In my 20′s I spent a lot of time climbing mountains. Among my favorite possessions were my ice axe, crampons and climbing gear. I spent many a night sleeping on glaciers, often without a tent.

A colleague of a friend asked if she could join my next attempt to summit Mt. Shasta, my favorite California mountain, where I had previous experience and many adventures. Of course, I welcomed the company and we trained together for months in preparation.

During those months of training, as we worked toward this lofty goal, Camille and I grew closer and became good friends united toward a single goal. I valued her committment and enthusiasm as she worked hard to get into shape for the climb. I taught her the life-saving essentials of glacier climbing and our bond grew stronger. Trust is essential when climbing together.

When the time came, we made our way to the summit, albeit with a bit of patience, and we shared the joy of that beautiful 14,000 ft. peak.
Summiting a peak is both personally rewarding and spiritually intoxicating. Camille and I shared that moment together and what joy it was!
We took the 45 minute glissade to base camp, packed up and returned to treeline before afternoon. We spent a farewell night sleeping among the myriad of Shasta-Trinity creatures in the Cascade wilderness. I can distinctly remember the yapping coyotes surrounding our perch that night. We slept peacefully after a job well done.
The next morning with our mission accomplished and our time in Northern California at a close we packed up and began the long drive home. Along the way back home we talked to pass the time. Our conversation in the car, from topic to topic, began to form on politics.
I can remember exactly where we were on highway 5 when our conversation took a turn for the worse. Politics! Our conversation on the issues became so heated we were yelling at each other and cursing each other’s viewpoint. How could she feel this way? What kind of person believes this is the way to govern people? What kind of person actually supports these views?

We spent the next four hours drive in silence and I have never spoken to her since.
That’s right, we trained for months, we slept next to each other, we held each other’s life on the end of a rope and we shared one of life’s greatest accomplishments… and then we started talking about POLITICS and we never spoke again. Extreme hatred!

Wild but true, this moment changed my life. I made a firm decision not to discuss politics with friends. What does it matter? Are you a leader? Can you pass a law? I don’t want to know what candidate you voted for, I don’t want to know which party you support, which bills you want passed nor which political ideas you agree with!
With the exception of political protests or participation in fundraising events, you get one vote. Likely your vote means nothing but it’s your right. You have one vote and everything else is simply opinion. If you voice your opinion you are not going to make friends so what does it really matter?

If I had known then that Camille is entitled to think whatever she wants and the reality of it is she’s not going to be able to change anything I might have laughed it off, but at the time I was hot-headed and wanted nothing to do with someone who thought like her. Ironically we both supported the same ultimate goal but wanted to accomplish it by diametrically opposed political tactics. Does it matter?

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The Chinese public is venting its spleen online over inaccurate reports about the Tibet riot by some Western media groups.

Since March 20, various inaccurate photos that claimed to be of the Lhasa riot on March 14 by Western media were collected and uploaded on the Internet by some Chinese overseas students.

The collection comprised 11 pictures and footage broadcast by Cable News Network (CNN), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and other foreign media where netizens highlighted the mistaken captions accompanying the images.

A picture on CNN’s website showed people running in front of a military truck. In the original picture, mobsters throwing stones at the truck were cropped out by the U.S.-based network.

On the BBC website, a picture showing Chinese Armed Police officers helping medical staff move a wounded person into an ambulance was captioned “there is a heavy military presence in Lhasa”.

The obvious references of First Aid and Red Cross signs on the ambulance were dutifully neglected.

Fox TV, the Washington Post, Berliner Morningpost and other Western media were also singled-out in the collection.

After the images were released, netizens also started a signature collection campaign on www.china.com. So far, tens of thousands of signatures have been collected.

Most of the postings on the forum indicated the Western media had favored the rioters.

Rao Jin, a Tsinghua University graduate, publicized the website www.anti-cnn.com to display the picture and snapshots. “CNN is just one example of the Western media. What stands behind the distortion is misunderstanding and bias toward China,” he said.

One of the biggest Chinese websites www.sina.com opened a special link to talk about the Western media distortion of the Lhasa riot, a discussion that drew millions of participants.

To date, the German-based RTL TV and N-TV had made corrections on their website on March 23 and 24, respectively, and apologized to the public.

The Washington Post publicized an editor’s note on March 24, saying the caption for an earlier version of a slideshow on the Tibet riot was incorrectly associated with a photo from Nepal where Nepalese uniformed police dispel Tibetans. The caption on the new version was corrected.

On the www.anti-cnn.com, netizens continued to pressure Western media, including CNN and BBC, to apologize to their Chinese audience.

A Chinese who immigrated to Canada posted a video clip on youtube.com entitled “Tibet was, is and will always be a part of China”.

The producer, using the Internet name of Huang Jinshao, said he had received more than 500 e-mails of support within four hours of the posting. The clip had been viewed nearly 1.2 million times in three days.

“I want Chinese people’s voice to be heard,” the man said.

Source from China Tibet Information Centre