Chilean Miners

When Copiapó Valley miner, Florencio Ávalos broke surface from the penance of his underground dungeon, the collapsed San José copper-gold mine, ten minutes after midnight, Chilean time, everyone cheered and applauded. I couldn't help myself. From another hemisphere, another time zone, I too clapped and cried for The 33.

Los treinta y tres—a fortuitous number in Latin American history—the equivalent of freedom—the 33 liberators of Uruguay, Jesus's age, and his 33 miracles. But this is indeed a story of miracles. Though I suspect Roger Ebert would take umbrage over my fast and loose use of the word miracle or milagro. Mea culpea. And he's right. But I love the sound of miracle in Spanish. Let's just say it was a miracle of technology and tenacious know-how.

I don't have TV & it blows my mind that I can watch in real time this Chilean rescue mission. Amidst a covey of balloons against a backdrop of inkdark lapis Chilean sky, a tinabulation of church bells and the braying of  zuzuzuelas, or Genesis alarms, on CNN, they're saying their minds are blown… All our minds are blown. And it's a full-blown media circus—imagine 2-3000 media hounds at full bay. Though the media is literally being held at bay some 300 feet from the emerging miners, I can hear fragments of nasal American English twang rising over the din. Izzat Larry King?

The first miner to be rescued, "Florencio Ávalos came back to us on the 13th day of the 10th month of the 10th year of the decade —which adds up to 33," President
Sebastián Piñera said. It's also the numerical equivalent of AMEN: 1+13+5+14=33.