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"Rescued Miners? Secrecy Pact Erodes in Spotlight."

Oh, no. I sense that the recent joy will melt into tragedy. What personal details do these men know about each other, and what antipathy will arise as they tell each other's stories and disagree about what really happened?

?We?re poor ? look at the place we live... you live off our stories, so why can?t we make money from this opportunity to feed our children??

Miners have asked for as little as $40 and upward of $25,000 for interviews....

?We paid $500 for the interview,? Ari Hirayama of Asahi Shimbun of Japan, said upon exiting the house. ?And it felt like he was withholding details.?

33 men with 69 days together. That's over 50,000 hours of human drama to be remembered and put into words ? words that men who've always been poor can now sell. What a strange market! So there is the betrayal of the secrecy pact being broken, and the competition for money, in which the most talkative and imaginative men will win the most and, perhaps, cause the most pain.

[One] interview also touched on the crying fits some men had, the unsanitary conditions they endured, even the rumors that some had sexual relations with others underground...

We will never hear the end of this. 

Full post as published by Althouse on October 18, 2010 (boomark / email).