepherd into her hospital room by hiding it in a suitcase.

“I packed her in, with the lid unzipped, and placed her in the car until we arrived at the hospital,” Mel wrote. “When we arrived, I ‘explained’ to her that I would open the zipper in a few minutes and that she could see her Mommy.”

As they slipped their way through the s hospital wings, the dog was quiet as a cat burglar. When asked about the suitcase, Mel told the nurses that he was bringing “items to make my wife more comfortable.”

“When we entered the room, my wife was asleep,” Mel wrote. “I unzipped the suitcase, and the dog immediately jumped on the bed, and gingerly laid across her chest, somehow avoiding the wires and IV. She positioned herself to where she could look directly into my wife’s eyes, and laid completely still, until about twenty minutes later, when my wife woke up, and started moaning in pain.”

“The dog immediately started licking her, and quietly moaned, as if knowing that barking would definitely blow our cover,” Mel wrote.

“My wife hugged her for almost an hour, smiling the whole time,” he continued. “We were busted by one nurse who was so touched that she promised not to tell. When my wife finally went back to sleep, I loaded the dog back in the suitcase, and she somewhat sheepishly obliged.”

Mel’s wife passed away a few days later, but his dog has yet to learn the sad truth. “Now, whenever I grab the suitcase, the dog thinks we are doing to see her again,” he wrote.

This article originally appeared on 08.15.18.

Have you ever wondered why people don’t seem to say “you’re welcome” anymore?

Back in 2015, author and professor Tom Nichols tweeted out an angry response after receiving what he thought was poor customer service:

“Dear Every Cashier in America: the proper response to ‘thank you’ is ‘you’re welcome,’ not ‘no problem.’ And *you’re* supposed to thank *me*”

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Dear Every Cashier in America: the proper response to “thank you” is “you’re welcome,” not “no problem.” And *you’re* supposed to thank *me*

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom)
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The angry tweet elicited a number of mocking responses from people on social media.

But eventually one person chimed in with a detailed and thoughtful response that just might give you pause the next time you or someone you know says, “no problem.”

It’s not about being polite. Our views on gratitude are evolving.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

In a response that is going viral on Reddit, on person writing under the name “lucasnoahs” laid it all out:

Actually the “you’re welcome/no problem” issue is simply a linguistics misunderstanding. Older ppl tend to say “you’re welcome,” younger ppl tend to say “no problem.” This is because for older people the act of helping or assisting someone is seen as a task that is not expected of them, but is them doing extra, so it’s them saying, “I accept your thanks because I know I deserve it.”

“No problem,” however, is used because younger people feel not only that helping or assisting someone is a given and expected but also that it should be stressed that you’re need for help was no burden to them (even if it was).

Basically, older people think help is a gift you give, younger people think help is an expectation required of them.

Nichols took a lot of flack for his comment. But the insightful response reveals something important about gratitude.

The thoughtful response from “lucasnoahs” doesn’t apply to everyone. After all, there are certainly a lot of people of any age group for whom acts of kindness and gestures of gratitude are “no problem.”

Still, his message conveys an important idea that doing well for others does not have to be a grand gesture. It can be a simple act — and the additional act of letting someone know that it’s really no problem helps relieve any potential sense of debt or guilt the person receiving the gesture might otherwise take on.

Most of the time, doing the right thing is indeed no problem. In fact, it might be the solution to a lot of the daily problems we grapple with.

This article originally appeared on 04.26.16

On April 26, 1986, the world experienced the worst ever nuclear disaster.

It occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located in Ukraine. Immediately after the meltdown, dozens died. 30 years later, the number of lives lost to the plant’s radiation lies somewhere in the tens of thousands.

If not for the work of three brave men, we may have lost millions of lives instead.

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The plant, severely damaged, four days after the disaster. Photo by AFP/Getty Images.

10 days after the Chernobyl meltdown, engineers learned of a new threat: nuclear steam explosions.

The plant’s water-cooling system had failed, and a pool had formed directly under the highly radioactive reactor. With no cooling, it was just going to be a matter of time before a lava-like substance melted through the remaining barriers, dropping the reactor’s core into the pool. If this would have happened, it might have set off steam explosions, firing radiation high and wide into the sky, spreading across parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

“Our experts studied the possibility and concluded that the explosion would have had a force of three to five megatons,” said Soviet physicist Vassili Nesterenko. “Minsk, which is 320 kilometers from Chernobyl, would have been razed and Europe rendered uninhabitable.”

Soviet engineers test waters for radiation within the 30-kilometer “forbidden zone.” Photo by AFP/Getty Images.

Three brave men volunteered to dive under the plant and release a critical pressure valve.

Just one available man knew the location of the release valve. His name was Alexei Ananenko, and he was one of the plant’s engineers. He along with fellow engineer Valeri Bezpalov and shift supervisor Boris Baranov were asked to take on what amounted to a suicide mission.

The men were told they could refuse the assignment, but Ananenko later said, “How could I do that when I was the only person on the shift who knew where the valves were located?”

Decades after the disaster, a visitor photographs a memorial built for the first responders of Chernobyl. Photo by Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images.

The men released the valve in time and, in doing so, saved the world from a disaster that would have been exponentially worse than the initial explosion.

Over the following days, more than 5 million gallons of water were released from below the plant. A report later confirmed that without the work of Ananeko, Bezpalov, and Baranov, a nuclear explosion would have taken place, turning hundreds of square miles into an inhabitable radioactive wasteland.

A nuclear hazard warning is seen in Kopachi, one of the many villages close to the Chernobyl plant buried after the disaster to reduce the spread of radiation. Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images.

By the time the men surfaced from under the reactor, all three were showing signs of severe radiation poisoning. Tragically, none of them survived for more than a few weeks.

Like other victims of the Chernobyl disaster, the three men were buried in lead coffins.

What makes their actions unique in comparison to those of the disaster’s first responders is that these men were warned outright of the danger radiation posed — firefighters weren’t given any background on radiation poisoning before running to put out the flames. They’re all heroes, but these three men knew they’d die; they did it anyway, saving the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Their story has been mostly lost to time, with references only popping up in books about catastrophe, danger, and disaster. But the names of these three men shouldn’t be forgotten.

A monument is dedicated to the lives of all those lost in the Chernobyl disaster. Photo by Boris Cambreleng/AFP/Getty Images.

Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov, and Boris Baranov didn’t prevent the Chernobyl disaster; they prevented something much, much worse.

Their story really makes you think about the label “hero.” For some, like the three Chernobyl divers, heroics come quietly as the result of a quashed threat. For others, like the first responders at Chernobyl or Fukushima, during 9/11, or in response to other terrorist attacks, heroics are the result of running toward danger so that others may run away from it.

The truth is that heroes are all around us. Teachers, health care workers, and just everyday people are and have the capacity to be heroes in their own right. No capes needed, just a little faith in the human spirit.