Did you watch 60 minutes last night about Greg Mortenson? I am devastated!I read Three Cups of Tea which my son sent me and believed in Greg Mortenson. Here, I thought was finally a man who could altruistically do great things. President Obama gave $100,000 of his Nobel prize money to Mortenson's Central Asia Institute.
Now we find out that though he did some good things, he exaggerated or made up other things to make himself look good or sell his book.
Follow this link to the Daily Beast. How are we to know what to believe? I researched him before I sent my check. Nothing to show any sort of fraud. I couldn't very well go to Afghanistan to count how many schools he built. 60 Minutes did.
It's so very sad. He has done more harm with his lies than he can possibly know. I'm hoping he'll step up to the podium and explain himself. Maybe there's still hope. I still want to believe.
Yes, I watched 60 Minutes and was apalled by his seeming duplicity. However, the segment did end positively with a comment that Mortenson had done a lot of good in the region. In fact, 47 schools had already been built and many of them were thriving. It's just too bad he exaggerated and fabricated parts of his story to make himself a hero. So unnecessary!
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be so much of that sort of thing happening these days and it's really sad and discouraging!
ReplyDeleteSylvia
Yes, it's so sad when people exaggerate. For instance, just last month, I discovered Europe, all by myself. Oh, well, I took my husband with me. And there were many million people there, whose families had been there for centuries, but everyone knows I discovered Europe. Just last month.
ReplyDeleteYep.
What is truly sad, Kay, is your disappointment, and the disappointment of other people who believed in this man and gave him money, including President Obama.
I hope Gigi is right: I hope he really did build 47 schools, and perhaps those 47 wouldn't have been built otherwise.
-- K
Kay, Alberta, Canada
An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel
money and fame are temptations that some don't deal with well...
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Three Cups of Tea but I did see the 60Minutes episode last evening. I hate to say we're becoming jaded by dishonesty, but sometimes I fear we are. When youngsters see so much dishonesty in the news from supposed role models, why wouldn't they do the same? I'm depressing even myself by seeing my words here, Kay!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a disappointment. I did not see the 60 minutes program, but my daughter-in-law told me about it. Interestingly, she and I both talked about how we doubted much of his story when we both read the book over two years ago. I believed some of it, but parts of it I thought were just not realistic. It has been too long since I read it to remember what parts now.
ReplyDeleteI guess time will tell the degree to which he duped us or if he did at all. It is very sad to think that people will go to these extremes to get money out of people.
I know how you must be feeling Kay. If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is, this is what I'm trying to keep in mind.
ReplyDeleteSylvia is right. Too much of this happening. All for a buck.
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing the story out.
When I read Three Cups of Tea a few years ago, I wondered about his disclaimer in the beginning about all the people who hated him and would say bad things. I now wonder just WHO to believe. I watched the 60 Minutes episode and was not surprised.
ReplyDeleteDidn't see 60 Minutes, but the show has been my hero in the past. As for the book and Mr. Mortenson, my students read the book, many of which I purchased for them, and we collected pennies to help build those schools. The story motivated my students to help others so it can't all be bad.
ReplyDeleteI was so disappointed to hear of the untruths and exaggerations. Literary license is granted only for fiction. And these kinds of things detract so much for the good that was done. Bummer!
ReplyDeleteThis just stunned me! My school in LV held a fund raiser for Mortenson, inspired and lead by the students, and my class raised just over $100.00. Our school was classified high-risk and severely socio-economically depressed. Our kids gave up what little they had because they believed they were helping kids who had even less.
ReplyDeleteIf 60 Minutes got it right -- and they usually do -- then I feel sorry for Mortenson. He didn't just steal money, he stole hopes and dreams. He might have made his life more comfortable financially, but he's pretty much destroyed himself spiritually.
Sigh.
ReplyDeleteOne of my old Army buddies believed in his to the core, as they say, and partly because he visited him once and seemed taken with my friend's wife. Anyway, he claims he was stunned but thinks, now, that 60 minutes railroaded him. Can you believe that? I told him I thought there was something wrong with this guy the first time I heard about him. I never liked him from day one.
ReplyDeleteI will be sending you an email. I found a piece I wrote a long time ago, about my first encounter with the Japanese people.
I'm out of the loop right now, didn't hear about 60 Minutes. I believed in him too. I think I'll wait and see how this sorts out.
ReplyDeleteHow sad it is when those we think are doing good prove to be doing otherwise. Very disappointing and very hard for Quilly's students to understand.
ReplyDeleteWhenever there is money involved, I not longer believe in anyone.
ReplyDeleteWell, except for my kids of course, but then, there's no money there.
Oh, that's just awful.
ReplyDeleteYou know I smelled a rat from the very beginning but did not want to say so, because so many seemed enthusiastic about him and his work. I'm a cynic and know how much money there is to be made by exploiting good hearted people who take others at their word. I even had my doubts about Obama when that was not the fashion among my liberal friends!
ReplyDeleteWhat annoys me is the assumption that people can't help themselves and need the intervention of some Hero to turn their lives around.
This is too bad, it seems to happen all the time. Sorry you were fooled.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this man has disappointed others by his dissembling; it's still his journey and therefore his consequences.
ReplyDeleteKay, I'm just reading this:
ReplyDelete"If you believed the recent report about dishonesty by the author of Three Cups of Tea, perhaps you were unaware that it was the work of 60 Minutes. These are the same folks who brought us the report exposing the James Ossuary and the Jehoash Tablet as forgeries. The heart of their case was the on-screen confession of an Egyptian artisan. Yet Hershel Shanks has investigated and determined that it was all a lie. And 60 Minutes knew it all along."
at Todd Bolen's blog
http://blog.bibleplaces.com/2011/04/weekend-roundup_23.html
plus this from a geography blog that I follow:
http://www.geographictravels.com/2011/04/three-cups-of-tea-and-coffee-cake-of.html
Dina: Thank you, Dina. He hasn't been investigated only by 60 Minutes, though. I just saw something on PBS also. Sigh. We just have to take hope in the fact that he DID do a lot of good also. It's just the exaggeration and writing his story for more drama that caused the problem.
ReplyDelete