Three Cups of Deceit

[Ecurb]

Apparently, "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortensen is a phony memoir, filled with lies, tall tales, fabrications and inventions. Mortensen has raised millions of dollars to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and, although some of the schools have been built, it seems that the accounting practices of his charity, and the personal practices of its founder are highly questionable.

Here's a link to Jon Krakauer's expose: http://byliner.com/

Mountaineers and explorers have a long and dishonorable tadition of lying: modern experts think that the rival "discoverers" of the North Pole, Cook and Peary, both lied about attaining 90 degrees north; many mountaineering epics have been questioned (That same Cook, for example, claimed to have climbed Denali, but never did.)

[qimissung]

I found this slide show on schools in Afghanistan on another site.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/19/failing_grades

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

60 Minutes just did a report on this. What a low-life.

[Buh4Bee]

I noticed that Jon Krakauer wrote a book exposing this story.

[YesNo]

Mountaineers and explorers have a long and dishonorable tadition of lying: modern experts think that the rival "discoverers" of the North Pole, Cook and Peary, both lied about attaining 90 degrees north; many mountaineering epics have been questioned (That same Cook, for example, claimed to have climbed Denali, but never did.)
And I thought fishermen were the only liars. :)

How would you know when you reached 90 degrees north? Does the compass just spin around not sure where to stop?

[Ecurb]

How would you know when you reached 90 degrees north? Does the compass just spin around not sure where to stop?

That's the issue (of course the magnetic north pole is nowhere near the north pole). When Peary supposedly reached the pole, he was accompanied by two Eskimos and an African American (Henson). None of them could read the sextant (which is used to measure latitude through astronomical readings). So Peary's records of the readings are the only evidence.

Most experts now think he fudged them. Other Americans who COULD read the sextant turned back with about two or three week's journey to the pole. Although Henson's testimony is that the terrain was identical before and after the other sextant-literate people turned back (which they had to do because there was insufficient food), suddenly, in Peary's account, the per-day mileage doubled. So most people think that Peary probably got within 140 miles of the pole (the same 10 miles a day as earlier, instead of 20 as he claimed), but never actually made it. Cook, Peary's rival claimant of the Pole, probably never got within several hundred miles. Nonetheless, Cook's adventure (with one Eskimo companion) included one winter spent in the far northern arctic, and was undoubtedly one of the great arctic journeys of history.