Feb 17 2009
Periscope up
Pre-Ramble: Just when I thought I was being a mere smarty-pants, the Universe shoots back with a zinger. In a recent blog posting (Feb. 4, The sky is falling) I suggested that the media’s use of inflammatory words to describe the current economic conditions was only making matters worse. I gave a laundry list of words that the media should be forbidden to use unless they were covering “submarine maneuvers, roller-coasters, or souffles.”
Well, sure ’nuff, a report out of the BBC today indicates that a Royal Navy nuclear submarine was involved in a collision with a French nuclear sub in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Apparently, the HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant (pictured above right) were “badly damaged in the crash in heavy seas.” While no injuries or explosions were reported, ”very visible dents and scrapes” could be seen as the vessels returned to port. Descriptions of the incident range from subdued to ballistic including:
- “incredibly embarrassing” …
- “clearly a one-in-a-million chance when you think about how big the Atlantic is” …
- “lessons are being learned” …
- “a nuclear nightmare of the highest order” …
- “these submarines should not have been in the same place at the same time” …
- “The Ministry of Defense needs to explain how it is possible for a submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction to [accidently] collide with another submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction in the middle of the world’s second-largest ocean” …
- and the massively understated, “if there ever were to be a bang, it would be a mighty big one…”
The Take-Away: The submarine incident kind of blows my earlier point right out of the water. I was planning to update you with a new batch of negatively charged words mined from recent financial reports including bleak, warning, catastrophe, skid, deepening, dashed, volatile, shed, apocalypse, stampede, retail-space-available, shaken, bail-out, shambles, and brother-can-you-spare-a-dime.
Had to share this comment by my friend who used to work for the U.S. Navy:
My husband and I watched a movie over the weekend “The Russians are Coming.” A hilarious movie which was released in 1966 with Alan Arkin, Brian Keith, Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, to name a few. It’s about a Russian submarine which runs aground near a small island town off the coast of Massachusetts.
I find submarines fascinating and was amazed to read the story yesterday about the French and British submarine collision. What an embarrassment for both countries! Especially when both were carrying nuclear weapons with unspecified whereabouts against NATO rules. I also find it humorous that while the subs were out patrolling their countries borders and waters they couldn’t even detect a submarine when it was right on top of them. Which does point to today’s technology in stealth….you can hide but can you find the enemy? The best was the comment by Lee Willet of the Royal United Services in London regarding NATO allies sharing information on the whereabouts of their nuclear submarines, “These are the strategic crown jewels of the nation…the whole purpose of a sea-based nuclear deterrent is to hide somewhere far out of sight. They are the ultimate tools of national survival in the event of war. Therefore, it’s the very last thing you would share with anybody.” Makes sense.
After reading this article I think I’m kind of missing my days working in DC with the Navy. I’ll bet they are having fun with this one.