By Kiwi, January 11: “...he’s worshipped you know. as a God among the Sherpas. Jamlling Tensing -son of Tenzing Norgay ....We think of him as a living God...”

Interesting - do you have a link for your quotes, Kiwi? As I understand it, the Nepalese are Hindu - so they can always accomodate an extra god, especially a good one. In the meantime http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5juDHPPYw6v_QhZrcO0 mdH4tjlvnw

We hope that one day the other Hillary here will turn out to be a benevolent deity, too. Then again, the USA could just as likely end up with another wrathful deity in the form of a black god with a funny-looking ring.

Until recently, I believe that Nepal had a god-king. Now they are trying democracy. What a pity that Americans have given up democracy for a kind of pantheon of demi-gods themselves, uhh. There was a series called Dynasty.....

Oh, well, being serious now, Edmund Hillary was a bee-keeper before he conquered mountains. As you know, that doesn’t require a lot of formal education. Strange isn’t it, then, that he became such a giant of a man even among the vain and conceited class-conscious elites both in NZ and in Britain and elsewhere.

That tells us something about the quality of the inner man and, as you say, how to step onto the path to become like him. I’ve known people like him and they don’t think very much of titles and the bits of metal that go with them - nor the people who hand them out. “Sir” would be rather a joke to him, in reality.

After all, it is the effort that one puts into achieving the impossible against insurmountable odds that maketh the man, not what some pompous moneybag says about you - or anyone else for that matter. Presidential candidates in the US can only emulate him too.

One has the qualifications and experience as well as the years of adversity to place her in a most excellent position to reach her summit (her name is Hillary, too). The others can only pretend to be as well-versed and prepared for the achievement of a lifetime.

When the title for this article started to show on my ancient dial-up connections, only the line “Hillary Dies,” appeared even though I knew it wasn’t “The Shrill with no Thrill” I thought, IF ONLY!

I know how you feel Cyrena.

At first I only saw the second line of the title..Hillary Dies.

I guess it’s because my main pair of glasses are in the shop.

Not to worry, I did figure it out.

By Daniel Martin, January 11: “As a New Zealander I’d like to say to Douglas Chalmers: I’m “odiously pretentious”? Moi?”

Exactly what I meant, Daniel Martin. I was recounting a story about Edmund Hillary as I knew him and in commemoration of him personally. I don’t know why you needed to lecture back to me.

You’ve just proven your stupid Kiwi pretentiousness. Who said he died of a fall? It was said in the BBC article that “he suffered a fall while visiting Nepal”. You can’t read either? Neither do I understand why you whined about the picture.....

But the Telegraph in Britain also went on a colonialist spree indulging itself in the the conquest of Everest as a coronation present for the British queen. They are still obsessed with self-righteous delusions of empire http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/danielhannan/jan 08/edmundhillaryicon.htm

“Only after Sherpa Tensing died did Sir Ed. said he (Hillary) was first.”

On the other side of the coin----what did Tensing Norgay say?  But in any event, it’s all romantic lore now.

I was touched by the stories of the lonely nights that Tenzig and Sir Hillary spent together in their quest to climb Everest.When he died Sir Hillary was working on his memoirs of those nights titled"We Broke The Back Of That Mountain”