Hat tip to commentor Comrade Mary for the tale of Hideaki Akaiwa, Badass of the Week, if not the year:
… Regardless of how he came across this equipment (borrowing, stealing, buying, beating up a Yakuza SCUBA diving demolitions expert, etc.) Hideaki threw on his underwater survival gear, rushed into the goddamned tsunami, and dove beneath the rushing waves, determined to rescue his wife or die trying… He dove down into the water, completely submerged in the freezing cold, pitch black rushing current on all sides, and started swimming through the underwater ruins of his former hometown. Surrounded by incredible hazards on all sides, ranging from obscene currents capable of dislodging houses from their moorings, sharp twisted metal that could easily have punctured his oxygen line (at best) or impaled him (at worst), and with giant fucking cars careening through the water like toys, he pressed on. Past broken glass, past destroyed houses, past downed power lines arcing with electrical current, through undertow that could have dragged him out to sea never to be heard from again, he searched.
__
Hideaki maintained his composure and navigated his way through the submerged city, finally tracking down his old house. He quickly swam through to find his totally-freaked-out wife, alone and stranded on the upper level of their house, barely keeping her head above water. He grabbed her tight, and presumably sharing his rebreather with her, dragged her out of the wreckage to safety. She survived…
Go read the whole story, ’cause Akaiwa-sama proceeds to get even more awesome…
On the subject of subjects that are not at all awesome, except possibly in the opposite direction: After skipping the Taj Mahal to visit a luxury mall in Delhi, Sarah Palin continues her Foreign-Tour Fail-Parade in Israel. Some Heartland-American(tm)-hater in the bowels of the Telegraph was no doubt delighted to title a report that “Mrs Palin, whose trip to the Holy Land is being seen as an attempt to burnish her foreign policy credentials ahead of a possible presidential bid, had been planning to tour Christian sites before holding evening talks with Benjamin Netanyahu” with the headline “Sarah Palin Aborts Visit to Bethlehem”.
And since no blogpost is complete today without an Operation Delta Dawn reference, Tom Scocca explains how the Media Village has decided that “Samantha Power Is the New President of Libya”.
thedeadcanary
Thanks for the big dose of awesome!
Lysana
Hideaki Akaiwa is clearly possessed of the humanity Sarah Palin rejected at birth. That is why he is doubly awesome instead of running at human levels of awesome.
kdaug
@Lysana: If Akaiwa-sama and Palin were to touch, could this universe survive, or would we simply blink out of existence?
Inquiring minds want to know.
ETA: There is now a Taiwanese ad on the page asking if I’m “Looking for Diving Gears”. My day is complete, and it’s not yet 5:00 AM.
Pooh
I think we can officially retire quien es mas macho at this point.
stuckinred
FukinA!
soonergrunt
Breaking–F-15E crashed in Libya. Pilot and Weapons Systems Officer ejected. One of the crew has been rescued, the other is “in the process of recovery.”
I’ll note, while hoping to be wrong, that when they use the word ‘recovery’ they’re usually referring to a body and not a live person.
The F-15E cost $31,500,000 when they were bought in the 1980s and 90s, and today would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 to 100 million depending on the bells and whistles.
Anya
Is Israel so desperate for friends that their Prime Minister would make time to meet with every moron who requests a meeting? What makes the Wassila nut a dignitary? She does not hold an office, and as yet, she’s not running for office.
Linda Featheringill
@Anya:
He probably meets with presidential wannabes, as well as couldabeens. You never know what the future holds.
Although I would have been tempted to have Sarah meet with their president. He probably has more free time.
JPL
@soonergrunt: From the BBC
#
1104: The US military now says that the second crew member from the crashed jet in Libya has been rescued, Reuters reports.
Neil Morse
It looks like La Palin has pissed off the wrong people.
soonergrunt
@JPL: YAY!
Thanks, I hadn’t found anything.
@Neil Morse: As the Queen Teabagger, Palin’s personal belief about this is summed up by the statement that Israeli Jews are great, and American Jews are bad.
AhabTRuler
The pedant in me wishes that it be noted that SCUBA systems have air lines, not oxygen lines. Pure oxygen would be . . . bad.
Linda Featheringill
@JPL:
Good.
Gotta get to work. You folks have a nice day.
And yes, Akaiwa is muy macho!
Ash Can
A story of awesomeness out of a scenario desperately in need of awesomeness. Bravo, Akaiwa-sama.
@Neil Morse: I don’t know what’s more humorous — that Palin has stepped squarely into it yet again, or that Frum treats her with even a modicum of seriousness.
soonergrunt
@soonergrunt: I forgot to mention that for Palin and the Teabaggers, Israeli Jews are masculine and rugged and kill mooslims, while American Jews are all from Jew York City and so, you know, jewy, also too.
Ash Can
@soonergrunt: Also too, those Jewish folks in Israel are where they’re supposed to be, all rapture-ready an’ all. That must earn them extra points in her eyes.
Sly
Please. We all know that she’s actually the new President of the U.N. Security Council.
Which, snark aside, would probably be a good thing.
soonergrunt
@Ash Can: Yup. Now, if only they’d have the courtesy to trigger Armageddon and then be consumed in a storm of fire and brimstone so that the Savior, a white guy from the American Heartland ™ could return, she’d be ever so thankful!
Boudica
All I can think of when I see “Samantha Power” is Samantha from Sex and the City.
Comrade Javamanphil
While some extol Hideaki Akaiwa as a modern day action hero, other people say he was irresponsible for not following proper protocols and a thief. We turn now to Yoko Ono for some expert opinion on this matter.
gnomedad
@soonergrunt:
Reagan?
Matt
OK, who’s going to be publishing the Akaiwa-sama video game version? ‘Cause that would be AWESOME!
TaMara (BHF)
That was so much awesomeness. And please, why are we contaminating such badassery with any mention of Caribou Barbie?
salacious crumb
Hideaki is truly BADASS!! his story definitely makes a good start for my day!
Raenelle
Wow. Just wow.
Sloegin
Ninjas get it done.
The Pale Scot
Hideakisan is truly Samurai, Hai!!
asiangrrlMN
That’s the shiitake right there. What an amazing man. Thanks. I needed a big cuppa AWESOME this morn.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Mmm…good mushrooms.
Hi hon. Meetings for the next three days. Someone save me plz.
Arclite
Not to throw any cold water on this story, but my Japanese wife is suspicious of the veracity of this tale. There’s no mention of it in any of the Japanese press, despite this being the kind of heroic/romantic story that the Japanese eat up. Other than the LA Times, is there another source for this?
There are fraud stories and other stuff going on right now. One guy returned to his swamped house and pretended to be stranded so he could be rescued and claim to have “survived” for 9 days and be famous. Another returned to a swamped town and looted a bank of $40,000.
Tehanu
You’ve got to be kidding. She skipped the Taj Mahal in favor of a mall?
I wonder if Hawaii looks more “American” to her now that she’s actually set foot in a place full of brown people?
Arclite
@Tehanu: She probably thought we were all brown from the sun, not b/c we were only 25% Caucasian…