Dechristo

try to collect

Dungaree crabs - sounds uncomfortable

USAToday article cites Bush wants universal health coverage in place before he leaves office.

* your results may vary *

August 2007 The Mountain Fund Newsletter The best news on the planet Greetings! Success with Peru Medical Camp Small loans empower poverty-stricken Peruvians Trek to help build clinic Streaking the OR Show, Heidi Wirtz Slide Show Tour, Medical Lab a Reality, SAE partnership, Adventure Engine, the New Trek4Good, and more! Enjoy the best news on the planet and don't forget to visit our web site often as we are constantly updating the information there to bring you the most up-to-date information about the activities of The Mountain Fund and all of our partner organizations. Medical Camp in Peru Treats over 350 Phase One - The School at Huilloc. Because of a compelling request made by the nonprofit Reach Out Foundation (ROF), The Mountain Fund took a group of volunteers (who paid for their expenses) to Peru in order to administer general medical services to 350 Quechua people of Huilloc and Patacancha. People in this region have little or no health care, explained Anne Schimmel Beck, the President of ROF. "The children never see a doctor and have yet to see a dentist." Within minutes of the team's arrival to the remote village of Huilloc, they were overrun with patients. "It was incredible," said Scott MacLennan. "At times up to 30 or perhaps 40 people were camped on the school grounds waiting to see our medical staff." The team gathered vital statistics on each person, ascertained the problem, and then sent critical cases to the lead doctor, Claudia Delgado-Corcoran, and less serious ones to public health lectures, where they learned about basic health tools (brushing teeth, boiling water, etc). Thirty people were provided with glasses, and people were treated for everything from dysentery, broken bones, infected teeth, and cataracts to frostbite due to the high altitude. "Like true warriors, the medical team refused to wrap up until all the patients had been seen," said MacLennan. "It was difficult to get them to take time to eat or drink!" And the team didn't stop there. After Huilloc, they visited Patacancha, a small village 30 minutes up the road where their small clinic is administered by a local woman from Urubamba who walks three hours a few days per week to the clinic. "In one day some 80 people visited the Patacancha clinic and were given complete medical care by our team," MacLennan stated. "The lines were so long that at times it was nearly impossible to move from one exam room to the other." See all the photos here. Peru Part Two Microfinance Program Making a Difference in Cusco anikuy Last October, The Mountain Fund and its Cuzco-based partner, Yure Chavez, started a new micro-finance program in Peru. Named Aynikuy, which means, "to help each other to cooperate" in Quechua, this program has helped approximately 30 families. "Street vendors do not have easy access to needed capital to purchase inventory or to expand and improve their businesses," explained Chavez. "Banks ask for collateral, which people do not have, or they charge interest rates that are too high (15-20%)." Aynikuy offers these vendors low-interest (5-7%) loans, and it sets up educational programs that help them to improve their restaurant, grocery, newspaper, or hardware businesses. So far, added Chavez, only a very small percentage of people have defaulted on their loans. According to Scott MacLennan, TMF's Executive Director, these small loans make all the difference in the world to people living in a country where 54% of the population lives below poverty, making less than $2.00 a day. Aynikuy currently needs additional funding to establish a permanent loan fund of $5000. So far funding has come primarily from The Mountain Fund and an $820 donation made by Gregory Frux. For more information or to donate, please TMF's Anikuy page. Streaking at the OR Show ! Thanks to Montrail & Mountain Hardwear To be honest, no one ran naked through the Salt Palace. Instead, to kick off the premiere of their new running shoe, Montrail, along with Mountain Hardwear, sponsored a pledge-to-run event to benefit The Mountain Fund. We'd like to extend our thanks to such fine and supportive sponsors. Heidi Wirtz Slide Show Tour--Climbing In The Muslim World North Face athlete Heidi Wirtz will be doing a national slide show tour to raise funds and awareness for Girls Education International, the nonprofit she co-founded with writer Lizzy Scully. Join Heidi as she takes you on an adventure into the Islamic world of North Africa, Southern Asia, and the Middle East. To read more about the event and to see when Heidi will be in your area, please visit: http://girlseducationinternational.blogspot.com/ 2007/08/heidi-wirtz-slide-show-tour-benefit-for.html. To see photos: http:// girlseducationinternational.blogspot.com/2007/08/ heidi-wirtz-slide-show-tour-photos.html For more information on the show, please visit the Girls Ed blog. Medical Lab A Reality Grant will build the only medical lab in remote area of Nepal. The America Nepal Medical Foundation recently awarded The Mountain Fund a grant to construct and install the first and only medical lab for the remote villages of Gatlang, Goljung, and Chillime. The lab will be constructed at the Karing for Kids mother and child health clinic and will allow the staff to do more accurate diagnostic work. The clinic currently serves about 7,000 people. TMF is the primary source of funding for this clinic. For more information, please visit TMF's Karing for Kids page. Gear4Good Making the Outdoors Availible & Saving the Environment For many people around the world social and economic conditions have prevented participation in outdoor activities. For some it has been a matter of custom, class or gender that has barred access. For others the way has been blocked because obtaining the equipment needed is beyond their economic ability. Mountain Fund and our Gear4Good program are changing that. The picture at the top of this article is Gear4Good in action at home. The daypack on the back of the bicyclist came from the Gear4Good donations. Those kids are participants in Outdoor Outreach a program in San Diego that gives some of the poorest kids, from the toughest neighborhoods the experience of outdoor sports. For many of those kids it is a life-changing moment. With your help and support we can continue to provide assistance and equipment to those whom might otherwise never have an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors, something you and I take for granted. We continue to need good used equipment and we need your donations of dollars as well. Shipping gear to those who need it can be costly. Please don't let good gear sit in our office waiting for a few dollars to put it in a box and send it off. Make a donation today. Thanks. Learn more about Outdoor Outreach Here. Mountain Fund Volunteers to Build Clinic in Nepal Three years in the planning, ground breaking this fall ! If this picture looks familiar to you it is because last year The Mountain Fund used this picture in a story about the dream Bhunima Lama had of building a health clinic in his village at Thulo Syabru, Nepal. The photograph is of Bhunima's wife and their child. After his wife was very ill and had to be rushed to Kathmandu, a considerable journey away, Bhunima knew that his village needed a clinic. TMF volunteers began discussing that idea more than two years ago. Now, thanks to Bhunima's persistence and the help of TMF's members and readers that clinic is about to become a reality. In November, The Mountain Fund will host a volunteer work camp in Thulo Syabru. Working side- by-side with the villagers TMF volunteers will begin to construct the clinic that Bhunima dreamed of. For more information on joining this two week trek to Langtang and the working camp at Thulo Syabru, please contact mtnfund@mountainfund.org, or visit Trek4Good.org, our charity trek web site. Tailor-Made Search Engine For Mountain Lovers The Mountain Fund recently partnered with the search engine company, SearchEngineCorp.com, to create MountainSearch.org, a branded search engine that will generate awareness and funding for TMF projects. Fifty percent of the profits from this advertiser-supported search engine will go directly to TMF. Over the past few months, news of this search engine has been published in SNEWS, Rock & Ice and Backpacker magazine, and Forbes.com. To read more about this, please visit Forbes.com's site. Join The Next TMF Nepal Medical Camp TMF Needs Funds for 2008 Moving Medical Camp in Nepal Trip The Mountain Fund has organized a moving medical camp to provide basic healthcare and medical treatment and to begin to survey and collect data needed to ascertain the long-term health and public health needs of rural villages in Nepal. The TMF volunteer medical team will trek deep into the rural countryside on the Tamang Heritage Trail, bringing along the equipment and supplies needed to conduct several health clinics. The trip will occur October 11-24, 2008. $5000 in funding for medical supplies is still needed. To donate, please visit TMF's medical camp web page. Community Service TMF Style Explore Himalaya Community Service Program Joins The Mountain Fund Explore Himalaya Community Service Program (EHCSP) recently partnered up with The Mountain Fund. EHCSP runs a variety of programs, including the Each One, Teach One project, which seeks to provide school level education to children affected by the conflict in Nepal. Funds collected by TMF for EHCSP will go directly toward monthly scholarships to conflict-affected children through high school graduation. Suman Pandey is the president of this organization. He also runs the gear shop, Yak Trek and Mountain Gear (to visit the shop's website, go to: www.trekkinggearsnepal.com). For more information on the program, please visit ExploreHimalaya.com. Volunteer Program in Nepal a Success German Philipp Denzinger wanted hands-on experience in order to prepare himself for his master's degree in project planning and management, but he couldn't find an organization in Nepal that didn't charge its volunteers money. However, he stated, "when I went into the office of The Mountain Fund in Kathmandu and expressed my wish for my own project, I got told that basically anything I wanted to do was possible." Denzinger spent 10 weeks from June through August, 2007, working on two projects: the establishment of The Mountain Fund Volunteer Visitor Center in Nepal and creating a project plan to improve the Karing For Kids clinic in the Langtang area. Americans, Philip and Stephanie Heinegg, also donated their time to the Karing For Kids clinic by participating in a Health Camp during the month of April 2007. During the trip they saw 170 patients over three days. "The trip gave me a good insight as to what a well-developed clinic can do for its surrounding villages," Stephanie Heinegg explained. "It was pure and simple delightful fun," added Dr. Philip Heinegg. "The people at the clinic as well as the patients were so beautiful. I could have stayed there for weeks." Irishman, Diarmuid Smyth, and Brit, Jane Bomber, connected with various children's projects by contacting with The Mountain Fund Volunteer Visitor Center. Diarmuid spent five weeks over the summer working at the Orphan Help Centre (OHC) and the Nepal Society for the Disabled. "My time at the OHC was a fascinating experience," he explained. "It was a privilege to be invited into this environment, to experience the local lifestyle, to learn about the reality of life here, and to see how people manage to keep upbeat regardless." Bomber spent four months teaching part-time English at a secondary school and volunteering at a Child Protection Home in Kathmandu, April through July. She gained excellent teaching experience at the school, and, she added, "both of my volunteer placements were extremely worthwhile; there was not a single day when I did not look forward to going in!" All volunteers agreed that The Mountain Fund was extremely helpful. "I was given a full orientation at the school and told what to expect," stated Bomber. "The staff are always on hand to answer any questions I had about the placement and volunteering." TMF Raises Money for Mt. Everest Foundation The Mountain Fund raised money for the Mount Everest Foundation for Sustainable Development this summer as a memorial and tribute to a young man who suddenly passed away while climbing in Nepal. For more information, please visit TMF. Support Our Programs Caring for the planet and the people living on it can't happen without your support. All of the programs and partners presented in this issue depend on your help. Please make a donation today. Click the image above and give generously. No money? Ok, there's something important and very helpful you can do. Forward this e-newsletter to a few friends and invite them to learn about The Mountain Fund. You like us; they will too. To foward this email to your friends, please click here. Upcoming Newsletters! Spring- The Women's Issue will feature our women's programs and included feature articles by Lizzy Scully, Lucky Chhetri and more. Summer- The Summer Issue. Don't miss any of these issues. Be sure to tell your friends, family and co-workers to sign up today for our newsletter. Special note to our corporate supporters - The three upcoming issues will be important for your employees to read. You suppport us, make sure your employees know what your support is doing. Get them to sign up today for The Mountain Fund News ! Newsletter Sponsor dan mazur This newsletter is brought to you by the generous team at Dan Mazur's SummitClimb.com. Visit SummitClimb today NEW! The Mountain Fund Membership Your support of The Mountain Fund makes an important statement about the social responsibility you and/or your company are demonstrating and your ongoing commitment to give something back to the world's mountainous regions and the people living in them. Now, for $30 to $70, you can join as a supporting member and access a variety of TMF services, including free Nepali language classes at TMF Volunteer Visitor Center and use of the Center, plus a huge list of services provided by South American Explorers. Or, for $250 to $500, you can become a corporate member and access the above- mentioned TMF benefits and get your corporation's name listed on all TMF promotional materials. Check out the Search Explorers Benefits by clicking here! Coming This Winter! Watch this newsletter for an important announcement about The Mountain Fund and South American Explorers. The world will soon be open to you! Contact Information email: mtnfund@mountainfund.org phone: 505-349-4971 web: http://www.mountainfund.org Join our mailing list! - - Your Own Mountain Fund Web Site - FREE You can have a Mountain Fund web site of your very own, and it is totally FREE! Help us help the people of the mountains. FREE WEB SITE - - - - FREE Mountain Fund e-mail account Welcome to The Mountain Fund's free email service for Mountain Fund supporters. As a supporter, you can sign up for a FREE mountainfund.net email account in order to be identified as a supporter during your correspondence with your friends or colleagues. The sign-up process should only take a few minutes. Thanks for supporting The Mountain Fund! Check it out now... - - - - Good Companies and Good Deeds - They naturally go together. The Mountain Fund is supported in part by caring companies who offer the best outdoor products and services in the world. Please support these fine companies and thank them for helping improve the lives of people living in the world's mountainous regions and the mountain environments. Mountain Fund Sponsors - Companies who care about social responsibility: * Mountain Hardwear * Montrail * SummitClimb * Prana * Mountain Madness * National Outdoor Leadership School * Patagonia * GetBeta.com * Rockclimbing.com * Himalayan Trekking * Climbing Magazine * Rock and Ice Magazine * Osprey Packs * Outdoor Prolink * EverestNews * Alpinist Magazine * Suntoucher Mountain Guides * OnTop Mountaineering * Mountain World Photography * 3 Sisters Adventure * Kahtoola Great supporters and friends of The Mountain Fund: Anna Pettigrew Photography, The Mountain Forum, Simple Impact Web Design, Harvard Mountaineering Club, The Russian Way, The Aerialistas, Hotel Tibet, DonationDoubler.com, and Christian Piccoilini. Please Give Them Your Business - -

I suppose is a reasonable euphemism for

It's enough to test one's faith, ain't it? The only test remaining on my faith is to be proctored by Death.

The Washington Post article on this topic.

The suit says 'God has caused, “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects, and the like.”'

Iran criticizes French war warning

stick in the mud

Your poll should've included a third choice in apparatus to assist you in mobility: an anal-mounted pogo stick.

it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

The London Times January 26, 2007 The vaulting ambition of America's Lady Macbeth by Gerard Baker Hillary Clinton's shameless political reconstructive surgery You can measure the scale of an American president's troubles by the number of skutniks he deploys during his State of the Union address. Every year during his big set-piece speech to Congress, the president will digress from the main thrust of his remarks to offer fulsome praise to some member of the audience in the gallery. This person will have been carefully selected in advance by the president's speechwriters as an exemplar of some virtue and placed there for the purpose. The television producers will have been alerted in advance so that at the right moment, as the president talks about the heroics of this American Everyman, he or she can rise self-consciously and receive the praise of a grateful nation. This now obligatory part of a constitutional ritual is called a skutnik after the name of the first person so honored. One January evening in 1982, Lenny Skutnik, a government employee, dived into the freezing waters of the Potomac River to rescue a victim of a plane crash. Two weeks later, during his second State of the Union address, with the US mired in recession, Ronald Reagan had Mr. Skutnik sit in the gallery and paid a moving tribute to his heroics. This week, for his penultimate State of the Union, Mr. Bush had a veritable galaxy of skutniks... soldiers, military people, a firefighter. Whatever you might feel about the wisdom of Mr. Bush's Iraq policy or the feasibility of his plans to wean Americans off petrol, you can't help but stand and cheer the good works of a decent person. But there was something unusual about this year's constellation of ordinary American heroes, beyond the sheer numbers. Usually the skutnik is a presidential privilege. But so intense already is the competition for the 2008 presidential race that others have muscled in. And so Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had a skutnik of her own. She arranged for the son of a New York policeman sick with lung cancer to be there. As it happened, the man's father died that day, and the son's grief became a sad and very visible coda to the event. This little incident, the skillfully choreographed exploitation of a human tragedy, the cynically manipulated deployment of public sympathy in service of a personal political end, offered a timely insight into the character of the politician who this week launched the most anticipated presidential election campaign in modern history. There are many reasons people think Mrs. Clinton will not be elected president. She lacks warmth; she is too polarizing a figure; the American people don't want to relive the psychodrama of the eight years of the Clinton presidency. But they all miss this essential counterpoint. As you consider her career this past 15 years or so in the public spotlight, it is impossible not to be struck, and even impressed, by the sheer ruthless, unapologetic, unshameable way in which she has pursued this ambition, and confirmed that there is literally nothing she will not do, say, think or feel to achieve it. Here, finally, is someone who has taken the black arts of the politician's trade, the dissembling, the trimming, the pandering, all the way to their logical conclusion. Fifteen years ago there was once a principled, if somewhat reparative and unelectable politician called Hillary Rodham Clinton. A woman who aggressively preached abortion on demand and the right of children to sue their own parents, a committed believer in the power of government who tried to create a healthcare system of such bureaucratic complexity it would have made the Soviets blush; a militant feminist who scorned mothers who take time out from work to rear their children as women who stay home and bake cookies. Today we have a different Hillary Rodham Clinton, all soft focus and expensively coiffed, exuding moderation and tolerance. To grasp the scale of the transfiguration, it is necessary only to consider the very moment it began. The turning point in her political fortunes was the day her husband soiled his office and a certain blue dress. In that Monica Lewinsky moment, all the public outrage and contempt for the sheer tawdriness of it all was brilliantly rerouted and channeled to the direct benefit of Mrs. Clinton, who immediately began a campaign for the Senate. And so you had this irony, a woman who had carved out for herself a role as an icon of the feminist movement, launching her own political career, riding a wave of public sympathy over the fact that she had been treated horridly by her husband. After that unsurpassed exercise in cynicism, nothing could be too expedient. Her first Senate campaign was one long exercise in political reconstructive surgery. It went from the cosmetic - the sudden discovery of her Jewish ancestry, useful in New York, especially when you've established a reputation as a friend of Palestinians to the radical: her sudden message of tolerance for people who opposed abortion, gay marriage, gun control and everything else she had stood for. Once in the Senate she published an absurd autobiography in which every single paragraph had been scrubbed clean of honest reflection to fit the campaign template. As a lawmaker she is remembered mostly, when confronted with a President who enjoyed 75 per cent approval ratings, for her infamous decision to support the Iraq war in October 2002. This one-time anti-war protester recast herself as a latter-day Boadicea, even castigating President Bush for not taking a tough enough line with the Iranians over their nuclear programme. Now, you might say, hold on. Aren't all politicians veined with an opportunistic streak? Why is she any different? The difference is that Mrs. Clinton has raised that opportunism to an animating philosophy, a P. T. Barnum approach to the political marketplace. All politicians, sadly, lie. We can often forgive the lies as the necessary price paid to win popularity for a noble cause. But the Clinton candidacy is a Grand Deceit, an entirely artificial construct built around a person who, stripped bare of the cynicism, manipulation and calculation, is nothing more than an enormous, overpowering and rather terrifying ego.

Reported to to drop their subscription requirement as of Wednesday.

mercenary

cradle to grave

I suffered oxygen deprivation at birth and, subsequently, have felt smothered, subconsciously, by my mother ever since. I climb to escape, metaphorically, this inescapable feeling of suppression and yet, ironically, am consumed with high-altitude climbing to experience the oxygen deprivation that makes me feel closer to my mother... subconsciously. - with the added factor that I must climb with heavy fleece pressed against my face. As an aside, I scour the high places searching for the Yogi

OH MY FUCKING DOG!!! THEY KILLED GOD?>:"??!1

...cc.com knowledge that i go both ways. ...which still fits nicely under the thread title. I just watched one of the best films on this: "Henry and June".

How time flies. Can you believe that another ice climbing season is almost upon us? Here’s what we’ve been up to while you’ve been out playing this summer: - System Maintenance - Expanding our merchandise program and online store - Preparing for the 2008 Ouray Ice Festival - Building numerous new gorge viewing stands. - Torque testing all of the existing bolts in the Ouray Ice Park; replaced any worn or suspect anchors. - Repairing the roof on the powderhouse to protect the structure's integrity - Building the new informational kiosk and kids/beginners climbing area. The new area will have 12 ice climbs and be easily accessible from the road. The 13th Annual Ouray Ice Festival will be held January 9-13, 2008. For information visit http://www.ourayicefestival.com - We are beginning our 2008 Membership Drive Campaign as of this mailer. This year a membership costs only $40 dollars for the entire climbing season. - Again, this year, local businesses will be offering substantial discounts (like 20% off lodging) only to members of the Ice Park. Help support the world’s greatest free ice climbing asset with your contribution. Visit http://www.ourayicepark.com for more details or call Erin Eddy at 970.325.4288.

A downside is that a few decades in the trades, particularly in those that are more demanding on the practitioner, physically, is that potentially one is left with a trashed body.