Everyone is Chilean today
 

this is probably the most feel good news story/event I can ever remember seeing.

Seeing the first guy out giving his media statement, the English translator struggling not to cry as she translated... even I had a lump in my throat.

'I was with God, and I was with the devil': miner Mario Sepulveda Espina
 

Live feed here:
CBC News - World - Chile mine rescue: 19 pulled to safety, 14 to go

I've been following the story from the beginning and it is awesome to know that by the early hours of Thursday they will all be out, barring any incidents.

I have choked up with every single man that has emerged (19 so far)

This entire story has been intense all the way through, from the beginning to now. Those guys are high-quality humans and deserve the greatest respect possible.

an amazing story. It's like that little girl who was stuck in the well, except there were many more people stuck down there.

22!

This whole story kills my "good news isn't news' theory... really happy about that.

Viva Chile!

Best News I have seen in Many, Many Years!!! (And I'm older than dirt!) :)

Bet they have some intense stories to tell.

BTW........How did they determine who went first?

24! Chi Chi Chi ...Le Le Le!

reading between the lines, they took the two technologicaly smart guys first, then the ones with health conditions and then the non sick guys. The last guy coming up is the boss

I love that the one thats an Elvis fan has been offered an all expense paid trip to Graceland by the Elvis people

then & plus the five?.. rescuers who braved the downward trip.

Man, I'm by far the furthest from a nationalist, but that Chi Chi Chi Le Le Le:
is infectious.


25!

I would imagine that poor bugger who has his wife -and- girlfriend waiting Topside is probably trying to find a way to stay -in- that hole!

He is already up, his Mistress was there....not his wife, the wife told him to pretty much stuff it lol

---------- Post added at 05:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:48 PM ----------

Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-Le is the new Huzzah!!!

27 ..27 ..27 ...

---------- Post added at 05:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:22 PM ----------

28!
The faces of anticipation are keenly poignant.

now this is just cool
Why American drilling hero Jeff Hart will not be at Chile mine for miners rescue - San Francisco SF | Examiner.com

Haha, the dude who invited his mistress and wife. That was super awkward to watch. Why would he invite both? Goes to prove that you can't have everything you want. That soccer chant one of the miners started was awesome.

To even imagine being stuck in the ground for as long as they were is unimaginable to me. Then they have to take the ride up in the tube, which looks insane. They're lucky that they're used to tight spaces, I would have been like "fuck that! I'm not getting in there!"

How about those sunglasses they have to wear? They must be the best sunnies in the world.

Is this the best (feel-good) story of the year? I nominate it as so.

29!

Watching all this hugging reminds me I haven't had one for a long long time.
Hermitage sucks today. I'm in a hole of my own making. That's sad stupid.

CHI-CHI-CHI! LE-LE-LE!

---------- Post added at 06:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:21 PM ----------

Thirty.

---------- Post added at 07:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:42 PM ----------

Rescatados: 31!

only 2 miners left!! and hopefully bringing up the rescue guys will go just as smoothly

Rescatados: 32 !

I've been streaming the net video all afternoon in my studio. I find the quiet holding on to the miners by their wives when they finally meet is very moving. The mother who reached out to touch once more the face of her son as he lay in the stretcher just before being moved to the observation area was particularly heart warming. And the little girl who released her balloons to fly into the sky after she hugged her dad - pure sweetness.

And I am so glad Larry King is not braying into a microphone as I watch. That is such a nice non-element of all this :thumbsup:

I am LOVING the fact that the close up cameras are not american. That was a great move on the chilean governments part. And I love that the CNN people were saying "lets just be quiet and watch this"

What I DONT understand is CNN's decision to switch to the stupid Delaware vote

Riveted to the telly since 5 this morn.

It appears that the good nice boss is entering the down below capsule now..

& up up & towards!

Local Español channel for the duration!

I've been watching since last night....Im really sleepy but I just couldnt not watch it all

Areeba areeba! Arriba Arriba!

---------- Post added at 07:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:53 PM ----------

whooooo doggie!

---------- Post added at 07:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 PM ----------

Mision Cumplida! ...almost.

Is it horrible of me that I could actually go to sleep now, even though the rescuers arent all up?

I have followed this so closely for so long I'm just exhausted now that its over.

Shani, I went to sleep last night hours before the first man was rescued.
I tucked all the goodwill beneath my pillow & slept well.

Oh, & by the way..It's great to see you here & posting.
Sending sweet dreams your way.

NO TE PREOCUPE!

I am fascinated by all of this.

To be honest, I haven't been watching but it has been impossible to avoid this story.

I get why this story has become a global story (or I think I do) but am still struck that an inherently local story has become a global one.

We live in odd times.

The last rescue worker is climbing into the capsule...

The ascent begins...

I'll be a Negative Nancy and state that there were hundreds of people that starved to death during this period of time that could have been helped if the resources that were used to move the international news media to the site had been used to move food to their location. But we don't care about that.

I mean, who cares? Those people are just statistics. I'm tired of feel-good rescue stories that jolt the well-to-do out of their apathetic comas.

He's Topside.

Good night & good morning.

PZ.

---------- Post added at 02:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:39 AM ----------

Plan9: Piss off.

id want to be either the first one out or the last one out. everyone in between is just a number and no one will remember you in a few months time.

i havent watched this at all. partly because i dont have a TV. but its just a story of survival for a week or two before they got discovered and people down did what they had to do to survive. the whole beatup since they were discovered is really killing me. they had food, water and contact with families.

sorry, i dont see the whole thing being such a big deal either.

Exactly. How many people dumped their wallet for Haiti and then immediately turned around and bitched about having to pay state taxes?

I'll mark my calendar. A year from now we'll see how many people remember anything about this event. Just like those little flags on 9/11.

also, the whole world media scrummage wasnt about people caring, but more about how many papers you could sell, or who could get the first shot or who could get the first picture to print.

I am Chilean for lunch. Plan9 you joining me?

I'm West Virginian. Those miners not only get buried all the time, but they get killed and nobody gives a "piss off."

I hope those of you that dont care are really never in ANY kind of situation where you need the help and resources of other caring people. If everyone felt like you those 33 men would be doomed to spend eternity down there. They are human beings. Chile was supposed to say "oh well other people need things in the world, other people are bitching about things in the world....lets just leave them down there to rot, why should we care?"

I just cant read this kind of crap anymore. Ring, you mentioned that it was good to see me posting again....its constant crap like this that has kept me from wanting to participate here anymore. Until yesterday afternoon there was no mention of these men on this forum and I was honestly flabbergasted.

You wanna bitch that the Chilean government did what needed doing to get them out while other people are starving in the world? You want to say they werent in dire straights because the were lucky enuff to have food and water and contact with the outside? Why dont we just forget that all that meant shit because there could have been another cave in at any time and they were stuck with no way out. Be my guest.

Funny, I didn't say that they weren't human beings. I think it's miraculous that they all made it out alive. We've had far less luck in the United States. But good for them. And at no point was I talking about the Chilean government. Where'd you get that? I was bitching about well-to-do obese crackers in America rooting for downed miners in Chile. For being so tired of this kind of crap it doesn't appear that you're actually reading very much of it.

I can't really blame you, though. I'm an acerbic, garrulous moron.

I apologize for the threadjack but I'm tired of this kind of crap, too.

...

I'm curious: How do you feel about the US response to Haiti?

" Everyone is Chilean today "

..i was wondering why my farts were spicier than normal.. huh.

And somehow I'm the problem.

All of the miners got out safely! Whoohoo!
I love this photo:
http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2010-10/56751913.jpg

Many of the news articles mentioned that the miners were on a diet designed by NASA, but it looks like NASA offered a lot more help than that! Here are some little blurbs from NASA's website, to offer a bit more detail about the assistance they provided, including two doctors, a psychologist, and an engineer who helped the Chilean engeneers with their rescue cage design.
NASA - NASA Provides Assistance to Trapped Chilean Miners
NASA - NASA Engineer Helps Chilean Miners
http://www.nasa.gov/news/speeches/ad...an_Miners.html
Oh, and Shani, it's good to see you here. It saddens me to think that you've been chased away.
In the future, go ahead and start a thread about a current event that you'd like to see discussed.

Yeah, fuck those 33 miners who got extracted from the collapsed mine. I bet at least 33 puppies were kicked to death in the same amount of time. What about them?!

I don't know about you, but I'm incapable of omniscient compassion. I need to focus on one thing at a time.

i actually did care that they made it out alive. if i was in their shoes, id want my government to help me out as much as the chilean government helped these guys.

what i dont care about is the sensaltionalism of it all.

These guys did what they did to survive a few weeks with no sunlight. it was a great story when it first broke a few weeks ago. They got found and they were rationing their food. thats what anyone else would have done. but tomake this out into a story of survival is utter nonsense. out of the 33 down there , 0% of them died. Even the ones with heart conditions, diabtetes and HBP issues survived. tells you a lot about the 'miraculous survival' that these guys went through.

its a great story that people got through this. im glad no one died. but all i see from the whole beat-up is book sales and 60 minute exclusives.

sensationalism sucks dogs balls.

The reason why this news story has gotten so much attention is because it so so abnormal - the fact that they were able to survive the collapse, that they didn't get trapped further as they worked to expand their living space, and that people cared enough to get them out. It is an example of humanity's compassion.

mine collapses and deaths are a monthly occurance in places like china. people just odnt hear about them, because well...they're....chinese.

the only abnormal thinga bout it is that the guys didnt die. and they didnt die because they were so far away from the collapse itself.

i dont think anyone here doubts that people will help others when in need. whether you're in the battlefield, helping an old lady up off the pavement or helping yor kids do their homework. compassion is a part of human existance.

I think this is why I don't buy into the negative responses here; it's because I don't buy into the sensationalism, nor do I expose myself to it.

I really had no idea how big this story was. I just knew it was happening.

How are you framing these responses as negative? And you don't expose yourself to sensationalism despite being online? It's everywhere.

Don't take up stand-up comedy anytime soon. And who said anything about an asinine concept like "omniscient compassion?" You can focus on one thing all you want, but let's try to put it at a wider scope. But, yeah, I get it; I'm done here. I apologize for the unwanted reality check.

*changes channel back to Dancing with the Stars*

What was that, Negative Nancy?

No. I don't. It's not everywhere. It's only everywhere if you don't have the discipline to turn elsewhere.

No need to apologize. You're just looking at this situation with a wider mindset and that bothers you. It bothers you because there are shitty things going on elsewhere, and I get that. But the point for me is that this story of the miners is about 33 miners trapped in a Chilean mine, who were there for two months until they were extracted spectacularly one by one up a makeshift elevator. The story is not about Haiti, it's not about miners dying in West Virginia, or about those who starved to death.

It doesn't do any good to focus on the "crackers" who glue themselves to CNN and Fox. There are other people in the world, you know. You yourself have pointed that out. Why the censure? You should write for Adbusters.

it's easy and useful to make a separation between the fact those miners got out---which is a good thing---and the television sporting event that was made from it (complete with breaks for commercials! yay advertising delivery!)--and another between this remarkable single instance and conditions in the mining industy in general (which are pretty lousy for a whole lot of people). these seem obvious.


what bugs me in this thread is the assumption that if you aren't watching tv and responding as prompted that you're an awful person.

packaged compassion is nothing, really....you sit on your couch and say "yay chilean miners" and feel elevated as a person. but really, you're sitting on your couch watching tv and reacting as you're told to between segments of vital advertising.

i mean, it's fun and all, 33 little melodramas, 33 reunion sequences, 33 reasons to say "yay chilean miners!" and "yay 24/7 cable infotainment outlet!" and "yay me for watching!"

but the point can't really be "yay chile" because, well, i don't remember seeing any threads about the earthquakes in chile a few months ago, nor to i remember any sniffy passive-aggressive remarks about the lack of threads about the earthquake....i mean if being all "yay chile" is such a big deal, be consistent.....but then again neither the earthquake nor the slow painful recovery process played well on tv and certainly didn't lend itself to sporting-event coverage. and we don't feel good about ourselves watching all that debby downer footage about rubble and infrastructure breakdown.

so the chilean miner story---not the situation, but the television event that turned the rescue into 33 mawkish little meodramas----is really about you the consumer. it's really about getting you to spend and entire day experiencing vital advertising and doing it in a context that allows you to come away thinking "how grand everything is" and provides the extra fun and excitement of justifying getting all righteous & snarky when others don't affirm your pre-packaged relation to your own pre-packaged emotions in the way the packaging indicates they should be doing.

Me too. I actually had to work a 40-hour week this week for once, and also don't have TV, so anything I've heard about this has been a brief snippet while in my car on the way to work, or once I got home. There's no computer or radio at work (well, there is, but we aren't allowed to use said computer, and only one of my other staffers wants to listen to public radio with me). Suffice it to say--my feelings are definitely not the same as other people here.

Sure, it's amazing that they were able to survive and be rescued, but seriously--would we even know about this story if it weren't for the modern media?

It's a difficult thing to get your head around.

I mean, China continues to put the squeeze on Tibetans. Monks are unjustly imprisoned and even tortured (and have been for decades), physically and psychologically oppressed for their faith. The Tibetan culture is struggling to survive under Chinese authoritarianism, while their spiritual leader lives out his remaining years as an outlaw. I bet more people would care if there were some kind of live feed following these guys around.

Now, everyone, go ahead and take a home inventory of items "Made in China." There's your show of support.

When will everyone be Tibetan for a day? Just one day?

But don't get me wrong. It's perfectly fine, and hoped, that you would root for these Chilean miners and their plight. At the same time, it's important to realize how easy it is to lose perspective.

Huzzah!

If I were trapped in a mine for 69 days, I probably would retire from my occupation.

i am so glad they all got out safely.

watched some of the live coverage and it was very emotional

the poor families..

...

I'm just glad they all came up safe.
My emotions weren't pre-packaged.
I certainly didn't feel 'yay me' for watching or 'elevated as a person.'
That seems a bit harsh.
My little 'piss off' comment to Niner was in jest, but I guess it came across wrong.
Yikes.

I think that one has to remember that not everyone sees the same heroics and good that comes from every event. Some maybe jaded and cynical to events and actions that are different than your own.

I was having dinner by myself last night at a Mexican restaurant. I wasn't interested in watching, and people were cheering the Spanish TV. Me, I was lamenting about the fact I was having dinner alone, something that I hate more than anything in the world. When I looked up to see the 22nd person come up, and the rest of the restaurant cheered, I looked back down at my ebook of Let the Right One in and cut another slice off my enchilada. I didn't really care much about the event. I think it's great that they didn't die but I had my own concerns at the moment.

As far as contributions, thanks Shani.

The point isnt really the physical hardship they suffered (although I doubt any of us would be so blase if we went through it)

The point is - from a narrative point of view - that for 17 days they dead and then they were brought back to life

A small country, achieving a rescue that is beyond anything that has been technically done before by anyone, the return to life of these men... I think I and most people do not share your cyncism.

...

Looks like we uncovered another Universal Life Excuse #1.

...

At the end of the day, what is important is this. The freakin' cave no longer holds people. They went up a meticulously engineered tube riding in that custom built space-age high tech capsule and are now enjoying the sunshine again.

screen grab of the last rescuer heading up

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...eOct132010.jpg

how's it a miraculous survival? this miracle didnt happen just once or twice, it happened 33 times. no one got physically hurt, everyone stayed sane, they all had a shave before they came up, they had access to news, they had cameras down there and were communicating with their families etc. it seems like the only thing they didnt have was sunlight. and you dont really need that for survival.

water - check
food - check
oxygen - check
clothes - check
medication - check

everything else is an extra when it comes to essential human survival

sure, ive never been in a mine, and no i dont know what kind of conditions its like down there, not do i want to be, but judging by the % rate of survival, it think it's safe to say it couldnt have been dire. i have no idea what sort of ventilation they had in there, but its obvious that it couldnt have been extremely bad if 33 guys spent 70 odd days down there.

again, im glad they made it out alive, but top ranking news it aint.

Why, because these situations are a dime a dozen?

no, because i dont think it deserves the live feeds for something that isnt truely miraculous. round the clock live feeds, and now ive seen a headline that these guys are supposedly asking 40K a pop for an interview. good luck to them. they need to look after themselves and their families

but this hooha by the media is about money.

fwiw, i was more interested in the UFO sighting in NYC today.

and that's i think one way in which the teevee circus might bring about a positive outcome. alot of people who have difficult dangerous jobs would rather not have to work those difficult, dangerous jobs any more. i think these folk should cash in on this while they can and soak the teevee networks for every dime they can get. they should charge for product placement ops, which are all the corporate gifts they've been showered with are. they should cash in and hopefully for them, none of these guys will ever have to see the inside of another mine again. except maybe when they go to a museum. or appear on teevee retrospectives.

why not?

exactly, why not?

but their managers will now need to fill 33 roles for the ones these guys just gave up. its not like their jobs will disappear and no one is going to fill them up. these miners get paid 3 times the average salary in chile. their jobs will be picked up in no time. dangerous job or not, some people have mouths to feed.

one good thing to come out of this is that safety in mines will become paramount, and thats of course a great thing.

Safety in mines cuts into profitability. We can't have that. To think otherwise demonstrates a fundamental lack of knowledge as to how such businesses are run, especially in poorer countries where the government is at the mercy of industries that keep it out of the stone age. The United States, one of the most job-safe nations on the planet, can't even keep miners alive. What makes anybody think Chile ("Who? Where?") can do any better?

...

I'm sensing a new Survivor spin-off that ADD America will glue their plump asses to the couch for:

Survivor - San Jose Mineshaft!

/not serious

i know all about safety. i work in construction.

And i couldnt agree more, safety does cut into profitability on one end of the scales. but on the other hand, safety also means higher efficiency and happier workers which again leads to better efficiency and high output which in effect could safe a lot of money (we're talking interest costs on land aquisition, interest on construction, time bonuses for early completion etc).

so you cant discount safety as just a cost. safety adds value to the bottom dollar too.

I know it's a crippled camel, but I'll kick it anyway:

Safety does not necessarily mean higher efficiency. Safety requires time and money. Time is money so safety requires money and money.

If we were sitting at a bar I'd tell you all about my job and how safety cuts into profitability like whoa. And the results of said whoa.

yes, safety IS money. But in construction, if you can make a safe site, you're halfway to making higher profits.

You're less inclined to get OH&S fines from the municipality (which saves money), you wont have higher worker protection premiums (which saves money), your site is not likely to get closed by the unions, which could end up into overruns on time for which you may have to pay liquidated damages to your subcontractors for delays, not to mention other time related costs set out in the contracts, as well as your running costs on your own overheads and preliminaries.

to be honest i dont know exactly what you do in your job, but in mine, it pays to be safe.

fyi - we wouldnt be at a bar because i dont drink...unless its hooters.

I'd imagine Dubai/Australia (wealthy) isn't as bad as South America as far as safety regulations and enforcing actual standards.

There is an absolutely awful Hooters with flat-ass girls right next to my apartment in the states. I go there all the time. Come visit.

mine safety--->obviously another potential side-benefit.

but how much infotainment was provided about conditions in this mine, the type of mine that it is, the structural problems of this sort of mining, who owns these mining outfits what the materials are used for so to what extent is sitting on your ass on a couch watching teevee complicit in keeping people like these folk in mines like that one?

context. teevee aint so good at it. it cuts into vital advertising time.

Does anybody know if Jeff Hart and the others are atheists?

I'm having a hard time coming up with a context where that would be relevant.
The guy that dug the hole is among the best in the world at what he does, not sure his religious beliefs have any bearing on anything.


This is a feel good story.

Take a 2 minute sample of the news outlet of your choice:

Political mud slinging ... facts optional
Suicides, murder
Unemployment

As hard news, this is marginal; but it certainly beats another "The sky is falling" scenario from yet another op ed piece.

Jeff hart
 

His religion or lack of has nothing to do with his excellent work
He is a true professional, and seems to be the best in the world
I admire the fact he quietly went home afterwards without wanting kudos
we need more people like him in the world

I'm with StanT - I still don't see how his religious beliefs (or lack thereof) are at all relevant to the story as a whole or the discussion here.

As for the rest of this thread, it seem clear to me that some people love feel good stories and others couldn't care less.

...

If you run out of occupation-based holier-than-thou comments, Silent_Jay, I've got a whole bunch of them I posted in 2007. You can use some of those.

Sure, I don't know what it's like to be underground. But I know what it's like to be in an obsolete bomb suit inches away from a neon pink IED.

...

Jazz, it's not such a 'care or not care' matter, really.
I sense the disgust for our round the clock so called news machine
& its spun-sugar non-substance. I share many of the same sentiments.

I watched cnn for a short while that day, until the nausea was too much to bear.
Switched over to a local channel in Spanish.

Information about that particular mine, mining in general..etc,
are only a few clicks away for the mildly curious & the deeply concerned, alike.

Much information is available to people that have access to a computer or the basic
knowledge to operate one. But I'm curious as to how many folk actually do avail,
or can avail themselves of said. Poverty, age, complacency,...many factors are at play.

Okay, but which elite? The elite that like the story or the elite that don't like the story? C'mon, man. The only elitist here is Jazzypoo and he's fine.

And you didn't explain anything, chief. You threatened to explain things but then you went and pulled a Plan9 and edited your posts.

Dude, nobody is attempting to trivialize these human beings. I'm just trying to understand why this and not something more important or beneficial.

SJ, just because ive never been down a mine doesnt mean i dont have the right to interpolate and interpet information and give my point of view.

if thats the case, maybe you could start a thread telling everyone how it is and then asking everyone to refrain from posting because you've been in a mine so theres no use anyone else posting about it.

im using statistic to back my case. 100% of the miners survived for 2 months. 100%. you cant tell me that it was life or death down there and that they were close to death for 2 whole months. if that was the case, i dare say some lives would have been lost over those 70 days.

nobody said its not difficult down there, and no one said its easy. but i fail to believe that their lives hinged in the balance. reports coming out is that most have a full bill of health with some minor complications with about 5 miners. a far cry from the dire scenario that you depict. i dont need to be down a mine to make that sort of qualitative asessment.

...

for what it's worth, i thought from jump that it was entirely possible to separate the television packaging out from what was happening on the ground and focus on the former without having to stray into saying too much about "what was really going on" with the latter, and this for a lot of reasons, not least because of the sort of things that silent jay has been talking about.

this is why this is a discussion board SJ. You can choose to contribute and give your side of the story, or you can walk away. the choice is yours.

but FFS Sj, again ill tell you that i never said its a piece of piss down there and no one said it was a flippin picnic. But of course, if i have any mining questions, i'll send you a PM, because obviously im undeserved of being able to post in here because ive never been down there. Just like those people who became Chilean for a day dont deserve to be chilean because they have never been to Chile.

...

I enjoyed reading about your first-hand experience, Jay. The engineering is fascinating and the kind of person who can go into a big hole in the ground for hours on end is interesting, to say the least.

The psycho-babble that some of the comments on here contained was interesting too. (That was the hated sarcasm making it's appearance.)

Maybe I'm in the minority because I like a nice break from the constant murder, rape, and destruction stories that have plagued the news.

I guess their situation wasn't life or death, but can you imagine being in a hole with no sun light for a couple months? No sex, no home cooking, no family contact. That would be the pits (pun intended). They had a shit time down there, now they're okay, and I'm happy.

"Now back to Falcon Lake, Texas, where our very own John Smith is standing by to interview the wife of the man killed by Mexican drug pirates..."

Look, I think everyone understands that life has not conquered death completely, that horrible things still happen in the world.

The point of this is that it was a story of pure joy that everyone could feel a part of.

We can admire the technical proficiency and comptency of the Chilean state in organising such an incredible rescue, a technical feat which had never before been accomplished.

As Americans (as most people here are) you ought to be proud of the scientific genius of one of your citizens that made this rescue possible.

I dont think that anybody would say that the suffering of these minors is beyond anything in human history. I dont think anyone who has any idea what it was like would underestimate how hard it was, and the bravery and toughness of these men.

As I said in my last post - from a narrative point of view, these men were dead for 17 days. There was really no hope of finding them alive, hardly any hope of finding their corpses. And suddenly they were back from the dead.

It may be sentimental: but watching the look on the kid's face when the first minor came out, watching jaded newscasters just laughing with joy as the minors came out, allowing one self to be caught up in the happiness of these families and the Chilean people - I do not consider myself to be reduced as a human being if such things make me feel sentimental. I do not consider cynicism or worldliness as some kind of higher state.

_

One other thing I read, which I will just mention

When "the 33" first made contact with the outside world, the first question they asked was not for supplies or rescue. They asked for news about 3 other minors who had been separated from the men just before the accident. When the people above ground told the minors that the 3 men were safe, they heard cheers, laughter, cries of joy from the minors.

_

They are not supermen, or even heroes... just ordinary working class men who through their toughness and solidarity, stayed together and did not allow any one of the group to collapse, and thus endured hell and were reborn.

Today, and tomorrow, and every day there will be plenty of human tragedy in the world which we may mourn. I do not consider it wrong or in some way "weak" to also take joy from the good news when it happens.

That was an excellent post, Strange. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

Thoughtful post, Strange. Thanks.

Effusive slobbery emoticon ----> :icare:

i could pull out all the quotes where you said youve been down there and how anyone who hasnt been down there doesnt know shit. i think with that sort of attitude, you're definately telling everyone who hasnt been down a mine to STFU and that theres no need to post their contributions. why would we contribute? you're the go-to man obviously.

if you actually read my posts again, what you'll see that my issue with this whole thing from the very start was the sensationalism surrounding the whole thing. reporters only converged on the mine only at the time of the rescue, and in a flash they were gone. ive said all along this is all about selling stories for the networks. Media moguls dont give a damn about safety. heck, dare i say it would have worked in their favour had their been a mishap or a few deaths down there.

what i have an issue is the disparity between the news stories of mining accidents in china vs this incident. i dont anyone remembers the heroics of the chinese miners a few months back. why should you right? In that case there was over 100 miners stuck in the mine for a week. they survived by eating sawdust, coal, paper and tree bark. some of them even strapped themselves to the walls of the shaft to avoid being swept away and drowned while they slept. when you compare the two stories, its easy to see that theres an obvious bias in the reporting process. chinese mining deaths dont sell newspapers, and the guys are probably back doing their old jobs again. they probably dont have football teams offering them free trips to play football against the worlds best teams, or people offering them trips to graceland and other destinations, they probably dont have a bookdeal coming up either. Thats why i dont buy into the bullshit of this beatup. There's no such thing as fair and biased in news stories. only agendas.


fwiw i think the pic that you posted gives a good insight into life down there.

Oh, look... another ~30 miners trapped / killed in central China today.

Dlish is psychic. And let's see if anybody puts a 24/7 camera on that site.

ha!

im not psychic. but ive been told that i know it all...or not.

---------- Post added at 08:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:49 PM ----------

heres the breaking news...

and that "ha" comment was about your psychic comment P9, not the fact that 30 miners got trapped.

if these guys get saved, im going to become chinese for a day.

China's Dangerous Mines -- NTDTV.com

[Prof. Hu Xingdou, Beijing Institute of Technology]:
"I think that first the information has to be open and transparent. The situation in the Chilean mine was, from the start, broadcast to the world. In the past in China, as soon as a disaster occurred, information was blocked from the media."

I like the "gotcha" vibe I'm getting with this news of Chinese miners. It's like stories of miners getting trapped, killed, or otherwise maimed is something new.

Should we also wonder why they don't televise conflicts in Congo, Angola, and/or Darfur as they did for Iraq?

Exactly.

africa? what's that?

Africa isn't on television because white America doesn't care about black people.

SEE: Socioeconomic segregation, race-based housing policies of the 1960s, etc.

SEE: Every missing little girl on TeeVee ever. White girls? 99%. Black girls? 1%.

It's that really poor place where those nasty companies get the bulk of the security forces used in... you guessed it... Iraq.

...

If by "like" you mean "see," by "gotcha" you mean "tired," and by "new" you mean "important," my work is done.

So, let's get back to the real issue that was brought up early: the suffering of cute baby animals all over the planet.

...

Since the days in our imaginary tinfoil-lined cave, Jay, I've respected your knowledge & opinions. dlish was disrespectful. Let it go.