Suicide Jockeys of the North Atlantic

The Reading List for 07 Jul 23

William Thorsell, then editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail (left)with Globe CEO and publisher Roy Megarry (right), from June 1990. Image via Paul Wells.

So much about the implosion of the Titan submarine got under my skin that I sat down and banged out a couple of thousand words about that species of self-interested, self-important arsehole that comes to Newfoundland each year hell-bent on killing themselves and, in this case, taking others with them.

They come with the icebergs each year.

Not from the north like the ancient blocks of frozen time that still float down from the calving grounds in Greenland despite the best efforts of man to destroy them. Not from the north but the south and east.

Men. It is almost always men. English or Americans, usually, but lately from other parts of the world. And their coffins, made so small these days they cannot lie down in them. Set to row the Atlantic in the smallest thing they could build that they hope will float or in this latest version plunge beneath the waves.

Made of all manner of material. Not the stuff people build ships out of. At least not ships that can take the North Atlantic. Odd stuff with odder bits that stick out here and there both above the part of the contraption meant to be above the water as well as the parts below.

Andrew Bedwell was a lucky sod. His contraption sank in May before he got out of the harbour. He delivered a sobbing apology to his family but in a sentiment his family will undoubtedly appreciate, better for Andy to be blubbering from the safety of a hotel room than for his family to be standing by an empty hole in the ground wondering what happened to him as the Atlantic claimed yet another one.

Others have not been so lucky, whether we are talking about the fools in their smallest boat category of suicide jockey, the others idiots who stand next to a raging sea only to be swept off the rocks and gone under forever, or another species of twit that thinks you can camp on an iceberg and not run the risk it will split apart in the night, fold in on itself, and take you and your designer fart sack into the crevasse-grinder, never to be seen again.

The screed hit not just the fools themselves but their enablers like the morons who’d gone down on this submersible and come back, people with precisely no relevant knowledge of anything unless the interview was about their arrogance, ignorance, or whatever other debility led them to take a trip on an uncertified submarine. The media - like CBS - who still haven’t fully accounted for that piece they aired last year, who had intimations all was not well, who laughed about its slapped-together design sensibility, but never thought this might not be safe. The know-nothing know-it-all academics, whether Priyamvada Gopal or the fellow on a CBC hit who was on his cellphone with another interview before he finished the word salad with the Ceeb, who tagged along with the tragedy because it was good exposure for their personal marketing efforts not that they had anything intelligent or relevant to say.

But a wiser counsel rightly warned me off publishing the full-on rant.

It was too soon.

And, as it turned out, folks like the New Yorker staff were already onto the guts of the story. There’s a link to that piece after the paywall and subscription box. There are also a few more links to stuff on Canadian media, the impact of the recession on American incomes, push-back against simplistic American notions about diversity and inclusion, and a few more tidbits to keep your brain going in this weirdest of weird summers.

Not sure what’s coming Monday but at some point in the near future, there’s an essay on humans and machines and monsters. From Frankenstein to the Moon and Ai via the Holocaust. It’s been a year in the making but it’s finally coming together. While that one is still baking, there’s likely to be some stuff on population trends, the province’s finances, and the usual mix of stuff.

Read on!