If you can define a hero as someone who “ inspire(s) you to be more, do more, be and do better” then my nominations are:

1) Steve Jobs : http://itpromate.com/2011/10/the-most-inspiring-speech-by-steve-jobs-at-stanford-in-2005-rip-steve-jobs/

“Born out of wedlock, put up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college, then changed the world. What’s your excuse?"

2) Mike Lazaridis :http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/mike-lazaridis----the-power-of-ideas/4053180#comments

Take a listen to his speech, & be inspired.

I really enjoyed this article, Poirot, and one can't help but admire John Brown and his stand against the monumental evil of transcontinental slavery. There's something to be said for Puritanism and taking an uncompromising stand on a moral issue remains a problem for us State-bred moderns. On what moral bedrock do we stand against anything?

Unsurprisingly, one of my heroes is Karl Marx, who sacrificed everything for his efforts to fight against the tyranny of capitalists over their miserable drudges, and for emancipation from ideology in general. He failed on both counts but the same dynamics and the crisis continue to mount.
A failing of Marx's thought though is it seems implicitly to deny the efficacy of the hero in favour of social movements and class uprisings. As history and Neiman show, there are very few real heroes among any cohort and the momentum within any struggle or human outrage tends to docile compliance and indifference--think of the holocaust, or global warming. And yet Brown is credited with nearly single handedly putting the kibosh on American slavery. So lone heroes can, with luck, have huge impacts, getting a lazy society to roll-over.

The true hero is rare; s/he's not an olympian or a soldier or any other minion of the State; s/he's an idealist and a dissenter.
"whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist".
Heroes thus need something to cleave to that's outside or beyond the social verities/evils we're generally blind or indifferent to.
Marx took no "moral" stand against capitalism, since conventional morality is ideological. He was fighting for a potential world based on species-being and equity. Marx's fight was for a materialist utopia, beyond ideology. Brown's fight was for an ideological/spiritual utopia, beyond materialism.
The trend of modern-capitalist-secularism is anti-heroic: individual-existential-hedonism. Modern heroes are merely eccentrics.

be your own hero

quote..""

What is a Hero?

keithbradley.hubpages.com

A hero by definition is an everyday person!*
who acts beyond their duty to help or ...

The hero can be defined by current events,
fictional heroes, and historical ...

Hero - definition of Hero

www.thefreedictionary.com/Hero

He·ro 2 (h r , hîr )
or He·ron (h r n ) First century a.d..

Alexandrian scientist who invented many water-driven
and steam-driven machines and devised a formula ...

What defines a Hero?

answers.yahoo.com › ... Humanities

A hero embodies the best (or what we like to think are)
the best qualities in ourselves. They're the self-sacrificers,

they're the friends at any cost, ...''

anyhow your my hero
but so too mr bell and percules..heck many of my hero's
are right here[olo]..not the topic..grayman too
for allowing us all..to express
our own heroic replies/opinions

anyhow finding it hard to get excited about anything
hero's...lol[we dont need another hero][we dont need to be shown the way home...[lalala..thunderdome][tina turner..mini nippleton karen carpenter..[mum]..

my hero's are not *he-rows
thus he sorrows[where is the love[?]..

no true hero survives a war
[hero's dont need to kill]..

i have no heros only sorrows[of things left undone]
or rights that should have been one..[by anyone],..not just any he/ro..

Squeers,

"....s/he's an idealist and a dissenter."

Agree....

We've had a very bad storm over here, so I've not been able to ponder this subject as I had intended....
Lots of people acting selflessly out there though.

Some good comments so far on a subject that I think is worth discussing. Internet access is dodgy so will hopefully get back to this thread in a while.

Hello there LEXI...

It's very interesting to note that amongst some of the people that you admire, even cite as heroes, is 'Mum Shirl' of Redfern.

I was stationed at Redfern in another life and well, Mum S. was certainly an 'interesting', larger than life lady for sure, and to many of those who resided there, she was most certainly a leader/heroine/liberator amongst other similar epithets.

But to a few others (unfortunately), she was aggressive/challenging and very much a provocateur, and at times, with a very interesting turn of phrase. I could add two or three other labels, but they may be inappropriate to use herein.

In hindsight, I suppose to the group she sought to identify with, she was indeed a heroine. I know of one young lady that I was dealing with over a period of time, without 'Shirl', she'd no doubt, be dead. Even now, she may well've passed away. I hope not.

There were several very serious incidents that occurred, on and at the railway station. Intel. at the time suggested certain things. Thus, my opinion very much hardened, irrevocably - still it was all a long time ago.

Who are my 'heroes' ? My deceased Mum and Dad, unquestionably. Others, well, certainly NONE who are engaged in any of the sports, and that's for sure.

Dear o sung wu,

You've certainly led an interesting life
by the sound of it.

As for Mum Shirl - from what I've read about
her - she didn't suffer fools gladly, and
quickly brought the mighty and righteous
down from their thrones, often with some
well-placed four-letter words. Before
joining Redfern Parish, Mum Shirl had been a
prison visitor for years and she had raised as
her own more that 60 children who came into
her care. She worked with the Redfern Parish to
establish the Aboriginal medical and legal services
that now operates next door to the church.

The Encylopedia of Aboriginal Australia says this about
her:

"work at Saint Vincent's evolved into an informal
welfare agency for a mixed clientele of ex-prisoners,
children in need, single parents, alcoholics, and
young probationers. With no money of her own, she
often ran her services on her own sickness benefits ...
By the 1990s Mum Shirl had assisted some 6,000 people."

Mum Shirl died in 1998. Father Ted Kennedy described
Mum Shirl at her funeral in 1998 in Saint Mary's
Basilica as - "The greates theologian I have ever
known." She had taught Kennedy how to fight for
justice.