CHINA'S BIGGEST COWARD

A different meaning to "let's roll":

When last month's Sichuan earthquake struck, Fan Meizhong was teaching a literature class at Guangya high school in the town of Dujiangyan. "It's an earthquake," he shouted, before legging it out of the door, down the stairs and on to the playing field. On reaching the middle of the football pitch, Fan later confided to his blog, "I found none of my pupils were with me." And when, back in the classroom, those pupils - none of whom, thankfully, was harmed - asked why he had not tried to help them escape, he replied: "I have never been a brave man, and I'm only really concerned about myself."

Fan's refreshing frankness has sparked outrage in China, with bloggers dubbing him "Runner Fan" and demanding his dismissal. "But the fact is," the teacher told the Changjian Times, "at the instant of an earthquake, a teacher is weak, too. Neither the state nor the school taught me life-saving or rescue techniques. I was scared, and my instinctive response was to run."

Sounds a lot like America's future in his reliance on "the state" to teach him to do the right thing.