“Because it’s there”

Sir Edmund Hillary, on this the 50th anniversary of his ascent of Everest, is rightfully being honored worldwide, most especially in Nepal, where Everest is.

Through the years he has continually and steadily stated that ascents of Everest would not be possible without Sherpas, who weigh about 130-140 pounds and trek up Everest with 75-100 pound packs in dangerous conditions, providing crucial logistical support and expertise. I’ve done 60 pound backpacks in the High Sierras, and lemme tell you, it’s exhausting. I can not comprehend how Sherpas do it.

I think it was Hillary who said “You can’t see a Sherpa when they stand next to you. Then they inhale - and block the horizon”.

Hillary has devoted much of his life to helping Sherpas; aiding in bringing hospitals, schools, building bridges, and has done so with little publicity. I’ve always felt he did this simply because they were his friends and he wanted to help.

A while back I heard Jamling Norgay speak. He’s the son of Tensing Norgay, the Sherpa who accompanied Hillary to the top. He showed photos of them the day of the final ascent. Their tents were canvas, the kind that when it rains and you touch the canvas, the tent leaks. They wore huge weighty boots and were each carrying fifty pounds of oxygen. A few hours later, they summitted Everest and the planet cheered.

PS. Another mountaineer (whose name I momentarily forget) says, “You don’t conquer Everest. You sort of sneak up on it, then get the hell down”.

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More on the “tyranny of structurelessness”

From Murray Bookchin, founder of the Institute for Social Ecology

“If anything, functioning on the basis of consensus assures that important decision-making will be either manipulated by a minority or collapse completely. And the decisions that are made will embody the lowest common denominator of views and constitute the least creative level of agreement.

I speak, here, from painful, years-long experience with the use of consensus in the Clamshell Alliance of the 1970s. Just at the moment when this quasi-anarchic antinuclear-power movement was at the peak of its struggle, with thousands of activists, it was destroyed through the manipulation of the consensus process by a minority. The ‘tyranny of structurelessness’ that consensus decision-making produced permitted a well-organized few to control the unwieldy, deinstitutionalized, and largely disorganized many within the movement.”

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Iraq war ‘not over,’ general warns

“The commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq said Thursday that continuing attacks on U.S. forces were being orchestrated by Baath Party groups loyal to ousted President Saddam Hussein.”

But this can’t be! Dubya said a few weeks ago the war was over. So therefore, it must be…

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No bunker where U.S. Bombs targeted Saddam

“The Baghdad bunker which the United States said it bombed on the opening night of the Iraq (news - web sites) war in a bid to kill Saddam Hussein never existed,  CBS Evening News reported Wednesday.”

So why didn’t U.S. media check the facts about this before they initially published it? As I recall, they practically tripped over each other proclaiming how glorious our attack was and how Saddam was surely dead. Now, weeks later, they finally investigate? Pathetic.

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UK Iraq weapons dossier rewritten to make it ’sexier’

“A dossier compiled by the government on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction was rewritten to make it “sexier”, a senior British official has told the BBC.

The intelligence official told the BBC the dossier had been “transformed” a week before it was published on the orders of Downing Street.

He said: “The classic example was the statement that weapons of mass destruction were ready for use within 45 minutes. “That information was not in the original draft.

It was included in the dossier against our wishes because it wasn’t reliable. He said “most people in intelligence” were unhappy about the changes because they “didn’t reflect the considered view they were putting forward”.

I believe that this making a report “sexier” is also known as “lying”.

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The Klingon Language Institute

Learn to speak and write Klingon!

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Massachusetts bishops lead fight against gay marriage

“The four Catholic bishops of Massachusetts are asking every pastor in the state to remind worshipers this weekend that the church opposes same-sex marriage, and to urge lay Catholics to lobby the Legislature for a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being solely between a man and a woman.”

I’m thinking these bishops should focus on why priests in Massachusetts have been buggering little boys, rather than on this ugly piece of bigotry. But then hypocrisy knows no bounds.

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