Team Penske could have just let everyone else stay home- Brad dominated and won from the pole, even if Kyle Busch got the lead for a bit towards the end.
Let's give a shout out to Ryan Newman- he had a great race.
Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin both popped tires and ran into the wall, ending the night early. And I think Denny was hurting after the hit- looked like an ankle got banged up.
Jimmie and Smoke passed a bunch of people- to be expected as Jimmie started mid-pack and due to an engine issue Tony started in the back. Jimmie finished 10th and Smoke was 12th.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Friday, June 27, 2014
Helen Keller
From the Christian Science Monitor: CSM celebrates Helen Keller on her 134th Birthday with her quotes:
"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."
"The true test of a character is to face hard conditions with the determination to make them better."
"The bulk of the world’s knowledge is an imaginary construction."
"Faith is a mockery if it does not teach us that we can build a more complete and beautiful world."
"I think the degree of a nation's civilization may be measured by the degree of enlightenment of its women."
"More than at any other time, when I hold a beloved book in my hand my limitations fall from me, my spirit is free."
"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope."
"A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships."
"I believe humility is a virtue, but I prefer not to use it unless it is absolutely necessary."
"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."
"The true test of a character is to face hard conditions with the determination to make them better."
"The bulk of the world’s knowledge is an imaginary construction."
"Faith is a mockery if it does not teach us that we can build a more complete and beautiful world."
"I think the degree of a nation's civilization may be measured by the degree of enlightenment of its women."
"More than at any other time, when I hold a beloved book in my hand my limitations fall from me, my spirit is free."
"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope."
"A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships."
"I believe humility is a virtue, but I prefer not to use it unless it is absolutely necessary."
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Sonoma belongs to Carl Edwards
In his first road course win, Carl Edwards took the victory in Sonoma, with Jeff Gordon second. All the Hendrick cars finished in the top ten. Sad for Matt Kenseth, with a DNF after Junior got into him.
And Smoke, REALLY?!? Speeding on Pit Road? AGAIN!?!
They are heading my way next weekend- Kentucky Speedway!
And Smoke, REALLY?!? Speeding on Pit Road? AGAIN!?!
They are heading my way next weekend- Kentucky Speedway!
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Where have you been?
Have you traveled around the USA or internationally?What does your map look like?
visited 15 countries (6.66%)
Create your own visited map of The World
visited 15 countries (6.66%)
Create your own visited map of The World
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Michigan makes it three
Harvick was on the pole and this is not a track JJ had won at... one of five (the other four are Watkins Glen, Kentucky, Homestead, and Chicago) in fact...
Close so many times.... he has lost this race by every means possible...
So Happy Father's Day to Jimmie who won for his third time this season.He is in the top spot in the standings for the Chase as it stands. #SE7EN is coming soon!
Note to TNT- What is with the microphone failures and the weird vocals failures? I can't wait for ESPN...
Close so many times.... he has lost this race by every means possible...
So Happy Father's Day to Jimmie who won for his third time this season.He is in the top spot in the standings for the Chase as it stands. #SE7EN is coming soon!
Note to TNT- What is with the microphone failures and the weird vocals failures? I can't wait for ESPN...
PS General Slocum
The PS General Slocum was a wooden passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn, New York, in 1891. The General Slocum was named after Civil War General and New York Congressman Henry Warner Slocum. She operated in the New York City area as an excursion steamer for the next thirteen years under the same ownership. During her service history, she was involved in a number of mishaps, including multiple groundings and collisions.
On June 15, 1904, she was chartered to run members of St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church to an annual church picnic at Locust Point on Long Island's North Shore. Some 1,358 members of Kleindeutschland (Little Germany), the tightly knit German immigrant community then surrounding Tompkins Square on the Lower East Side, boarded the ferry around nine that morning at a pier on Third Street and the East River. St. Mark's pastor, Reverend George Haas, and leaders of the church were with them on deck. The Times reported , "As she cast off and stood out into the stream her flags were flying, the band was playing a lively air, and her three decks were crowded to their capacity with a happy throng that looked for a pleasant day's outing at Locust Point, on the Sound." Most of passengers were women and children.
On board were captain, William van Schaick, and a crew of twenty-three men. Prior to this voyage he had an unblemished safety record.
Then disaster struck. Just as the General Slocum was passing Sunken Meadow at East 90th Street, adjacent to Randalls Island in the Hell Gate, which is almost under where the Triborough Bridge stands today, cries of "Fire!" broke out below. Smoke started billowing from a forward storage room. A spark, most likely from a carelessly tossed match, had ignited a barrel of straw. Several crewmen tried to put the fire out, but they had never conducted a fire drill or undergone any emergency training. To make matters worse, the ship's rotten fire hoses burst when the water was turned on.
By the time they notified Captain William Van Schaick of the emergency ‒ fully ten minutes after discovering the fire — the blaze raged out of control.
The captain looked to the piers along the East River, but feared he might touch off an explosion among the many oil tanks there. Instead, even as onlookers on the Manhattan shore shouted for him to dock the ship, he opted to proceed at top speed to North Brother Island a mile ahead. Several small boats followed the floating inferno as it roared upriver.
"I started to head for One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street, but was warned off by the captain of a tugboat, who shouted to me that the boat would set fire to the lumber yards and oil tanks there. Besides I knew that the shore was lined with rocks and the boat would founder if I put in there. I then fixed upon North Brother Island."
"It was only a matter of seconds until the entire forward part of the boat was a mass of flames," the Times reporters continued, and passengers began rushing madly over the three decks to avoid the flames, "All this time full speed ahead was maintained, and the flames, fanned fiercely by the wind, ate their way swiftly toward the hapless women and babies that were crowded on all the decks astern." The skipper looked out from his pilothouse and saw "a fierce blaze -- the wildest I have ever seen."
The increased speed fanned the flames. Panicked passengers ran about the deck, unsure where to take refuge. Mothers screamed for their children, husbands for their wives. The flames, accelerated by fresh coat of highly flammable paint, rapidly enveloped the ship and passengers began to jump overboard. Some clung to the rails as long as they could before jumping into the churning water. A few were rescued by nearby boats, but most did not know how to swim and simply drowned.
The inexperienced crew provided no help. Nor did the 3,000 life jackets on board. Rotten and filled with disintegrated cork, they had long since lost their buoyancy. Those who put them on sank as soon as they hit the water. Wired in place, none of the lifeboats could be dislodged. Even if they had, they would never have made it safely into the water with the ship chugging along at top speed.
While the fire raging completely out of control and decks already collapsing on terror-struck women and children, Captain Van Schaick, his own clothes on fire, stayed at the wheel and ran the Slocum up on the shore of the hospital island beyond the Hell Gate, but in a part of the river where the current remained extremely swift. As the captain remembered it, "I stuck to my post in the pilothouse until my cap caught fire. We were then about twenty-five feet off North Brother Island. She went on the beach, bow on, in about twenty-five feet of water. . . . Most of the people aft, where the fire raged fiercest, jumped in when we were in deep water, and were carried away. We had no chance to lower the lifeboats. They were burned before the crew could get at them."
North Brother Island became a scene of courage and panic.By the time the ship finally beached, it was almost completely engulfed in fire. Survivors poured over the railings into the water. Some huddled in the few places not yet reached by the flames, too terrified to jump. Nurses and patients at the island's contagious disease hospital rushed to offer assistance. Several of them grabbed ladders being used to renovate the facility and used them to bring the survivors off the ship. Others caught children tossed by distraught parents. Within minutes, all who could be saved, including the captain and several crew, were moved away from the burning hulk.
City Health Commissioner Darlington happened to be on the island that day, visiting the hospital. "I will never be able to forget the scene, the utter horror of it," he said. "The patients in the contagious wards, especially in the scarlet fever ward, went wild at things they saw from their windows and went screaming and beating at the doors until it took fifty nurses and doctors to quiet them. They were all locked up. Along the beach the boats were carrying in the living and dying and towing in the dead."
All told, 1,021 perished out of the original 1,358 who boarded the ship that morning. Most did not know how to swim, and the sawdust filled "life-vests" sank many of those fleeing the fire. Bodies washed up on the shores of the small channel islands of the East River.
But there were miracles. One little boy was thrown into the river in midstream clutching his stuffed toy dog. He was fished from the river unharmed, still clutching the prized dog.
Tales of heroism filled the newspaper accounts for days and weeks after the event.
A heroic captain ran his tug alongside the General Slocum in full exposure to the fire and saved over a hundred lives.
A measles patient from the island hospital ran into the water despite her fever and saved a few children.
A nurse who always wished she could swim ran into the river to grab some children, which she did again and again until she was swept into deeper water, where she discovered that she could swim and continued saving lives.
Still burning at its waterline, the General Slocum was carried off in the current for another thousand yards or so until it struck land at Hunts Point in the Bronx. It remained there, a burnt and partially sunken hull, for the next few weeks. Divers searched for bodies in its sunken remains. Police and rescue parties combed the riverbanks for miles in search of bodies.
The boats that followed seeking to offer assistance plucked a few survivors from the water. But mostly they found only the lifeless bodies of the ship's ill-fated passengers. The fact that most were young children only added to the horror.
Within minutes of the tragedy, reporters from the New York World and other major dailies were on the scene. The dispatches they sent back to their newsrooms sickened many a hardened editor. Rescue workers openly wept as the corpses piled up. By the time they were done counting the bodies and tabulating a list of the missing, the death toll stood at 1,021.
Nearly everyone in the neighborhood knew someone on the ship. As word of the fire spread, it caused panic and confusion. No one seemed to know where to go. Thousands gathered at St. Mark's Church awaiting word about survivors. Thousands more rushed uptown to the East 23rd Street pier designated as a temporary morgue. By mid-afternoon, those not yet reunited with their family members began to lose hope. Many discovered they had lost a wife or child. Dozens learned they had lost their entire families.
At the morgue policemen and Coroner's Department workers labored to lay out the hundreds of corpses as they arrived. Others were dispatched to scour the city for coffins. Wagons arrived laden with tons of ice for the preservation of the bodies. Outside hundreds of policemen strained to control the swelling crowds of relatives and friends, not to mention curiosity seekers, reporters, and undertakers.
The Times reported that on the night of June 14, 1904, "grief-crazed crowds" lined the shore where the bodies were being brought in by the boatload: "Scores were prevented from throwing themselves into the river."
For the next week, thousands paraded past the gruesome lineup of victims resting in open coffins. The better preserved were identified quickly. Some of the burned and disfigured were identified by their clothing or jewelry. The sixty-one that could not be identified ‒ including many of the bodies recovered days after the event — were buried in a common grave. Funerals were held every hour for days on end in the churches of Kleindeutschland. These tragic scenes were punctuated by the suicides of several men and women who lost their entire families in the fire.
The story of the General Slocum made headlines across the nation and around the globe. World leaders and European royalty sent money and letters of condolence to Mayor George B. McClellan and the people of St. Mark's. Funds poured in from private citizens and charitable groups from Rhode Island to California.
How could a tragedy of such magnitude occur within a few hundred yards of the shores of the nation's most modern city? In the weeks and months that followed the fire, an outraged public searched for answers and culprits. City officials vowed to conduct a thorough investigation and within weeks, Captain Van Schaick, executives of the Knickerbocker Steamboat Co., and the Inspector who certified the General Slocum as safe only a month before the fire were indicted.
Terrible weeks of recrimination, accusation, investigation, and trials followed the disaster. They addressed the reports of the rotten life jackets and fire hoses that burst under pressure. Some jackets were found to have been stuffed with metal to give them the regulation weight. The captain and crew were pilloried in the press, as were the ship's owners.
Captain Van Schaick came under the most intense scrutiny. Why had he failed to dock the ship immediately after discovering the fire? Why had he instead raced upriver and allowed the fire to claim more victims? Why was his crew so poorly trained? How was it that he survived when so many others perished?
At his trial Van Schaick offered explanations for his actions, but the jury was not convinced. He was convicted of criminal negligence and manslaughter and sentenced to ten years hard labor in the Sing Sing prison. He served three years before being pardoned by President William H. Taft. Free, he was a broken man- the horrible tragedy and subsequent legal action took their toll and he lived out his days in seclusion.
In contrast, the officials at the Knickerbocker Steamship Company got only a small fine, in spite of the fact that the trial revealed the company had illegally falsified records to cover up their lack of attention to passenger safety.
Kleindeutchland never recovered. The steady exodus of Germans to Yorkville had begun in the 1890s and now became a torrent. The German settlement moved uptown on the East Side overlooking the site of the disaster, and to Astoria in Queens. Seeking to escape painful memories, many moved away to outlying neighborhoods. By the time of the 1910 census, only a handful of German families remained in Kleindeutschland.
The General Slocum disaster brought about a major upgrading of steamboat safety regulations and a sweeping reform of the United States Steamboat Inspection Service (USSIS).
One week after the fire, President Theodore Roosevelt named a five-man commission to investigate the Slocum tragedy and recommend measures that would prevent an event like it from occurring again. The commission held hearings in New York and Washington, D. C. and took testimony from hundreds of witnesses and experts.
In October 1904 it issued a scathing report that placed most of the blame at the feet of the USSIS. Dozens were fired and a complete re-inspection of steamboats ordered. Not surprisingly, the new inspections turned up widespread safety problems, from useless lifejackets to rotten fire hoses. The result was a long list of recommended reforms, including requiring new steamboats be equipped with:
• fireproof metal bulkheads to contain fire
• steam pipes extended from the boiler into cargo areas (to act as a sprinkler)
• improved lifejackets (one for each passenger and crew member)
• fire hoses capable of handling 100 pounds of pressure per square inch
• accessible life boats
All were subsequently enacted, leading to dramatic improvements in steamboat safety.
The General Slocum disaster was the New York area's worst disaster in terms of loss of life until the September 11, 2001 attacks, and remains the worst maritime disaster in the city's history.
Remarkably, the Slocum tragedy rapidly faded from public memory, to the point that it was replaced as the city's GREAT fire just seven years later when the Triangle Shirtwaist factory burned. The onset of World War I eradicated sympathy for anything German, including the innocent victims of the General Slocum fire. By the 1920s, as the Triangle fire became firmly entrenched in the American memory, all that remained of the General Slocum fire was a small, annual commemoration at the Lutheran cemetery in Middle Village, Queens.
The General Slocum disaster memorial in Tompkins Square Park, Manhattan, New York City, which was once in Little Germany.
On June 15, 1904, she was chartered to run members of St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church to an annual church picnic at Locust Point on Long Island's North Shore. Some 1,358 members of Kleindeutschland (Little Germany), the tightly knit German immigrant community then surrounding Tompkins Square on the Lower East Side, boarded the ferry around nine that morning at a pier on Third Street and the East River. St. Mark's pastor, Reverend George Haas, and leaders of the church were with them on deck. The Times reported , "As she cast off and stood out into the stream her flags were flying, the band was playing a lively air, and her three decks were crowded to their capacity with a happy throng that looked for a pleasant day's outing at Locust Point, on the Sound." Most of passengers were women and children.
On board were captain, William van Schaick, and a crew of twenty-three men. Prior to this voyage he had an unblemished safety record.
Then disaster struck. Just as the General Slocum was passing Sunken Meadow at East 90th Street, adjacent to Randalls Island in the Hell Gate, which is almost under where the Triborough Bridge stands today, cries of "Fire!" broke out below. Smoke started billowing from a forward storage room. A spark, most likely from a carelessly tossed match, had ignited a barrel of straw. Several crewmen tried to put the fire out, but they had never conducted a fire drill or undergone any emergency training. To make matters worse, the ship's rotten fire hoses burst when the water was turned on.
By the time they notified Captain William Van Schaick of the emergency ‒ fully ten minutes after discovering the fire — the blaze raged out of control.
The captain looked to the piers along the East River, but feared he might touch off an explosion among the many oil tanks there. Instead, even as onlookers on the Manhattan shore shouted for him to dock the ship, he opted to proceed at top speed to North Brother Island a mile ahead. Several small boats followed the floating inferno as it roared upriver.
"I started to head for One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street, but was warned off by the captain of a tugboat, who shouted to me that the boat would set fire to the lumber yards and oil tanks there. Besides I knew that the shore was lined with rocks and the boat would founder if I put in there. I then fixed upon North Brother Island."
"It was only a matter of seconds until the entire forward part of the boat was a mass of flames," the Times reporters continued, and passengers began rushing madly over the three decks to avoid the flames, "All this time full speed ahead was maintained, and the flames, fanned fiercely by the wind, ate their way swiftly toward the hapless women and babies that were crowded on all the decks astern." The skipper looked out from his pilothouse and saw "a fierce blaze -- the wildest I have ever seen."
The increased speed fanned the flames. Panicked passengers ran about the deck, unsure where to take refuge. Mothers screamed for their children, husbands for their wives. The flames, accelerated by fresh coat of highly flammable paint, rapidly enveloped the ship and passengers began to jump overboard. Some clung to the rails as long as they could before jumping into the churning water. A few were rescued by nearby boats, but most did not know how to swim and simply drowned.
The inexperienced crew provided no help. Nor did the 3,000 life jackets on board. Rotten and filled with disintegrated cork, they had long since lost their buoyancy. Those who put them on sank as soon as they hit the water. Wired in place, none of the lifeboats could be dislodged. Even if they had, they would never have made it safely into the water with the ship chugging along at top speed.
While the fire raging completely out of control and decks already collapsing on terror-struck women and children, Captain Van Schaick, his own clothes on fire, stayed at the wheel and ran the Slocum up on the shore of the hospital island beyond the Hell Gate, but in a part of the river where the current remained extremely swift. As the captain remembered it, "I stuck to my post in the pilothouse until my cap caught fire. We were then about twenty-five feet off North Brother Island. She went on the beach, bow on, in about twenty-five feet of water. . . . Most of the people aft, where the fire raged fiercest, jumped in when we were in deep water, and were carried away. We had no chance to lower the lifeboats. They were burned before the crew could get at them."
North Brother Island became a scene of courage and panic.By the time the ship finally beached, it was almost completely engulfed in fire. Survivors poured over the railings into the water. Some huddled in the few places not yet reached by the flames, too terrified to jump. Nurses and patients at the island's contagious disease hospital rushed to offer assistance. Several of them grabbed ladders being used to renovate the facility and used them to bring the survivors off the ship. Others caught children tossed by distraught parents. Within minutes, all who could be saved, including the captain and several crew, were moved away from the burning hulk.
City Health Commissioner Darlington happened to be on the island that day, visiting the hospital. "I will never be able to forget the scene, the utter horror of it," he said. "The patients in the contagious wards, especially in the scarlet fever ward, went wild at things they saw from their windows and went screaming and beating at the doors until it took fifty nurses and doctors to quiet them. They were all locked up. Along the beach the boats were carrying in the living and dying and towing in the dead."
All told, 1,021 perished out of the original 1,358 who boarded the ship that morning. Most did not know how to swim, and the sawdust filled "life-vests" sank many of those fleeing the fire. Bodies washed up on the shores of the small channel islands of the East River.
But there were miracles. One little boy was thrown into the river in midstream clutching his stuffed toy dog. He was fished from the river unharmed, still clutching the prized dog.
Tales of heroism filled the newspaper accounts for days and weeks after the event.
A heroic captain ran his tug alongside the General Slocum in full exposure to the fire and saved over a hundred lives.
A measles patient from the island hospital ran into the water despite her fever and saved a few children.
A nurse who always wished she could swim ran into the river to grab some children, which she did again and again until she was swept into deeper water, where she discovered that she could swim and continued saving lives.
Still burning at its waterline, the General Slocum was carried off in the current for another thousand yards or so until it struck land at Hunts Point in the Bronx. It remained there, a burnt and partially sunken hull, for the next few weeks. Divers searched for bodies in its sunken remains. Police and rescue parties combed the riverbanks for miles in search of bodies.
The boats that followed seeking to offer assistance plucked a few survivors from the water. But mostly they found only the lifeless bodies of the ship's ill-fated passengers. The fact that most were young children only added to the horror.
Within minutes of the tragedy, reporters from the New York World and other major dailies were on the scene. The dispatches they sent back to their newsrooms sickened many a hardened editor. Rescue workers openly wept as the corpses piled up. By the time they were done counting the bodies and tabulating a list of the missing, the death toll stood at 1,021.
Nearly everyone in the neighborhood knew someone on the ship. As word of the fire spread, it caused panic and confusion. No one seemed to know where to go. Thousands gathered at St. Mark's Church awaiting word about survivors. Thousands more rushed uptown to the East 23rd Street pier designated as a temporary morgue. By mid-afternoon, those not yet reunited with their family members began to lose hope. Many discovered they had lost a wife or child. Dozens learned they had lost their entire families.
At the morgue policemen and Coroner's Department workers labored to lay out the hundreds of corpses as they arrived. Others were dispatched to scour the city for coffins. Wagons arrived laden with tons of ice for the preservation of the bodies. Outside hundreds of policemen strained to control the swelling crowds of relatives and friends, not to mention curiosity seekers, reporters, and undertakers.
The Times reported that on the night of June 14, 1904, "grief-crazed crowds" lined the shore where the bodies were being brought in by the boatload: "Scores were prevented from throwing themselves into the river."
For the next week, thousands paraded past the gruesome lineup of victims resting in open coffins. The better preserved were identified quickly. Some of the burned and disfigured were identified by their clothing or jewelry. The sixty-one that could not be identified ‒ including many of the bodies recovered days after the event — were buried in a common grave. Funerals were held every hour for days on end in the churches of Kleindeutschland. These tragic scenes were punctuated by the suicides of several men and women who lost their entire families in the fire.
Queens Police Ordered Out Large Force to Go to Lutheran Cemetery to Preserve Order
(Special to the Brooklyn Eagle, June 17, 1904)
All
the available policemen in Queens Borough, including those who are
entitled to the day off and such as are on vacation who can be reached
have been ordered to be present at Lutheran Cemetery, Middle Village,
tomorrow, when 200 funerals of victims of the Slocum disaster are to be
buried. The police are to be sent there to preserve order and prevent
attempts at robbery.The story of the General Slocum made headlines across the nation and around the globe. World leaders and European royalty sent money and letters of condolence to Mayor George B. McClellan and the people of St. Mark's. Funds poured in from private citizens and charitable groups from Rhode Island to California.
How could a tragedy of such magnitude occur within a few hundred yards of the shores of the nation's most modern city? In the weeks and months that followed the fire, an outraged public searched for answers and culprits. City officials vowed to conduct a thorough investigation and within weeks, Captain Van Schaick, executives of the Knickerbocker Steamboat Co., and the Inspector who certified the General Slocum as safe only a month before the fire were indicted.
Terrible weeks of recrimination, accusation, investigation, and trials followed the disaster. They addressed the reports of the rotten life jackets and fire hoses that burst under pressure. Some jackets were found to have been stuffed with metal to give them the regulation weight. The captain and crew were pilloried in the press, as were the ship's owners.
Captain Van Schaick came under the most intense scrutiny. Why had he failed to dock the ship immediately after discovering the fire? Why had he instead raced upriver and allowed the fire to claim more victims? Why was his crew so poorly trained? How was it that he survived when so many others perished?
At his trial Van Schaick offered explanations for his actions, but the jury was not convinced. He was convicted of criminal negligence and manslaughter and sentenced to ten years hard labor in the Sing Sing prison. He served three years before being pardoned by President William H. Taft. Free, he was a broken man- the horrible tragedy and subsequent legal action took their toll and he lived out his days in seclusion.
In contrast, the officials at the Knickerbocker Steamship Company got only a small fine, in spite of the fact that the trial revealed the company had illegally falsified records to cover up their lack of attention to passenger safety.
Kleindeutchland never recovered. The steady exodus of Germans to Yorkville had begun in the 1890s and now became a torrent. The German settlement moved uptown on the East Side overlooking the site of the disaster, and to Astoria in Queens. Seeking to escape painful memories, many moved away to outlying neighborhoods. By the time of the 1910 census, only a handful of German families remained in Kleindeutschland.
The General Slocum disaster brought about a major upgrading of steamboat safety regulations and a sweeping reform of the United States Steamboat Inspection Service (USSIS).
One week after the fire, President Theodore Roosevelt named a five-man commission to investigate the Slocum tragedy and recommend measures that would prevent an event like it from occurring again. The commission held hearings in New York and Washington, D. C. and took testimony from hundreds of witnesses and experts.
In October 1904 it issued a scathing report that placed most of the blame at the feet of the USSIS. Dozens were fired and a complete re-inspection of steamboats ordered. Not surprisingly, the new inspections turned up widespread safety problems, from useless lifejackets to rotten fire hoses. The result was a long list of recommended reforms, including requiring new steamboats be equipped with:
• fireproof metal bulkheads to contain fire
• steam pipes extended from the boiler into cargo areas (to act as a sprinkler)
• improved lifejackets (one for each passenger and crew member)
• fire hoses capable of handling 100 pounds of pressure per square inch
• accessible life boats
All were subsequently enacted, leading to dramatic improvements in steamboat safety.
The General Slocum disaster was the New York area's worst disaster in terms of loss of life until the September 11, 2001 attacks, and remains the worst maritime disaster in the city's history.
Remarkably, the Slocum tragedy rapidly faded from public memory, to the point that it was replaced as the city's GREAT fire just seven years later when the Triangle Shirtwaist factory burned. The onset of World War I eradicated sympathy for anything German, including the innocent victims of the General Slocum fire. By the 1920s, as the Triangle fire became firmly entrenched in the American memory, all that remained of the General Slocum fire was a small, annual commemoration at the Lutheran cemetery in Middle Village, Queens.
The General Slocum disaster memorial in Tompkins Square Park, Manhattan, New York City, which was once in Little Germany.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Anne Frank
If Anne Frank had survived, she would be 85 years old today. Her Diary, rescued after her family was discovered hiding in the Secret Annex, told the story of World War II and the destruction of the Jewish people as seen through the eyes of a teenager.
I first read her diary in grammar school, and revisited it as an adult. Each time, I am amazed at the persistence of her faith in people - in spite of all she endured, she believed in the good of people.
Happy Birthday!
Summer TV Part One
I remember summer as a kid- TV was all reruns all the time... and we had six channels.... And series ran from September to June solid...
Boy, how times have changed. Now we get new series popping up at any time of year, on hundreds of channels and "Network" TV is not the be all/end all of programming. We have mid season breaks, limited run series, and final seasons split over two years. We can DVR and skip commercials. OH THE JOY!
We have first run series during the summer. And I have my favorites...
Royal Pains came back for a new season on June 10th and I was not disappointed. Hank has traveled the world with Boris, Evan and Paige are closer than ever, and Divya has a precious baby girl. Boris has started to lose bone mass- a sign his family disease is symptomatic and Hank is still his go to medical MacGyver. Jeremiah is still mad for her, and now the baby, and we get to witness his presence at the birth of her daughter via crash c-section as a flashback. The baby's dad, Raffa is spoken of but not featured... We do meet Emma- we don't know if she is Hank's daughter, sister or what, that will be next week...
Graceland premiered on June 11and I love this bunch- even the new guy, "Bates" who took over Mike's room- it has the biggest turnover in the place. I am a little grossed out by Charlie and Paul Briggs... Mike and the hot Washington chick, whose name I already don't care about- MUCH HOTTER. But I liked the idea of him and Paige.... Johnny and Jakes are delighted to see him... Jakes delighted?!?
Mike is back because Briggs discovered a hit out on Mike- he thinks it is Caza- still pissed about Bello. Since Mike's smuggling investigation of the bus lines from Mexico has found nothing, it was shut down, so it was the perfect time for him to return to Graceland.
Of course the hit-men, who torture Mike, turn out to be from the folks from the busline that is smuggling stuff over the border... So the hot chick in DC gets Mike funded for eight weeks and his team- the Graceland folks... Looking forward to the journey...
And coming soon- on June 24th: Covert Affairs and Rizzoli & Isles...
Can't wait...
Boy, how times have changed. Now we get new series popping up at any time of year, on hundreds of channels and "Network" TV is not the be all/end all of programming. We have mid season breaks, limited run series, and final seasons split over two years. We can DVR and skip commercials. OH THE JOY!
We have first run series during the summer. And I have my favorites...
Royal Pains came back for a new season on June 10th and I was not disappointed. Hank has traveled the world with Boris, Evan and Paige are closer than ever, and Divya has a precious baby girl. Boris has started to lose bone mass- a sign his family disease is symptomatic and Hank is still his go to medical MacGyver. Jeremiah is still mad for her, and now the baby, and we get to witness his presence at the birth of her daughter via crash c-section as a flashback. The baby's dad, Raffa is spoken of but not featured... We do meet Emma- we don't know if she is Hank's daughter, sister or what, that will be next week...
Graceland premiered on June 11and I love this bunch- even the new guy, "Bates" who took over Mike's room- it has the biggest turnover in the place. I am a little grossed out by Charlie and Paul Briggs... Mike and the hot Washington chick, whose name I already don't care about- MUCH HOTTER. But I liked the idea of him and Paige.... Johnny and Jakes are delighted to see him... Jakes delighted?!?
Mike is back because Briggs discovered a hit out on Mike- he thinks it is Caza- still pissed about Bello. Since Mike's smuggling investigation of the bus lines from Mexico has found nothing, it was shut down, so it was the perfect time for him to return to Graceland.
Of course the hit-men, who torture Mike, turn out to be from the folks from the busline that is smuggling stuff over the border... So the hot chick in DC gets Mike funded for eight weeks and his team- the Graceland folks... Looking forward to the journey...
And coming soon- on June 24th: Covert Affairs and Rizzoli & Isles...
Can't wait...
Monday, June 9, 2014
Junior in Pocono
So how do you avoid a hat-trick? Tangle up on pit road... THANK GOD all the pit crew guys were okay when Ambrose and Jimmie got together... Scary moment, that...
Junior, taking advantage of an overheating Bad Brad, passed for the win, and all is right in Junior Nation.
On a side note- I did not find the TNT broadcast as annoying as last year... Insert happy face here.
Junior, taking advantage of an overheating Bad Brad, passed for the win, and all is right in Junior Nation.
On a side note- I did not find the TNT broadcast as annoying as last year... Insert happy face here.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Dover
Jimmie had back to back wins after Dover on Sunday.... And I missed it... the race ran over because of the pothole repair, so the last 30 laps did not record... insert sad face here...
Hat-trick anyone??
Hat-trick anyone??
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Florida update
On Monday, May 26th, I got word that Edy was in a serious car accident Sunday night. His car was hit and rolled, he was thrown... He was in surgery...
My heart stopped for a minute. Edy has been a part of my life for over 22 years... Milton had no information when I called him because he and Mirna, Edy's sister, were in Chicago on business. Their sons, Victor and Alex, were with Edy's wife, Vilma, and their two children, Luis and Diana.
I asked Liz if she wanted to go... but he was doing fine..
Edy did well in surgery and the segmental fracture of his tib-fib was repaired with two plates and four screws. He was awake and joking- Liz told me he was doing well according to Luis.
I relaxed and worked through the week, until I got a call from Liz on Thursday- Luis said Edy was much worse, needed surgery again, it was bad.
I checked in with Milton via text as he was in the ICU and could not take my call. Edy had a perforated bowel and had developed peritonitis and was now septic... They had to leave his abdomen open after his emergency surgery early in the morning... He was in critical condition.... the next 24 hours...
His last message terrified me, " It would be good if Liz can come"
Holy good mother of God... Edy might be dying...
There were no flights that night, not out of Cincinnati, not out of Dayton, not out of Louisville or Indianapolis. .. We would need to drive down, so I called Liz and told her to pack a bag. I called Connie to ask her to watch John, as he had two more days of school. I called my boss and for the first time, I felt my strength giving way to my terror. I described what was going on and Brett was amazing and kind. I called my friends in Florida to find a place to stay...
I have amazing friends who helped me in a hundred different ways. My cats were fed, my son was taken to school for his last few days, I had a bed to sleep in… I was surrounded by kindness.
I went home, took John to Connie, and Liz and I left our house at 6:45pm, heading south. I prayed Edy would still be alive when we got there. Drive time without stopping was nearly seventeen hours. I was a woman on a mission.
I drove through till 4am, stopping only once for gas. Liz took over and drove till just passed 6am... she suggested we sleep, but my fear motivated me to push on. I drove till 10:30 and then Liz did the final stretch to the hospital.
Milton and Luis met us in the lobby, and the kids went upstairs to the ICU waiting room while Milton filled me in. Mirthala, Edy’s mom and Olga, her sister, had come from Guatemala. Don Mario, Edy’s dad, could not bring himself to come and see his son in such a state. His brother Mario also stayed behind.
Edy remained the SICU in critical condition. He was in a medically induced coma. He has 6 fractured ribs, 3 hairline fractures in his pelvis, and a broken scapula in addition to his repaired tib-fib.... They will operate on him again in the morning but don't think they will be able to close him until the next surgery which would likely be Monday. And we discuss the worst case scenario… What would happen if the worst happens.
"Can I go in and see him?"
"Of course..."
Edy was swollen, both in his face and his arms and hands. His bowel repair is opened and being irrigated, he has nasal suction hooked up. He had greyed in the over ten years since I had last seen him. Milton only stayed with me briefly at the bedside... and then I sit with Edy, and I am overwhelmed. He has so much wrong with him. I am numb with grief and exhaustion and beg God for his life.
I whisper to him, begging him to fight... begging him to live.
Then I checked his machines and vital signs... the nurse in me objectively assessing... Pulse elevated in the 120s, BP stable, O2 sat at 97 on the vent with 50% O2... He was on medication to keep his BP up, has an arterial line, getting antibiotics via central line for sepsis, Fentanyl for pain, propofol to keep him under…
He was young... strong...
I meet Mirna in the hallway, and tell her what I saw when I was with him. She asks me, simply, if it is possible for Edy to live. I tell her he will need more surgery... it will be a long recovery... but yes- I believe he can live. We embrace and she cries.
And I pray he does live. I just can't imagine my life without him as a part of it.
I leave Liz with her family and crash with my friends, sleeping at long last till Mirna calls me late in the night to ask about the nasal drain.
How hard this all is when you are not medical... How scary...
I am asleep again in moments and sleep till morning. I check in when I get up- surgery went so well that they were able to close his abdomen... He was back in the SICU. I return to the hospital and Mirna asks me to sit with him- she does not want him to be alone but is too emotional to stay in the room. It is too frightening for her.
Sitting beside him, my hand over his swollen hand, I am numb, exhausted, and still afraid. The nurse, Lee, updates me. Edy has pneumonia- the antibiotics he is already on will cover him, but it is a complication- more work for his body to do to heal. They have started him on Lasix to reduce his swelling and potassium to keep his electrolytes balanced as they pull off all that fluid. He is unchanged. Every day he is unchanged is a day he is not worse. Lee points out that if he remains stable he could be extubated Monday.
Please God, when you answer my prayer, please say he can live...
I sit with Mirna and Milton and give them the update. We talk about the last time I was in Florida with all of them- could it really be 11 years ago?
I get to know Edy’s children. They are such good kind young adults. They have exams and are studying and Liz helps them- they are family and it is lovely to see.
Vilma asks me to go back to explain what one of the bells was. It is his Propofol and it is out. I mention to Lee, his nurse, that the propofol is out- she can’t get the pump to run as it senses the air in the line and goes to get a flush, but Edy is waking up and is afraid/confused- Vilma whispers to him but he is coming off the bed and pulling on his restraints, his blood pressure soaring. I stand beside Vilma, I tell him where he is, what is going on and order him not to pull and struggle, that he has a tube in to help him breathe and a big wound on his belly… I am loud, direct, firm and he hears me, I am sure, and finally a bolus of propofol settles him down. Lee thanks me for helping out and I head back to the waiting area.
His strength is a good thing, I remind myself. I update the family and Milton and I start talking about the last time I was in Saltan- 1998. How I was there for nearly three weeks but never met Vilma… How all the men thought I was there to be with Edy… The kids came in as I was telling the story of Edy not wanting to tell Liz she couldn’t ride the cow like her Uncle Mario… And about when I lived in Saltan as a Peace Corps Volunteer... how I was not supposed to visit Quiche as a volunteer and didn’t know Pachalum was in Quiche… All the old stories…
Luis was surprised- he thought I knew Edy from here in the US, but I reminded him- his dad was already married when he came here. That Liz was older than him. How I had met him as a baby…
Later I went back in to see Edy and the rehab doctor said Edy would likely be unable to weight bear on his left leg for three to four months- but Respiratory gave us some good news- if Edy’s vitals stayed good overnight and he continued to take breaths above what the vent was doing, they could try to extubate him the next day.
It was a long day and I was ready to sleep when I got back to my room.
Sunday came and I was back at the hospital- As it was the weekend, we were unsure when they would try to extubate Edy, and I warned Mirna and Milton that it could be hard to watch, so Vilma, who had stayed overnight, along with Victor, went home to rest and I promised to be at bedside for the CPAP test.
Lightening the sedation, Edy was responsive and okay for the first half hour, and acknowledged me and indicated he wanted to see Vilma. The test was going well- he was breathing on his own.
But as they stopped his pain meds as well, he became increasingly agitated. He wanted the tube out and was in tremendous pain. I kept reminding him it would only be a little longer…
It was horrible to watch…
The pain became too much and even with me there to calm him, his pulse and blood pressure soared, and his nurse Bridget had to restart the sedation and turn the ventilator on again. I asked her how long they would wait before traching him…
“5 to 7 days. They don’t wait too long here.”
It was already day 4.
It was the first time since my arrival that I felt true despair. After telling the family they would try again the next day, I tried to get the trach out of my mind. When I got back to my room, I laid down and cried out the tears I had swallowed all day long.
Monday is Diana’s birthday- her quinceañera- she is 15. The family will have cake at the house, and come later in the day. Vilma and I will be at Edy’s side for the test, and Mirna and Mirthala wait in the waiting area.
The CPAP test is different today. Lee, his nurse, continued his pain meds, and it made all the difference. That and Vilma, holding his gaze. The extubation is as smooth as I have ever seen- night and day compared to yesterday. The arterial line is also removed and he is put on a nasal cannula.
He looks from me to Vilma, back to me, and again to Vilma- I smile and tell him I have met his wife, that we are now good friends. I ask if I should leave and he shakes his head no. Vilma then asks if he wants to be alone with me, and again he shakes his head no.
“Hombres son asi” I tell Vilma, and Edy shakes his head annoyed, to indicate I am wrong. I remind him to try and cough and tell Vilma I will let the others know the tube is out.
When I tell Mirna, together we cry- What a gift for Diana! Mirthala joins us and I urge her to go see her son, as Mirna and I let everyone know the tube is finally out.
His first words, “Tengo hambre”
I have never known him to miss a meal, God love him!
I am at Edy’s bedside the next day sneaking him small sips of water- he is still NPO but has the nasal drain so I feel okay breaking the rule- it will only suck out any water he swallows anyway. The Orthopedic surgeon comes to check on Edy, and I ask about 3 months of no weight bearing- he tells me that while he will not be able to walk without assistance for three months, he will absolutely weight-bear, the sooner the better. Edy is ready to get up right then, but I tell him he needs to wait for the PT order.
Such amazing good news. Such a good day. And for the first time since the Wednesday night he went septic, everyone went home to sleep.
On Wednesday, Mirna, Vilma and I leave the hospital to go out and have amazing Cuban food. I am leaving in the morning and they thank me. When we are alone, Vilma confides that she did not know me in Saltan because the people talk about everything, and I tell her I understand. We talk about Glenda- she did not know Glenda and Edy were novios before he met me. She confides that she thinks Glenda messaged Edy’s phone- it was an unknown NY number… I tell her she should message back that he died, and together we laugh.
I say goodbye to Olga and Mirthala, and go in to Edy to say goodbye. I tell him to listen to the nurses and do what the doctors say. To take care of his high blood pressure and his diabetes… He promises. I tell him I will miss him…
Liz is staying for the next week. She will keep me posted. I head for home, grateful for my miracle. God is good.
33 years ago today
In the June 5 1981 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
(MMWR), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a rare form of pneumonia in five gay men
Michael Gottlieb, MD, a physician and immunologist, was the lead author of this first public account identifying AIDS, and the date is now regarded as the beginning of the epidemic.
In his words, Gottlieb said:
In January 1981, I was asked to see a patient for an immunology consultation in my Los Angeles practice. He was a 31-year-old gay man with a fever and weight loss. He also turned out to have Pneumocystis pneumonia. He had almost no CD4 cells. I’d never seen anything like his case before.
Word trickled out into the medical community that I was seeing this patient. Colleagues referred three more patients who were essentially carbon copies. Now we had four men and were convinced that this was something that would become more common.
We contacted the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, who advised talking to the CDC. The individual assigned from the CDC to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health was unaware of anything unusual in the local gay male population. He checked with the CDC, and they were not aware of anything nationally.
At that point they invited us to write the MMWR report, which was titled “Pneumocystis Pneumonia—Los Angeles.” Doctors all over the country started telling me about additional cases and asking for advice about how to manage them..
AIDS enters the lexicon in 1982...
In 1983, Pasteur Institute researchers Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi isolate a virus from the swollen lymph gland of an AIDS patient. They called it lymphadenopathy-associated virus or LAV. (In 2008, the Nobel Prize in Medicine recognizes this huge achievement)
In 1985, the first HIV test licensed; blood banks begin screening donations.
By 1986, everybody agrees to call the virus HIV: human immunodeficiency virus.
As time passed, treatments developed so that the killer disease had real care options, but make no mistake- HIV/AIDS is the epidemic of my lifetime... the plague that still infects and kills.
Learn more about the history of HIV/AIDS. Learn how to protect yourself...
Timeline info
Michael Gottlieb, MD, a physician and immunologist, was the lead author of this first public account identifying AIDS, and the date is now regarded as the beginning of the epidemic.
In his words, Gottlieb said:
In January 1981, I was asked to see a patient for an immunology consultation in my Los Angeles practice. He was a 31-year-old gay man with a fever and weight loss. He also turned out to have Pneumocystis pneumonia. He had almost no CD4 cells. I’d never seen anything like his case before.
Word trickled out into the medical community that I was seeing this patient. Colleagues referred three more patients who were essentially carbon copies. Now we had four men and were convinced that this was something that would become more common.
We contacted the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, who advised talking to the CDC. The individual assigned from the CDC to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health was unaware of anything unusual in the local gay male population. He checked with the CDC, and they were not aware of anything nationally.
At that point they invited us to write the MMWR report, which was titled “Pneumocystis Pneumonia—Los Angeles.” Doctors all over the country started telling me about additional cases and asking for advice about how to manage them..
AIDS enters the lexicon in 1982...
In 1983, Pasteur Institute researchers Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi isolate a virus from the swollen lymph gland of an AIDS patient. They called it lymphadenopathy-associated virus or LAV. (In 2008, the Nobel Prize in Medicine recognizes this huge achievement)
In 1985, the first HIV test licensed; blood banks begin screening donations.
By 1986, everybody agrees to call the virus HIV: human immunodeficiency virus.
As time passed, treatments developed so that the killer disease had real care options, but make no mistake- HIV/AIDS is the epidemic of my lifetime... the plague that still infects and kills.
Learn more about the history of HIV/AIDS. Learn how to protect yourself...
Timeline info
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)