Posts tagged California
Titanic Sinks in North Atlantic 1500 feared drown; developing
Apr 15th
Titanic Sinks Four Hours After Hitting Iceberg; 866 Rescued By Carpathia, Probably 1,250 Perish; Ismay Safe, Mrs. Astor Maybe, Noted Names Missing
Biggest Liner Plunges to the Bottom at 2:20 A.M. RESCUERS THERE TOO LATE
Expect to Pick Up the Few Hundreds Who Took to the Lifeboats.
WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST
Cunarder Carpathia Rushing to New York with the Survivors.
SEA SEARCH FOR OTHERS
The California Stands By on Chance of Picking Up Other Boats or Rafts.
OLYMPIC SENDS THE NEWS
Only Ship to Flash Wireless Messages to Shore After the Disaster.
Special to The New York Times
RELATED HEADLINESCol. Astor and Bride, Isidor Straus and Wife and Maj. Butt Aboard
“RULE OF SEA” FOLLOWED Women and Children Put Over in Lifeboats and Are Supposed to be Safe on Carpathia PICKED UP AFTER 8 HOURS Vincent Astor Calls at White Star Office for News of His Father and Leaves Weeping. Franklin Hopeful All Day Manager of Line Insisted Titanic Was Unsinkable Even After She Had Gone Down HEAD OF THE LINE ABOARD J.Bruce Ismay Making First Trip on Gigantic Ship That Was to Surpass All Others |
CAPE RACE, N.F., April 15. — The White Star liner Olympic reports by wireless this evening that the Cunarder Carpathia reached, at daybreak this morning, the position from which wireless calls for help were sent out last night by the Titanic after her collision with an iceberg. The Carpathia found only the lifeboats and the wreckage of what had been the biggest steamship afloat.
The Titanic had foundered at about 2:20 A.M., in latitude 41:46 north and longitude 50:14 west. This is about 30 minutes of latitude, or about 34 miles, due south of the position at which she struck the iceberg. All her boats are accounted for and about 655 souls have been saved of the crew and passengers, most of the latter presumably women and children. There were about 1,200 persons aboard the Titanic.
The Leyland liner California is remaining and searching the position of the disaster, while the Carpathia is returning to New York with the survivors.
It can be positively stated that up to 11 o’clock to-night nothing whatever had been received at or heard by the Marconi station here to the effect that the Parisian, Virginian or any other ships had picked up any survivors, other than those picked up by the Carpathia.
First News of the Disaster.
The first news of the disaster to the Titanic was received by the Marconi wireless station here at 10:25 o’clock last night (as told in yesterday’s New York Times.) The Titanic was first heard giving the distress signal “C. Q. D.,” which was answered by a number of ships, including the Carpathia, the Baltic and the Olympic. The Titanic said she had struck an iceberg and was in immediate need of assistance, giving her position as latitude 41:46 north and longitude 50:14 west.
At 10:55 o’clock the Titanic reported she was sinking by the head, and at 11:25 o’clock the station here established communication with the Allan liner Virginian, from Halifax to Liverpool, and notified her of the Titanic’s urgent need of assistance and gave her the Titanic’s position.
http://justin.tv/wwmoggy03
The Virginian advised the Marconi station almost immediately that she was proceeding toward the scene of the disaster.
At 11:36 o’clock the Titanic informed the Olympic that they were putting the women off in boats and instructed the Olympic to have her boats read to transfer the passangers.
The Titanic, during all this time, continued to give distress signals and to announce her position.
The wireless operator seemed absolutely cool and clear-headed, his sending throughout being steady and perfectly formed, and the judgment used by him was of the best.
The last signals heard from the Titanic were received at 12:27 A.M., when the Virginian reported having heard a few blurred signals which ended abruptly.
The largest passenger steamship in the world, the Olympic-class RMS Titanic was owned by the White Star Line and constructed at theHarland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland. She set sail for New York City on 10 April 1912 with 2,223 people on board. The high casualty rate resulting from the sinking was due in part to the fact that, although complying with the regulations of the time, the ship carried lifeboats for only 1,178 people. A disproportionate number of men died due to the “women and children first” protocol that was enforced by the ship’s crew.
Titanic was designed by experienced engineers, using some of the most advanced technologies and extensive safety features of the time. Adding to the ironic nature of the tragedy is the fact that the liner sank on her maiden voyage. The high loss of life, the media frenzy overTitanic‘s famous victims, the legends about the sinking, the resulting changes in maritime law, and the discovery of the wreck have all
RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, and sank on 15 April 1912. She hit the iceberg four days into the crossing, at 23:40 on 14 April 1912, and sank at 2:20 the following morning, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.
WHO WANTS TO DELIBERATE WITH POLITICIANS? MORE THAN SOME EXPECTED, STUDY FINDS
Apr 4th
Given that, the thinking goes, it’s reasonable to conclude that citizens want less, not more, involvement in politics.
But that widely accepted theory does not survive empirical scrutiny, a team of researchers that includes a University of Colorado Boulder political scientist found.
Rather than rejecting political discourse, most people express strong interest in deliberating with real politicians, the team found. Further, when citizens are offered the chance to discuss political issues with their legislators, significant numbers do.
The view of the American public as desperate to avoid politics is “deeply misleading,” the team wrote in a recent edition of American Political Science Review. The work joins a growing number of studies applying empirical analysis to political theories of deliberative democracy.
The team was led by Michael Neblo of Ohio State University and included Kevin Esterling of the University of California, Riverside, Ryan Kennedy at the University of Houston, David Lazer of Northeastern University and Harvard University, and Anand Sokhey of CU-Boulder.
Sokhey and his colleagues suggest that some political theorists reached an erroneous conclusion because they started with the wrong question, namely, “Who actually deliberates?”
The answer, of course, is that few people engage in deliberative democracy.
But Sokhey’s team essentially posed a different question: “Who is willing to deliberate?” The team found that large majorities of citizens, even those disgusted by politics, are willing to participate—and, when given the chance, many do.
Sokhey puts it this way: “If people perceive politicians to be more responsive and less corrupt … would people be more willing to be involved?” The answer is yes. “They’re happy to be involved.”
That was surprising, he says, adding that the kinds of people who wanted to participate also was unexpected. The traditional view is that people who are older, wealthier, well-educated and white are more likely to become engaged in politics.
“We don’t find that a lot of that holds here,” Sokhey says.
The team found that younger people and non-whites were willing to join political deliberations.
The researchers set out to test two competing theories of political involvement. One theory, dubbed “stealth democracy,” holds that people are often disgusted by politics, believe politicians are generally corrupt, and that when they do join the political process, they do so largely to thwart political corruption.
If politics were less corrupt, the theory holds, citizens would happily retreat to their private lives and let government run quietly and efficiently in the background.
But the theory of stealth democracy contradicts one of the deliberative theory’s central claims: that citizen apathy is actually caused by frustration and disempowerment in the system. “If the political process could be rendered more rational and responsive in their eyes, then they would be moreinclined to engage in it robustly,” the authors write, adding:
“The disagreement between the stealth thesis and the deliberative thesis could hardly be clearer, and the stakes on which is right could hardly be higher.”
The research team began with hypothetical questions posed to 404 subjects.
For instance, they asked the following: “If politics were [less/more] influenced by self-serving officials and powerful special interests, do you think that you would be more or less interested in getting involved in politics?” Respondents indicated their interest on a 1-5 scale.
Those who would participate less if politics were less corrupt fit the stealth-democracy thesis. Those who would participate more fit the deliberative thesis.
The results were significant. Eight times more people fit the deliberative profile than the stealth profile, suggesting that the “stealth” view is not widely held.
But that was just the response to items about stealth vs. deliberative attitudes. When the researchers made a real offer to deliberate with a real member of Congress, 65 percent agreed.
The study’s participants were offered the chance to deliberate online with their congressional representative. The members of Congress came from 12 congressional districts spread across four major geographic regions. The politicians included five Republicans and seven Democrats who were ideologically diverse.
Most surprisingly, the authors note, both those holding “stealth” and “deliberative” views were eager to discuss politics with real politicians. But according to the stealth thesis, such eagerness should have been found mostly among deliberative democrats.
The explanation, the authors conclude, is that “People do not really hold stealth democracy as their first preference. Instead, they will settle for stealth democracy if the civics-textbook version of deliberative representative democracy is not achievable.”
The work of Neblo, Sokhey and the rest of the team was funded by a grant from the Digital Government Program of the National Science Foundation.
Read more on this story soon in Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine at http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine/.
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Challenger Disaster Live on CNN
Jan 27th
January 28th, 1986 at 11:39am EDT – The Space Shuttle Challenger Explodes on its 10th flight during mission STS-51-L. The explosion occurred 73 seconds after liftoff and was actually the result of rapid deceleration and not combustion of fuel.
CNN was the only national news station to broadcast the mission live, so thus what you are witnessing on this video is the only coverage of the disaster as it happened when it did. Approximately 17% of Americans witnessed the launch live, while 85% of Americans heard of the news within 1 hour of the event. According to a study, only 2 other times in history up to that point had news of an event disseminated so fast – the first being the announcement of JFK’s assassination in 1963, the second being news spread among students at Kent State regarding the news of FDR’s death in 1945. It has been estimated at the time that nearly 48% of 9-13 year olds witnessed the event in their classrooms, as McAuliffe was in the spotlight.
The 25th Space Shuttle mission altered the history of manned space exploration and represented the first loss of an American crew during a space mission (Apollo 1 was during a training exercise).
Christa McAuliffe was slated to be the first teacher in space for the Teacher in Space Program. As her maximum altitude was ~65,000ft (12.31 miles), she never made it to space. That title was given to Barbara Morgan of STS-118 aboard the shuttle Endeavour in August 2007, 22 and a half years after the Challenger Disaster. Morgan served as McAuliffe’s backup during STS-51-L. As Morgan is now part of the Educator in Space Program, she will be credited as the first “educator” in space, to distinguish her from McAuliffe.
Aboard Challenger during STS-51-L:
Francis “Dick” Scobee (Commander)
Michael Smith (Pilot)
Judith Resnik (Mission Specialist)
Ellison Onizuka (Mission Specialist)
Ronald McNair (Mission Specialist)
Gregory Jarvis (Payload Specialist)
Sharon Christa McAuliffe (Payload Specialist – Teacher in Space)
from CU
Boulder CU loses one of its own on Space Shuttle Challenger
from cu in space ELLISON S. ONIZUKA (COLONEL, USAF)
NASA ASTRONAUT (DECEASED)
PERSONAL DATA: Born June 24, 1946, in Kealakekua, Kona, Hawaii. Died January 28, 1986. He is survived by his wife, Lorna, and two daughters. He enjoyed running, hunting, fishing, and indoor/outdoor sports.
EDUCATION: Graduated from Konawaena High School, Kealakekua, Hawaii, in 1964; received bachelor and master of science degrees in Aerospace Engineering in June and December 1969, respectively, from the University of Colorado.
ORGANIZATIONS: Member of the Society of Flight Test Engineers, the Air Force Association, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Tau, and the Triangle Fraternity.
AWARDS / PROMOTIONS: Posthumously promoted to the rank of Colonel. Posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
SPECIAL HONORS: Presented the Air Force Commendation Medal, Air Force Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, Air Force Organizational Excellence Award, and National Defense Service Medal.
EXPERIENCE: Onizuka entered on active duty with the United States Air Force in January 1970 after receiving his commission at the University of Colorado through the 4-year ROTC program as a distinguished military graduate. As an aerospace flight test engineer with the Sacramento Air Logistics Center at McClellan Air Force Base, California, he participated in flight test programs and systems safety engineering for the F-84, F-100, F-105, F-111, EC-121T, T-33, T-39, T-28, and A-1 aircraft. He attended the USAF Test Pilot School from August 1974 to July 1975, receiving formal academic and flying instruction in performance, stability and control, and systems flight testing of aircraft. In July 1975, he was assigned to the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California, serving on the USAF Test Pilot School staff initially as squadron flight test engineer and later as chief of the engineering support section in the training resources branch. His duties involved instruction of USAF Test Pilot School curriculum courses and management of all flight test modifications to general support fleet aircraft (A-7, A-37, T-38, F-4, T-33, and NKC-135) used by the test pilot school and the flight test center. He has logged more than 1,700 hours flying time.
NASA EXPERIENCE: Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in January 1978, he completed a 1-year training and evaluation period in August 1979. He subsequently worked on orbiter test and checkout teams and launch support crews at the Kennedy Space Center for STS-1 and STS-2. He worked on software test and checkout crew at the Shuttle Avionics and Integration Laboratory (SAIL), and has supported numerous other technical assignments ranging from astronaut crew equipment/orbiter crew compartment coordinator to systems and payload development.
He first flew as a mission specialist on STS 51-C, the first Space Shuttle Department of Defense mission, which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida on January 24, 1985. He was accompanied by Captain Thomas K. Mattingly (spacecraft commander), Colonel Loren J. Shriver (pilot), fellow mission specialist, Colonel James F. Buchli, and Lieutenant Colonel Gary E. Payton (DOD payload specialist). During the mission Onizuka was responsible for the primary payload activities, which included the deployment of a modified Inertial Upper Stage (IUS). STS 51-C Discovery completed 48 orbits of the Earth before landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on January 27, 1985. With the completion of this flight he logged a total of 74 hours in space.
Colonel Onizuka was a mission specialist on STS 51-L which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 11:38:00 EST on January 28, 1986. The crew on board the Orbiter Challenger included the spacecraft commander, Mr. F.R. Scobee, the pilot, Commander M.J. Smith (USN), fellow mission specialists, Dr. R.E. McNair, and Dr. J.A. Resnik, as well as two civilian payload specialists, Mr. G.B. Jarvis and Mrs. S. C. McAuliffe. The STS 51-L crew died on January 28, 1986 when Challenger exploded 1 min. 13 sec. after launch.
JANUARY 2007