Heath Ledger is found dead in US

[Churchill]

What makes an explorer more important than an actor?

One contributed to our knowledge, the other contributed to dumbing it down.

Next!

[SueEllen]

Agreed, not to mention when Sir Ed died hardly anyone on this board reacted, some tinpot actor dies and its 'big news'

Sir Ed was old. Old people are expected to pass away.

Young actors with everything to live for aren't.

Unfortuantely young people in the armed forces are considered cannon fodder so aren't newsworthy.

[SallyAnne]

One contributed to our knowledge, the other contributed to dumbing it down.

Next!

Actors don't teach us anything? Interesting point of view.

Is this that old "reading a book about "storyA" makes you clever, watching a film about "storyA" makes you stupid" theory again?

[ThomasSoerensen]

Actors don't teach us anything? Interesting point of view.

Is this that old "reading a book about "storyA" makes you clever, watching a film about "storyA" makes you stupid" theory again?

No, its the story about reading good books on important topics versus watching Hollywood crap movies.

[daviejones]

No, its the story about reading good books on important topics versus watching Hollywood carp movies.

Can we give examples of Hollywood Carp movies?

[Troll]

Can anyone name a 'good' film that did not start off as a 'good' book?

Given that Jackson’s film The Two Towers is a poor relation to Tolkien’s original book- Is there anyone prepared to argue that by only seeing the film version their understanding of the trilogy is enhanced?

[SallyAnne]

Can anyone name a 'good' film that did not start off as a 'good' book?

Titanic.

[tay]

What makes an explorer more important than an actor?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...56C0A9659C8B63

He was not just an explorer and your post is ignorant. I posted this link last week in the thread about him dieing. Read it and then say he was just an explorer.

In Sherpa Country, They Love 'Sir Ed'

Published: May 29, 2003
Fifty years ago, Edmund Hillary went up Everest an amiable New Zealand beekeeper and came down a 20th-century icon. But looking back this week, Sir Edmund said here that he was equally proud of what he did with the rest of his life: helping the Sherpa people of the Himalayas.

Year after year he quietly returned to the high country of Nepal, where his Himalayan Trust was responsible for the construction of 27 schools, 12 clinics, 2 hospitals, 2 airfields and a couple of dozen bridges.
Through the schools, built along the high valley of a river that drains Everest, one student, who studied in the village of Khumjung, grew from barefoot boy 40 years ago to Boeing pilot today.

''We were 47 scrappy children with no shoes in 1960,'' Ang Rita, a classmate of the boy who grew up to fly commercial jets, recalled in an interview. ''But it was one of the biggest excitements for us to have the opportunity to learn what the English alphabet looks like, to understand Nepali writing.''

Another former student of the Khumjung school grew up to become the executive of an Asian hotel and airline group. Another is now president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. A third, Mingma Norbu, lives in Washington where he directs Asia conservation programs for the World Wildlife Fund.

''Without Sir Ed, we Sherpas would be 50 years, 100 years behind where we are now,'' said Ang Rita, who directs the Himalayan Trust. The youngest of seven siblings, Ang Rita is the only member of his family to learn to read or write, a gift he attributes to Sir Edmund, who hiked into the village in 1960 to build a school.

Khumjung lies 100 miles northeast of here as the crow flies and was an 18-day walk at the time of Sir Edmund's early visits.

''The Sherpas now live in the only remote valley in Nepal that has a functioning hospital and really good schools,'' Deepak Thapa, a book editor, said of the Hillary legacy in an interview this week.

Kanak Mani Dixit, the editor of Himal magazine, agreed. ''Those schools were the saving grace of the Sherpas,'' he said in an interview in his office here.

After Sir Edmund and Tenzing Norgay became the first to scale the world's highest mountain on May 29, 1953, Sir Edmund returned to the area to study the effect of altitude on the body and to search for the ''yeti,'' a creature popularized in the West as the abominable snowman.

''One night, they were camping in a mountain pass, with a fire, and talking all sorts of gossips,'' Ang Rita said, recounting the genesis of the trust. ''He asked one of the senior Sherpas, Urken Sherpa, 'If I could help Sherpa people, what could I do?' ''

''Urken Sherpa could have asked for yaks,'' the trust director said, referring to Himalayan pack animals prized for their wool. ''Instead he said: 'Our children have eyes, but they cannot see. We need a school.' ''

The building of a school led to the building of hospitals.

''We do not go into a valley and look around and say 'You need this you need that,' '' Sir Edmund said today at a packed news conference at the British Embassy here. ''We ask the village committees and ask what they would like to see established. It is usually a school and medical facility.''

Once doctors were posted in the remote valley below Everest, they soon linked the high incidence of mental retardation and goiter to a lack of iodine in the local diet. After two generations of iodized salts, goiters are a fading memory and the number of cases of mental retardation has dropped sharply.

As international visitors converged on Katmandu for the 50th anniversary of the ascent, a private helicopter trying to land at the Everest base camp crashed today, leaving two people dead and several injured, including two people on the ground struck by debris.

Richard C. Blum, chairman of the American Himalayan Foundation, which helps finance some Hillary projects, said here today that Sir Edmund's contributions to the people of the Himalayas were one his proudest achievements. ''It is almost as important getting to the top first,'' Mr. Blum said.

To celebrate the anniversary of the ascent, Sir Edmund, having turned down an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II, will share a quiet dinner with lifelong Sherpa friends who have journeyed to this capital to see him.

''Out of the hills have streamed thousands of our Sherpa friends,'' said Sir Edmund with a touch of awe in his voice. ''Sherpas who climbed with us in the mountains. Many who have family members who have died on the mountains.''

He said he felt the warmth of the welcome when he and his wife, June, were paraded through this capital Tuesday in an ornamental carriage, to the skirl of bagpipes.

''I am not particularly the kind of person who likes riding around in a horse cart in front of thousands of people,'' he said today. ''But it really was a very pleasant occasion. We waved at thousands of people, and they waved back.''

At age 83, Sir Edmund now walks slowly and carefully, often aided by a cane or the arm of his wife. Today, he apologized for not visiting Sherpa villages he has known for half a century.

''I would love to go up to the hills,'' he said. ''But I am affected quite a bit these days by altitude.''

Mr. Hillary, the beekeeper, conquered Everest through stamina, through optimism, and through teamwork with a Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, and he promised this expedition would not be his last.

''I am hoping in years to come, despite my advanced years, that with the use of oxygen and a good helicopter pilot, we will come back to Khumjung and that we will once again greet all our friends,'' he said.

[Troll]

Titanic.

Nope... really a remake of a film based on Walter Lords... A Night to Remember

I think I may need to qualify with fictional films rather than those based on Historical facts - which effectively have written the storyline anyway

[daviejones]

Titanic.

I think he meant "good" films...