Istrian stone villages often look timeless ? a slice of history, frozen in time. Any modern buildings appear intrusive, at odds with an otherwise historic atmosphere. When we bought our property in Kovaci, we soon discovered this is an overly romantic view. As Valter, the property?s previous owner, explained, these villages have rarely been ?frozen? in time: they?ve been constantly changing, evolving to meet their population?s needs.
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Kovaci is part of Ka?telir, a large village about 10 km north of Porec and 10 km inland from the sea, and it?s not an ancient settlement. The people originally came from the Mirna valley: when their village was decimated by the plague in the seventeenth century, the villagers moved to Ka?telir, hoping to escape infection. This type of relocation happened all over Istria, the most famous case being the abandonment of Dvigrad (near Rovinj), a major settlement since Roman times, and the establishment of Kanfanar.
In Ka?telir, the Kovac family ? the village?s blacksmiths ? settled in the west of the village and the area became known as Kovaci or ?the blacksmiths? district? (Kovac is Croatian for blacksmith and ?i? is the plural). Most of the forges have long since gone (one metal worker still remains, making traditional railings for balconies, pergolas and fences), but the population hasn?t greatly changed. Today, many of the people living here are still related, having a Kovac somewhere in their family tree: for example, Valter?s mother was a Kovac and his grandfather, Mate Kovac, owned a large farmstead in Kovaci, which included our house.
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An evolving site
Owned by the Kovac family since the village was founded, the farmstead sprawled across the hillside. As the family increased, more and more buildings appeared ? sons and daughters grew up, married and needed homes to start families. Often these started as animal barns: the young couple moved in above and, when the family grew, the animals moved out; the building became a home and the cycle started again.
Our house was a classic example. Now one in a terrace, the house initially formed part of a multi-purpose dwelling built in the 1860s to house both livestock and people. There were two houses and, looking at the lower stonework, it?s likely it incorporated an older animal stall. As was usual at the time, the animals lived on the ground-floor and the people above. Before long, there wasn?t room for everyone so a new barn was built on the hill above and the animals re-homed.
Horrendous red-brick extension is a modern addition
To the left of our semi-detached house was another semi ? just 4 m away. At some stage a small ?fill-in? was constructed, linking the two buildings. Probably built for livestock with a hay barn above, it soon became a home too, creating what you see today ? a terrace of five houses. In front of the terrace, another free-standing barn was built, probably in the 1930s. Soon after that, another small house was built against it, where Valter?s mother was born.
At this point (the 1930s), the Kovac family was large and relatively prosperous, with four brothers and three sisters ? all needing homes for their families. According to Valter, they were hard working farmers and good builders, who invested their earnings in bricks and mortar, with each brother building a large home for his family. Development expanded up the hill and much of the building in upper Kovaci dates from the 1930s and 40s. In my opinion, the most attractive of these is the home built by Mate, Valter?s grandfather. As well as being a farmer, he was also a renowned stone mason, who built many of the stone houses in Ka?telir, and I suspect had a hand in the excellent stonework of our barn.
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Dividing walls
As the buildings became family homes, walls appeared dividing the farmstead into individual plots. At some stage, a farm track ran through the middle of the farm, down the hill, in front of our house and joined the lower road next to the barn. All signs of this are long gone, and a wall and water cistern now lie across its path.
A wall went up when our building was divided between two siblings: one getting the plot above the house (now Fiore?s land) and another the lower. A second wall with lean-tos built either side appeared when the lower plot was again split, into the two properties you see today.
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Across Istria
What happened in our small part of Kovaci is typical of village development across Istria. As families grew and generations passed, farms turned into villages and this is often reflected in village names, with many smaller villages having the prefix St. This isn?t short for ?Saint?, as you would think (that?s Sv. ? Sveti), but ?Stancija? ? Istrian for farmstead.
By the 1960s, the building boom was long past. All across Istria (like much of the Mediterranean), rural populations had plummeted: people had moved away to the city or emigrated to the New World. In some areas whole villages now stood empty and, while Ka?telir remained occupied, its population had dropped dramatically. Many houses were now abandoned or gradually fell empty as their ageing occupants died.
A classic example was our house: by the 70s it was home to an elderly, childless widow. When she died in 1974, her property was left to her great-nephew, Valter. He already had a home close by, so after he removed the nicer fittings for re-use in his home, the house and barn stood empty for the next thirty-five years, used only for storage.
Until, one day in 2012, it was bought by an English couple?
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Regeneration
Ka?telir lies on a sun-kissed, south-facing slope, looking out to the coast. It is probably one of the sunniest and warmest spots in the whole of Istria, so, unlike many other Istrian villages, its decline was short-lived. With the rise of tourism, it soon became an attractive place for holiday homes ? many derelict properties have now been restored and sold. Other properties stay in the family, converted into holiday lets or restaurants.
Gradually morphing over the years, our ?timeless? village of Kovaci has shifted from a thriving agricultural community to a village resort (although there is still plenty of farming around). Buildings have gone up, changed usage, fallen derelict and been reinvented. And like their buildings, the people of Kovaci have also changed. Many are new, incomers from foreign lands, but there remain a number who are Kovaci-born and bred. Like their forebears, they?re still farmers growing vines and olive trees, only now they drive tractors rather than oxen and their barns house tourists rather than animals!
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Tags: History, Property, Restoration, Yugoslavia
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The ACR endorses standardized measures to determine rheumatoid arthritis disease activityPublic release date: 2-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dawn Peters healthnews@wiley.com 781-388-8408 Wiley-Blackwell
A working group convened by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) has evaluated more than 60 disease activity measures for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The group narrowed the number of RA disease activity measures and the recommended six for use in U.S. clinical practice are detailed in Arthritis Care & Research, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the ACR.
RA is a systemic inflammatory disease, affecting more than 1 million Americans according to ACR estimates. Medical evidence has shown significant improvement in RA treatment over the last two decades, making disease remission possible for many patients. While many health care stakeholders advocate standardized assessments for RA disease activity, uniform measures of RA activity are not currently used by U.S. rheumatologists.
To address this important issue, the RA Clinical Disease Activity Measures Working Group systematically reviewed medical literature to identify disease activity measures for RA. The group surveyed rheumatologists for input and used this feedback along with psychometric analysis to determine recommendations for RA disease activity assessments.
"Our goal was to determine which RA disease activity measures could accurately distinguish the various levels of RA activity, and would also be reasonable to implement in clinical practice," explains Salahuddin Kazi, M.D., with Dallas VA Medical Center in Texas and one of the lead researchers involved with the working group. The group identified 63 RA disease activity measures, narrowing that down to 14 measures for further evaluation by practicing rheumatologists.
Feedback from the rheumatologists determined that 9 measures would be most useful and feasible in a clinical setting. The working group then selected 6 disease activity measures based on their reliability, validity and responsiveness. The ACR-approved recommendations for RA disease activity measures include:
Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI)
Disease Activity Score with 28-joint counts (erythrocyte sedimentation rate or C-reactive protein) (DAS-28)
Patient Activity Scale (PAS)
PAS-II
Routine Assessment of Patient Index Data with 3 measures (RAPID 3)
Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI)
In a related article, "2012 Update of the 2008 American College of Rheumatology Recommendations for the Use of Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs and Biologic Agents in the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis," Singh et al. include the RA disease activity measures (Table 3) to guide clinicians in selecting the appropriate treatment options for their patients. "Rheumatologists are tasked with treating to target, and one or more of these disease activity measures will help determine the level of RA disease activity in the
patient," said Dr. Kazi. "
The measures recommended to determine RA disease activity are sensitive to change, can discriminate between low, moderate, and high disease activity states, include remission criteria, and are feasible to perform in a clinical setting," concludes Dr. Kazi. "Incorporating standardized disease activity measures will facilitate adherence to the ACR guidelines for treating RA and aid clinicians in providing quality care to their patients with RA."
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Full citation: Article: "Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Activity Measures: American College of Rheumatology Recommendations for Use in Clinical Practice." Jaclyn Anderson, Liron Caplan, Jinoos Yazdany, Mark L. Robbins, Tuhina Neogi, Kaleb Michaud, Kenneth G. Saag, James R. O'Dell and Salahuddin Kazi. Arthritis Care & Research; Published Online: April 2, 2012 (DOI: 10.1002/acr.21649).
URL Upon publication: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/acr.21649.
Author Contact: To arrange an interview with Dr. Kazi, please contact Monica Smith, public affairs officer with VA North Texas Health Care System at 214-857-1158 or monicaA.smith@va.gov.
The study is published in Arthritis Care & Research. The article can be found under the 'Publications' section at www.rheumatology.org or by contacting healthnews@wiley.com.
About the Journal:
Arthritis Care & Research is an official journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), and the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals (ARHP), a division of the College. Arthritis Care & Research is a peer-reviewed research publication that publishes both original research and review articles that promote excellence in the clinical practice of rheumatology. Relevant to the care of individuals with arthritis and related disorders, major topics are evidence-based practice studies, clinical problems, practice guidelines, health care economics, health care policy, educational, social, and public health issues, and future trends in rheumatology practice. The journal is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). For more information, please visit http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2151-4658.
About the Society:
Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) is an international professional medical society that represents more than 8,500 rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals. Rheumatologists are internists or pediatricians who are qualified by training and experience in the diagnosis and treatment of arthritis and other diseases of the joints, muscles and bones. Over 50 million Americans including nearly 300,000 children suffer from the painful, disabling and sometimes fatal effects of arthritis and rheumatic diseases. Learn more by visiting http://www.rheumatology.org or follow ACR on Twitter at http://twitter.com/acrheum.
About Wiley-Blackwell:
Wiley-Blackwell is the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, with strengths in every major academic and professional field and partnerships with many of the world's leading societies. Wiley-Blackwell publishes nearly 1,500 peer-reviewed journals and 1,500+ new books annually in print and online, as well as databases, major reference works and laboratory protocols. For more information, please visit http://www.wileyblackwell.com or our new online platform, Wiley Online Library (http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com), one of the world's most extensive multidisciplinary collections of online resources, covering life, health, social and physical sciences, and humanities.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
The ACR endorses standardized measures to determine rheumatoid arthritis disease activityPublic release date: 2-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dawn Peters healthnews@wiley.com 781-388-8408 Wiley-Blackwell
A working group convened by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) has evaluated more than 60 disease activity measures for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The group narrowed the number of RA disease activity measures and the recommended six for use in U.S. clinical practice are detailed in Arthritis Care & Research, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the ACR.
RA is a systemic inflammatory disease, affecting more than 1 million Americans according to ACR estimates. Medical evidence has shown significant improvement in RA treatment over the last two decades, making disease remission possible for many patients. While many health care stakeholders advocate standardized assessments for RA disease activity, uniform measures of RA activity are not currently used by U.S. rheumatologists.
To address this important issue, the RA Clinical Disease Activity Measures Working Group systematically reviewed medical literature to identify disease activity measures for RA. The group surveyed rheumatologists for input and used this feedback along with psychometric analysis to determine recommendations for RA disease activity assessments.
"Our goal was to determine which RA disease activity measures could accurately distinguish the various levels of RA activity, and would also be reasonable to implement in clinical practice," explains Salahuddin Kazi, M.D., with Dallas VA Medical Center in Texas and one of the lead researchers involved with the working group. The group identified 63 RA disease activity measures, narrowing that down to 14 measures for further evaluation by practicing rheumatologists.
Feedback from the rheumatologists determined that 9 measures would be most useful and feasible in a clinical setting. The working group then selected 6 disease activity measures based on their reliability, validity and responsiveness. The ACR-approved recommendations for RA disease activity measures include:
Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI)
Disease Activity Score with 28-joint counts (erythrocyte sedimentation rate or C-reactive protein) (DAS-28)
Patient Activity Scale (PAS)
PAS-II
Routine Assessment of Patient Index Data with 3 measures (RAPID 3)
Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI)
In a related article, "2012 Update of the 2008 American College of Rheumatology Recommendations for the Use of Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs and Biologic Agents in the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis," Singh et al. include the RA disease activity measures (Table 3) to guide clinicians in selecting the appropriate treatment options for their patients. "Rheumatologists are tasked with treating to target, and one or more of these disease activity measures will help determine the level of RA disease activity in the
patient," said Dr. Kazi. "
The measures recommended to determine RA disease activity are sensitive to change, can discriminate between low, moderate, and high disease activity states, include remission criteria, and are feasible to perform in a clinical setting," concludes Dr. Kazi. "Incorporating standardized disease activity measures will facilitate adherence to the ACR guidelines for treating RA and aid clinicians in providing quality care to their patients with RA."
###
Full citation: Article: "Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Activity Measures: American College of Rheumatology Recommendations for Use in Clinical Practice." Jaclyn Anderson, Liron Caplan, Jinoos Yazdany, Mark L. Robbins, Tuhina Neogi, Kaleb Michaud, Kenneth G. Saag, James R. O'Dell and Salahuddin Kazi. Arthritis Care & Research; Published Online: April 2, 2012 (DOI: 10.1002/acr.21649).
URL Upon publication: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/acr.21649.
Author Contact: To arrange an interview with Dr. Kazi, please contact Monica Smith, public affairs officer with VA North Texas Health Care System at 214-857-1158 or monicaA.smith@va.gov.
The study is published in Arthritis Care & Research. The article can be found under the 'Publications' section at www.rheumatology.org or by contacting healthnews@wiley.com.
About the Journal:
Arthritis Care & Research is an official journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), and the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals (ARHP), a division of the College. Arthritis Care & Research is a peer-reviewed research publication that publishes both original research and review articles that promote excellence in the clinical practice of rheumatology. Relevant to the care of individuals with arthritis and related disorders, major topics are evidence-based practice studies, clinical problems, practice guidelines, health care economics, health care policy, educational, social, and public health issues, and future trends in rheumatology practice. The journal is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). For more information, please visit http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2151-4658.
About the Society:
Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) is an international professional medical society that represents more than 8,500 rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals. Rheumatologists are internists or pediatricians who are qualified by training and experience in the diagnosis and treatment of arthritis and other diseases of the joints, muscles and bones. Over 50 million Americans including nearly 300,000 children suffer from the painful, disabling and sometimes fatal effects of arthritis and rheumatic diseases. Learn more by visiting http://www.rheumatology.org or follow ACR on Twitter at http://twitter.com/acrheum.
About Wiley-Blackwell:
Wiley-Blackwell is the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, with strengths in every major academic and professional field and partnerships with many of the world's leading societies. Wiley-Blackwell publishes nearly 1,500 peer-reviewed journals and 1,500+ new books annually in print and online, as well as databases, major reference works and laboratory protocols. For more information, please visit http://www.wileyblackwell.com or our new online platform, Wiley Online Library (http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com), one of the world's most extensive multidisciplinary collections of online resources, covering life, health, social and physical sciences, and humanities.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Have you ever wondered what makes up a set of Human Resources Forms and why they are so important. Well, the article below provides an insight into that question.
What constitutes a solid set of??Human Resources Forms?. To assist with control over the quality assurance processes in the hiring and managing of staff, one of the basics is the accurate and timely recording of information and data relating to staff, in accordance with company policies and legal rights and entitlements of staff. Using standard templates, facilitates the easy identification of relevant data and observations which are to be recorded. By following a standard template in a format that is easily understood by Human Resource professionals, company management and the staff themselves, enables data to be easily retrieved when needed. Standard templates can be used to report on; interview processes, interview assessments and recommendations for hire or promotion, staff evaluations, performance reviews and other activities requiring the careful recording and tracking of data. The information can be summarized in the form of information logs allowing statistical analysis and reporting upward to senior management.
The timely and accurate recording of information relating to staff, including position descriptions based on the accuracy of the data collected for activities related to the role, facilitates; the management of staff; reduces incidences of claims by staff as a result of misunderstandings related to the performance of their duties and; tracks and ensures quality achieved in the workplace matches the requirements of the position description, needs of the company as well as industry accepted best practices and standards.
A good set of forms should be formatted in a similar manner to provide a uniform and professional appearance. Generally there are a number of administration requirements that are carried out by an HR Department, to support the management of staff. The forms therefore include; grievance processes and procedures; employment contracts; an array of forms to record staff information from next of kin to payroll details; timesheets, overtime as well as managing an employee out of the company workforce whether they are dismissed, resign or retire. A solid set of standard templates assists with the monitoring of progress and quality of the management processes of staff, against legal and other obligations.
At times, one of the most easily overlooked activities when running a business, can be the putting in place of the basic site administration procedures. Human Resource administration procedures include the recording of a myriad of details which should not be overlooked if a company wishes to keep its workforce and ensure the workforce are managed in an appropriate and fair manner. These documents are readily available as standard ??HR Forms? A good set of HR administration documents is set out in an ordered manner, divided into sections and appropriately indexed, facilitating easy use. If you find yourself in a business or company with an absence of appropriately referenced Human Resource administration procedures, these documents are available on the internet at relatively little or no cost.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the Assad regime in Syria must stop killing its people or face "serious consequences." NBC's Andrea Mitchell has more.
By Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent, and msnbc.com news services
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ramped up her pressure on the Syrian regime in a stern speech to a summit in Istanbul, Turkey, warning of ?serious consequences? if Bashar Assad fails to implement Kofi Annan's cease-fire plan.
She told the 60-nation Friends of Syria conference that "the time for excuses is over."
"Nearly a week has gone by, and we have to conclude that the regime is adding to its long list of broken promises," she said.
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She added that the United States is adding $12 million to its non-lethal aid to the opposition, bringing the total to $25 million - and for the first time, is also providing communication equipment to the rebels "to help activists organize, evade attacks by the regime, and connect to the outside world.?
Clinton also told the conference: "The world must judge Assad by what he does, not by what he says. And we cannot sit back and wait any longer."
While the administration continues to have reservations about the Syrian National Council's ability to successfully challenge Assad, she is meeting with them during the Istanbul conference to urge them to work more closely with other opposition groups and translate their plan for a unified transition into political action.
She said: "That's how the opposition will demonstrate beyond any doubt that they hold the moral high ground, strip away Assad's remaining support and expose the regime's hypocrisy.?
Separately, the BBC has reported that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are creating a trust fund with millions of dollars to pay rebel troops. Troops who defect from Assad's army would be paid to encourage defections.
The Washington Post's David Ignatius talks about the meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Saudi King Abdullah about whether Syria should accept a ceasefire.
Opening the conference, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told foreign ministers and other officials present that the "legitimate demands of the Syrian people must be met, right here, right now."
The United States and its Gulf Arab allies, suspecting Assad of playing for time, urged Annan on Saturday to set a time-line for "next steps" if there was no ceasefire.
Violence has raged unabated despite Annan's mediation. Opposition activists reported at least 16 people killed on Sunday, mostly in clashes in northwestern and eastern Syria.
Syrian media derided the Istanbul meeting, which the Baath newspaper described as "a regional and international scramble to find ways of killing more Syrians and destroying their society and country, to reach the broad goal of weakening Syria."
A communique to be issued later on Sunday by the conference will give full support to UN envoy Annan's peace mission while stressing that it cannot be open-ended.
A diplomat, who was involved in drafting the communique, told Reuters the conference would work on additional measures to protect the Syrian people, while the U.N. Security Council should play an important role in ending the conflict.
Around 50 Assad supporters protested outside the conference center, waving Syria, Russian and Chinese flags and brandishing pictures of the Syrian leader. "Allah, Syria, Bashar, that's it" and "Down, down USA" they chanted, before police removed them.
Mahmoud Abdulatif, a Syrian lawyer who joined dozens in a similar protest outside a conference hotel used by delegates, accused Gulf Arab leaders and others of meddling in Syria.
"There can be no foreign involvement in Syria," he said.
Annan will brief the U.N. Security Council on Monday on his efforts to calm a conflict in which Syrian security forces have killed more than 9,000 people, by a U.N. estimate, while rebels have killed 3,000 troops and police, according to Damascus.
His six-point plan demands that Assad order his military to cease fire, withdraw troops from cities and open daily windows for humanitarian aid, but does not require him to step down.
The rebel Free Syrian Army said on Saturday it would stop shooting if Assad pulled heavy weaponry out of urban areas, but Damascus said its forces must stay to maintain security.
Hamburg's Union Investment Real Estate, one of Germany's largest property investors managing some ?20bn in assets, is broadening its institutional fund family, targeting expertise gained in its open-end fund business. (For full interview see PIE 250, April Edition, published today)
For more Property Investor Europe news, click thru to our News archive.
Epic disasters ? the anguished cries, the stories of heroism ? are the central narratives of our age, both enthralling and horrifying. And our obsession began a century ago, unfolding in just 160 terrifying minutes, on a supposedly unsinkable ship, as more than 1,500 souls slipped into the icy waters of the North Atlantic. And the band played on.
It was the Titanic. And ever since, we've been hooked on disasters, in general ? but the tale of the great luxury liner, in particular. And the approaching 100th anniversary of the sinking has merely magnified the Titanic's fascination.
There were catastrophes before that fateful Sunday night in April 1912, but nothing quite captivated the newly wireless-connected globe's attention. It was more than news. It was a macabre form of entertainment.
Bigger, deadlier disasters followed, but they all borrowed from the storylines ? morality plays, really ? established by the Titanic's sinking: The high-profile investigations ... wall-to-wall news coverage ... issues of blame, technological hubris, ignored warnings and economic fairness ? all were themes that played out in the BP oil spill, the space shuttle disasters, Hurricane Katrina, the Exxon Valdez and the recent grounding of the Costa Concordia.
"The story is ageless, like all great stories," said James Delgado, director of maritime heritage at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "The elements in this case of triumph, tragedy, and hubris, of bravery and cowardice, all wrapped up in one brief moment. That speaks to people."
PhotoBlog: National Geographic features new images of the unseen Titanic
And to this day, The Titanic is big business in movies, books, songs, poetry, and museum exhibits hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. Dozens of tourists have paid tens of thousands of dollars to dive in Russian submersibles to visit the ship's watery grave and see in the ocean floor "where the Titanic dug in and the ship created this knife-like sharp edge," Delgado said.
For decades that burial spot was unknown, but the discovery of the Titanic in 1985 brought Titanic back to the world's attention. Then a dozen years later, another man raised the Titanic to an even greater fame with a multi-Academy Award winning movie and follow-up documentaries. This was, he said, a parable that the storyteller in him could not ignore.
"It's this great sort of metaphorical novel that actually happened," said "Titanic" director James Cameron. "You can go and visit the wreck and go and see this monument to human folly."
Titanic 'hit a nerve in a different way'
The 882-foot long Titanic steamed from Queenstown, Ireland, on Apr. 11 toward New York, carrying more than 2,200 passengers and crew, more than 130,000 pounds of meat and fish, 1,750 pounds of ice cream, 400 asparagus tongs and only 20 of the 32 lifeboats designed to be on board. The ship ignored more than 30 different ice warnings. At 11:40 p.m. on April 14, The Titanic hit an iceberg and stalled. At 2:20 a.m., it sank.
Before the Titanic, the great Chicago fire, the Galveston hurricane and the San Francisco earthquake attracted America's attention, but "the Titanic hit a nerve in a different way," said Kevin Rozario, a professor of American Studies at Smith College. "It's the dramatic quality of the Titanic."
Everything about the sinking ? its speed and the fact that everybody was in one place ? added to the drama.
In fact, the Titanic's sinking took about as long as a stage play of that era, noted John Wilson Foster, a Queens University Belfast professor who wrote several Titanic books. "The survivors did say during the sinking it seemed like a play," Foster said.
The public, especially in the past century, has become increasingly fascinated with disasters, especially technological ones. That's because it helps us cope with increased mechanization, risk and deep-rooted questions about what it means to be human, said Rozario, author of the book "Culture of Calamity." He said disasters reflect everyday fears that at we often ignore. When a catastrophe happens, "we see ourselves" in the storylines that play out.
Instant news ? for its day
And with Titanic, the storylines played out instantly thanks to the recent innovation of wireless telegraphy. Even before the Carpathia arrived in New York with survivors, the "story starts to get told in a particular way before there is any substantial information about what happened," said Harvard University professor Steven Biel. ""It's unprecedented how quickly the story goes around the world."
Survivor Lawrence Beesley, in his book "Loss of the SS Titanic," said many press reports made the sinking even more dramatic than it really was.
"I think it is no exaggeration to say that those who read of the disaster quietly at home and pictured to themselves the scene as the Titanic was sinking had more of the sense of horror than those who stood on the deck and watched her go down inch by inch," Beesley concluded in his book. "The fact is that the sense of fear came to the passengers very slowly ? a result of the absence of any signs of danger."
Beesley and others talked about how no one at the time thought the Titanic was going to go under. At first, they joked that they had to stop for a fresh coat of paint to be applied to where the iceberg scrapped the hull. After all, the Titanic was "unsinkable," they figured. "The improbability of such a thing ever happening was what staggered humanity," Beesley wrote.
"That phrase 'unsinkable' became notorious," Foster said. The phrase was originally "practically unsinkable" and was from an obscure engineering journal, but after a while it didn't matter. On top of that, someone claims to have heard ship Capt. Edward John Smith say "Even God himself couldn't sink this ship," Foster said.
So early 20th century society, especially in Sunday sermons, spun the disaster in religious terms ? "you can't cheat God in that way," said Biel, author of the book "Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster."
Technological hubris
Now, Biel said, people look at the Titanic sinking and other man-made disasters as technological hubris, the misbegotten belief that something could be too good, too fail-safe to fail. The space shuttles were portrayed as such until Challenger exploded in 1986. Then the oil industry bragged that deep water drilling was safer than the space shuttle; the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 proved otherwise.
Every disaster inspires investigation. There were two high-profile, competing government probes of the Titanic. The British thought the American investigation was too hostile to the British officers and the Americans thought the British inquiry was too much of a whitewash, said Belfast's Foster.
The American press went looking for a villain and found him in the owner of the White Star Line, J. Bruce Ismay. Not only did they fault Ismay for scrimping on safety, such as the number of lifeboats, in favor of luxury, but they blamed him for surviving the sinking. Unlike Capt. Smith, he didn't go down with the ship. He was chastised, much as Costa Concordia Captain Francesco Schettino has been branded a coward for leaving his ship when it sank in January.
Less privileged suffered more
Initially, news reports told of selflessness of the rich men in Titanic's first class who sacrificed themselves to allow women and children on the lifeboats, Biel said. While there were some brave rich passengers who nobly stepped aside to let others survive, the numbers show that the poorer you were, the less likely you were to live. Sixty percent of the first-class passengers survived, 42 percent of the second-class passengers survived and only 25 percent of the third-class, or steerage, passengers lived.
"It's quite often the case that the less privileged suffer disproportionately in disasters," Biel said. "That was certainly true in the case of Titanic."
And it happened again most noticeably in Hurricane Katrina, when the predominantly black sections of the city seemed to suffer more, with less government help, Biel said.
In the first few decades after the Titanic, the disparity in survival of the third-class passengers wasn't mentioned. It wasn't until Walter Lord revived the tale of the Titanic in his best-selling book "A Night To Remember" that the issue of class fairness was revisited, Biel said. And by the time Cameron's movie came out in the 1990s, the story had gone from the helpful rich to the mostly despicable first-class passengers.
Biel said no blacks were aboard the Titanic, although others claim there was one black family. Blues pioneer Leadbelly sang of how black boxing champ Jack Johnson was denied passage on the ship: "Black men oughta shout for you, Never lost a girl or either a boy. Cryin' fare thee, Titanic, fare thee well."
It was not the first or last song about the sinking ? and in fact, one of the enduring story lines of the Titanic is about music. The band on Titanic did play as the ship went down. Experts disagree on the song, but they agree that there was a soundtrack to the disaster.
Survivor Archibald Gracie, in his popular account, described the lowering of lifeboats into the water with women and children, saying "it was now that the band began to play and continued while the boats were being lowered. We considered this a wise provision tending to allay excitement. I did not recognize any of the tunes, but I know they were cheerful and not hymns."
And the band played on.
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Public release date: 2-Apr-2012
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