New captains needed

"Titanic" might be the worst film ever to win the best-picture Oscar, but as a crisis parable it's well worth the price of the DVD. One character in the film declares: "Incredible. There's [Captain] Smith, and he's standing there, and he's got the fucking iceberg warning in his hand, excuse me, in his hand, and he's ordering more speed." Another character adds: "Twenty-six years of experience working against him. He figures anything big enough to sink the ship they're gonna see coming in time to turn. The ship's too big with too small a rudder. It doesn't corner worth a damn. Everything he knows is wrong." In the 2009 remake, politicians on both sides of the captain's deck (whether Democrats or Republicans, Social Democrats or Civic Democrats) are reading from the same old logbooks and, despite all their years of experience, keep getting it wrong. The iceberg continues to bear down on them. [Czech Republic United States of America ODS ČSSD Democratic Party]