Friday, May 12, 2006

The "Freedom of the Seas"

Could it be nothing but coincidence, I wonder, Bush, that the new spectacular disaster movie "Poseidon" is released to oceans of publicity on the same day as the big media hoohah around the naming of the newest and biggest and grandest and most luxurious of all ocean liners, the "Freedom of the Seas"? The ship weighs as much as 32,000 elephants we learned on the "Today Show," along with other essential statistics. Three times as long as the "Titanic!" Her full complement is 4,375 passengers (we call them "guests" these days) and 1,360 crew. She does look horribly top-heavy to my inexpert eye, I have to say, and a frighteningly juicy target for one of those gigantic rogue waves that wander inexplicably around the oceans of the Earth.

Then I begin to wonder about "Poseidon" as a metaphor for the bubble of luxury we have been living in--those of us, at least, with the excellent good fortune to have been born with the right parents, in the right place, at the right time. I wonder about the fictional disaster as a metaphor for the future of our planet...

Anyway, listen, Bush, enough of that! Talk about glitz and glamor, though. It's all there, as we saw on the "Today Show." Katie and Matt and Al and Melanie all got to play. In the surf-riding machine, the swimming pool, on the bridge with the captain... Katie steered the boat and blew the fog horn. All aboard the "Freedom of the Seas." Freedom, anyone? Luxury--for those who can afford it?

Ah, and in the background, the Lady Liberty draped in an impenetrable shroud of fog. Another metaphor, Bush? More coincidence, in the light of new revelations about your rude incursions into the freedoms of your fellow-countrymen? Or could it all be some mighty joke on the part of the Almighty?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Two good film tips: on history and man's folly, Munich.
And a brilliantly realistic look at what must have been when the English landed in Vriginia. The real John Smith and indian princess, Pocohantas? The New World. A beautiful and thoughtful film.
DVD notes show the trouble they went to make the characters, locations, and costumes authentic. As a kid in Ohio, I tromped the beautiful woods finding arrow heads and dreaming of this way of life.
Then later, I learned of the folly part and the baggage we inherited from our European relatives.
The subject of this site is a good example of that baggage. A dreary, tiresome waste, this president thing. I'd like to go back to tromping the woods and collecting arrowheads.

Anonymous said...

Well Peter, it is said there are no coincidences:).