30 Minutes to Escape the Rabbithole

Alice just had to wake up. The Chilean miners will endure "one last horror" as they escape from their underground prison, up through a tunnel in a one man per trip elevator cage so small it's standing room only, a one-way trip estimated to take 15 to 30 minutes.

"Horror?" I dunno. Miners with claustrophobia don't last past their first paycheck, if that.

And anyone who's endured 45 minutes inside an MRI cylinder will probably have some inkling of what's actually in store. My guess is, the trip up will seem like 30 seconds to any miner who's just made it out after being underground since early August.

Reports that the miners seem to have gone stir crazy and taken to riding the machinery recklessly around the crib get a big innnterresting... out of me. That was one of the nutcase symptoms in Bruce Dern's classic 1972 SciFi movie, Silent Running.

Mission to Mars, anyone?

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[Update: Wednesday, October 13, 11 PM] I gotta admit, getting all 32 mineros and 6 socorristas out of that mine looked like the old NASA all right, very well done. I was glued to the set, flipping back and forth between CNN and Univision. When the 32nd miner made it to the surface, Univision's 24/7 wall-to-wall coverage dropped off the cliff edge — leaving the six lifeguards who'd gone down to organize the rescue still underground. CNN kept up their incessant motormouth drivel until the last man was out, but at least the video was still there.

Is that a cultural or a fiduciary difference? Univision had superb visual coverage, with lots of actuality in their audio. CNN spent millions putting experts in boxes and rattling on about "what you're seeing" with virtually NO live audio (even though some of us understand at least some Spanish!) and the live video crammed into an even smaller box in one corner of the screen. I give CNN a C+ for their coverage, and Univision an A — until the climactic moment the last trapped miner made it out. CNN continued coverage. Univision dropped the story like the other six men's lives didn't matter. Maybe they just couldn't afford the live feed from Chile anymore?

Chile did a fantastic job, right down to the TMI about one miner's love life. The real NASA might have glossed that over some, 'ey?