Titanic: 100 Years

From USA Today:

"Events around the world mark 100 years since Titanic tragedy"

From Titanic's birthplace in a Belfast shipyard to its resting place in the North Atlantic, thousands were gathering Saturday to remember the cruise ship that embarked on its maiden voyage as an icon of Edwardian luxury but became, in a few dark hours 100 years ago, an enduring emblem of tragedy. The ship was traveling from England to New York, carrying everyone from plutocrats to penniless emigrants, when it struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912. It sank at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, with the loss of more than 1,500 of the 2,208 passengers and crew.

In Belfast, Northern Ireland, where Titanic was built — pride of the Harland & Wolff shipyard — thousands will attend a choral requiem at the Anglican St. Anne's Cathedral or a nationally televised concert at the city's Waterfront Hall on Saturday. At the cathedral, the performance of composer Philip Hammond's The Requiem for the Lost Souls of the Titanic will be followed by a torch-lit procession to the Titanic Memorial in the grounds of Belfast city hall. In the ship's departure port of Southampton, England, an orchestra will play composer Gavin Bryars' work The Sinking of the Titanic, and a commemoration is planned in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where more than 100 victims of the tragedy are buried. Venues in Las Vegas, San Diego, Houston and even Singapore are hosting Titanic exhibitions that include artifacts recovered from the site of the wreck. Among them: bottles of perfume, porcelain dishes, even a 17-foot piece of hull. The centenary of the disaster has been marked with a global outpouring of commemoration and commerce. Events have ranged from the opening of a glossy new tourist attraction telling the ship's story in Belfast to a 3-D rerelease of James Cameron's 1997 romantic weepie Titanic, which awakened a new generation's interest in the disaster.

^ It seems that even though 100 years have passed since the Titanic sank it still manages to hold a place in people's minds. One thing that should not be overlooked are the innocent men, women and children that were killed that day. These innocent people died because a hand-full of arrogant men (from the owner of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay, to the captain, Edward Smith, to the crew and other people that actively stopped/blocked passengers from getting to the boats - especially since there were so few lifeboats.)All those people are to blame (along with the iceberg) for the deaths of the 1,514. Those people are not heroes, but murderers and their names should be taken off all memorials and plagues honoring the innocent victims of the tragedy.

Another thing I do not understand is why Belfast is embracing the fact that they built the "unsinkable" ship that sunk. If anything they should be embarrassed. They should not glorify the work their ancestors did since it helped to sink the ship once the iceberg hit it. I guess it is because there is so little for Belfast to remember that isn't full of tragedy (from the Titanic to the Troubles.) I was in Belfast two years ago and you can still feel the religious tensions everywhere - even though on the surface everyone claims everything is fine and that's all in the past.

For the past week or so I have seen a bunch of different documentaries and movies about the Titanic. Some of them were really interesting (like "Nazi Titanic" about the making of the movie "Titanic" in Nazi Germany - I saw the movie from Netflix a few years ago and reread my entry I wrote about it.)I have no desire to watch the 1997 "Titanic" that is re-released in 3D. I saw it enough times when it first came out. It was a good movie, but I don't care for the 3D hype.

I'm not really sure why people (including myself) are still so interested about the Titanic after 100 years. Maybe it's because it was the first largest ship, billed as unsinkable and had so many people that died needlessly - if they had gone slower and had enough lifeboats.

Of course I will never know how I would have acted if I was on the Titanic and it was sinking. Would I fight my way on a lifeboat and take the spot a woman or child could have had? Would I have jumped in the freezing water and tried to survive or would I have stayed in my cabin knowing that it was hopeless and the end? I would like to think I would have helped others (especially women and children) after I had my family safely on a lifeboat, but as I said there is no way to know how you would react to a situation until it happens (and I hope it never comes to that.) ^

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-04-14/titanic-anniversary/54274518/1