Just wow.
This guy's gonna (briefly) push Lee Paige off the internets. He needs to put an oar on his shoulder right now and start walking inland until somebody asks him what the funny-looking stick is for. Then - maybe - he'll find a place where he's not unemployable.
Wow.
Meme Dump...
15 hours ago
12 comments:
My favorite, my absolute all-time favorite lame, lousy, take-it-behind-the-barn-and-shoot-it excuse:
"I fell into the lifeboat."
I promote this oxygen thief to 5-star numbskull. This guy would be dangerous operating a click pen.
I know this conversation is being touted around the Net as an example of Schettino's craven nature. And maybe it is.
I know he shouldn't have been off the ship while the people he was responsible for were still on it. Coupled with his phony excuse about having "fallen" into a lifeboat, and the fact that he steered that magnificent ship into the rocks and killed all those people while showing off, he deserves everything that's going to happen to him.
But when I read that transcript and even more when I listen to the recording, I don't hear cowardice (though Schettino may very well be a coward). I hear a man trying to explain something while being interrupted repeatedly, bullied and threatened by a government official.
What am I missing?
What am I missing?
Jesus wept, does an ideological purity field distort the fabric of reality that much?
"Quick! Your grandmother needs CPR!"
"I don't have to listen to you, you jumped-up little government thug!"
"What am I missing?"
That stuff that is supposed to be situated between the ear parts.
Buck.
I'm the anonymous who posted the "what am I missing" question. I think you guys misunderstood me.
I'm not saying the captain is right and good because he's part of the market or the coast guard officer is bad because he's with the government.
Listen to the video of the conversation. The captain is trying to explain something -- maybe why he can't right now get back on the ship or maybe why he could be more useful where he is. The coast guard officer, in very hectoring and threatening tones, refuses to listen.
Of course the captain should have stayed on the ship and directed the evacuation. I share everybody else's belief that he's a coward and a villain.
But listen to the video, don't just read the transcript. The coast guard guy comes across as the worst sort of authoritarian bully, as concerned in that moment with his power to make the captain look bad to the public as with saving the people on the ship.
As with so very many other things... we will probably never know the full truth of what happened. Instead of honest investigation, I suspect that there will be an endless push to demonize this person. I don't know if he is good or bad, but he deserves the same right as anyone else to be considered innocent until proven guilty.
We must be the change we wish to see. We must promote and provide the justice we wish to be afforded ourselves.
In any case, his career and, quite possibly his life, are over.
Dear anonymous:
The coward abandoned his post while passengers and crew; his charges, his responsibility, were still aboard.
He made lame excuses like another rescue boat someone else was piloting had stopped and he needed to attend to that and that it was dark. He blew his duty station off while others, most undoubtedly NOT trained in shipboard evac or water survival were dying on his watch.
There's no damn excuse for this. But by all means be sure to manufacture a few because the outraged Coastie was a touch surly.
I'd be interested to read what Gooch has to say about all this.
Buck.
I'm not making excuses for him, Buck. I'm only saying what I perceive and asking questions about it.
Thank you, MamaLiberty. The captain may (and probably does) deserve everything he's going to get. In that conversation, me may be making lame justifications. But justice does require a dispassionate examination of all the evidence. The man is getting a public lynching.
I have no doubt that the guy was going full R. Lee Ermey on the ex-Captain. I know I would have been, and I don't even own a jackboot.
"You get your lily-livered ass back on that boat right now or I'll put my boot so far up it you'll be tasting Kiwi for a week! Move!"
Anonymous,
I'd have treated the captain the same way, and I don't believe the coercive State should exist, period. He was shirking his duty as a captain and as a human being. That needs to be called out, and as Tam indicated, I don't care who the messenger is.
Also, one point to be considered is that the Coast Guard captain may not have had as hectoring and threatening a tone as you think, Anonymous.
He did use some threatening language and all, but as far as tone and inflection... That's kind of how Italians talk.
Sorry to take so long to respond there Buck.
Life for me right now is Busy, busy.
Meanwhile:
==================================
Buck said:
Dear anonymous:
The coward abandoned his post while passengers and crew; his charges, his responsibility, were still aboard.
He made lame excuses like another rescue boat someone else was piloting had stopped and he needed to attend to that and that it was dark. He blew his duty station off while others, most undoubtedly NOT trained in shipboard evac or water survival were dying on his watch.
There's no damn excuse for this. But by all means be sure to manufacture a few because the outraged Coastie was a touch surly.
I'd be interested to read what Gooch has to say about all this.
Buck.
January 20, 2012 10:56 AM
===================================
I had my say earlier when the story first broke Buck.
However here is a recap if you like ?
gooch said...
There is one thing that I can pretty confidently prognosticate about that particular "captain's" future.
Even IF he doesn't wind up in prison for 33 charges of manslaughter [where he fully deserves to be] he will Never work on another ship or boat for the rest of his life.
Sailors may have a poor reputation when it comes to Rum, loose women and chasing the filthy buck BUT they won't forgive or forget the name and face of an unmitigated Coward that has blackened the eye of the entire seafaring profession.
That person should seriously avoid waterfront bars IF he evades prison.
Grrrowl, grumble, grumble.
January 19, 2012 6:55 AM
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