Kevin Ehlen
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Kevin Ehlen
@kevin-ehlen.bsky.social
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Reposted by Kevin Ehlen
folktunes.bsky.social
This one's maybe a little on the ling side, but trust me, it's worth it. I've cried reading it multiple times.

(1/3)
mylordshesacactus Carpathia received Titanic's distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours. (Californian's exact position at the time is... controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic's distress rockets. It's uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.) Carpathia's Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic's aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it. All of Carpathia's lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once. I don't know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope. Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake-prepping a ship for disaster relief isn't quiet-and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets. And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support. Here's the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms-which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she'd done that, he asked her to go faster. I need you to understand that you simply can't push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless-it's difficult to maneuver-but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can't do it. It can't be done. Carpathia's absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can't-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half. No one would have asked this of them. It wasn't expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.
September 11, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Reposted by Kevin Ehlen
pixelneighbor.bsky.social
Gamecube Controller #lowpoly #pixelart
June 13, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Reposted by Kevin Ehlen
equalityalec.bsky.social
Last night’s article in the Washington Post about D.C. police responding to a 911 call by illegally letting DOGE onto private property is unlike any news story I have ever read. Every single person should read this article and think about where our society is going.
March 19, 2025 at 2:53 PM