MooPig's Trend Spotter Department :: "Cruise Ships"

Figuring Out the Odds
Retrieved by Pat Darnell  |  Jan 26, 2014  |  Bryan TX

[Picture LINK] Troubles at sea ...

Why would anyone haul their favorite vacation clothes and baggage aboard a Cruise Ship that has 3,000 others milling about, with all their baggage on board? What is the draw to these tugs? My Dad was in the Navy, WWII, on a Destroyer in the Pacific, and all he ever thought about while out there was "When do I get to go home?"

US officials probe illnesses on Caribbean cruise: "KINGSTON, Jamaica — U.S. health officials will board a cruise ship docked in the U.S. Virgin Islands to investigate an illness outbreak that has stricken at least 300 people with gastrointestinal symptoms including vomiting and diarrhea, a cruise company spokeswoman said Sunday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, CDC, and Prevention has said that 281, or nearly 10 percent, of the 3,050 passengers aboard Royal Caribbean International's Explorer of the Seas have reported getting sick. Twenty-two crew members have also reported feeling ill."

'via Blog this'

Here's a list of 51 Super-size Ocean-liner Cruise ships LINK. Here's a list of Cruise Lines LINK. We know you can look up Wikki stuff, but the staggering reality is that a few illnesses on one ship is only a smidgen of a problem to International Cruise Lines ships that number in the hundreds.

The Explorer of the Sea mentioned above can accommodate 3,117 "guests" with two people per room. This information from 2011 is not available on the Royal Caribbean Press Center Web-site HERE, today.

So what are the odds of getting sea-sick, ill, injured, raped, lost, or killed on a modern cruise ship today? Christopher Elliott on November 6th, 2010 said: " ...The cruise industry contends a trip on the high seas is safer than a drive to the airport and a stay at a hotel. But just how safe is it?... "

Cruise Junkie reports this bit on its web-site "Cruise and Ferry Passengers and Crew Overboard 1995 - 2014": "Number missing [persons] in past 5 years (2009 - 2013) = 113 (average = 22.6 per year)..." HERE.

"... Stay in your cabin and order room service for the duration of your cruise, and short of your ship sinking, you’ll probably be just fine.

But stay up all night drinking, do your “I’m-the-king-of-the-world” impression from the bow of the ship, and take the unauthorized shore excursion to the slums — well, maybe not (ibid. Christopher Elliott. November 6th, 2010) ..."

In the same article, concerning rape at sea: "... as cruise expert Ross A. Klein testified before a Senate hearing in 2008, the rate of sexual assault on cruise ships is almost twice the U.S. rate of forcible rape — about 56.9 per 100,000. “It is common knowledge in our field that cruise ships are flat-out dangerous for women,” said Amelia Stinson-Wesley, the former executive director of a battered women’s shelter and rape crisis center. “Not as dangerous as countries at war where rape is used as a weapon of war, but more dangerous than even a college campus and certainly more dangerous than the general population of most cities in the United States..."

I'll never forget when I was ten years old and Dad took us all to Acapulco, Mexico, when I got the Touristas, gastrointestinal bug. The CDC reports HERE the cause of gastrointestinal disorders for passengers aboard cruise ships.

LiveLeaks shares on its Web-site HERE some video of large waves out there on the Ocean. Passenger falls from the gangplank HERE.

CONCLUSION
At first we thought we could figure out the odds of passengers getting into trouble on a cruise in today's mega-tonnage multi-decked Ocean Liners. Figuring those odds will require much more study. In the Summer of 2010, " ...President Obama signed the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act, which requires cruise lines to report all deaths, missing persons, theft, sexual harassment and assaults. However, the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t yet published the data and did not offer a timeline for its release...."

The editors in MooPig's Trend Spotter Department all agree; since JFK and Jackie and all their entourage always vacationed near the sea, Americans will trend and copy that royal couples's extended period of recreational behavior, buying cruise tickets en-masse.

Call us if you think differently at ASWC ; ...  http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Ask+Someone+Who+Cares ...

In summary [M]arine paneling said...

"...Ships can last for many years and they can travel to different seas, as long as they are carefully maintained and regularly checked. Big sea vessels can carry heavy equipment as well as many passengers, and to experience tragedy such as sinking is really unfortunate. The number of sinking ships is very alarming and we hope that such tragic events will be prevented. (July 12, 2012. LINK and  LINK )... "

__________________Reference
http://news.msn.com/us/us-officials-probe-illnesses-on-caribbean-cruise#tscptmf
http://moopigwisdom.blogspot.com/2012/11/moopig-report-from-middle-demographics.html
http://moopigwisdom.blogspot.com/2012/01/moopigs-trend-spotter-department-lots.html
http://moopigwisdom.blogspot.com/2012/01/moopigs-trend-spotter-department-cruise.html
http://www.pvgglobal.com/
http://moopigwisdom.blogspot.com/2012/01/moopigs-vacation-like-kennedy-taking.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_world's_largest_cruise_ships
http://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/downloadFS.php/?id=19
http://elliott.org/the-travel-critic/how-safe-is-a-cruise/
http://www.cruisejunkie.com/Overboard.html
http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/surv/gilist.htm#2010
http://www.shipcruise.org/cruise-ship-passenger-capacity-ratings/
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=975_1283799588
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Ask+Someone+Who+Cares
http://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2013/09/04/royal-caribbean-bans-smoking-balconies
http://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2014/01/24/another-royal-caribbean-ship-experiencing-norovirus-outbreak
http://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/

MooPig's Vacation like a Kennedy :: "Taking a Cruise?"

Retrieved by Pat Darnell  |  Jan 14, 2012  |  Bryan TX

[PHOTO LINK]

Until 2001, I had been thinking how nice to one day take my better half on a cruise for our anniversary. The Twin Towers disasters of 911, the piracy of late, and ... well ... uncertainty a major factor in this dream; I have dread of ever going on a cruise. Behold, a cruise ship runs aground, falls on its side.

Think about it, high seas adventures are death sentences today. I would buy a Time Share rather than buy a berth on a modern cruise ship! That's not saying much.

breaking news - national news - world news - azcentral.com: "Three bodies were recovered from the sea after the Costa Concordia with 4,234 people aboard ran aground hundreds of yards (meters) off the tiny island of Giglio near the coast of Tuscany late Friday, tearing a 160-foot (50-meter) gash in its hull and sending in a rush of water." (NICOLE WINFIELD and FRANCES D'EMILIO. Jan 14, 2012. Associated Press) ... "

'via Blog this'

EXCERPT " ... She choked up as she recounted the moment when an Argentine couple handed her their 3-year-old daughter, unable to keep their balance as the ship lurched to the side and the family found themselves standing on a wall. "He said 'take my baby,'" Mrs. Ananias said, covering her mouth with her hand as she teared up. "I grabbed the baby. But then I was being pushed down. I didn't want the baby to fall down the stairs. I gave the baby back. I couldn't hold her.

"I thought that was the end and I thought they should be with their baby," she said.

"I wonder where they are," daughter Valerie whispered. ... "

________________________Reference
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_CRUISE_AGROUND?SITE=AZPHG&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://www.whiotv.com/ap/ap/top-news/coast-guard-ship-aground-off-italy-bodies-found/pMkqS/
http://surftweeters.com/titanic-like-scene-passengers-recount-panic-on-cruise-ship-that-ran-aground-off-italy/

Part 5: Vacationing like the Kennedy's -- Staycation

It is highly possible that the Fitzgerald/Kennedy family union should have stayed home, like a Staycation. I think the public appearances did no more than give loathsome murderers target practice.

Marriage and children -- Look at this line up of misery -- 9 children... three living, two died of "natural conditions." Four died of unnatural and suspicious circumstances.

On October 7, 1914 Rose married Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. after a courtship of more than seven years. They first lived in a home in Brookline that is now the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site. Rose and Joseph had the following nine children:

Name	Birth	Death	Achievements	Marriage	Cause of death
Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr.	July 25, 1915	August 12, 1944	United States Navy aviator		Naval airplane crash on August 12, 1944 over the English Channel
John Fitzgerald Kennedy	May 29, 1917	November 22, 1963	United States Representative (1947-1953) United States Senator (1953-1960) President of the United States (1961-1963)	September 12, 1953 to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier.	Assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas
Rosemary Kennedy	September 3, 1918	January 7, 2005	Underwent a lobotomy in 1941 which left her incapacitated; she was institutionalized from 1949 until her death.		Natural causes
Kathleen Agnes Kennedy	February 20, 1920	May 13, 1948	Marchioness of Hartington	Married on May 6, 1944 to William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington.	Airplane crash over Sainte-Bauzille, Ardèche, France.
Eunice Mary Kennedy	July 10, 1921		Founder of Special Olympics	Married on May 23, 1953 to Robert Sargent Shriver.
Patricia Kennedy	May 6, 1924	September 17, 2006		Married on April 24, 1954 to British actor Peter Lawford; divorced in 1966.	Complications from pneumonia
Robert Francis Kennedy	November 20, 1925	June 6, 1968	United States Attorney General (1961-1964), United States Senator (1965-1968)	Married on June 17, 1950 to Ethel Skakel	Assassinated on June 5, 1968 in Los Angeles, California.
Jean Ann Kennedy	February 20, 1928		United States Ambassador to Ireland (1993-1998)	Married on May 19, 1956 to Stephen Edward Smith.
Edward Moore Kennedy	February 22, 1932		United States Senator (1962-present)	Married on November 29, 1958 to Joan Bennett; divorced on December 6, 1982. Remarried in 1992 to Victoria Reggie.

Rose was predeceased by her husband, Joseph, in 1969, and four of her nine children: Joseph Jr. in 1944, Kathleen in 1948, John F. in 1963 and Robert in 1968. Just eight months after John F. was assassinated, Rose's mother, Mary, died at the age of 98.

Rosemary Kennedy died on January 7, 2005 at the age of 86 and Patricia Kennedy Lawford died on September 17, 2006 at the age of 82, both from natural causes. As of April 2008, only three children are still living: 86-year old Eunice Kennedy Shriver, 80-year old Jean Kennedy Smith and 76-year-old Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy.

The word for May 23 is staycation

A vacation that is spent at one's home enjoying all that home and one's home environs have to offer.

Even though I live and work in New York, I don't always get to enjoy all it has to offer, what with my work commitments, but I sure did have an awesome time here during my spring staycation.

• Check out the new Mo' Urban Dictionary,
• multislacking: doing multiple slackeresque things concurrently
• workahol: what workaholics are addicted to
• foreploy: misrepresenting yourself on a date in hopes of getting lucky

PART 2 -- Vacationing Like the Kennedy's -- Genicide is Nemisis to Genesis...

Second Installment in why it sucks to be a Kennedy !!

Some force with long memory is after the Kennedy's, to actually eliminate their genetic lineage. Clans feuding? I don't know, but the pieces are all in the box.

Is it Howard Stern; excerpts from the Queen of Eye-liner Talk Shows... HS MA, for critical article review.
(Stern, Howard. 1995; Miss America, first edition, Regan Books: Harper Collins Publisher Inc., 10 East 53rd st. NY, NY, 10022.)

Click on the pages which are ".jpeg" and look at them in separate screens if you want bigger print.

The pages are reprinted to try and goad Howard Stern's bombast out so I can read him the riot act !!

UPDATE: Vacationing Like the Kennedy's

If you have been taught only to focus on the assasination of JFK, you might want to revise your historical perspective !! There is a much bigger picture that like a jigsaw puzzle might take a lifetime to understand.

The key to this Regime lies somewhere in this mysterious dissapperance in WWII:
"Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., the man who would be president. His father dreamed of the day when he would become the first Irish Catholic President of the United States. In 1944 he signed on for a second tour and in July volunteered for a special attack unit secret mission to knock out Hitler's V-1 rockets.
"Project Anvil involved using explosive-filled bombers which were piloted part way to their target, and after the pilot bailed out, were then guided by radio control to smash into German submarine pens or rocket-launching sites. On August 12, Joe Kennedy's plane exploded shortly after takeoff, killing him and his co-pilot instantly. Project Anvil was so secret the Kennedy family was told few details."

...and in the news yesterday the hospital visit by Teddy Kennedy:

"Kennedy is the last son from his generation of a famed political family. When older brother John F. Kennedy won the presidency in 1960, Ted Kennedy stepped into his Senate seat, and has held it since.

Sen. Kennedy Recovers After Seizure
By GLEN JOHNSON,
Posted: 2008-05-17 19:47:11

In this photo from 1960, Ted Kennedy is seated to the right; brothers John and Robert are standing, center.

In the Kennedy's youth is a unique relationship of sons and fathers, mothers and daughters.

For instance Fathers of the sixties have a unique tool called "master plan."

Let me explain. JFK was elected for reasons set in motion by his wondrous Dad, many years before Jack was even walking. Joseph Kennedy had a "master plan" on his children, and it came to pass.

It so influenced the nation of post WWII working class, I found myself part of that "Kennedy Master Plan." Happily it was not one of those "mein Kampf" plans, rather a plan of free-thinking and free association to the ideal of USA all the Way! It was party time, I believe; our fathers' responses to interruption of their youths, lives mucked up by dipshit Hitler brought on with his boyscout bullshit...

Photo: I remember my and all my friends' dads thought they were only two situps from dating this woman------}

What a sad lot we are: I am not complaining, and not whining: I am here to report on the long term result of Kennedy regime.

Every politician has compared himself and herself shamelessly to JFK every since the Jackie Lee Bouvier days.

Yes even Nixon said: "I'm not a crook... " could be a throw back to Joe Kennedy's rum runner days.. who might have said 'I'm not a crook' as well while his master planned kingdom developed in the first part of last century.

Was Joseph Kennedy really a Rum Runner?

"Joseph Kennedy, son of Irish Catholic immigrants and patriarch of the infamous Kennedy family was a client of Rocco Perri’s.

(retrieved from 100 Years of Wooden Glory - The Rum Runners Lavida Lifestyle - September 2007 )

"Joseph Kennedy, who was most recognizable as the father of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, became affectionately known as a “Baptist Bootlegger”.

"By the mid 1920’s the Volstead Act was being reviewed by his allies in the American Government with a view to repealing it, but Kennedy was making so much money while prohibition was in existence, that he secretly aligned himself with Temperance Movement supporters in an effort to keep prohibition in place.

"With a certain degree of control at that point and insider information during the prohibition period, he positioned himself as the sole import agent of several brands of alcohol, purchasing millions of dollars worth of stock. The day prohibition ended in 1933 his company re-sold the stock legally making tens of millions of dollars of profit.

"While subversively controlling the distribution of illegal alcohol during prohibition, Kennedy disguised his activities as the legitimate owner of an investment firm, trading in the largely unregulated stock market.

"In what would be considered highly illegal by today’s governance of the stock exchange, Joseph Kennedy manipulated the stock values of companies in cooperation with a pool of investors up or down depending on the position of the pool at the time.

"In 1928 Kennedy pulled hundreds of millions of dollars out of the markets just prior to the market crash of 1929 and then subsequently made a secondary fortune on his short positions.

"In the early 1930’s Joseph Kennedy funded the election of President Theodore Roosevelt who made him Chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission, closing the door behind him to anyone else intent on amassing a fortune in illegal trading practices.

In the long term Roosevelt helped groom Joseph’s eldest son Robert Kennedy for the White House job, until his assassination on the campaign trail some time after. Later, Joseph Kennedy would live the Presidency vicariously through his second son John F. Kennedy who was elected in 1961 and subsequently assassinated in 1963." (retrieved from 100 Years of Wooden Glory - The Rum Runners Lavida Lifestyle - September 2007 )

"With the significant connections Rocco Perri and Bessie Starkman had made from the eastern seaboard of the United States through to the mid-west, the trafficking of heroin and morphine ran alongside the sale of illegal alcohol through an established network in all major U.S. cities." ( Lavida Lifestyle - September 2007 )

Summary [sort of]

Okay, so the last of the Catholic cowboy Kennedy's is up for health and prosperity review. Poor Edward Kennedy is having to unbutton his button-down collar to allow some blood to get to his head.

"Hey, Teddy, I know what it's like," says MooPig, who can't button anything anymore.

Besides his dip in the icy waters, his legacy might be: "No one tried to kill me, yet" oldest legislator in House, second only to some unknown Senator. [Gee I hope it's not McCain they're saying is older.]

I know it is low to pick on a man when he is down, but that doesn't stop Randy Couture. Tonight I feel like a little ground and pound; as I know pundits are reading my stuff, because it keeps showing up on talk shows. So you guys too, I want to ground and pound... some day. We have a date in the Octagon, eh, Pundits?

Now in hopes my own Dad does not take too much issue, I remember at 8 years old I knew I was psychic. You see my dear Dad was so in tune with JFK that I too knew the exact moment JFK was killed. I stood up in Mrs Bickman's 3rd grade class and said: "Did the President get killed?" She hustled me out in the hall, and said, "How do you know that?"

In conclusion today: Potato Famine; Rum Running; Vacationing

Here is the "Master Plan" as it is understood by me -- "Work hard all year, and take a well earned vacation with your family, that involves kid's athletic prowess: Revelation !!"

Because tomorrow might bring another potato famine, and our service-based work-force might have to learn to use its hands.

I truly believe we live in the past in "goddamn the USA," [Rev Wright, 2008] as direct response to the bad times spanning 1840 to 1940 --

"Beginning in 1845 and lasting for six years, the potato famine killed over a million men, women and children in Ireland and caused another million to flee the country.

"Ireland in the mid-1800s was an agricultural nation, populated by eight million persons who were among the poorest people in the Western World. Only about a quarter of the population could read and write. Life expectancy was short, just 40 years for men. The Irish married quite young, girls at 16, boys at 17 or 18, and tended to have large families, although infant mortality was also quite high." (Retrieved 17/May/08: from History Place)

Therefore, if your old man's master plan is in its third level of completion -- after fleeing the potato famine, and making illicit millions of dollars -- you too can Vacation Like the Kennedy's !!!

...But be careful you might become target practice for some unforgiving clansmen with long memories and no written history.