Might want to check the cadet rooms on your ship then… those cadets scrawling “KPS” graffiti that invariably get written probably need disciplinary action too.
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It’s a brave new world. What used to be a crime subject to prosecution is now considered a birthright. The mores have changed but the laws haven’t caught up. I think oxen races are still prohibited in Hyde Park on Sundays.
I had a captain who tried to have a recently signed off cadet expelled from the academy for just that. Carved it into the wood desk just before signing off. I don’t think the lady in question was thrown out but I also don’t think she had an easy go for her last year at the school.
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Yes, I missed the switch, so not a battle against the PC police.
In any case what the school doing seem fine, take some photos and paint over. I don’t know why a maritime school would let themselves get sucked into an art judging contest with the students.
If cadets want to have control over the art they create the bulkheads of a ship someone else owns is a bad choice.
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All of the PC crap re-enforces my belief that I started sailing at an opportune time and retired before this crap got out of hand.
Maybe if the mermaids were transgender they might get dispensation!
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Surely you meant to say merpersons.
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Allow me to say I regret putting my own “anti-sjw” interpretation on these events in the forefront of this post. In retrospect, it would’ve been better to separate it from events in general.
With that said, the people on here are right, those saying in 10 years it probably won’t matter to me. This piece though, cannot be viewed in isolation, rather it is better viewed in the broader context.
In freshman orientation, we were given lectures on sexual conduct and diversity, the former of which which entailed three students who volunteered and were prodded to act out a scene where two of them are telling each other how #MeToo is overblown (applause by the audience followed), while the third one interrupts and reports them for doing so.
The maritime industry to many is seen as freedom. You can live anywhere working deep sea, and I plan to travel to places where society and tradition are on firmer footing.
Rant aside, I know people will view me as crazy and accuse me of over-blowing this. Perhaps I am and in 15 years I will look back and laugh at my former self. But given the events as I see them now, it’s a new era.
“O brave new world That has such people in it.”
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In my experience this discussion was more or less settled on the ships 20 or 30 years ago. From this I get the impression every graduating class at CMA is going to reset the clock back to 1950.
Boy, are they in for a surprise!
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I am curious what reaction you were expecting here. An angry mob with torches and pitchforks and storming the Ivory Tower of the CSU? Academy types are probably a minority here, and CMA alumni a minority of that minority. At best, you’d get crickets and apathy. More likely, as you’ve noted, a pointed stick wielded in your direction.
Personal opinions on the subject aside, that training you were given sounds like a poorly designed and ill-conceived debacle. Unless the intent of the developer was to deride the subject, it’s entirely counter productive to its supposed training objective. If the audience wildly applauds the strawman intended to be the devil’s advocate, the training failed.
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Hey, hey, hey!!! Uh, I mean, KPS? What does THAT mean. . . . .
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Maybe I should clarify:
As said before, it’s not. Once asigned to a ship no one is free. Your work hours, chow hours, are strictly dictated. What you keep in your personal space, from electronics, to the quantity and material of clothes, to bed linens, are often constrained. How loud you are, whether or not you are permitted ashore or not, if you can have or use cell phones or email, everything has the potential to be restricted. There is no freedom aboard ship.
And before you go thinking that, as an officer you can do what you please, or maybe some day as captain or CHENG, you’ll be the lord and master of your realm, well those days are long gone. Dead and gone.
Correct, once you sign off and are no longer under articles you can do as you please. Travel, womanize, be a drunk. Yup, ONCE YOU ARE NO LONGER ATTACHED TO A SHIP you are free. Have at it. No one will care.
But to repeat myself (and others) while you are attached to a ship you will not be free. You will not have the freedom to paint naked pictures on the bulkheads. You may not have the freedom to pin up naked pictures in your stateroom. You may be told to take down that topless picture of your wife on the beach in Spain. You’ll have two choices: 1. Put the picture away or 2. Be ‘free’ and unemployed.
That’s your freedom. Accept it now or spend a lot of your time ‘free.’
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To clarify my response: No, maybe not the first time depending on the character and extent of the “artwork” but I would make it clear that defacing any part of the ship is not acceptable behavior and I would remember the individual and incident. I might record it in writing in order to have a paper trail. If the behavior persisted after being specifically warned, I’d wish the offender good luck on his or her way off the ship.
We don’t own the ship to do as we please, we’re merely temporary stewards.
This young woman gets it. I like her take on it. Thank you for posting that here. There’s a line from the West Wing (TV show - making a reference here because I can’t take credit for this thinking but it I agree with it) - NO, I’m not for the equal rights amendment - I already had that freedom and equality, I never needed some old white men telling me I’m equal. I already knew that." Having said that, Khakis365, by posting about this in this forum you are getting a bit of a lesson in reality here. Pay attention. The University President has his hands tied on this one - it’s a no win either way but he’s only picking the only legally correct option he can.
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All this training, procedures and so forth on the commercial ships is not based on anyone taking the moral high ground, it’s based the owner’s desire to avoid lawsuits.
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We had an incident on one of our ships alongside at Terminal Island, Los Angeles. A female cargo planner lost her way to the cargo office and ended up in the engine control room. Deeply offended by the centrefolds on display things went to hell in a handcart.
The company issued an edict and sailors were henceforth calmed by pictures of floral clocks and bucolic country scenes.
It absolutely is. The sooner these younglings get that lesson learned, the better.
Are you going to school to learn to paint or to get a license? Do you want to ship out or perform on broadway? If a painting on the bulkhead of the TSGB is such a deeply held part of your identity you should reconsider your priorities.
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You could put a gun to my head or offer me a million bucks and I’d still not even remember my class mural… when that ship’s gangway came down on the last day of 1st class cruise I got off so fast I left a vapor trail, and the second my license and degree were in hand I drove out that front gate like the place was about to get sucked into a black hole.
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