Titanic: 99 years of morbid fascination.

In the wee hours of the morning on April 15th, 1912, 99 years old today, the Titanic sank into the Atlantic, taking with it 1,517 people, due to insufficient lifeboats and a whole bunch of other incompentencies. And people can't stop talking about it.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with loving the movie, or going to a museum expo of stuff brought up from the wreck, getting lost on wikipedia looking up survivors and victims for several hours, or occasionally getting sucked into a History Channel marathon of Titanic-themed programming.

However, Titanic interest can be taken too far. Like the 100th Anniversary Titanic Cruise. The cruise, which sold out last October, will take place next year, reaching the place where the Titanic Sank on April 14th before continuing on to Halifax, where there's an excursion planned to the cemetary where the recovered bodies were buried. According to a press release:

"The Balmoral will trace the same route the Titanic took from Southampton to New York in 1912 and the ship will sail with 1,309 paying passengers, exactly the same number that sailed on the Titanic. The restaurants will offer the same menu, and the passengers will hear music of the time of the Titanic. The passengers will have an opportunity to listen to lectures about the Titanic era and those who shared its fate. "

This super morbid, totally sold out, with a very long waiting list cruise is doing some good, they've joined with a charity that is benefiting from the profits as well.

In other, related, vaugely depressing news, while researching this I saw an article claiming that the Titanic wreck still on the ocean floor will be destroyed by bacteria by 2017.

My heart will go on long after the Titanic has turned into the underwater version of dust,

-av

p.s. also, while Lincoln was shot the night before, he didn't actually die until the next morning, so Abraham Lincoln has the same death day as the Titanic, April 15th.