From June until August they hid out in their camp in the scrub oak up in the foothills, avoiding the search parties. Then they began coming down into the city by day, passing within a quarter-mile of Elizabeth's home. They walked the streets dressed as religious pilgrims from the New Testament. Mitchell had a long beard and a walking stick. Elizabeth and Wanda covered everything but their eyes. And no one figured it out. This American Life contributor
Scott Carrier profiles the Messianic cult of Brian David Mitchell, the abductor of 2002 media icon
Elizabeth Smart.
posted by l33tpolicywonk
on Dec 14, 2010 -
60 comments
Looks like the Olympics isn't the boon to business Salt Lake City expected it to be. It might be convenient to blame the terror scare, but the same thing happened to Atlanta a while back. Businesses hired extra workers and spent money to prepare for crowds that never showed. Is all the money to be made taken in through corporate sponsorship deals and television? How have other cities fared financially during and after past Olympics?
posted by troybob
on Feb 14, 2002 -
19 comments
Colorado real winner of Games Besides possible event fixing or the exhaustion of SLOC's 400,000 hot dog supply on DAY 5, what other Olympic donnybrook might be worth mentioning? This will probably not seem interesting to anyone outside of Utah or Colorado, but Denver Post columnist Woody Paige wrote an inflammatory column that has many Utahns, uh, losing their religion.
(You'll note that the link isn't to the Denver Post website -- that's because they yanked the Feb. 12 column from their site earlier today, without comment. A mailto link was posted on their splash page for complaints about the article, but even that's gone now.)
Talk about sour grapes.
I suppose that if the games are ever held in Tel Aviv, Woody will fill his column with references to "funny" Jewish apparel, hair styles, dietary habits, or worse.
FWIW, Barry Newman's column in today's Wall Street Journal was a lot more balanced . Sorry, no link -- subscibers only :(
posted by Big Dave
on Feb 13, 2002 -
13 comments
Healing Games? NBC announces "that if things go well at the Salt Lake City Olympics, then these could be America's 'healing Games.' Plus, NBC stands to make a lot of money."
posted by jacknose
on Jan 30, 2002 -
9 comments