Hell on Earth?
Well, yes. But most terrestrial tragedies are not
caused by Mother Earth (earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, El Nino, et al., to the contrary). They are caused by mankind--
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intentionally or from folly, pride, aggressiveness, etc. Such as over 14,000 major wars during chronicled human history--toll: tens of millions. Or from the genocide unleashed by, first, Communism, then Fascism and Nazism (upwards to 200 million victims all told) during a period of from 1917 to 1985, Communism lasting 74 years (!), Fascism and Nazism in power, respectively, 22 and a dozen years.
But among the most terrible tragedies in modern times was the
accidental sinking of the HMS Titanic, April 14-15, 1912.
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| Over 1,500 people perished in the disaster when the giant, "unsinkable" ocean liner, pride of the British civilian fleet and the largest ship ever built, collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The captain took chances, the ship designers and builders may have erred (e.g., faulty bolts). The date was April 14, 1912.
The movie "Titanic" has been the subject of a lot of discussion, in America and abroad. It is playing to a global audience of millions. |
Comment and criticism of the film keep appearing in the foreign press. The British, for instance, note the "class-consciousness" of the movie, how the movie heroizes the less fortunate aboard the ship and condemns--with one exception, viz., the millionaire Guggenheim--the selfish behavior of the "filthy rich." An exaggeration? One Russian writer remarked that |
"Stalin would have approved of the movie" since the proletariat (working class) is glorified, the wealthy scorned. (Ironically, the lead actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, bears a strong resemblance to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin when he was a youth [see following pix].)
The headline clip from a Russian paper that follows shows
the word "Titanic" as it appears in Russian Cyrillics. |
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N.B. I attended the Titanic Exhibit in St. Petersburg, FL, recently. Among other things, this striking exhibit reproduced
a deck + deck rail looking north into the starry sky as it looked the night of the disaster, lights imitating gently rippling water. Being an amateur astronomer with a fair-sized telescope, a motor-driven Celestron G-7 reflector, 8" mirror, and computer software for viewing the sky (SKYGLOBE 3.6) at any time or place (even going back centuries), I was naturally curious as to whether the exhibitors had correctly reproduced the sky on that fatal night at the time of the accident (near midnight) and at that lat./long. So, when I got home from the exhibit, I downloaded SKYGLOBE, sent the program back to the 1912 date, etc. There was the northern sky (looking north) just as it looked that night and, lo and behold! exactly as the exhibitors had reproduced it. See below....
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DiCaprio pic courtesy VANITY FAIR |
İYoung Lenin (left); young Leonardo DiCaprio, (right) who
looks--to a degree-like Lenin. That's about all they have in common,
except for Capri. Both Lenin and Leo
are connected with that Italian place. |
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Everyone's heard of a "photo op." But what
about `photo CROP'? That's what the Soviets did
under Stalin, et al., produce phony images. Here
security (NKVD) boss Yezhov, whom Stalin ordered killed
(i.e., silenced permanently), has been rubbed out in the photographic sense as well. |
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During the Cold War--1917-1991--the Soviets not only
tampered with photos. They produced phony maps. Of course,
such maps were intended to throw off potential enemies
by inaccurately locating certain places, sometimes as much
as 100 miles off. Domestic and foreign tourists became
confused if they used such maps. There were many true
stories of people becoming lost on auto trips throughout
the USSR. Above are three erroneous positionings of the
Soviet city of Salmi as per three different editions
of the Soviet atlases, Atlas SSR and Atlas Mira. |
<-------DON'T!!!
