Welcome to Not Enough Lifeboats

A few weeks ago, I was reading up on people’s reactions to the current chaos plaguing the Federal Government (of the United States). One person noted that they felt like they were in the scene in the movie Titanic when the musicians start playing the song “Nearer My God to Thee”. This triggered my goblin brain to start watching scenes from the 1997 movie, a few documentaries, and interviews from survivors.

Which led me to the movie A Night to Remember (1958).

A Night to Remember is probably the most accurate movie about the maritime disaster ever made (sorry Cameron fans). It was based on a book with the same name by Walter Lord, who had been obsessed (much like Cameron) with the tragedy. Lord interviewed 63 survivors of the sinking, creating cohesive timeline of events.

I have not yet had the chance to read the book, but I have watched the movie. And I liked it better than the 1997 one.

A Night to Remember primarily focuses on the sinking of the Titanic. The narrative follows several characters - some fictional, but most based on real people - and how they either survive or parish. My personal favorite is the survival of the baker. In the movie (his story varies by retelling), he gives up his seat in a lifeboat for another person, knowing he’d likely die. He then gets blind stinking drunk, starts throwing deck chairs overboard for people to use for flotation, climbs to the back part of the ship, and rides his way down before gently entering the water. He then treads water for about two hours in near freezing temperatures before he is pulled into a lifeboat. He doesn’t give in to hypothermia, he doesn’t drown, and he doesn’t panic. 

Normally, that amount of alcohol that the baker (may have) consumed would have actually been a detriment to surviving the cold. But because of the alcohol, the baker didn’t panic. Nor did he go into shock - which is likely why so many people died of hypothermia. 

He stayed calm and survived. His name was Charles Joughin.

Joughin was an outlier. His odds of survival were almost nil when gave up his seat.The vast majority of Titanic’s staff died with the ship along with a disproportionate number of third class passengers and men. The laws of the sea (in those days) dictated that women and children were to be given priority for lifeboats…at least the upper and middle class ones. Poor women and children were still given priority, but not as much as their first and second class counterparts.

Classism at its finest.

And though women and children were first asked to enter the lifeboats, some of them refused to. At first it was because the women felt safer staying on the Titanic. After all, they’d been told the Titanic was unsinkable, so why would they get in a much smaller “less safe” wooden lifeboat? Then they began to realize their actual danger, and the women wanted to stay with their husbands. Such was a woman’s duty in those days. They knew they would likely die or maybe they were still in denial about the danger they were in. It’s not fully clear.

Still, sexism at its finest.

Of the children on board, only every second class child escaped the ship. Only one first class child died - a two year old whose parents lost track of her baby brother and refused to be separated until he was found. The girl’s baby brother had already been placed in a lifeboat by the boy’s nurse. The family never knew he had already escaped. 52 children (a little over half) from third class died. More first class men survived than third class children.

The Titanic did not have enough lifeboats for every passenger on the ship, but it had enough for regulations. Those regulations had never imagined a ship Titanic’s size, so had never been updated. It was also assumed that ships in the area (because there were so many in the Atlantic at that time) would get to a wreck site in time for people to be picked up from the first round of lifeboats, then go back to the sinking ship, and pick up more distressed passengers.

On the night Titanic sank, the California was the closest ship. However, after a nasty interaction it’s Titanic’s wire operator, the California’s operator signed off and went to bed. There wasn’t another operator on the ship to take his place. The Titanic set off multiple rockets which the California saw. However, again, it was assumed that such a large ship was unsinkable and that the rockets were some kind of weird celebration in the middle of the night. 

Should the California have checked out what was going on?

The California was significantly smaller than the Titanic. I think that even if they had responded and tried to help, it wouldn’t have made huge difference. People would have still ended up in the water and quickly died of hypothermia. However, the losses wouldn’t have been as terrible. We’ll never know though.

So, the partially filled lifeboats had nowhere to drop off the first round of evacuees. Why didn’t they go back to the pull people out of the water?

To be blunt, the people in the water would have likely swarmed the lifeboats and caused capsizing. More people would have likely died.

Thus, the survivors in the lifeboats got front row tickets to the horror of listening to people die. They heard the screams and they could do nothing to help without risking more people dying. Eventually, a boat was able to go back and a few people were pulled from the water. It was too little too late for the majority.

At the end of A Night to Remember, the following text is shown: “despite the tragedy, the sacrifice of those lost on the Titanic was not in vain, as new maritime safety measures like sufficient lifeboats, constant radio monitoring, and the International Ice Patrol were implemented to prevent similar disasters in the future.”

But why weren’t these things implemented before the tragedy. Why did it take the deaths of over 1,500 people - over two thirds of the passengers on the Titanic - for these changes to be made? Why did the Titanic crew ignore the ice warnings? They did the radio and wire operators prioritize sending passenger messages over ensuring they could still communicate with the ship closest to them?

Tragedy begets change. Disaster begets action.

We aren’t at the part of the Titanic sinking where the orchestra plays “Nearer My God to Thee”. We are at the part where the lifeboats are just starting to be filled. The first class is boarding first, but not all of them know or even think the ship is sinking yet. 

The next little while is going to be painful and chaotic. The people who are going to be the most impacted will not be offered seats on those lifeboats.

Walter Lord provides a hard critique on Edwardian culture and class. He points out the classism and the final dregs of Gilded Age hyper capitalism that caused the disaster. He calls out the hubris of man over nature.

I wonder what history will say about this era of American history.

Until next week.

If you liked this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like to hear from me.

Welcome to the Overwhelming Desire to Run to the Wilderness

 Has anyone else felt like these last few weeks have felt more like years?

Well at least the Eagles made it to the Superbowl. I grew up rooting for the Eagles. Dad had a love/hate relationship with McNabb back in the 2000s until he was traded to DC. Sadly, he's not here to watch the game with me, but I do like to think that he's providing a little "divine intervention" for this game.

That being said, seeing the Eagles at the Superbowl is probably the only thing he'd be excited about. 

My dad was a civil servant and even worked on The Hill (that's Congress for people outside of the Washington DC area) for a long time before moving into Non-Governmental Organizational work. If he hated the administration between 2016-2020, he'd be absolutely livid over this one.

I'm personally very frustrated. My own work is taking things one day at a time, even though we aren't a government agent. My personal life isn't all sunshine and roses - mainly because my cat was diagnosed with kidney disease last fall. We had to make an emergency trip to the vet this morning. I miss my dad.

If I didn't know that I would not do well, I'd run off and become a mysteriously cranky old hermit in the wilderness.

But I've read Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild. I know that the reality of living off the grid is far from the fictional romanizations that I've read in books and seen in movies.

You might recall that last year, I was on a Mount Everest kick. Specifically, I was hyper focused on the 1996 tragedy. I watched a ton of YouTube videos and read three books on the events that led to a group of climbers dying after reaching the top of the mountain. One of those books was Krakauer's Into Thin Air. It's his version of the disaster. He had been on one of the two expeditions that chose to climb. He'd been hired to write an article about the changing industry around tour groups climbing Everest. It was only a coincidence that disaster struck.

Prior to publishing Into Thin Air, Krakauer had famously written an article for "Outside" magazine and then the full length novel Into the Wild on one young man's ambition to leave civilization and live in the wilderness. 

On paper, I have a few similarities to Chris McCandless - the man who would become the focal point of Into the Wild. We both grew up in the Virginia suburbs right outside of Washington DC. Our dad's worked for the government. We both had/have a passion for the great outdoors. I honestly saw a bit of myself in McCandless. 

Except, I didn't leave after college to become a wanderer of the United States. I never loss touch with my parents or my sibling and I never spent much time off the East Coast.

But I wanted to. 

There was a time where I wasn't sure what I was going to do after college. Sure I was getting a good degree from a really good school, but I didn't have much in the way of grades and I was honestly a bit burnt out from academia.

Directionless, I applied to job about job after job until I managed to find one in a category I'd thought I'd like: market research. It would take almost another decade before I changed careers completely and started to find a passion. 

However, there was a part of me that just wanted to take off and see where I ended up. 

Unfortunately, I need a bit more stability than the wandering lifestyle allows. I like plans and routines. I budget and stick to it (when my life isn't out of balance). I research and crowd source (almost to my own determent) before making a decision. I don't like uncertainty.

McCandless knew what he wanted to do and he didn't mind not knowing what the future held. He enjoyed moving from one place to the next. He did do research (at least he bought books to use as references) and the chances he took were calculated. 

His downfall came from underestimating how river flows can change and bad information (though no one would know that until over a decade after he passed away). 

McCandless did well wandering up and down the West Coast. Some of Krakauer's research includes notes on his experiences in the Pacific Northwest that reminded me of my time spent on a road trip with my cousins, camping deep in Mt. Olympic National Forest. I could also easily picture his time in the Southwest after spending time in Arizona with my aunts - hiking Tucson, exploring Flagstaff, and seeing the Grand Canyon. 

His trip to Mexico in a canoe was my favorite part of the book. I've never tried to sneak into another country before (and I don't plan on doing so), but McCandless made it sound both dangerous and exciting. His tenacity in trying to canoe to the Pacific Ocean from the Colorado river basin was amazing.

I don't recommend anyone trying to recreate it in 2025.

It's no wonder McCandless though he could also conquer Alaska. He'd done well in the lower 48 and managed to travel a little around Mexico under the radar (again, I don't condone this action). He managed to hitchhike his way from the Dakotas to Alaska. It's unclear how he got into Canada without a passport or ID - he'd given himself a new name and there wasn't anyway for his parents to track him (they'd hired a private investigator). All of this in about two years.

Alaska should never be underestimated. The closest I have ever spent time somewhere like Alaska would be my trip to Iceland and I never left Reykjavík. I can't imagine trying to live out in the wilds of Iceland - they don't even have large animals that could kill you.

Around this point, Krakauer pauses his retelling of McCandless's adventures and recounts one of his own that nearly ended in disaster. In his early 20s, Krakauer attempted to climb one of the more famous mountains in Alaska solo. He wanted to try a more difficult route and planned to be away from civilization for a few weeks. Krakauer nearly died in his attempt (falling and bad weather), but he made it back to the small isolated town in the shadow of the mountain before he ran out of supplies. During much of his expedition, Krakauer could see the lights of the town, but they couldn't see him. Rescue would have been unthinkable. 

Similar circumstances surround McCandless's misadventure. He actually wasn't that far from civilization. The only reason not many people were around was because at that time of year, the melted glaciers cause the rivers to swell to the point where they are very difficult to cross. If he had opted to take a map - instead of explore at his leisure - he might have been able to find a safe crossing point. 

McCandless did actually try to leave his camp. He got a point in early summer where he felt he had accomplished his mission and wanted to return home - where ever he might have defined that. Except the river had swelled. There weren't any flight paths where he was, so no planes or helicopters overhead. He could have set a noticeable bushfire, but (as his family noted) he would have never wanted to light up the beautiful wilderness, even to save himself.

What likely happened to McCandless was that he started eating a plant (wild potatoes) that he thought was safe, but may have been moldy. The mold would have caused him to slowly become paralyzed and unable to digest any food properly. This is what led him to starve to death in an old bus that was used as a camp shelter.

McCandless died a few weeks before help would arrive. He was found in the bus he'd used as a shelter wrapped in his sleeping bag. The bus had been a shelter for hunters and overnight hikers. It remained in it's original location until 2020. Too many people were taking too many unnecessarily risks to get to it.

McCandless was a smart, kind, and unique person that seemed to be able to make friends where ever he went. He probably could have survived in Alaska and made it home with a little more preparation and humility when speaking with the locals. Who knows what he might have accomplished. 

Roughly two decades separates me and McCandless in age. While he was wandering around the lower 48, I was learning to walk and talk not too far from where he grew up. But his yearning to leave civilization and dive headfirst into the wild is a familiar one.

I feel bad for McCandless's family and a sense of loss of what might have become of his life. Krakauer includes other stories of people who left civilization to wander into the wilderness, but were never heard from again. It's likely that McCandless would have remained an unknown if his tragic death hadn't drawn so much media attention.

It's tempting to want to run away into the wild to get away from the overwhelming oppression that is our current state of affairs. It doesn't solve anything though. And it's still being romanticized. During the pandemic, cottage core (where people dressed up and pretended to live in a small cottage) and homesteading were popular escapes. There are YouTubers showing how they were able to make it living off the grid in tiny houses with vegetable patches and chickens. There are plenty of pictures on social media of women in cotton dresses happily tending to their flower patches and young men living out of their vans with a dog.

I think everyone has a small itch to escape the modernity of our modern society, especially when it feels so chaotic. But I have responsibilities and other interests to keep me occupied. As overwhelming as it all is, I know I'm needed where I currently am.

And lets be real, I would totally die trying to pet something that I shouldn't try to pet.

Until next week. 

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.

Welcome to Book Social Media

2025 has barely started and already part of my country is on fire while another part -the part I’m in - is buried under a foot of snow. In my personal life, things have been crazier than ever - mostly good. I was also sick much of last week with a bad cold (thankfully it wasn’t COVID, I tested negative) and finding time to relax has been tough.

I’d say I need a vacation, but I just got back from my winter break (my work closes the last week of the year since so many people take off and not much can get done). So, no vacations for a while. How do I deal with the negativity in the world right now without being able to run off?

Reading.

Since roughly 2022, I have set aside time to read from a book (or two) everyday. I chose to mostly read physical books with the occasional digital or audiobook thrown in because then I have a physical item on my nightstand taunting me to not forget about it. I have a bad habit of forgetting about digital and audiobooks I’ve downloaded. I also am trying to keep up with my ability to actually read words (I struggled with reading for a long time) and analyze text. I also enjoy learning new things in nonfiction books.

To track my books, I joined GoodReads during the pandemic. In addition to helping me keep up with reading, it also provides me with a steady stream of free books in the form of their giveaways. Even though I keep winning these free books, I continue to occasionally hit up my local used/independent bookstore and Barnes and Noble. So now I have a huge TBR (to be read) pile next to my bed and lining one of my bookshelves. The other bookshelves showcase the books I’ve conquered finished. Some of the books I finish end up going to my sibling or mother (and my dad while he was still with us), some end up in one of the local little libraries (usually the advanced reader copies I wasn’t thrilled with), and some are traded in at my local used bookstore (in order to buy more books).

After completing a book, I like to go through what other readers have said. What they liked or didn’t like about the book and what they also recommend reading.

This is how I first stumbled upon the remains of BookTube.

BookTube is the part of YouTube dedicated to, what else, books! Mostly comprised of readers (there are some writers and publishers mixed in) and their reading lists. Prior to watching BookTube and joining GoodReads, I wasn’t super interested in connecting with other readers (writers yes, reader shrug). I felt that my reading was more of a private activity and would only provide reviews and recommendations on books my writer friends had written (and I had read).

I still think of my reading as a private activity and I don’t feel like my reading choices say all that much about me. Sure I have preferences - romance is okay in small doses, cozy mysteries are always a delight - but the books I read and am interested in are all over the place. 

However, I have noticed that some people on social have made reading their entire personality.

Now, I’m sure most of the reading “aesthetic” floating around online comes from a genuine love of books and stories. There is no denying that, especially when some of the BookTubers are spreading information about book bans. The funny skits are entertaining and I enjoy getting good book recommendations.

What I’m not enjoying is the gamification, criticism, and superiority complexes the overall book community is currently tearing itself over.

Enter stage left BookTok.

BookTok is BookTube with shorter video times and a younger audience. One might say it’s cesspool of the battle of the generations with Gen Z leading the charge on TikTok and the older generations still preferring the longer videos of YouTube. BookTok is a natural evolution in the current ongoing social media shifts. It’s easy to go viral and take things wildly out of context with the limited amount of time per video - like Twitter before it became X or Vine. 

Pared with GoodReads and an unexpected pandemic keeping everyone home for over a year, BookTok has made “reading cool again”. There are tons of videos providing reviews, recommendations, analysis, book hauls, and character studies.

Wait…book hauls?

Yeah, I guess some BookTokers and BookTubers are getting famous for how many books they have gotten their hands on (usually bought) and how excited they are to read them. Similar to clothing hauls from thrift stores or cheap online retailers like Temu (ugh!), book hauls are somewhat seen as a status symbol for having extra cash and intelligence for how many books a person owns. I’m a little fuzzy on how many books these influencers actually read, but they are buying tens to hundreds of books at one time to show their audiences.

At least the authors get paid (as long as they aren’t used or second hand).

GoodReads has made it possible for readers to easily share with each other their read count. Every year, GoodReads allows readers to set a goal for how many books they hope to read. At my most ambitious, I went for 50 books in one year. This year I opted for 30 because my goal of 40 for last year was tough and I have a few really big reads (between 500-1000 pages) I want to try this year. The people putting over 50 books are impressive. I’m baffled by the people who want to read more than 100. Clearly they read a lot faster than me (I’m a notoriously slow reader).

This massive amount of reading is reflected in the posting schedule for BookTok.

To keep the algorithm happy, YouTubers and TikTok creators have to constantly be producing content. This massive workload is one of the many reasons I never want to be an online content creator (my online stuff is for me and I am uninterested in going viral). This has also led to people accusing BookTok creators of not actually reading the books they are reviewing and promoting or that these influencers are only picking “easy” books to read.

I don’t know what makes a book “easy”, but the biggest targets of these critiques are influencers promoting romance, fantasy, the combined genre of romansy (the words romance and fantasy squished together), historical fiction with an emphasis on romance, and cozies. As a reader of cozy mystery, I take umbridge to this. However, I also can’t help noticing that these genres (and combined genre) are geared towards young women.

Oh boy, do we have a new can of worms to open.

Now, I admit that I’m not a fan of a lot of the most criticized authors. Sarah J. Maas and Colleen Hoover book descriptions make me cringe. But I will not yuck someone else’s yum. They clearly have fans for a reason. Even if I think they aren’t great (and at times deeply disturbing), that doesn’t mean I should knock down someone who enjoys these stories. After all, I have my schlock that I like to read and would never consider “high art” (eyes my Uglies, Pretties, and Specials books from my teen years that have been getting some heat lately).

I won’t even knock the people going out of their way for “spicy” books. I will question the choice to make some of the cover art look like the book is appropriate for people under the age of 16, but I won’t knock the people reading these books. They help satisfy an escape fantasy for the readers. I do not enjoy sex or “spice” in my books - the use of the word spice instead of sex is due to censorship on YouTube and TikTok to create an advertiser friendly environment (someday soon, I hope linguist scholars come out with a series of studies about language shifts around this type of censorship and the effects on language overall). I tend to skip over those scenes if they pop up. Other people are into it. 

And that’s okay.

The amount of hate outside of valid criticism is obnoxious. I admit I enjoy listening to valid criticism with a good analysis of text, but I don’t enjoy listening to people saying that a book is simply “trash” because it’s not their preferred genre. 

No one is a superior reader because they only read the “classic”; those books are  mostly written by dead white guys anyway so the classification is relative. And no one is a “fake reader” because they only read “spice”. People are allowed to like what they like. People are allowed to provide criticism without name calling or judgement. 

Stop telling young women and teenage girls that the stuff they like is “bad”. Their taste is still growing and changing. For all you know, the next Austen or Brontë or Plath or Morrison is mixed in with Maas and Hoover.

I’m not even going to get in to it with some of the other big controversies going around. The book tracker Fantasy is having some interesting bugs with its AI interface and the woman who said that there were too many words on book pages are not topics I have enough information on to form an informed opinion. Also, GoodReads seems to have started a new badge system for when people read popular books in certain categories, further adding to the gamification of reading, which is a thing I guess.

It’s no one’s business what I am reading. If someone wants to share or vlog about their favorite books or current reads, more power to them. Healthy and valid criticism is fine. Unrelenting hate is not. Reading shouldn’t be treated as status symbol - though there are decent arguments as to why it inherently is - and “spicy” books aren’t necessarily bad (see the Bible for details).

I am a reader and by virtue of you reading this blog, so are you. Enjoy the “classics”, learn something new, be political, or try a new genre. You never know what gems you might find.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you like hearing from me. 

Until next week.