Tag Archives: humanity

100 years later, ‘we remain divided and valued by the ticket we can afford’

Posted on by

TITANIC SURVIVORS: a breakdown by class

  • First Class Passengers: 63% survived (200 out of 319 lived).
  • Second Class Passengers: 43% survived (117 out of 269 lived).
  • Third Class Passengers: 25% survived (172 out of 699 lived).

Any death, regardless of class, is a horrible and tragic thing, but on the anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking it’s important to remember one of the things that night symbolizes: that, even in moments of terrible crisis and great collective peril, we remain divided and valued by the ticket we can afford.

Data via John Henderson of Ithaca College | via: thepoliticalnotebook

100 years ago today, the Titanic sank to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. The Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40pm (April 14, 1912) and sank two hours later at 2:20 am. 2,200 souls aboard, more than 1,500 perished and only 675 survivors mostly women and children.

via: carlito-pepito-stylinson1

Lunch break video: Chris Hedges — unfettered Capitalism and how the U.S. will cannibalize itself

Posted on by

The ethic of Capitalism: everything is a commodity to be exploited, including human beings and the natural world.

…

Partial transcript of the beginning:

CH: Unfettered or unregulated capitalism is about societies that cannibalize themselves. When capitalism is the dominant ideology, and as Marx understood it’s a revolutionary ideology, it turns everything into a commodity, including human beings. And of course natural reasouces. And it exploits these commodities until they are exhausted and they are destroyed. And that’s precisely what has happened. We have allowed all of the restraints, which were never heavy enough, on the capitalist system to be lifted. And built into capitalism is a self-destructive quality, a form of self annihlation. And that’s what we are undergoing at this moment. It’s a form of collective suicide, in a way, because the ramifications of this economic collapse are going to be played out far beyond the economic sphere. It’s going to deeply disrupt the social, cultural, as well as the economic life of ordinary Americans.

MM: And yet they’re trying to fix the problem with capitalism.

CH: Yes, well of course that is what’s so tragic: they’re trying to sustain an unsustainable system.

Watch all 9 minutes — it’s very good.

Meanwhile, in Russia: the best of humanity

Posted on by

From English Russia: Some help for Babushka (grandma, old woman):

A group of volunteers headed to a village in the Tula Region to visit an elderly lady who they heard needed wood to burn in her stove or in other words were in trouble. Entering her home, they found her sitting next to the stove with tears in her eyes. It was very cold and it smelled like dampness.

How is that possible that in the 21st century, in the country busy constructing sports facilities for the Olympic Games, in the era of the Internet and space satellites, an 82-year old lady is freezing in her home? Who knows how she felt after the volunteers left. What if she fell and cannot stand up… She ceased waiting for help and attention from people passing her home by a long time ago. Location: The Tula Region

More photos, full story…

How IS it possible that society’s priorities allow such things to still happen there, here, everywhere?

Contagion and vaccines: “We’re one strong pandemic away from a breakdown of the social order…”

Posted on by

“You are at the mercy of viruses that are evolving far faster than we are, and our lives depend on the luck of our genetics, the random permutations of recombination in pathogens, a bit on our efforts in hygiene and social practices, and a great deal on science supplementing our immune systems. We’re one strong pandemic away from a breakdown of the social order, and we rely on science and vaccinations to help protect this tasty giant petri dish of human meat we call planet Earth.” — PZ Myers on the movie Contagion

Source: freethoughtblogs via: sciencecenter