theadvertiser.com - Seamen have expressed almost universal outrage at Capt. Francesco Schettino, who faces possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his crippled cruise ship off Tuscany while passengers were still on board.

Would you have stayed on that thing?  Capt. Schettino is catching a lot of grief for abandoning ship, but there are few people who would stay on board:  Mark Wahberg would have stayed on board, I would have stayed on board – but why would you expect Captain Schettino?  

How do people have the nerve to call someone a coward in a era were you get sued for giving a stranger CPR incorrectly?  The other day Mark Whalberg merely "spoke" about cutting up terrorists on 9/11 and now he is getting the scarlet letter.  We are bred to be obedient pussies.  On nyc.gov, it tells you that if you see a crime to do (2) things: 1)  Call 911 immediately. 2)  Be observant and make mental notes.

It has become a moral obligation and a social expectation to AVOID helping others in danger.  On an airplane you are told to put your mask on first before helping others.  Even if Schettino stayed on board, how is he even going to help these people?  He was trained to drive a boat, not to carry slobs off an inverted hull.  In that situation passengers have one goal, get the fuck off the boat.  You don't need some gumba captain from Naples to tell you that.  Not to mention, have you ever seen the size of your typical cruise line passenger?  These people float around the Mediterranean eating buffet food.  You could just roll these slobs into the sea and they would bob like apples.  You expect Schettino to lift one off a ship.  That's asking a lot.

Some people claim, well he crashed the ship so it's his responsibility to stay on board.  So he should punish himself for making an error?  When someone crashes a full car it's not their responsibility to wait in the burning car with the trapped passengers until police arrive.  If they can get out of danger they get out of danger.  What you are witnessing is all the people who saw the captain in the movie Titanic go down with the ship – now everyone thinks that's what should happen.  Remember how many people that captain helped by staying on board?  None.  He only killed himself like a moron.  And that's where the hypocrisy comes into play: people tell Mark Walhberg he is not a real life hero who would stop the terror attacks, yet they expect Schettino to follow the moral code of a movie character who didn't even have enough life rafts.  You can't pick and choose.

I understand that the captain of Titianic was obviosly based on a real person, but no one would have had the image of a "captain going down with a ship" if not for Titianic the movie.