How Not To Fly (about)

Hillary Laments Everest Changes

The first man to conquer Everest 50 years ago has said many modern climbers do not subscribe to the true philosophy of mountaineering. Speaking to the BBC, Sir Edmund Hillary criticised many commercial climbers today who pay large sums of money to be helped to the top of the world's highest peak....

"Having people pay $65,000 and then be led up the mountain by a couple of experienced guides, I personally think, is far less attractive. It isn't really mountaineering at all..."

Fleischer Resigning White House Post

In 28 months as White House press secretary, Fleischer has had generally positive relations with the press corps, but there also have periods of contention about access to the president and the credibility of some White House statements. In the past few weeks, for example...

• Fleischer told reporters there were no problems with Saudi cooperation in the war on terrorism. Hours later, it was reported that the White House deputy national security adviser took a secret weekend trip to Saudi Arabia to appeal for more help protecting residential compounds housing Americans and other Westerners.
• Fleischer also was questioned by reporters about Bush's trip earlier this month to the USS Abraham Lincoln. Fleischer had consistently said Bush was flying out to the aircraft carrier on a Navy jet because the carrier was too far out at sea for a helicopter landing. By the day of the visit, however, the carrier was within helicopter range...

Bush Promises U.S. Will Bring Terrorists To Justice

President Bush vowed a swift response Tuesday to the terrorist attack in the Saudi capital, declaring that "the United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice." The triple terrorist bombings that shook Riyadh Monday night, killing at least 30 people, including eight Americans, and injuring about 200 others, were "despicable acts... committed by killers whose only faith is hate," Bush said in Indianapolis.

Anti-Americanism 'Dangerous'

Continued anti-Americanism could result in the US disengaging from the rest of the world with "dangerous" consequences, Nato General Secretary Lord Robertson has warned. He was commenting on the threat to world order posed by the continuing rift between Europe and the US in the wake of the Iraq war.

Relations between America and France reached an all time low following French President Jacques Chirac's outspoken criticism of the US-led conflict.

Girls Expected Game To Be Rough, But Not Brutal

It was the annual "powder puff" football game at Glenbrook [IL] North High School -- junior girls vs. senior girls. And in this rite of passage, everyone knew the seniors got to give a little grief to their underlings.... The girls had even signed something saying they knew they were in for it from the seniors.

"A little paint and a little poo," is what one of the girls said she expected.

• "About 10 minutes into it, the mood completely changed," said Marina. "Some kids got pulled out and a girl started to go after them." Marina felt her earrings ripped from her ears, and punches and kicks to her ribs and tailbone. Welts bloomed where Lauren and Dayna were pummeled and a bruise appeared on Cheryl's upper lip.
• One of the girls said the juniors were forced to put paint thinner in their mouths and were throwing up.... One of the girls said pig intestines were wrapped around her face.
• ...five Glenbrook North students were sent to the hospital. One had a broken ankle; another had to get stitches.

Many of the other students said the juniors deserved what they got.

Member Of St. Louis School Board Was Committed For Mental Illness

Moore writes in a statement titled "Chronological Order of Incident" that she fell "mysteriously ill" on Oct. 21 after drinking a cup of coffee in the office of a school district administrator.... Around noon, Moore was taken by school security guards to the emergency room at Barnes-Jewish, where, according to the hospital memorandum, she was "violent, incoherent, lacking physical and cognitive self-control.... Laboratory test results revealed a blood level of cocaine that was sufficient to exacerbate her mental condition...."

[Moore] suggests that a school official put the drugs in her coffee. In a letter to [U.S. Attorney General John] Ashcroft, she said that some school employee and another district official were "close enough to place something in my food" when the three went to dinner. In a complaint to the state Committee for Social Workers, Moore wrote: "Who put the cocaine in my food at the hospital? Was it a nurse...?"

The memorandum in Moore's hospital file says that a close relative "contradicted" Moore's denial of using cocaine.

Internet Spying Brings High-Tech Twist To Jefferson-Hemings Saga

...Nat Abeles says the real spy was his wife, who admitted to the subterfuge to help in her husband's efforts to keep the slave descendants out of the annual Jefferson reunion, which was held during the weekend.... she found out the Hemings family was communicating through an Internet group, but she thought her name would have made it difficult to be included. So Cassandra Mays-Lewis was born...

"The information itself was quite valuable," Nat Abeles said. "They were planning on all kinds of ways to get people in..."

• Lucian Truscott IV, a Jefferson descendant who believes the Hemings family should be recognized... said that when the Hemings family started discussing the reunion on the Yahoo! site about three months ago, Nat Abeles promptly told the Jefferson family they were only allowed to bring two guests each.
• When Truscott tried to accommodate the few dozen Hemingses by getting invitations from other Jefferson family members, including some who weren't planning on attending the event, Abeles countered by telling association members they had to be present to be able to bring guests.
• Then Truscott thought of using junior members -- teenagers who were planning on attending the event with their parents -- to sponsor the Hemings family. Again, Abeles said that full members were only allowed to bring guests.

"Every time we'd think of a way to get the Hemings there, he'd come up with a new rule..."

N.J. High Schooler Asks Judge To Name Her Sole Valedictorian

[Moorestown] Blair Hornstine's latest report card had four A-plus grades in five courses. She scored a 1570 out of 1600 on the SAT and is deciding whether to attend Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Princeton or Cornell -- all of which have accepted her.

But despite her best-in-her-class grades, her school district wants to name her co-valedictorian with two other students. Hornstine, the 18-year-old daughter of a state Superior Court judge, has asked a federal judge to intervene... She said she would be asking for $200,000 in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages.

Her school district looks at the disagreement another way: Because of an immune deficiency, Hornstine is classified as a disabled student and has taken a class load that doesn't include physical education and involves her spending part of her school day studying at home.