greg mortensen, bs artist

[lummox]

Turns out the 3 cups of tea is a story? Does this minimize the value of education in developing countries? Is krakauer full of it?

 

[Crux]

Reply to 60min: gregmessage.pdf 17Apr2011

 

Twiiter.com #Mortenson

 

The Economist blogs/Johnson

 

TheDailyBeast story w/ 60min videos, photos

 

USA Today

 

 

re: Krakauer, Three Cups of Deceit:

The schools are perhaps the saddest news of all. Mortenson has long insisted that CAI schools are built in terrorist strongholds and are therefore a powerful tool to promote peace and fight poverty. In reality, most CAI schools are located in relatively quiet corners of Afghanistan and Pakistan, far from terrorist activity. Moreover, many of the schools Mortenson says he has built do not exist, and a number of others stand empty due to a lack of staffing or students, often both.

 

“Mortenson started with noble intentions and a great idea,” says Krakauer. “He has built dozens of schools that have educated thousands of kids in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He deserves credit for that. But very soon after he launched CAI, he lost his moral bearings. He betrayed the trust of countless people, including myself. I’d like to support CAI again someday, when it’s under different leadership. That part of the world needs all the effective help it can get. But with Mortenson running things, the organization went badly off the rails.”

 

Byliner, Inc. is a new digital publishing company and website co-founded by John Tayman, Ted Barnett, and Mark Bryant. As editor of Outside magazine in the 1990s, Bryant published the magazine articles that would become Krakauer’s first bestsellers, Into The Wild and Into Thin Air. “Jon and I have worked together for many years,” says Bryant. “But it was always in the context of magazines. Byliner allows us to get a complex, newsworthy story like this out carefully but swiftly, to a very large audience, without the delay of printing.”

 

At Krakauer’s request, Three Cups of Deceit will be available as a free, downloadable PDF through Byliner.com for 72 hours. After that, the story will be sold as a Kindle Single for $2.99. All of Krakauer’s proceeds from the sale of Three Cups of Deceit will be donated to the STOP Girl Trafficking program at the American Himalayan Foundation. (www.himalayanfoundation.org/live/project/stopgirltrafficking).

Edited April 19, 2011 by Crux

[tvashtarkatena]

I couldn't make it past page 10 of his fawning, self aggrandizing feel good story. As of about six months ago, every online dating woman in America was apparently reading it, however...if the Twilight Series wasn't keeping them too busy, that is.

 

Still, sounds like he's done some good, even if through some 'creative' means.

 

The truth lies somewhere in the middle, probably.

[ivan]

3 cups is my downstairs bathroom book - i like to fight the natural inclination to take 10 year shits - in that respect 3 cups is perfect - in 4 months i think i'm on page 40

 

anytime a man refers to himself in the third person (let alone chapter after chapter) you gotta wander what the fuck is going on

[Hugh Conway]

Turns out the 3 cups of tea is a story? Does this minimize the value of education in developing countries? Is krakauer full of it?

 

No, Room To Read still does awesome work.

 

They don't have nearly the bullshit story though

[Doug]

Suhfrickingprise!Jon Krakauer has a new e-book released today. Yeah, I suppose some of 3 Cups and Stones into Schools have been embellished; much as JK embellished in "Into Thin Air". I do believe schools have been built, and girls educated where no opportunity previously existed. I hope this is a wake up call to Mortensen and CAI to run a little tighter ship. But jeez, what an opportunist Krakauer!

[Hugh Conway]

Yeah, after donating $75k to CAI he finds out it's paying out $1.7million for Mortenson's book tour. So he gets a bit pissed. And then he writes a book, downloadable free, and donating the author royalties to charity, what an asshole.

 

You fuckers are dumb.

[Doug]

down-loadable for free for two days then $2.99 after. I agree that those fees are probably too much

[Hugh Conway]

It's "probably too much" that someone uses charity funds to promote their own book?

[Doug]

Part of CAI's mission is "Domestic Outreach". The speaking engagements are not to sell books; they are to raise public awareness to CAI's mission. The charity funds this.

[jon]

Yeah, after donating $75k to CAI he finds out it's paying out $1.7million for Mortenson's book tour. So he gets a bit pissed. And then he writes a book, downloadable free, and donating the author royalties to charity, what an asshole.

 

You fuckers are dumb.

 

Good thing he didn't donate his money to Wall Street!

[tvashtarkatena]

Fraud is fraud, regardless of how many schools CAI built. If the org solicited money to build schools and spent it on chartered flights to book signings instead, that's fraud, plain and simple.

 

This kind of crap, and the cult-of-personality conceit behind it (Mortensen still insists that CAI wouldn't survive without him - although it seems like it would be better off without him at this point) makes people in general more wary - for some, this is a convenient excuse to stop giving. On the flip side, it makes some people more street smart in their giving - a good thing for more time tested, legitimate charities, considering the huge number of less scrupulous organizations out there that play this bait and switch game. Bible Thumperz have been playing this game forever, but it's played across the social spectrum - even though its often more incompetence than skulduggery at work. Hey, even Madonna's playing it.

 

Urgent calls for money to meet some high stakes deadline, pictures of big eyed, pleading children, fervent pleas from failed TV actors, and, as in this case, wonderful, heartfelt stories that seem too good to be true (however unreadable they may be), should steer one's donations elsewhere.

 

As for Mortensen himself, that 'travellers' scarf' alone is justification for a good ass kicking by some less-than-charitably minded construction workers.

[JayB]

I'm going to discredit both Tvash and Carl by agreeing with them on this one.

[Hugh Conway]

surely as good Americans we 3 can find some way to be mask agreement in argument?

 

Here's the book "3 Cups of Deceit"

http://static.byliner.com/original/3/Three_Cups_of_Deceit_Jon_Krakauer_Byliner_Originals.pdf

[Off_White]

I'm going to discredit both Tvash and Carl by agreeing with them on this one.

 

[olyclimber]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110419/ts_yblog_thecutline/the-demotion-of-dilbert-continues-no-comic-relief-for-creator

 

haters gonna hate, trollers gonna troll

[tvashtarkatena]

That's why I've never changed my anonymous avatar; I believe in openness.

[tvashtarkatena]

Well, I did post under my real name once.

 

Nobody's perfect.

[tvashtarkatena]

Madonna was all hot on building a school in Malawi. The money poured in, the vultures came calling. $13 million went somewhere - just not into a school. Wealth redistribution from the hyper rich to the slightly less so.

[j_b]

I don't get the Krakauer hating. What did the guy do exactly to invite such negativity about his character from some people?

[lummox]

 

 

I read krakauer's tome. Painful to do especially on a phone screen. Maybe some good will come from it all. Like an IRS audit on CAI.

 

 

[ivan]

What did the guy do exactly to invite such negativity about his character from some people?

climb everest?

[j_b]

which he climbed for his job, not because he had an obsession with climbing something tall. His climbing resume is hardly that of a status symbol seeker.

[ivan]

which he climbed for his job, not because he had an obsession with climbing something tall. His climbing resume is hardly that of a status symbol seeker.

you don't need to win me over - i actually liked into thin air and the devils thumb essay is sweeeet - i would think you of all posters would politics though

Edited April 20, 2011 by ivan

[G-spotter]

Character assassination on Booukreev = bad

Character assassination on Mormons = good

 

How do magnets work?