Here is what Beck Weathers did to himself. He is becoming a folk hero among the Tea Party crowd.
He trashed his face and his feet, lost his right hand completely plus joints from his left-hand fingers and part of his left thumb.
Weathers is the Tea Party's Perfect Man.
He embodies self-destruction in pursuit of fantasy.
Teabaggers follow their rightie propagandists. They idolize this guy Weathers, despite that he didn't understand basic equipment, lied about a recent surgery, and ended up as a human anchor - a fatal danger to others on the high slopes of Mount Everest.
For the whole story, BTF :::
Media go out of their way to describe what Weathers did incorrectly.
-- In 1996 Weathers joined 10 other climbers on the ultimate mountain experience - Everest. Unfortunately, this trek coincided with one of the most devastating storms on record. Temperatures dipped to 60 below zero, and the wind whipped the beleaguered team at 70 miles per hour.
That's a normal spring storm for Mount Everest. Nothing unusual for a typical May 10th and trying to climb 29,000 feet up.
Plainly, if somebody thinks that climbing Everest needs to be hyped as "the ultimate mountain experience," they don't know that 1 in 33 people who try it are killed there, reaching a total of 206 known dead.
Some of the press work beggars our sense of proportion:
-- Beck Weathers has become a much-sought-after speaker before professional, corporate and academic audiences.
-- ...he was blinded by the effects of high altitude on his eyes that had been altered by radial keratotomy surgery [which he had not mentioned to the doctors overseeing the expedition. He also misstated the situation on his application for the Nepalese climbing permit.]
Some hero.
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This guy Beck Weathers didn't believe in risk analysis. In all of his choices, what mattered was what he wanted at that moment in time -- a patent single-mindedness.
To begin with, despite being married with two young children, Weathers indulged his mid-life impulse to wander with a decade of popping off a week at a time doing climbs in the low-to-medium skill range. The better to get away from home. He was no one else's idea of a mountaineer.
Then in 1996 Weathers jumped over to playing the 33:1 game of Russian roulette that goes with trying to climb Mount Everest.
$65,000 for the pop.
He had no high altitude experience. Not one effort to summit an 8,000 meter peak. He was not technically competent for high altitude climbing. He was so inexperienced that he brought along a new-in-the-box pair of climbing boots -- he didn't know you have to do a proper break-in to use them properly.
Weathers had to lie about his eyes to get on the climbing permit, then on the mountain he went blind at 27,000 feet. Blindness plus the boot problem slowed him to a snail's pace.
On May 10, 1996, this Beck Weathers was the slowest climber on a combined team, the dragging anchor for the most of 10 hours before he gave up trying to summit Everest and admitted to being blind.
These delays to the whole group on the May 10th effort were critical later on the descent: the difference between life and death for a Japanese woman, Yasuko Namba, and directly contributory to the deaths of Doug Hansen, Andy Harris, and the teams leaders Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. their deaths contributed to the worst day ever for climbing Mount Everest.
Now, don'tcha know, the Tea Party people are making him one of their national heroes.
To be sure, Weathers is a man of right wing politics. Always was. He adores Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. He speaks of selfishness as the highest virtue.
Gets paid for doing it. Sicko corporations know what they want.
Up on Everest, during the descent phase, Weathers had gotten lost which is understandable from what we know about him going blind. Then he and Namba had to be left alone as they could not walk. Somewhat later they were re-checked and left for dead.
The reason the Teabaggers are so caught up with Beck Weathers is that he then caught a second wind, pulled himself out of the snow, and walked himself a hundred yards into camp. From there he was moved down the mountain and rescued.
Teabaggers focus solely on Weathers and his "miracle" resuscitation and hearing voices and rescuing himself.
Their rewriting of history -- as always -- tosses away the whole story. This SOB contributed to the deaths of five people -- the Tea Party's Perfect Man.
What if Ayn Rand threw a Tea Party ???
This guy Weathers would show up missing his several body parts and claim the door prize.
The ghosts of Everest deserve better.
Teabaggers don't care. They are falling all over themselves for a "miracle" that their masters have pulled from recent history. Killing people carelessly doesn't matter. Facts are more for lefties and centerists.
So now you know.
When they say that someone has "pulled a beck weathers," they're referring to Mount Everest in 1996. To getting up from snow and pulling a ravaged body back into camp. How all that happened ? What about the effects of carelessness and incompetence and lying ? Killing people ? Not so much.