This morning I was searching through the day’s news stories and came across this miraculous story of survival. I’ve condensed and commented on the story below:

Chinese miners ate coal while trapped
August 28, 2007 – AP

BEIJING –Two brothers who tunneled out of a collapsed mine were forced to eat coal and drink urine during the nearly six-day ordeal, but still were able to crack jokes about their wives remarrying once they were dead, a state-run newspaper reported Tuesday.

– Ok, I admit, I’m interested. Call me heartless, but if the opening paragraph had been “two coal miners in China survive a collapsed mine” I would have clicked the back button on my browser to see if there were any more articles written about the Red Sox. But coal eating, urine drinking, joking about their wives? Now that’s an article I’ve got to read. –

Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou surfaced on Friday after more than 130 hours trapped in an illegal mine in Beijing’s Fangshan district.

– 130 hours?!? That’s like…18 days?! –

Rescuers had called off efforts to save the Mengs after more than a day, and grieving relatives had already burned ceremonial “ghost money” for the men’s souls to use in the afterlife.

– There really has to be a better practice for mourning your lost ones then to just light a bunch of cash on fire. I mean, aren’t you just rubbing salt in your wounds. If they’re really dead then you’re not only alone, but you’re poor. If they’re not really dead then you basically burned a bunch of money to kill time. How about they just throw rotten vegetables against a wall instead? If they’re looking to give their lost loved ones something useful to use in the afterlife, how about a pillow. I’ve never known a pillow to be a burden. –

The men were optimistic until the sound of digging outside stopped. Then they “totally had a breakdown. I told my brother, your wife is going to have to marry someone else,” Meng Xianyou told Beijing News.

– Bad news – your wife will have to marry someone else because you’re as good as dead. The good news – she won’t be able to use any of the money you’ve earned because she’s probably burned it. –

“I said right, I had been thinking about buying an apartment in town for my wife and it was going to be someone else’s,” Meng Xianchen added.“I laughed too, I said my wife could find a rich man in Shenyang. But then I thought, I have two children and my wife is ugly, so it’d be hard for her to remarry,” his brother joked.

– Umm…do these people know they’re not dead and that their wives WILL read this? I mean, do what you’ve got to do to survive in the mine, but I think wives are more willing to forgive cannibalism than being called ugly. –

“At first we didn’t feel hungry, but later on we were so hungry we couldn’t even crawl,” Meng Xianchen said. “At the end, we were so hungry we ate coal and thought it tasted delicious.”They also had no water and were forced to drink urine using two empty water bottles they found in the coal shaft.

– Since I had read the opening paragraph I was hoping the article would tell me how they drank the urine. I was worried there weren’t going to be any canisters involved and we were going to have to find out how close these brothers really were. –

China’s coal mines are the world’s deadliest, with an average of 13 deaths a day in fires, explosions and floods.

– Way to go China. –

I’ve noticed that mining accidents have been in the news a lot over the past six months. This worries me, not only because they continue to happen and hard working people’s lives are put at risk, but because you know it’s only a matter of months before a slew of “trapped in a mine” movies come out.

Other people may not have noticed, but there seems to be a direct correlation with what’s going on in the world and movies. A few hurricanes hit and we’re knee deep in natural disaster movies. There’s a political scandal and all of a sudden every movie has Martin Sheen banging a desk and saying “I will not let this nation crumble”. Right now we’re in the middle of the “terrorist” movie streak. Just about every movie is either about fighting terrorists or terrorists attacking us.

I can’t stand these types of movies. Is it too much to ask to stop making movies that are based on tragedies that ACTUALLY could happen? Let’s look at the list of top grossing movies of all time:

1. Titanic – We waited 90 years to enjoy watching this tragedy happen.
2. Star Wars: Episode IV – The phrase “long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” can’t be underemphasized.
3. Shrek 2 – A cartoon about a fat guy and a donkey.
4. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial – Unless I’ve missed something, E.T. coming to our planet was less of a tragedy and more of a candy party.
5. Star Wars: Episode I – Even longer time ago in a galaxy farther away.
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – Pirates last went “arrggghhh” when rum was in style.
7. Spider-Man – Modern day New York, but Toby McGuire saving the day is the perfect way to let people know you’re not taking yourself seriously.
8. Star Wars: Episode III – IS ANYONE PAYING ATTENTION!!
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – Some people say the Lord of the Rings was an allegory for WWII. If that’s the case then this proves my point. I’d rather see a bunch of elves and orcs have it out than watch the French get pummeled by the Germans.
10. Spider-Man 2 – Still fighting villains who are white, rich and buy expensive toys.

You have to go all the way down to #25 to find anything that is half realistic…and that was Independence Day where Will Smith punches a giant alien in the face.

While I’ll be happy to get out of the “what if we were chemically attacked and forced to murder our children in order to ensure our own survival” movie phase, I’m less than thrilled to enter the “trapped in a mine” movie phase…unless there are aliens involved.