Three cups of ethical dilemma

Never read Mortenson's books, donated to CAI til it hurt, read Krakauer's piece .

I've just had three cups of bitter disillusionment.

Anybody else out there with an opinion?

You've only heard one side of the story, and through several layers of filters already.

Krakauer has his own book to sell. Since he doesn't have sex to sell, he's selling controversy.

Philanthropy is HARD! "No good deed goes unpunished" is a famous saying for a reason.

Nothing in life is pure. Maybe Mortenson profited, maybe his motives weren't based on rainbows, unicorns and fuzzy fuzzy puppies.

But schools got built and a lot of attention worldwide was directed to an area of the world and issues that could use some attention.

I don't know the details and will not judge, but I hope this helps.

Watched the 60 Minutes piece on Sunday, that was the first I was even aware of any controversy surrounding Mortenson. From that piece Krakauer came across pretty level headed, criticising Mortenson for some things praising him for others.

I have no idea where the truth in this lies, as BrianH said, some schools were built and a lot of attention paid to some issues that need it. My guess is that Central Asian Inst. will take a good hit from all this which, in a way, is a shame, doubt Mortenson needs the money personally.

I saw the 60 minutes piece and thought it was OK journalism. They gave him a huge heads up that he was being investigated (their initial letter to him was dated Sept of last year) and they claimed to have called him repeatedly in the weeks preceding the airing. His non-responsiveness was damning, and his very recent press release was pretty skimpy, tacitly conceding one point and side-stepping others.

Purely my opinion but I sense he's been enjoying the good life now that his ship came in, and while all would no doubt agree the cause is worthy, the lack of financial and other accountability is very disturbing for a seven figures organization. The fact that they spend more in "outreach" and education about the issue vs. actually building schools is difficult to swallow and not the norm set by other philanthropies. He concedes he's not articulate or financially adept but with the $$ he's hauling in hiring a decent accountant and/or other advisor isn't rocket science. I would not contribute until they get the act together, but that's just me.
-Tom

Saw 60 minutes too. Looks like 3 cups of oooops...

I haven't read Krakauer's story so this may be a bit off but...

the fact that Mortensen has a hard time with the administrative side of things (e.g. managing the $$) was touched on in his first book. perhaps krakauer should have taken this as a learning opportunity about who to invest with rather than writing a book. he was forewarned.

and, after coming to realize how inaccurate and slanderous his treatment of Boukreev was in Into Thin Air, I take Krakauer with a grain of salt.

Decent article in outside from Mortenson's view: outsideonline.com/adventure…

What exactly are the accusations? That CAI used some money to promote his book and maybe a few things were contrived? Seems pretty minimal considering that a-lot of non-profits operate in grey areas.

Krakauer's piece is pretty thorough and, while I don't take him with a grain of salt, I read armed with a dose of skepticism having known the other side some of the circumstances he's reported on. But in this case there are too many facts that can be checked leading to the same place to cast much doubt. There are almost too many people pointing fingers at Mortenson to count before you get into the things that don't take Magnum PI to sort out, such as schools sitting empty and never used vs tax records claiming the opposite and such trivialities as his detailed account of paying respects to Mother Theresa three years after her death. I'd recommend reading the article but I would imagine something this high profile is going to hit the mainstream wires as it plays out.

Well, take it with a grain of salt.

Remember, Krakauer's "Truth" is not always unbiased. For instance, read his book "Into Thin Air", then read Boukreev's "The Climb". Lots of un-truth told by Mr. K. Also he admits to getting high several times on the mountain, and also again while off... not exactly great credentials, but he sure is willing to tell you exactly what happened.

I find Krakauer to be an enigma of a writer... very difficult to consider reliable, but he does tell stories with entertainment value. I've never quit one of his books half-way through, but I certainly dont view him as a scholar, nor would I take it on his word alone.

I read a R&I article that is a good read:
rockandice.com/news/1418-gr…

That all being said, things dont seem to be boding well.

steve edwards wrote:Krakauer's piece is pretty thorough and, while I don't take him with a grain of salt, I read armed with a dose of skepticism having known the other side some of the circumstances he's reported on. But in this case there are too many facts that can be checked leading to the same place to cast much doubt. There are almost too many people pointing fingers at Mortenson to count before you get into the things that don't take Magnum PI to sort out, such as schools sitting empty and never used vs tax records claiming the opposite and such trivialities as his detailed account of paying respects to Mother Theresa three years after her death. I'd recommend reading the article but I would imagine something this high profile is going to hit the mainstream wires as it plays out.

I'd have to agree with Steve, Krakauer's article, does provide convincing evidence. It seems that Mortenson has done a lot of good but made some poor choices along the way. The article is very well written and a quick read. Krakauer is donating all of his proceeds from this book to a charity, so he isn't benefiting financially from this.

In response to Crag Dweller's comment about how Krakauer should have been forewarned by Mortenson's book, the book was released several years after Krakauer made his last sizable donation to the charity.

Crag Dweller wrote:I haven't read Krakauer's story so this may be a bit off but...

You ought to read it before you begin discounting it.

Sure, but in Thin Air he was using a lot of conjecture and here he isn't. I absolutely believe AB's account on Everest. Krakauer was out of his head up there and his conclusions were educated guesses in a situation where he wasn't the most educated guy. AB had it together.

Just read the Outside piece. Mortenson, as pretty much everyone states, plays a good PR game and he's answered in slick vague ways that dance around the accusations. The Outside interviewer threw him softballs as there was nothing about Mother Theresa or empty schools, things that can be easily checked on. He also offers up no witnesses whereas Krakauer offers testimony from many many people.

I honestly would hope the guy is on the level just to prove that somebody who has gotten rich and famous doing humanitarian work isn't a complete narcissistic asshole. But maybe those are the only people who have the audacity to ask for enough money to actually become rich and famous in the first place.

Crag Dweller wrote:I haven't read Krakauer's story so this may be a bit off but...

Krakauer's piece is rather short and a very quick read. Plus, if you download it in the next few hours, it is free.

I read Krakauer's article. It is very well researched and he provides numerous first-person accounts to support his claims. The best line from Krakauer's article is from a former Central Asian Institute (CAI) staffer, Mortenson's charity, "Greg treats the CAI as his own personal ATM machine."

steitz wrote: Seems like a lot of people are prefacing their opinions with similar sentences. Those opinions would be a lot more relevant and contain actual value if people went to the trouble to do a little reading and learn about what they're discussing before they start opining. More succinctly - Before offering an opinion do the necessary research to speak from a position of education on the subject. Otherwise what's the point? Hope I didn't violate rule #1 with that.

Is this an important topic that we must all come prepared to discuss? I'm sorry, I thought this was a casual discussion forum. I'll be sure to do my homework before class next time.

Oh, by the way, where is the relevance or "actual value" of your post? Didn't see it in there.

Mike McMahon wrote: Krakauer's piece is rather short and a very quick read. Plus, if you download it in the next few hours, it is free.

Of all the guides on Everest in '96, Krakauer chose to negatively portray the one who saved a lot of peoples butts. And, when the truth came out, he refused to do anything about the negative image he'd created of Boukreev. IMO, Krakauer's in it for the money and fame and I'm not going to contribute to his cause.

Came across this in my reader this morning, seems Mortenson's troubles may now include some legal issues: washingtonpost.com/entertai…

Andy Librande wrote:Decent article in outside from Mortenson's view: outsideonline.com/adventure… What exactly are the accusations? That CAI used some money to promote his book and maybe a few things were contrived? Seems pretty minimal considering that a-lot of non-profits operate in grey areas.

Have you seen the 60 Minutes piece? I'd be willing to let it slide if it were only some made up stories to sell a book, but it seems that there is a lot more wrong doing than that. There is a lot of evidence saying that CAI has lied about how many schools they've built, how much money they put into the schools every year, how many children the existing schools serve and even if they are in use at all. It seems that many of the schools/buildings are only used as storage units. I could be wrong but I don't think the people who have given their money would have donated for storage units.

Building a structure is not building a school and there is no reason to lie about how much work is getting done. As Krakauer said on 60 Minutes, three schools is better than none... so why say you built eleven? Why not just tell the truth and say you are proud to have built three?

I know Mortenson did a lot of good and brought a lot of attention to a huge issue but in the end it looks like his lack of attention to detail and failure to be transparent is going to hurt a lot of people.

where there's smoke there's fire

After watching the 60 minutes piece, I still wanted to give Mortenson the benefit of the doubt. The fact that he didn't want to be interviewed didn't look good, but didn't prove anything either. The fact that CAI spends half of its receipts on book promotion actually made sense to me - I thought it akin to R&D or marketing expenses geared towards increasing eventual revenues. And the fact that some of the schools went unused seemed plausible in such a complex and ever-changing part of the world.

But after reading Krakauer's account, which is infinitely more detailed and fact-intensive than the 60 minutes soundbytes, I found Krakauer's case to be absolutely compelling, to my dismay.

(As others have said, whether you agree with Krakauer's conclusions in Into thin Air or elsewhere is largely irrelevant; in this case he names names and provides quotes. Unless you believe he fabricated those quotes and numbers, the cold hard evidence pretty much speaks for itself.)

Something to consider, this really isn't an ethical dilemma for us.

If you want to help, organizations such as the Red Cross, Red Crescent, Doctors without Borders, Peace Corps, even our own military are more than willing and able to help out; thinking we can throw money at organization that really doesn't have the resources to go into this environment and expect things to go as planned, well, we're just fooling ourselves.