Ed Webster, famed Everest mountaineer, at Indian Creek Canyon, Utah, April 2008. Photograph © Stewart M. Green

My friend Ed Webster, a great American mountaineer and climber who was on the 1988 first ascent of the Kangshang Face on Mount Everest and author of Snow in the Kingdom, one of the best books written about Everest, sent me an email this morning with his thoughts about the Everest torch relay:

"About the Olympic torch going up Everest -- and the accompanying Chinese political/military/police pressure on neighboring Nepal -- THAT is supposed to be a celebration of human equality and the Human Spirit? No, it just sounds like more of the Communist Chinese status quo, trying to control the "news" as much as possible, to conform to their own warped world view and gain political points -- which they never will."

Thanks Ed. This whole Everest Olympic torch thing seems less and less about the Olympic spirit and more and more about control, repression, and propaganda.