tagged w/ Anniversaries
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[Please see the full post for the beautiful images that coincide with the article. They really make the piece!]
Ninety-nine years ago, on this day, one of the most famed and mysterious tragedies took place in the wee hours of the morning. The product? A horrible loss of 1,500 people… and an ignition in the imagination of future generations.
I know, it’s been almost fifteen years since the over-everything-ed movie came out and ruined the mystery and magic for everyone (well, enhanced the romance of the event until Celine Dion belted out that chorus for the 90,000th time -- which caused the romanticism to reverse, and now we all “hate it”). I was fortunate to grow up around large, beautiful bodies of water, and have spent many nights rocked slowly to sleep by waves. In meditation, I hear the crashing of the tides and look for driftwood -- it feels like home. The northwest infuses you with the Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound as soon as you’re born, and if you’re from here and have no internal pull towards big water… I’d like to shake your hand, then ask you how you broke the bond.
I’ve always kind of been the one to romanticize the horrible -- Jen is the same way. It’s how we initially bonded. We’d talk about the cultures of the past that mysterious vanished. It’s my imagination’s favorite place to be… Dissecting and reliving the most unusual events. The fall of the Titanic is no different. Although, those who lost their lives in the Titanic tragedy never disappeared into oblivion, in my head -- they simply disappeared… into the sea.
They grow old, the young have families and their worlds bcome thick and blue. They’ve had the unique, unheard of opportunity to experience a life that most of us can only dream of -- literally. Somewhere, they’re still there… the future generations creating civilizations and new artifacts for the curious children, thousands of years from now. Some stay off the coast of Newfoundland, where their historic ship took its last breath, and others explored the enormous, submarine universe -- the vast majority of which of which human eyes have never seen.
Lives continue as you’d expect… People meet, they fall in love, they create families. Currency below the water is irrelevant. The food is bountiful and the sound of percussion instruments and pieces of the old orchestra (who went down with the ship while playing Nearer My God to Thee) through the water is unlike any symphony that could be heard in dry air.
Kind of makes you thirsty, doesn’t it?
http://brokeandbeautiful.com/2011/15-april-1912-titanic-unsinkable/[Please see the full post for the beautiful images that coincide with the article.... more
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I actually don't remember where I was when I found out that the Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago. Strange because I have such clear memories of other 1980s landmarks like the Challenger explosion. What I do remember most clearly about the reunification of East and West Germany was from German class a few years later. Our textbooks were a few years old, still in good condition, but completely outpaced by the movement of history. Everyday there would be a new page we would read with an outdated cultural reference to a divided Germany. It was the first I'd ever really learned about East Germany - and it sounded terrible.
Share your memory of the fall of the Berlin Wall with us.
A few sites with some great anniversary coverage:
German magazine Der Spiegel has a collection of articles worth reading.
On Tumblr, Best of Life is posting some gripping images out of the Life magazine archives of the Wall throughout its infamous life.
And Magnum has a picture essay of years in East Germany.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
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Seriously, we're talking one of the biggest goshdarn parades I've ever seen:
China's 60th Anniversary Parade (Video)
Current.com users had a range of reactions to yesterday's post.
User bdub4u:
ok im not condoning human rights abuses but
OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE
CHINA IS THE FUTURE
Ever notice how they can do things that we can't? like oh i dunno, allot 600 billion to renewable energy over the next decade??? these things get mucked up in our democracy and we can get em passed. Sometimes I wonder... I realize as a believer in the western cannon and human rights, self acualization, free markets, individuality, privacy, etc. I may sound blasphemous right now. But hey, how authentic is our democracy anyway?? At least China provides real economic opportunities, the poor get poorer in america by voting against their own interestes, while the Chinese have lifted 400 million ppl out of poverty!!
THIS HAS NEVER BEEN DONE IN HUMAN HISTORY!!!
Can america do that? no.
And user rtravs:
YEA!!! Let's hear it for a government that has killed TENS OF MILLIONS in 60 years. YEA!!!
The Great Leap Forward! The Cultural Revolution! Millions upon millions tortured and killed!!!
What a country! What a celebration!
Party time in China, baby!!! Too bad Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot couldn't be there to help blow out the candles!
Yea!!! Oh, look who just arrived! It's the GHOSTS OF TIANAMEN SQUARE...thousands of dead students and young people.
They fought to be free and then were TORTURED AND MURDERED by this partyin' crowd!
Oh goodness gracious--everyone makes mistakes, I guess!
Hey China, where's the guy who stood in fron of the tanks??? Ooops!!! You tortured and killed him, too??? Yeah, baby!!!
Cool!!! LET'S PAAARRRTYYY!!!!!
Torture, murder and EAT CAKE!!!
Happy 60th, KILLERS!!!
Have an opinion on the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic? Leave it here at Current.com.
Also from inside China:
- China Cave Dwellers Video)
- China's Male Prostitutes (Video)
- China: A Little More Gay (Video)Seriously, we're talking one of the biggest goshdarn parades I've ever seen:... more
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Preparations have been taking place in Beijing for weeks as China gets ready to celebrate its 60th year of communist rule.
Big Picture has a great series: China prepares for its 60th anniversary
Washington Post writes up the security situation in advance of the big day: Beijing locked down ahead of national day parade
Officials have been coy about what threats they fear but say they are not over-reacting, pointing to recent protests in the remote regions of Tibet and Xinjiang as a reminder that the country is vulnerable to security threats.
And meanwhile, the Empire State Building has generated some controversy by renting out its lights to the celebrations, attracting protests: A Red and Yellow Glow for Celebration, and for Protest
Not everyone in New York thought this was an especially wise move, including 20 or so pro-Tibet protesters who stood outside the building’s Fifth Avenue entrance on Wednesday morning to denounce the Empire State’s collaboration with a regime that has harshly occupied Tibet for the last five decades. They carried signs bearing slogans like “Mao’s Empire State Building.”
Also from China:
- China's Wild West (Video) - Laura Ling reports on the Uighurs in Xinjiang Province
- City On Steroids (Video) - Adam Yamaguchi reports on Chongqing, the biggest city you've never heard of.Preparations have been taking place in Beijing for weeks as China gets ready to... more
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I actually don't remember where I was when I found out that the Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago. Strange because I have such clear memories of other 1980s landmarks like the Challenger explosion. What I do remember most clearly about the reunification of East and West Germany was from German class a few years later. Our textbooks were a few years old, still in good condition, but completely outpaced by the movement of history. Everyday there would be a new page we would read with an outdated cultural reference to a divided Germany. It was the first I'd ever really learned about East Germany - and it sounded terrible.
Share your memory of the fall of the Berlin Wall with us.
From the News Blog:
http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/09/fall-of-the-berlin-wall-20-years-later/
A few sites with some great anniversary coverage:
German magazine Der Spiegel has a collection of articles worth reading.
Der Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,k-7540,00.html
On Tumblr, Best of Life is posting some gripping images out of the Life magazine archives of the Wall throughout its infamous life.
Best of Life: http://bestoflife.tumblr.com/
And Magnum has a picture essay of years in East Germany.
Magnum: http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/pictures-vanished-countryI actually don't remember where I was when I found out that the Berlin Wall fell... more
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