Like you couldn’t see this coming.

A British mountaineer desperate for oxygen had collapsed along a well-traveled route to the summit. Dozens of people walked right past him, unwilling to risk their own ascents. Within hours , David Sharp,34, was dead.

The Tale was shocking. an apparent display of preening callousness. Sir Edmund Hillary, who was on the team that first summitted Everest in 1953, called it “horrifying” that climbers would leave a dying man.But in the small world of modern high-altitude mountaineers there was barely any surprise at all.

Many climbers add Sharp’s death reflects a change in ethic in what was until a couple decades ago, a tiny community where only the most experienced climbers would be found that high on a mountain- and where a dying climber would be abandoned only when a rescue threatened other lives.

In Sharp’s case , about 40 people are thought to have walked past him as he sat cross-legged in a shallow snow cave. The few who stopped to check on him-and at a least team did give him oxygen-said he was so near death there was nothing that could be done.

“We’ve been seeing things like this for a very long time ,” said Thomas Sjogren, a Swedish mountaineer who helps run ExplorersWeb , a Web site widely read by climbers. “The real high altitude mountaineers, the top people in the world who are doing new peaks and going to mountains you don’t know much about, most of these people have become completely disgusted by Everest.”

The top mountaineers “often help each other” said Sjogren, who has made many Himalayan climbs. “If you know him or you don’t know him, it doesn’t matter: you try to help him until he’s confirmed dead.”

But many of today’s Everest climbers are on commercial expeditions, some paying tens of thousands of dollars to guides who are under fierce pressure to get their clients to the summit.”The sheer pressure of numbers and accessibility to these mountains have changed the kind of people who go,” said Lydia Bradley, a 44 year old New Zealander who in 1988 becme the first woman to summitt Everest without supplemental oxygen. As a result, Bradley said in a telephone interview, Everest climbers may be forced to decide whether to jeopardize their once in a lifetime investment to help a dying person.

“If you’re going to Everest…I think you have to accept the responsibility that you may end up doing something that’s not very ethically nice,” she said. “You have to realize you are in another world.”

The team of New Zealander Mark Inglis, the world’s first double-amputee to reach the summit, stopped to give Sharp oxygen before continuing to the top.

“The trouble is that at 8500 meters(27,887 feet) it is extremely difficult to keep yourself alive, let alone keep anyone else alive,”Inglis told New Zealand television. “We couldn’t do anything. he had no oxygen,no proper gloves, things like that.”

Other climbers said Sharp, presumably incoherent, had also taken off his jacket.

“People need to accept-the public as well as climbers-that people will die,” said Alan Hinkes the first Briton to climb all 14 of the world’s 8,000 meter peaks.

“People don’t understand or accept it,” he said “They think they’ve bought into a theme park.”

(The Associated Press released this article the week of May 21st, 2006. It has appeared in numerous newspapers and periodicals all over the world.)

The reason I posted this article on this website is simply this quote: ” If you’re going to Everest… I think you have to accept responsibility that you may end up doing something that’s not very ethically nice,”

Not very ethically nice?

To leave somebody dying on a mountain because they may disrupt your ascent or descent of Mt Everest is a sign of no ethics, no morals , no common decency as a person. My hope is that David Sharp made peace with his God before his death and now David Sharp decides who gets eternal life and who feels the wrath of total damnation.

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If you don’t know by now that Tunesmith & Anthony’s favorite Taylor Hicks was crowned the newest American Idol last night, you must live in a cave. And if you live in a cave and are reading this, your cave must be close to a strong wi-fi signal, but I digress.

Last night’s finale was spectacular and if you missed it, shame on you. I must admit that I could have done without the combined performances of Dionne Warwick, Meatloaf and Al Jarreau. Seeing those three gave me a sick feeling, the kind I only experience when I am reminded too much of the 1970’s and 1980’s. I was a Grant Goodeve away from hurling.

These were my favorite moments from last night’s American Idol finale:

Chris Daughtry performing with Live - At first I wasn’t sure if my television mysteriously switched to a channel showing Austin Powers or if I was watching a Midnight Oil tribute band.

Toni Braxton singing “In the Ghetto” with Taylor Hicks - I never would have imagined that I could get aroused from someone singing “In The Ghetto” until Toni Braxton’s rendition last night. I couldn’t understand a single word that she sang, but damn, girlfriend acted inappropriately slutty.

Melissa McGhee’s breasts – Spectacular.

David Hasselhoff – They showed Hasselhoff actually crying tears of joy when Taylor was named the winner. That’s just television magic. You can’t plan that shit.

And finally, the show made me proud to say that I am NOT from the South.

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REMINDER: Although this season of American Idol is over, awesome Tuesday night television continues next week with the season premiere of Rescue Me on F/X.