Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.
Carpathia received Titanicâs distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.
(Californianâs exact position at the time isâŠcontroversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanicâs distress rockets. Itâs uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)
Carpathiaâs Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanicâs aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.
All of Carpathiaâs lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.
I donât know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.
Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awakeâprepping a ship for disaster relief isnât quietâand all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.
And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.
Hereâs the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining roomsâwhich, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when sheâd done that, he asked her to go faster.
I need you to understand that you simply canât push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only recklessâitâs difficult to maneuverâbut it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They canât do it. It canât be done.
Carpathiaâs absolute do-or-die, the-engines-canât-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.
No one would have asked this of them. It wasnât expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.
They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.
This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanicâs last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.
In total, 705 people of Titanicâs original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.
At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.
I think the least we can do is remember them for it.
I canât begin to describe how happy and flattered and a little teary I am that this just broke 100k.
I may be the actual only human being on Tumblr with a post this popular that I not only donât regret making, but am actually HAPPY whenever I notice a surge in its circulation.Â
I never intended this to gain any traction at all (youâll notice thereâs no sources or anythingâthis was a personal ramble, prompted in good humor by a friend after I jokingly said that I wished someone would give me an excuse to cry about Carpathia on Tumblr so I could get it out of my system.) I literally expected to get, like, maybe 20 likes and a reblog, from friends, indulging me in my nonsense.
It justâŠ.means a lot to me that itâs touched so many people. I see a lot of tags to the effect of âHOW DARE YOU HURT ME LIKE THIS AND MAKE ME CRY ABOUT A BOATâ that are often really funny, but overwhelmingly the tags on this post are from people saving it for a rainy day, or remarking in a sort of quiet awe that they never even really thought about her role in the storyâand God knows I never did, I learned it by complete accident much as most of the people whoâve found this post.Â
And so many of you guys are taking strength and reassurance from the reminder not only that people are capable of amazing things together, but simply that kindness matters and that a simple, tiny act of compassion is never wasted. Iâm just really glad to have been able to do that for some folks.
If I can just add one personal note. I need to emphasize something I only touched on in the original post.
I need to emphasize that Carpathia failed.
A lot of the tags and comments have a tinge ofâŠdespair, or guilt, or wistfulness about things like this happening so rarely. Or inadequacy, or just being overwhelmed or unhappy about not being in a position to step up in a comparable way. And I want to gently bring up the fact that this is still the sinking of the Titanic.Â
They did not get there in time. They did not save the ship. It can be argued that they may not even have saved a single life; we have no way of knowing. This was still a horrific maritime disaster mired in arrogance and incompetence and a lack of care.
If the response to this story shows anything, it shows this:Â It matters that they tried.Â
Even though they got there too late, even though the ship still sank. It matters that they tried. The difference between making the best reasonable speed after confirming the seriousness of the situation, and the miracle they pulled offâit matters. It makes all the difference. Even if it made no difference at all. Not one of you read this and concluded that I was stupid for caring so much when the Titanic still sank and all those people still died.
You donât have to fix the world. Youâll likely be cold and sick and miserable and testy and scared, and unprepared, and in over your head, and entirely too small to be of any real use. It feels stupid, passing out blankets and coffee in the middle of an ice field knowing what just happened. Itâs hard to feel anything but useless when all you can do is tap a wireless transmitter and promise help that you know will come too late.
It matters that they fought for those people. It matters that they cared, and it matters that they tried. It matters that they didnât stop. If it didnât matter, you wouldnât have read this far.
Did you guys know that in the 80s australian rugby league hired Tina Turner to do a promo for them and itâs one of the gayest things Iâve ever seen
So other countries don't immediately think Rugby League when they hear Tina Turner? Next you'll be telling me you don't dance the Nutbush to Nutbush City Limits either!
they need to teach classes on Douglas Adams analogies okay
âHe leant tensely against the corridor wall and frowned like a man trying to unbend a corkscrew by telekinesis.â
âStones, then rocks, then boulders which pranced past him like clumsy puppies, only much, much bigger, much, much harder and heavier, and almost infinitely more likely to kill you if they fell on you.â
âHe gazed keenly into the distance and looked as if he would quite like the wind to blow his hair back dramatically at that point, but the wind was busy fooling around with some leaves a little way off.â
âIt looked only partly like a spaceship with guidance fins, rocket engines and escape hatches and so on, and a great deal like a small upended Italian bistro.â
âIf it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly - again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly.â
the one that will always stay with me is âArthur Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one grapples with a lost bar of soap in the bath,â i feel like that was the first time i really understood what you could do with words.
When youâre as highly skilled a teen private investigator as Veronica Mars is on the UPN/CW series of the same name, you need to have a lot of well-placed allies. But thereâs another side to that coin. Youâre also bound to have a lot of enemies and assorted big bads around you.
Thereâs no doubt Veronica has them, ranging from more or less socially nasty to shady to downright black-hearted and detestable. Here are the worst of the worst in Veronicaâs world:
9. Madison Sinclair
Donât get used to seeing female villains on this list, but Madison is the top of that small food chain. Sheâs just nasty; the epitome of the â09erâ elite, who looks down on anyone not in their club of rich, immoral cheaters and thugs. She likes to spit in peopleâs drinks, which is nasty enough, but on one tragic occasion it set off a series of events that results in Veronicaâs rape. She vandalizes Veronicaâs car, shows herself to be homophobic (taunting a gay student), and she sleeps with Logan when he and Veronica were broken up, just to get under Veronicaâs skin. But, as any fan knows, Veronica always got hers â she was always able to fight back with her sharp wit⊠and in the movie, it all culminated with a sharp right hook to Madisonâs jaw.
8. Dick Casablancas
âItâs a sorority party. Itâs why I left the womb.â In many ways, that quote just about sums up Dick through most of the series. Heâs a womanizer, likes to party and, as hateable as he can be, heâs pretty funny. But thereâs a lot more to Dick than that. (Veronica might snarkily say, âNo, thereâs a lot less to Dick than that.â) In the early episodes, heâs pretty much the epitome of the evil, entitled rich kid. Heâs horribly mean to Veronica and anyone else whoâs not âcool.â Heâs particularly cruel to his younger brother, Cassidy. And, perhaps most horribly, he did everything to facilitate Veronicaâs rape, aside from actually performing the act. Ultimately, Cassidy commits suicide, leading to feelings of extreme guilt for Dick, and he changes his ways to some degree. He still loves girls, parties, surfing and wisecracking (Veronica would say, âCracking, yes. Wise, no.â), but he does help Veronica, in his way, toward the end of the final season, and in the movie.
7. Don Lamb
Don was less an innocent lamb and more a conniving weasel. He was the Sheriff in town for most of the seriesâ run and was constantly butting heads with Veronica and her father Keith, who was his predecessor as Sheriff and former mentor. He was unapologetically in the pocket of the Neptune elite â the â09ers.â For starters, he lazily let the Kane family manipulate him into arresting an innocent man for the murder of their daughter. Then he rather disgustingly refused to hear Veronicaâs statement about her rape, sarcastically mocking her by asking, âShould I just round up the sons of the most important families in town?â That was pretty gross. Despite that really unforgivable encounter, many of their other interactions prove to be some of the most amusing of the series â because Veronica hates him so much and has no respect for his abilities as a cop, her biting wit always gets the better of him.
6. Jake Kane
As we see in flashbacks before the series began Veronica dated Duncan Kane, the son of billionaire Jake Kane. But everything turned sour when Veronicaâs best friend/Jakeâs daughter Lilly was murdered and Veronicaâs dad Keith pointed his finger at Jake for the crime. Turns out he didnât do it, but for a while, Jake thought Duncan did, so he obstructed justice to protect him. In the process of it all, he managed to force Keith to lose out on being Sheriff twice: first because of the wrongful accusation and second because Keith, much like Jake himself, obstructed justice to protect his daughter from Jake. In the end, we learn that Jake is the leader of The Castle, a super-secret, shady society that seems to be involved in many immoral and illegal acts. And this is all aside from the fact that Jake carries on an affair with Veronicaâs absentee mother.
5. Tim Foyle
Imagine youâre really good at your job and your boss loves you for it. Then some new person comes along and theyâre even better at what you do and your boss likes them better. That would suck. And thatâs the situation Tim finds himself in. He just doesnât deal with it so well. Heâs a teaching assistant for Professor Landryâs criminology class. Veronica quickly beats his score in a detective game and unstable Tim immediately plots revenge, accusing her of plagiarism. Ultimately, he uses Veronicaâs plan from her âplan a perfect murderâ paper to kill Hearst Collegeâs dean and make it look like a suicide. Later, when evidence mounts against suicide, he tries to frame Landry because Landry had blocked him from getting another job.
4. Mercer Hayes
Unlike some of the older villains in Veronicaâs world, Mercer doesnât go to too much effort to hide his wicked ways. Heâs a campus DJ at Hearst College, but also runs an illegal casino. So thereâs the first notch against him. Notch number two: his Alex DeLarge Halloween costume. DeLarge was the main character in the film A Clockwork Orange, a rapist, robber and all-around ultraviolent sociopath. Foreshadowing? You betcha. Quickly, Mercer becomes accused of a rape, but Veronica finds evidence of innocence. But that evidence soon proves faulty and Veronica catches him in the act of attempting to rape another girl. Our intrepid teen PI finds herself in a violent showdown with Mercer and his accomplice, Moe. Fortunately, she gets the better of them and, ultimately, her dad comes through to arrest them.
3. Cassidy âBeaverâ Casablancas
Those Casablancas boys. Cassidy is Dickâs younger brother and, in season one, he kind of tags along with Dick and Logan while they get into trouble. But Dick and their father pretty much bully the kid into desperation⊠and perhaps into being a psychopathic rapist and murderer. Itâs ultimately revealed that he is the one who raped Veronica prior to the first season after sheâd been drugged, only after Dick encouraged him to do it. In season two, he horrifically orchestrated a bus crash that killed eight of his schoolmates. But Cassidy was a truly tragic evildoer. Not only did he suffer all that abuse at the hands of his father and brother, but he was also molested by Woody Goodman, a powerful local businessman. Cassidy goes on to blow up a plane that Goodman is flying in â and Veronica originally thought her father was on board, leading her to point a gun at Cassidy. Eventually, unable to cope with everything, he leaps off a building to his death.
2. Woody Goodman
Well, thereâs an ironic last name if weâve ever seen one. Goodman was by no means a good man. Like many of the rich men in Neptune, he put on a fantastically friendly, do-gooder public face. In fact, he was the happy public face/owner of two of the most American things in town: the Neptune Sharks baseball team and Woodyâs Burgers. So what made him such a bad guy? Well, in private, he was a serial child molester. Bad enough for you? Not surprisingly, considering he had those atrocities in him, he committed lesser crimes as well. For example, he had an affair with an unconscious woman and made it look like Keith, Veronicaâs dad, was actually the one sneaking out of a motel room with that unconscious woman.
1. Aaron Echolls
Remember the Batman villain Two-Face? Thatâs Aaron Echolls (Strange trivia: the name is said to be a play on real-life actor Aaron Eckhart, who went on to play Two-Face in The Dark Knight). Face number one is the A-list movie star who is always there for his fans with a smile and an act of kindness. Face number two is a wife-beater, child abuser, and murderer. Did we say, murderer? Yes, it turns out one of the biggest stars in the world killed a teenage girl. Veronica ultimately discovers that it was Aaron who killed Lilly Kane, Veronicaâs best friend and Loganâs girlfriend at the time. Oh, and he tried to kill Veronica too, by locking her in a refrigerator and setting it on fire. Also, as Loganâs father, Aaron is the reason Veronicaâs on-again, off-again boyfriend is so messed up, after a lifetime of physical and verbal abuse. Not a good guy.
Iâm sorry, but I will fight anyone who doesnât speak the truth and admit that Veronica Marsâ most nefarious enemy and villain is Rob Thomas himself.
You might have answered this before but who do you prefer between Buffy and Veronica ?
Sorry it took me so long to answer this question, Anon. To be honest, I kind of didnât want to think too much about this because of the Veronica part of the question. As a #burntmarshmallow, I was kind of triggered.Â
The thing is, breaking up with a character you used to love is hard to do. Thereâs a lot of guilt when not only youâre not able to love a show and a character you used to be a champion of but also because youâre afraid you might even hate them. They are difficult feelings to reconcile, and itâs yet another reason why I hate Veronica Mars Season Fuck and Rob Thomas.Â
If you had asked me one year ago, my answer wouldâve probably been very different. Iâd wager I wouldâve said I loved them equally, for both similar and different reasons. I think I mightâve even said I loved Veronica more because she was unapologetically flawed and relatable in a way that Buffy - in all her supernatural glory - could never be.Â
Now? I canât say even say that I like Veronica, at least not in her latest iteration. A bitter, hurtful, self-centered, almost despicable woman who refuses to grow and belittles the people she claims to love? A toxic partner who gets off on making her traumatized boyfriend get angry and violent and makes fun of him for seeking professional help and suggesting she should, too? A pscyh degree major who makes fun of therapy? A gun-toting, weed-smoking, hard-drinking thirty-something who only indulges in those things because she can and theyâre âadultâ things? A negligent daughter who fails to see the poor condition her father is in? A crappy friend who feels sheâs better than her best friend because heâs chosen to start a family and lead a normal, âboringâ life? A know-it-all who canât take her head out of her own ass and gets all the clues given to her on a silver platter by minor and irrelevant characters?Â
I wish I had the ability other fans seem to have to block Season Fuck and pretend it didnât happen and find comfort in the three seasons and the movie. To quote Veronica, Iâm just not wired that way.Â
Sorry, Veronica, but we need to break up. Itâs not me. Itâs you.Â
Elwes, asked which role he has enjoyed the most, said he enjoys them all and thatâs why he does them.âBut I have to say the one that is probably going to stay with me for the rest of my life is âThe Princess Bride.â It will say âas you wishâ on my tombstone. Billy Crystal said the other side of the tombstone should say âmostly dead.âââ
CARY ELWES as Westley in The Princess Bride (1987)Â
The experience of being an American outside of the routine of work school grocery shopping adulting etc personally is the never ending reality of hating this countryâs climate. In every sense of the word and I canât reconcile what to do because whatever I do it never feels like enough. I am scared to death of the election in November because it feels the very soul of our country is at stake. I just is there a better way to stay positive?
Nonnie, first off let me say that I know exactly how you feel. It's hard and it's frustrating and it's terrifying, and frankly, it's impossible to really live this way long term. I had a much longer and much more political answer planned out for this, explaining why I'm personally not hopeful for the outcome of the 2020 election and why I really do fear that Trump will be re-elected, even if I'd love nothing more with my whole heart to be wrong. And I will duly expand on that, perhaps, at a later date, but I'm not doing that now.
Instead, I think I should pass on some advice from a rather unexpected source. I watched Frozen II today, really not expecting much more than an animated sequel and some catchy songs, but instead I got this dark, deeply poignant, thematically complicated story about -- among other things -- the fallacy of believing we'll just understand things when we're older, that our parents lie to us even with good intentions, that acts of colonialist lies and violence against indigenous people are responsible for generations-long curses (and that property destruction in such a case is valid and moral, fuck it up baby anarchist Anna!), that it's really hard to know what to do with ourselves when we lose the people we love or when they let us down, that you don't need to adhere to other people's roles and expectations for you, and that figuring out how to go on when you're trapped in the darkest place you've ever known is really, really difficult. The answer the film came up with was: you can't possibly do it all at once, it's impossible. You can't ask to see the big picture when it's too much and too hard. So what you do, when you can't imagine a future, is to do the next right thing. And after that, the next one. And somehow, that gets you somewhere, and it's all you can do. It's not remaining fakely positive, the "just think happy thoughts!!!" crowd, when that is insufficient as a response to real evil and real suffering. But it's a transgressive action anyway, and it takes all kinds of courage, and trust me, I also did not expect to be taking this much-needed insight away from goddamn Frozen II. But there you have it.
So yes. For now, and because it's all we can do, keep it small. Focus on doing the next right thing. What's before you, and what's under your control. One at a time.
Hereâs whatâs happening in Australia at the moment.
For some context:Â
Mallacoota is a tourist town, usual population is a little over 1000, but at peak tourist times, it can be as high as 8000.
There was an estimated 4000 there today, when the extreme heat, peaking at 49C/120F, combined with high winds, to spark a large, intense fire in the bushland around the area. This pretty much blocked off all ways out of the town, leading to all 4000 people being evacuated to the beach, with the emergency plan basically being âIf the fire comes this way, get in the waterâ
Thankfully, the wind did change direction, and as far as Iâve heard, most of the town was spared, but this is how bad the drought, heat, and fire situations have become in australia.
And our government still refuses to make solid policies on climate change.
Found this really good thread on twitter explaining what exactly is happening in Australia right now, because I havenât seen much on Tumblr.
And because I donât think the thread touched on it, when Scott Morrison, our PM finally did visit the affected areas he forced the residents to shake his hand (literally forced, he grabbed a womanâs hand even though she said no) and then walked away when they tried to talk about the situation and ask for help. Google his name and youâll find videos.
And we still have our hottest two months of the year ahead of us. Australia is burning and all Scott Morrison cares about is the religious discrimination bill, holidays and photo ops to rectify the mistake that was that holiday. This is not the future we want for kids. Unfortunately, that future is here and will only get worse.
the original tweet is funny and all but as itâs an ongoing crisis I want to remind you all this is the Sydney harbour as of Dec 2019! Our incompetent government as well as the ongoing climate crisis has caused the most catastrophic bushfires in Australian history - the image you see above is the smog created by bushfire ash clouding our urban areas! consider donating to the red-cross relief fund here or even just reblogging posts like this whenever you can!Â
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