Patience as we travel by luxury train to mine Tibet

This weekend I went to a local production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience.  That has nothing to do with mining you may say; but I reply that it was one of the first and most popular productions at the new Leadville opera house in the 1800s–the miners apparently flocked to see this strange picture of human silliness and love.  Thus in honor of the old miners’ apparent enjoyment of the different, I note these reports from today’s web:

 (But first a picture of Lady Jane bemoaning her advancing age–from Flickr)

Canadian miners take luxury train to Tibet to promote mining.  In a Globe and Mail report we read of plans to go to Tibet in the utmost luxury to develop new mines that will help the locals. It is not specified what help will be proffered to the locals or enjoyed by the locals as the Canadians arrive en masse to bring the benefits of the Toronto and Vancouver stock exchanges to monks who presumably would simply like to see the Chines gone, not the Canadians arrive.  Still a PDAC MOU might bring them invaluable benefits?

Bolivian miners worship the devil in the mine and God above-ground.  In a nicely written article we read of a church to the devil deep in a Bolivian salt mine.  You need to read this to believe it.  Here is part:

Deep in the silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia, where men labor more than ten hours a day and some still drill holes for dynamite charges without power tools, the miners have made an image of the devil out of clay.  And they give the devil his due – cigarettes, coca leaves, trinkets and other gifts – because he is, they say, the owner of the silver. El deuño de la plata.  The clay evil avatar has the requisite horns, the pointy beard, the devilish grin.   If the miners do not pay Beelzebub his tribute, they believe he might get angry because they are taking precious metals from his lair.

I wonder if we could get the Bolivians to give the Tibetans some advice on the relationship between true religion and mining? 

Personally, I am not sure I believe either of these reports, but they are so strange and so illustrative of human nature, that I cannot resist repeating them: in the hope some new musical genius will make operas out of them?   Both stories highlight the, dare I say it, almost “inhuman” desire to go after precious goods where-ever they are, to wallow in or ignore beliefs and life-styles as it suits your purpose.  And it testifies to the human spirit to make the best of the worst–which I suppose is a pre-requisite for continued living–an the enjoyment of the absurdity of opera as a reflection of life.