Tale of Two Gates: Trump-gate and the search for lost Titanic Oceangate sub
Today the news is chock-a-block full of news about the efforts to rescue a group of wealthy morbid adventurers dying to see the tomb of 1,517 passengers and crew of the Titanic.
By Hal Brown
If you remember Baby Jessica you probably are at least middle-aged.
Click above to read Time article
When 18 month old Jessica McClure (Wikipedia) fell into a well in 1987 there was no 24 hour cable news coverage. However it still was covered extensively on every over-the-air TV station.
Today the news is chock-a-block full of news about the efforts to rescue a group of wealthy morbid adventurers dying to see the tomb of 1,517 passengers and crew of the Titanic. They may or may not actually die. Unlike those on the Titanic, if they do die it is likely their bodies will end up being recovered. A cynic might say it would be more appropriate if the sub made it to the Titanic they were left in the same watery 12,500 foot deep grave as the 1,517 already there bringing the total to 1,522.
If they are rescued it remains to be seen whether they will be seen as heroes or reckless privileged idiots who cost the Canadian and American governments a small fortune to give them the gift of life. If their bodies are recovered it is yet to be determined how the media will cover the story.
Oceangate is the name of the company which owns and operates the sub and has a Wikipedia page here.
At present this is these are the Wikipedia entries related to the current incident:
2023 loss of Titan
Main article: 2023 Titan submersible incident
On 18 June 2023, Titan went missing in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland. The submersible was carrying an expedition of tourists, including Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood, Dawood's son, Suleman, and the founder of OceanGate, Stockton Rush, to view the wreckage of RMS Titanic.[29][30] The disappearance of the submarine triggered extensive search and rescue efforts to locate the submersible.[31]
2023 Titan submersible incident
What is ironic is thatthe suffix "-gate" is defined this way:
Suffice to say that you probably don't want anything associated with you to have "-gate " attached to it.
There was no Jessica-gate since she innocently fell into a well and anyone following the story breathed a sigh of relief when she was rescued.
The Oceangate company, if it even exists once this story is laid to rest, remains to be seen. However, if it does the founder and executives may rue the day they called it Oceangate.
At present a web search of Trumpgate or Trump-gate turns up lots of articles dating back to about 2020 to the present. Here's a recent one.
Before Trump-gate there was Russia-gate. Both earned Twitter hashtags: #Trumpgate and #Russiagate.
The history of the "-gate" suffix refers to single episodes or incidents.
It may come to pass that Trump-gate will go down in American history books as a description not only of everything having to do with Donald Trump flouting the law and his trashing the traditions of the presidency, but of how close the country came to becoming a autocratic fascist country.
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