Titanic Cliche of Day: Titanic At Trial

Sholom Rubashkin, former CEO of the Glatt kosher Agriprocessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa is on trial for violating child labor laws. The trial is winding down and the prosecutor made a connection to Titanic in closing arguments.

“The string quartet was playing on the deck of the Titanic as the ship went down. Because this man knew he had the authority to engage an army of lawyers to keep everyone at bay,” she said of the labor investigation.

Once again Titanic makes appearances in the most surprising of places.

Des Moines Register (Blog), Rubashkin Trial, 2 June 2010

*UPDATE-7 June 2010*

Rubashkin was acquitted on all charges of hiring underage children to work in the plant.

North Korea on Titanic: A Failure of Capitalism

Back in the good old days when the Kremlin controlled communist parties worldwide, they wanted capitalism always painted in the worst possible light. So anything that went wrong was always a failure of capitalism. Of course Stalin’s failed policies were never criticized as a failure of Marxism (except outside of Russia). It comes as no surprise to learn that North Korea, worried about the popularity of Cameron’s Titanic had to issue its own “failure of capitalism” statement.

Suzanne Scholte, the leader of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, told Front Page that:

“One could argue that capitalism is alive and well and thriving in North Korea as the people cope the best they can by trading and selling the markets,” she said in her speech.  “In fact, the film Titanic became so widely watched in North Korea that the regime felt compelled to inform the people that the movie was a depiction of the failure of capitalism,” she said.

Of course no criticism of Dear Leader’s failed Marxism allowed here either.

Front Page Magazine, Promoting a Free Korea, 2 June 2010