“A large bore drill is starting to grind a one-metre tunnel through the remaining 12-16 metres of rock separating the rescuers from two miners trapped in a Tasmanian gold mine for eight days. But Beaconsfield mine manager Matthew Gill said it would be ‘at least 48 hours from now’ before the drill broke through to Brant Webb and Todd Russell. The rock, he said, is ‘harder than concrete’ and the drilling has to proceed slowly,” Ben Cubby reports for The Sydney Morning Herald. “Meanwhile, members of the medical team are underground 24 hours a day, speaking to Webb and Russell through a 12-metre long PVC pipe. Tasmanian Ambulance Service paramedic Matthew Eastham said psychologists had instructed them how to speak to the two men, cramped inside a 1.2m by 1.2m steel cage under tonnes of rock.”
Cubby reports, “The men have received messages from their families, as well as magazines and iPods to keep them occupied… Prime Minister John Howard has delivered a message of support to the two men, calling their ordeal a wonderful story of endurance and courage… A digital camera has also been passed to the two men so they can show rescuers and medical staff their surroundings and what is happening to them. ‘They are able to point the camera around the various parts of their fairly cramped environment,’ Australian Workers Union national secretary Bill Shorten told reporters.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jeremy” for the heads up.]
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What people will do for a free iPod…
That’s very cool. But I hope they had the sense to not have put “Canary in a Coal Mine” on them. I hope they are o.k.
I wonder what they’re listening to.
Trapt. The Shaft Soundtrack. Alice in Chain’s “Down in a Hole”
There’s one reality show I will not watch. Been down in mines. Worked in one of them every day for a whole week. Won’t go back. Couldn’t pay me enough.
Hope they gave them two of ’em or at least two headphones. I’m glad these guys have air. The iPod comes second.
I’m assuming these guys are getting food as well as the Best Buy shopping spree in a hole.
Some tunes to kill time:
“Be Mine” – David Gray
“Wishing Well” – Terence Trent D’arby
“Goldmine” – Caviar
“Dig It” – D-Tent Boys
“Trapped” – Bruce Springsteen
“Breath of Fresh Air” – Doug E. Fresh
“Like a Rock” – Bob Seger
“Tasmanian Devil” – Don Spencer
They are mining for gold not coal.
Ampar, you’re on a roll this week, great list!
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And one from 1961-“Big Bad John”- Jimmy Dean
(he didn’t make it out though)
It is incredibly tasteless and vulgar for MDN to promote the iPod when two men lie buried under tons of rock and one other man was killed.
MDN’s take, “When life hangs in the balance, when pain and suffering are just bummin’ you out, or when death is knocking on the door, turn on your iPod and relax. Yes, folks, nothing calms the nerves and raises the human spirit in a crisis situation than an iPod loaded with yer favorite tunes. When the stress and grief of disaster befall you, stop, whip out yer Pod and chill. Leg crushed and blood gushing from a gaping head wound? No problem, listen to “The End” by The Doors or “It’s Not My Time to Go” by Dan Hicks. Feeling your soul leaving your mortal body? Hey, crank up “See that My Grave is Kept Clean” by Blind Lemon Jefferson or “The I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” by Country Joe and the Fish. Don’t let yer body go to waste, either, people. Listen to John Prine wail out his sentimental “Please Don’t Bury Me”. Contact MDN for more of yer favorite tunes for life’s cruel and nasty times including, rape, murder, arson, and car wrecks – all collections are elegantly bundled in our signature iPod edition with the Death’s Head logo. All prices final and no refunds.”
Thanks, gow! And also putta – thanks for clearing that up.
“A sense of humor is the lubricant of life’s machinery.” -Unknown
“You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything – even poverty – you can survive it.” -Bill Cosby
“If you can look into the mirror without laughter, you have no sense of humor.” -Unknown
“All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world was tranquil, without disease and violence, I’d be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.” -Lenny Bruce
“Humor is just another defense against the universe.” -Mel Brooks
“Lighten up. Life’s too short.” -Ampar
MW: run, as in don’t walk
Quite agree Ay caramba – totally tasteless when one man has actually been killed. Coming next from Ampar and his MDN lickspittles: Al Quaeda’s 20 greatest hits (insert list of lame aeroplane disaster records here).
Ampar:
I doubt that you have the balls to tell the family of the dead man in person what you anonymously posted here. Even if you did, and they failed to see the gracious humor of your talented wit, and proceeded to beat the shit out of you, I’m sure that you would chuckle like an idiot through your toothless face. The lack of teeth in your mouth would only match the deficiency of brains in your head and the absence of heart in your chest.
I don’t know about the guys in the mines, but I can say that I find it subtly irritating that we now have these green double-underline links to commercial sites in all the articles, like the green link in this one that takes us to Olympus cameras. Like there aren’t enough ads already in the sidebar.
jselani, when you open your trust fund check or disability payment, try to backtrack the whole process of how it gets to you………wealth is created by advertising, among other ways. If you can’t resist clicking on links, give someone else the mouse.
Hmmm. “lickspittle” Actually, I think I prefer toady. And whatever you do, do not read theonion.com. You will freak out. Seriously. Don’t do it.
Ampar –
Just because someone else has made the same bad decision that you did to make a joke of the situation is no reason to behave like a wise ass.
To jselani who wrote:
I don’t know about the guys in the mines, but I can say that I find it subtly irritating that we now have these green double-underline links to commercial sites in all the articles, like the green link in this one that takes us to Olympus cameras. Like there aren’t enough ads already in the sidebar.
AND
Joe who wrote:
jselani, when you open your trust fund check or disability payment, try to backtrack the whole process of how it gets to you………wealth is created by advertising, among other ways. If you can’t resist clicking on links, give someone else the mouse.
How about someone inventing a semi-invisible link; one that is visible ONLY if you your mouse in on it.
THAT would be stylish as well as create wealth.
MW=strength as in in…
One of the trapped miners is listening to Foo Fighters – it was announced on the news this evening. No word yet on how they’ll recharge them though, something which I would consider pertinent given that they’re due to be down there for at least another 24 hours…
Canary in a Coalmine – The Police
@Ay caramba!:
“It is incredibly tasteless and vulgar for MDN to promote the iPod when two men lie buried under tons of rock and one other man was killed. [Onionized MDN take deleted]”
I’m thankful that MDN posted this, since I would have never heard of this story without it. And notice that they had no “MDN take” on the situation, leaving it tastefully untouched.
To me this is an appropriate post for MDN, since it touches on Apple technology meeting psychology. Imagine the level of distraction that these 2 miners need to maintain their sanity – I would be freaking out big time to be in such a small cage, even without having to share it with someone else.
While the iPod is easy to use, I think a better option would have been the iRiver U10 – the battery lasts much longer, the controls are even easier, and there is a plethora of flash games to play. A game can be much more distracting/engaging than passive listening.
Regardless, it’s brilliant that technology is being put to such a good use. In school, this is one example of what we would call a “nursing intervention” (something the nurse can do without a doctor’s order to help the patient have a good outcome). Distraction is one of the biggies, giving the patient’s mind something to focus on instead of the pain or enforced bedrest.
maybe just maybe, people are applying humor to the situation of the people being SAVED, that’s right, a happy story. Scary, but it’s a very positive rescue story. (Not to mention relevant to this site.)
The other man’s story is sad and I don’t see Ampar or anyone else applying humor to his story.
You got it right, Hmmm. Thanks.
My comments weren’t meant to be mean-spirited any more than the parodies on theonion.com. If I did know these people, I would send heartfelt thoughts and prayers. Sometimes dark humor is someone’s way with coping or understanding a bad situation. If you don’t get it or like it or find it tasteless, then don’t take it literally or personally and move on. A violent reaction to dark humor is also troubling it in it’s own way. And for those people, I strongly recommend staying away from the works of Charles Addams, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Dennis Miller, Jon Stewart, George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Hunter S. Thompson, Edward Gorey, Quentin Tarantino, The Sex Pistols, Howard Stern, Tim Burton, Stanley Kubrick, John Waters, George Orwell, Lewis Black and Joseph Heller to name just a few. And no, I’m not comparing myself in any manner to anyone.
As I said originally, I hope they are o.k. And I meant it.
Hey, Ampar. Can I make one correction? A sense of humor is the lubrication of most of life’s machinery.
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