What We Need Are a Few Transatlantic Ocean Liners! I Remember When…

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

With the ash cloud still throwing European air travel (and beyond) into chaos over the last few days, and possibly well into the future, I had to think about how great it would be if the transatlantic ocean liners will still plying the seas.

(Editor’s Note: The Cunard Queen Mary 2 is the only transatlantic liner still in service.)

As a kid, I remember the newsreels of the Andrea Doria sinking after being hit by the Stockholm.  My grandfather had taken the trip over on the Andrea Doria but returned on another boat, thus missing the tragic voyage.  I still have the ship’s brochure. (I also have a booklet from the Leonardo DaVinci, which was built to replace the Andrea Doria.)

A few years later my grandfather’s brother returned to Italy on the S.S. United States, which is now on the verge of being scrapped. I remember going to the ship and being on the main deck…and crying uncontrollably because I was so scared and wanted to get off!  The boat seemed so HIGH above the water (I was about 9 years old at the time).

About 13 years later I was on several boats as I took the grand tour around Europe.  One passage was from Italy to Greece, a wonder trip.  Another was an overnight voyage that left from Sweden and passed by the Carlsberg beer brewery at night.  I took one look at the small cabin for four and even with a porthole, I decided to stay up on deck all night.  Couldn’t bear to be below deck!

I guess I had lots of practice being on deck from several summers of taking the New London, Connecticut ferry or the boat from Pt. Judith, Rhode Island out to Block Island, Rhode Island.  This was years before the place was discovered. A friend of my mother’s had bought an old house and was restoring it and she let us stay there.  The trips took a couple of hours which was just about right for me before I started getting antsy.  Since the cars were below deck, about the closet thing to being “enclosed” was in the seating area which also held the snack bar.

Another decade or so later, I traveled frequently to England and on one trip, I took the Hovercraft to France.  I loved the Hovercraft because the pontoons inflated like huge tires and  I felt that, in a pinch, the thing could float.  At least that thought, true or not, reassured me.   I also made my way one year to see the Mary Rose, Henry the VIII’s favorite ship which sunk in the Solent at Portsmouth.

Along the way I developed a fascination with the Titanic and saw the first traveling exhibit when it hit Atlantic City, New Jersey.  It continues to be the sort of fascination that reinforces all the scary boat stuff I seem to harbor since those days on the deck of the liner that took my “uncle” back to Italy.

On a business trip to LA back in the early 80’s I took some time and visited the Queen Mary, now in Long Beach.  Just a few weeks ago I saw a show on how they were doing a lot of restoration on this wonderful ship.

Of course, as a fan of classic movies, there are always scenes on liners and getting on and disembarking, complete with crowded piers of well wishers and streamers trailing off the side of the ships as they slowly edge away from the dock.

So, it didn’t take very long to wonder…WHAT IF THERE WERE STILL OCEAN LINERS crossing the Atlantic these days??

I found a great site that has many pictures and stories about many of the old liners.  Here’s the introduction to  Rob Lightbody’s Website:

The Great Transatlantic Ocean Liners.

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The Transatlantic Ocean liners changed the world.  Up until the 1960s they were the only way to travel to the “new world”.They were the equivalent of the 747 today – but much more exciting.  Each arrival and departure in Liverpool, Southampton or New York was an event in itself.

They were extremely elegant, fantastically fast and unbelievably huge!  The biggest man made objects that could move – and boy did they move!  They were high society at sea, and THE place to be seen.

Are you American? If so, chances are your grandparents travelled on one of the great ocean liners like the Mauretania.

Are you European?  If so, chances are a relative of yours left on one of these great ships, or one of your relatives worked to build them.

What you probably don’t know, is that these great ships helped us to win two world wars – they were the biggest troopships the world has ever known.

You can scroll down to see the many great liners that once graced the seas.

Sure it took about a week for a crossing, but travelers weren’t jammed into seats and subjected to foul air and the possibility of deep vein thrombosis.

…No problem with stretching your legs on a promenade around one of the great ocean liners! (although…those cabins below deck might still get to me…)

Related Links

More pictures of the great liners (photos)

The S.S. United States (designed as a cold war weapon disguised as a passenger ship)…info on the ship and the efforts to save her)

The Andrea Doria (overview)

The Leonardo DaVinci

The Sinking of the  Andrea Doria (with audio of the reports of the sinking)

The Mary Rose

The Queen Mary

The Hovercraft(s) across the English Channel (service stopped in 2000)

So, Now Hillary Should “Bring a Casserole” to the Convention??? (Update 1X)

Hey, gals, on the heels of listening to the obtuse Howard Dean saying  “even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the [laughs] Republican party”… and hearing how Nancy P. thinks we are “ungracious, now we’re supposed to embrace the suggestion that Hillary should “bring a casserole” to the Convention??

Well, Salena Zito, a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial page columnist thinks so!!! (See below for Zito’s bio and be not amazed.) In a column picked up by RealClearPolitics, Zito explains how the Democratic Convention won’t be as “contentious” as many pundits and bloggers are saying and then she goes on to give Hillary some sage advice:

If Hillary is seen as a sore loser, her chances to be the nominee in the future will be slim to none — and she knows that. The night of her convention speech, a wise, radiant, confident Hillary should take the microphone and give her staunchest supporters the voice they want on a national stage. After highlighting their struggles, she should pivot to why Obama is the better solution than McCain, and then crown herself as Obama’s surrogate for those voters.

Despite numerous news reports and blogs second-guessing her intentions and pondering a possible overthrow of the convention in some Clinton coup, the possibility of her committing such political suicide is slim to none.

(snip)

If anything, both Clintons should leave the crowd (and people back home) panting for more.

Hillary knows that this is Obama’s moment and that she would gain nothing from bad behavior. She will take the high road, hold her feelings in check, and focus on the policy issues she cares about passionately.

From the ashes of her failed campaign — not unlike the SS Titanic setting out, with her as the unsinkable Molly Brown — she can then rise higher than ever.

OK, we already know that Hillary Clinton is NOT about political suicide.  And she’s been “radiant” for months…does the term “radiant” apply to men, by the way?  Has Obama been “radiant”??  And what is this nonsense about “bad behavior,” as if the woman who EARNED more votes than any other person in primary history needs to be reminded that she must be a good little girl?

And what is this about the Titanic??  Does Zito think that boats at the bottom of the sea rise out of ashes?  Whaaa?  Obviously, she sees the Clinton campaign as the Titanic, with Hillary having spent a lot of time getting staffers in line in a valiant effort to “save” it from sinking.* No mention, of course, that Hillary was skunked by the DNC’s elaborate fix and unrelenting media bias which enabled the Precious One.

Zito again swoons over “Obama’s moment” and suggests:

This convention is Obama’s moment — his hour to welcome America into his home, the Democratic Party — and he deserves to set the table any way he wishes.

Hillary’s job is to bring a casserole dish and to serve it with a smile.

Jeebus, what did I just read??

Ok, so what kind of casserole should she bring? Isn’t that the crucial question we should be asking now??

Should it be the ever-popular cream of mushroom soup/tuna casserole?  Perhaps the classic green bean/cream of mushroom side dish??  Something with a little leftover turkey in it, perhaps?? Should she wear a pink, frilly apron when she delivers it?  Or perhaps she should serve it in stilletos and a topless French maid’s outfit?

Shoot, Hillary doesn’t like baking cookies, and you expect her to bring a casserole???  How about bringing her brain along as an appetizer??

Ah, but Zito does recognize that Hillary might have another role: She thinks that Hillary could “go with the ‘nuclear-unity option,’  withdrawing after her name is put in nomination and having the New York delegation move to make his nomination unanimous.”

OOOH, and then Hillary could “top all of that by becoming the surrogate anti-McCain hit man.”

How about THAT?  Bring the casserole, then act “manly” and do all the dirty work for Obama, who can’t possibly STOOP to that level!  I’m surprised Zito didn’t suggest that Hillary wipe his ass for him! But where ‘ya been, Zito?? In case you haven’t noticed, he’s stuck his little toe in the mud already and has by his side his lovely wife Michelle who likes doing the hit-man job…

Hey, gals..after witnessing Obama’s finger and brush off, watching the DNC sit there while the misogyny of the media flowed, watching fearless leader Dean slighting women in his latest wanderings in NPR interview-land, and then reading Zito’s crap, I’ve come up with my OWN suggestion for Senator Clinton:

Hillary–bring the casserole, nice and hot, and dump it on Obama, Dean, and Pelosi’s heads…and let someone else clean up the mess!  Salena Zito, perhaps?

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Salena Zito’s bio courtesy Townhall.com

Salena Zito is a political analyst, reporter and editorial page columnist. She has also reported on Pennsylvania politics for The Weekly Standard. A board member of the Center for Media & Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation, she honed her skills working on the campaigns of George H.W. Bush, Senator Rick Santorum, Bush2000, Bush-Cheney 2004 served on the senate staff of U.S. Senator Arlen Specter. Miss Zito has interviewed one on one Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director General Hayden, Homeland Security Director Chertoff, Attorney General Gonzales and First Lady Laura Bush. Zito spends a third of her time on the road interviewing legislators as well as current policy makers and the contenders that are running for president in 2008.

*I wonder if Salena Zito even knows anything about Margaret Brown beyond what she’s seen in movies or on Broadway? She probably thinks Brown was just like Debbie Reynolds! Or, if she IS working with full knowledge of Brown’s life, she sure cheapens the reference by throwing in the request for the casserole…

From The Encyclopedia Titanica:

Margaret became a founding member of the Denver Woman’s Club, part of a network of clubs which advocated literacy, education, suffrage, and human rights in Colorado and throughout the United States.

***

By the time Margaret Tobin Brown boarded Titanic at Cherbourg, France, she had already made a significant impact in the world.

Margaret Tobin Brown was one of the first women in the United States to run for political office, and ran for the Senate eight years before women even had the right to vote. On July 25, 1914, with Alva Vanderbilt (Mrs O.H.P.) Belmont, she organized an international women’s rights conference at Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island, which was attended by human rights activists from around the world. A lifelong advocate of human rights, Margaret was also a prominent figure following the Ludlow Massacre in Trinidad, Colorado, in April 1914, a significant landmark in the history of labor rights in the United States.

UPDATE

Read the latest from Froma Harrop “It’s No Longer About Hillary” to get started on “The New Agenda”…