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Fundamentalist Mormon prophet Warren Jeffs came close to getting arrested over the last year because the Utah Attorney General's Office believed he wanted disobedient teenager Vanessa Rohbock sacrificed to the Lord in a religious ritual called Blood Atonement.
Based upon the teachings of Mormon Church patriarch Brigham Young, Jeffs professed that Vanessa's soul could be saved from eternal hell only if her blood were spilled, sources say.
Young had preached that death was the only redemption for certain sins -- including adultery.
Polygamy in Arizona
"Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood? That is what Jesus Christ meant," Young was quoted as saying in an 1857 sermon delivered in Salt Lake City and memorialized in the primary fundamentalist Mormon document Purity in the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage, compiled by Jeffs' father and former fundamentalist Prophet Rulon Jeffs.
Vanessa had committed the most vile of sins in the fundamentalist Mormon world: She had taken a boyfriend of her own choosing instead of marrying the man Warren Jeffs had chosen for her.
For that transgression, she was to die.
"Warren wanted Vanessa blood-atoned," says Ron Barton, a criminal investigator in Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's office.
What Jeffs wants, he usually gets.
The 48-year-old recluse dictates life in the isolated communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, along the artificial boundary between the two states, where more than 6,000 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) believe that men must have at least three wives to reach heaven's highest echelon.
To violate a command by Jeffs -- seen by devotees as God's earthly representative and the ultimate authority on assignments into polygamous marriages -- is an unpardonable transgression that can lead to severe punishment.
Jeffs, according to Barton and others familiar with the matter, ordered Vanessa's father to retrieve her from Canada, where she had found safe haven with Jeffs' rival, fundamentalist Mormon polygamist leader Winston Blackmore.
Vanessa refused to go back with her father, Ron Rohbock, who at the time was one of Jeffs' bodyguards. Rohbock made several trips to Canada to pick up his daughter, but he could not persuade the girl to go back to Colorado City.
On one of the trips, Rohbock told Blackmore that Jeffs had decreed that there was nothing left for Vanessa to do but return home and face the ultimate punishment, death, according to the Utah AG's Office.
In an interview with Utah investigators, Blackmore said he and the girl's father had been instructed by Jeffs to pray day and night for Vanessa's destruction.
Testament to the power Jeffs has over fundamentalist Mormons, Vanessa eventually returned to Colorado City and was spared when she agreed to marry the man the prophet had selected.
"Everyone was concerned about [Vanessa Rohbock's] welfare, including law enforcement agencies on both sides of the [U.S.-Canadian] border," Blackmore tells New Times.
Vanessa is no longer in danger, Blackmore attests. "I think she was the safest girl in the nation by the time that she went back to Colorado City," he says wryly.
The Utah Attorney General's Office, Barton says, was considering charging Jeffs with conspiracy to commit murder for issuing the blood-atonement order on Vanessa. But with Vanessa back in the FLDS fold, whether of her own volition or not, the case was shelved in favor of what the AG's Office hopes will be more prosecutable crimes by the prophet.
Jeffs could not be reached for comment. His Salt Lake City attorney, Rodney Parker, said the AG's investigation into Jeffs' blood-atonement order is "insane" and doesn't "justify a comment."
"They are idiots up there," Parker said about AG's personnel. "At least they are acting like they are."
Jeffs, who lives in Hildale, which blends seamlessly with Colorado City, houses at least a dozen women he calls wives in a guarded compound featuring several homes the size of hotels. State laws allow individuals only one spouse, so any "wife" beyond that isn't legally attached to the perceived husband. Longtime FLDS observers say Jeffs has more than 30 such "spiritual" spouses, but no one knows for sure.
According to Utah birth certificates, Jeffs fathered children with at least two girls who were 17 at the time they were impregnated and were not his legal wives -- a class-three felony in Utah.
Prophet Investigated
Warren Jeffs may have avoided criminal charges for now, but Utah and Arizona prosecutors are stepping up their investigations of the FLDS under Jeffs' leadership.
Utah is continuing to probe Jeffs' activities with the goal of building a comprehensive criminal case that includes not only sexual-misconduct crimes but financial misdeeds stemming from the prophet's control over property and businesses in the community estimated to be worth more than $100 million.
In Arizona, Attorney General Terry Goddard's office has started a wide-ranging probe of the polygamist enclave, which his predecessors had largely ignored for 50 years. In addition to beginning to seriously investigate girls getting forced into underage marriages, Goddard's office is probing alleged fraud in the Colorado City public school system.
The seriousness of these problems was discovered during a yearlong examination of the polygamist community by New Times and reported in the "Polygamy in Arizona" series, of which this article is a part.
"Our major focus at this time is to pursue child-molestation and child-abuse cases," Goddard tells New Times.
Utah officials, led by Attorney General Shurtleff, say they are confident that they will eventually obtain enough evidence to arrest Jeffs.
"When we get a good, solid case, we will go after him," Shurtleff says. "But we are not there yet."
When that time comes, taking Jeffs into custody might be a formidable task. There is serious concern among investigators on both sides of the state line that Jeffs' supporters will put up strong resistance to any move to arrest the religious leader.
Utah authorities confirm that Jeffs' followers are armed with concealed weapons and say his bodyguards -- known as the "God Squad" -- have assembled an arsenal of weapons cached somewhere in the Colorado City-Hildale area.
Storming Jeffs' compound in Hildale, where many women and children are living, raises the specter of a Waco-like encounter. In April 1993, federal agents and devout members of the Branch Davidians engaged in a violent confrontation that left more than 80 men, women and children dead. It was a botched attempt to arrest another entrancing religious leader, David Koresh, who engaged in sexual relations with teenage girls as a part of his religion.
There are also increasing concerns among former FLDS members that Jeffs may order his flock to commit a Jonestown-style mass suicide.
"A lot of people are worried that Warren will tell [his followers] to drink the Kool-Aid," says a woman whose sister is still a member of the FLDS.
Longtime FLDS observers, including Colorado City historian Ben Bistline, believe that a significant percentage of FLDS members would follow any order by Jeffs -- whether it were to violently resist the prophet's arrest or to take their own lives in protest of what they see as religious persecution.
Bistline is among a cadre of church expatriates who compare the fanaticism of FLDS followers to that of the stalwarts who drank cyanide-laced punch at Jim Jones' behest.
If any of this seems far-fetched, consider that FLDS leadership has repeatedly warned followers that the end of the world is near. On several occasions, FLDS faithful were gathered in a field for a mass ascension into the sky. Elders stated that the faithful would be swept up as Armageddon engulfed the planet. When what was known in the community as the "liftoff" didn't occur, the elders told the flock that they weren't yet pure enough to enter heaven and that the end of the world had been delayed.
Attorney General Shurtleff declined to discuss the logistics of arresting Jeffs, other than to affirm that the procedure is "probably going to be difficult."
Paramount in any operation, Shurtleff says, will be protecting lives. "Officer safety is going to be key."
Not only did Jeffs fail to return phone calls seeking comment, so did Colorado City Mayor Dan Barlow, who serves as spokesman for the fundamentalist Mormon society.
In addition to the criminal investigation of Jeffs, authorities are taking the following specific steps toward addressing the ongoing sexual and governmental abuses in the Colorado City-Hildale area:
In an unprecedented action, Arizona and Mohave County education officials are seeking ways to remove polygamists from control of the Colorado City Unified School District, which is on the brink of bankruptcy. The district is the largest single employer in the community and is heavily relied upon to provide jobs. The move to dislodge the school board comes at the same time the state Auditor General's Office has expanded its probe into the school district's gross misspending of public money that was triggered directly by a New Times report ("Profits of Polygamy," July 10).
Utah AG Shurtleff is pushing to have members of the Colorado City Police Department -- which has jurisdiction in Colorado City and Hildale -- stripped of police certification for marrying underage girls and failing to perform police duties. New evidence reveals that a second Colorado City policeman, Winford Johnson Barlow, has taken an underage girl as a second church-sanctioned wife. Last August, former police officer Rodney Holm was convicted of felony bigamy and sexual-misconduct charges in Utah stemming from his spiritual marriage to 16-year-old Ruth Stubbs ("Utah Targets Polyg Prophet," August 21).
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano and AG Goddard have pledged to staff an office in Colorado City that would provide services to women and children seeking to leave or avoid polygamous marriages and to monitor millions of dollars in welfare payments pouring into the community. The office, which will also include a Mohave County sheriff's substation, will be the first government facility opened in the area outside the direct control of fundamental Mormon polygamists. An AG's investigator will be assigned to the facility to help develop cases against sex-abusers.
Arizona Senate President Ken Bennett and House Speaker Jake Flake recently informed New Times they support changing Arizona's bigamy statute to make it easier to prosecute polygamists who enter into spiritual marriages. Pressure by these two officials -- both members of the Salt Lake City-based mainstream Mormon church (which has disavowed the fundamentalist sect) -- could close a glaring loophole: The Arizona Constitution bans polygamy, but the Legislature has never passed a corresponding criminal statute addressing the issue of religious marriages. The omission allows polygamists to hold elected office and public-service jobs despite being in violation of their oath to uphold the state Constitution ("Bound by Fear," March 13). "There is a real opportunity in this next legislative session [beginning in January] to tighten the state's laws on bigamy and polygamy," Goddard says.
As significant as the recent ground swell of action by Utah and Arizona authorities may appear, it would be naive to think that the initiatives will force Jeffs and the fundamentalist Mormons he controls to abandon polygamy, the very bedrock of their religion.
While the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially backed away from polygamy in 1890 -- and says it now excommunicates members who continue the practice -- fundamentalist Mormons believe that polygamy is the only route to salvation.
The recent moves by Utah and Arizona authorities are viewed by FLDS faithful as yet another round of persecutions to be endured. In fact, the only aggressive state action against polygamists -- an ill-fated 1953 raid on the community by Arizona Governor Howard Pyle -- has been used by FLDS leaders to rally the faithful around their prophet ("Polygamy's Odyssey," March 13).
Sources say Jeffs' followers are building a secret compound -- possibly along the Arizona-Mexico border -- where stalwarts could retreat if authorities descend on Colorado City and Hildale. At the same time, Jeffs has ordered workers to fortify the perimeter of his Hildale compound with an eight-foot-high block wall.
"It appears he's digging in," Utah AG Shurtleff says.
An interesting aside is that while Utah AG Shurtleff, a mainstream Mormon, has been particularly aggressive in putting pressure on the fundamentalist enclave to, among other things, stop underage marriages, his office has announced it will not prosecute polygamists who enter into spiritual unions with adult females. The stance has come despite a state law declaring polygamy of any sort a felony.
Consequently, the Utah Judicial Conduct Commission decided in October to allow polygamist Walter Steed to continue serving as judge of the Hildale Justice Court, even though he has three wives and is violating the felony statute. Records show that Steed entered into one civil marriage and two subsequent spiritual unions.
In an October 27 ruling, the commission said it would not strip Steed of his position because his wives were adults when they entered into the marriages. In its decision, the commission cited statements by Shurtleff's office that it would prosecute no polygamy case that didn't involve an underage spouse.
The commission's support of Steed sends a powerful signal to other polygamists holding pubic office in Hildale that, unless they take child brides, they need not worry about losing their positions for violating state law and the Utah Constitution (which, like Arizona's, bans polygamy).
"The police department is polygamist. The town council is polygamist. The judge is polygamist. It's unbelievable," says Douglas White, attorney for the anti-polygamy activist group Tapestry Against Polygamy. "Is that a breakdown of the Constitution or not?"
Steed, a truck driver who has served as a judge since 1981, was reappointed last month by the Hildale town council to another four-year term. A spokesman for the Judicial Conduct Commission declined to comment, saying its proceedings are confidential.
Utah -- the home to the largest Mormon population in the nation, whether they be mainstream or fundamentalist -- traditionally has been hard on women who flee polygamous marriages with their children.
Late last month, a Utah court stripped Tamara Phelps of custody of her three children and gave them to Amy Black, one of her former sister wives in a polygamous marriage.
The court -- in a decision Shurtleff says he was stunned by -- issued the order even though Amy Black is legally married to polygamist Orson William Black, a fugitive who fled to Mexico last spring to avoid arrest by Arizona law enforcement on five felony counts of sexual misconduct with minors ("Polygamists Probed," May 1).
Phelps, who admits to having had emotional problems handling her transition out of polygamy, wanted to keep the children, or, at the very least, have them adopted by her brother or sister, who aren't polygamists. Instead, the court agreed with Utah child welfare officials, and the children, including two teenage girls, were put back in the polygamous home. Though Orson Black reportedly is still in Mexico, and the court ordered Amy Black to have no contact with him, Phelps believes her children are still in danger.
"That just blows me away," Shurtleff says of the custody decision. He vows to see if his office can legally intervene in the case.
Bleeding the Beast
Prophet Warren Jeffs "seems to need a steady supply of young virgins," claims Deloy Bateman, a former FLDS member who left the church several years ago after leaders tried unsuccessfully to remove four children by his second wife from his care.
A source in the Utah Attorney General's Office says authorities are investigating reports from former FLDS members concerning Jeffs' penchant for exploiting young girls who have little understanding of their sexuality.
"Warren Jeffs is an evil, evil man," maintains the source, who is very familiar with the case Shurtleff's office is working up against Jeffs.
It's no exaggeration to say that FLDS families must at least pretend that they would be honored to have a daughter become one of Warren Jeffs' plural wives. A marriage into the Jeffs household increases a family's social status and, more important, enhances the family patriarch's chances of obtaining additional wives -- since it is Jeffs who rules on which girls and women go where.
It's not unusual for Jeffs to declare that a man has offended the church and reassign his wives and children to another man in the community.
Such reassignments are seen as a bonanza for a favored male, since he is also allowed to spiritually marry the daughters of his newly assigned wife or wives.
When a husband dies, Jeffs immediately assigns grieving widows to new families. "No tears are shed for the dead," Bateman says, "before women are given to other men."
Jeffs, who once served as principal of a private FLDS school near Salt Lake City when his father, Rulon, was prophet, strictly controls education. In 2000, he ordered the faithful to withdraw their children from the town's public school and enroll them in private church schools.
Few FLDS students graduate from high school, and only a handful go to college. Religious indoctrination in the church schools is used to train women from birth to accept marriage assignments without question. Men, meanwhile, are instructed during years of "priesthood" training to refrain from displays of passion and expressions of love for their wives.
"That's considered childish," Bateman says.
In a society where there are only a smattering of low-wage construction and trucking jobs outside the public sector, families keep themselves afloat by systematically tapping into the welfare system. The FLDS' push for households to sign up for food stamps, medical care and housing assistance, and for local governmental institutions to request highway- and airport-improvement funds and public school assistance, is known as "bleeding the beast."
And the beast has been bled successfully over the years.
Tens of millions of dollars a year in welfare and other government funds are directed into a community controlled almost exclusively by the church. The Colorado City and Hildale town councils, the public school board and all other key positions of authority are beholden to Jeffs. In addition to the unknown portion of public money that goes toward supporting Jeffs' personal lifestyle, critics believe he will be the recipient of funds derived from a $1,000-a-week-per-family tithing requirement he recently instituted.
Jeffs assumed control of the FLDS last year after his father, Rulon, died in September 2002. The elder Jeffs had been the spiritual husband to as many as 70 wives, some of whom his son inherited.
As FLDS president and the community's prophet, Warren Jeffs controls a trust called the United Effort Plan that owns nearly all the property in Colorado City and Hildale and has a stake in many of the town's private businesses. Any man who crosses Jeffs therefore risks losing not only his wives and children, but his home and job.
Of frail stature and pale complexion, Jeffs is rarely seen in public. Last August, he suspended church services and stopped performing polygamous marriages of the faithful in the wake of evidence-seeking incursions by Utah authorities.
The ban on multiple marriages he instituted for the rest of the society hasn't extended to himself. Sources say he has taken on at least one additional teenage wife in the last month.
Jeffs' autocratic leadership style is patterned after that of his father, a former accountant, who reigned for 16 years.
Some in the community remember when things were different. They say LeRoy Johnson, who led the FLDS until his death in 1986, was a kind and mild-mannered leader.
Known as Uncle Roy to the faithful, Johnson was a Mormon prophet in the image of church founders Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, says Blackmore, the leader of the fundamentalist sect in Canada.
"Uncle Roy was the example of Mormonism," says Jeffs' bitter rival. "[He was] forgiving, sociable, determined to keep alive our fundamental principles, and opposed to priest craft."
Warren Jeffs, Blackmore says, is a protégé of mid-20th-century fundamentalist Mormon leader Guy Musser, who played a major role in preserving Mormon polygamist movements in Salt Lake City and later in the Colorado City area.
Jeffs grew up under Musser's influence, regularly attending lavish luncheons at Musser's palatial home outside Salt Lake City. Elite members of the fundamentalist Mormon church were always there, Blackmore says.
Musser was a gifted orator, and so controlling, Blackmore says, that he dictated to his own sons when they could engage in sexual relations.
Not only has Warren Jeffs adopted Musser's dictatorial ruling philosophy, Blackmore says, he has embraced the lavish lifestyle his mentor enjoyed.
"Musser had a walled-in city block of seven or eight houses and was entirely supported by the people," the rival leader says. "He did not work, or allow his children to work."
How marriages are handled is perhaps the most notable difference between the regime of LeRoy Johnson and those of Rulon and Warren Jeffs. In a polygamous society where it is believed that a man must obtain at least three wives to enter the "celestial kingdom," nothing is more important than the ritual of wedlock.
Musser joined a man with his wives in secret, and so does Warren Jeffs.
Under Johnson, it was a very different story, Blackmore recalls. "Marriages were a joyous public event for Uncle Roy."
Schools Cashed Out
The top administrators of the Colorado City Unified School District walked briskly toward the district's $220,000 airplane parked at the Kingman Municipal Airport on December 1.
School Superintendent Alvin Barlow and his top aides had just finished an emergency meeting with Mohave County School Superintendent Mike File and were preparing to fly back to Colorado City.
Though critics have questioned how one of the poorest school districts in Arizona can justify buying a plane, the Cessna 210 had come in handy on this day.
Barlow and his supporting cast had been forced to fly 140 miles to the county seat after File had notified them that he was withholding paychecks for the district's 100 employees because of school officials' malfeasance.
The one-school district with 350 students had run out of money five months into the academic year. Plus, it had exhausted a $1 million line of credit with Wells Fargo Bank. It appeared that if the district were to make its payroll, it would have to borrow $178,000 from Mohave County.
File wanted some answers. He had had enough of the district's wanton spending -- on everything from the Cessna to a fleet of expensive SUVs commandeered by administrators for personal use to unnecessary out-of-town travel by district employees to thousands of dollars' worth of personal purchases by Barlow and other employees on district credit cards.
File told Barlow he wouldn't release county funds to the district until it came up with a plan to reduce expenses.
During a heated meeting that included an assistant Mohave County attorney, Barlow agreed to come up with a plan that must be approved by county and state education officials, and File agreed to cut loose the payroll checks.
"They are in real bad shape financially," File told New Times later.
Whatever plan Barlow and the Colorado City school board come up with, File thinks drastic changes must be made.
In a letter to Attorney General Goddard, File asked if he has the legal authority to remove school board members.
"This board does not represent the people, or children of the district," he wrote, "and in my professional opinion [members are] acting in total disregard of the Arizona Constitution."
For years, the school district has been the largest single employer in Colorado City. Superintendent Barlow, a member of the FLDS and a polygamist, employs 100 workers at the district's 350-student kindergarten-through-12th-grade school. The 3.5-students-to-one-employee ratio is much lower than the 26-students-per-employee ratio of other Mohave County schools.
The inordinately high number of employees has put considerable strain on the district's $5.2 million annual budget. But, from the FLDS' perspective, the district provides scores of desperately needed jobs to church faithful, who work primarily as administrators, principals, janitors and bus drivers.
In a bizarre twist, the district employees loyal to the FLDS, including Superintendent Barlow, don't even allow their own children to attend the public school. Along with other church loyalists, they removed their kids from the school in July 2000, after the order by Jeffs.
Almost all of the students left attending the public school are from a small fundamentalist Mormon community in next-door Centennial Park, Arizona, that split with the FLDS in the mid-1980s.
At the same time Jeffs ordered FLDS members to pull their children from the public school, he directed FLDS followers to have no contact with the people from the Second Ward, whom he labeled "apostates."
So even if district finances were squarely in the black, it would be bad enough that Barlow and his crew are paid with public funds to tend to a school whose students they believe are evil traitors, and whom they are not allowed to converse with.
But the district's books have been in shambles for a long time. New Times uncovered gross misspending of public funds last spring during a review of district expenditures ("The Wages of Sin," April 10). The paper's examination and subsequent story triggered a joint investigation of the district by the state Auditor General and Attorney General's offices.
Arizona's investigation, which initially focused on the December 2002 purchase of the aircraft, was expanded in September to include the district's relationship with businesses controlled by the FLDS.
Of particular interest to the state has been the district's termination of prepaid leases on three school buildings owned by the church-controlled Colorado City Improvement Association. By walking away from the leases, the district benefited the FLDS by leaving more than $330,000 in bond funds in church coffers.
Barlow and the school board justified ending the leases early after the Arizona School Facilities Board agreed to contribute $6 million toward a new $7.5 million school building in town. The superintendent and board members ignored pleas from non-FLDS teachers that the leased buildings -- especially since they had been paid for in advance -- be retained to guard against overcrowding.
Instead, the structures were almost immediately converted into FLDS schools, where the district employees loyal to the FLDS now send their kids.
Earlier this month, New Times reviewed district records requested under the Arizona Public Records Law and found that the Colorado City Unified School District is now acknowledging that its new school is already overcrowded and will ask the state to build a second public school in town.
Superintendent Barlow declined to discuss anything pertaining to the school district with New Times -- particularly why he and the board gave back school buildings to the FLDS at a substantial loss to taxpayers that the community now desperately needs.
Because its investigators suspect that district employees are helping out fellow church and family members, the Auditor General's Office has demanded that school district officials complete conflict-of-interest-disclosure forms. So far, however, Barlow and the others haven't complied.
The Auditor General's Office has asked the district to "identify all district officials and governing board members who have or whose relatives have or have had a substantial interest in any contract, sale, purchase or service to the district."
When and if school officials comply, it's likely to be a long and complicated list, since practically everybody in the Colorado City area is related through the tangled web of polygamous marriages.
Conflict-of-interest violations discovered by New Times include: The school board president's son is paid to pilot the district's Cessna, and a school board member has a contract with the district to perform maintenance services.
In an attempt to offset what the state might find, the school district has hired its own auditing firm to examine its books. But, in a draft report prepared by Tucson's Heinfeld, Meech & Co., a number of serious problems are noted: improper use of credit cards, missing financial statements for the district's employee-benefits trust fund and a practice of creating purchase orders after money is already spent.
The latter problem -- depending on the size and nature of the unapproved purchases -- could lead to felony charges, says a Phoenix attorney familiar with school finances.
While File has given the school district time to get its house in order, he says it is doubtful that Barlow and the school board will be able to come up with sufficient funds to pay bills for the remainder of the school year.
File is waiting to see if state officials approve the district's appeal of a request for an emergency advance of more than $1 million that was turned down earlier this month by the Arizona Department of Education.
On December 2, state schools finance director Lyle Friesen notified the district that no state funds can be advanced until the district provides detailed information about its past spending and coughs up projected expenses for the rest of the year.
Asked if a school district has ever run out of money before the end of an academic year, Friesen says, "We have never had that situation come up before."
Even without the alleged malfeasance by district officials, state education officials would be wondering how the Colorado City school district got itself into this mess, since the district has received more than $4.3 million in extra state funds over the last three years. The money was paid under the state's "rapid-decline" formula, which is designed to protect school systems from financial collapse when unforeseen circumstances force a mass withdrawal of students.
In Colorado City's case, the rapid decline occurred when Warren Jeffs ordered the 650 fundamentalist students withdrawn from the public school three years ago.
As for whether Mohave County School Superintendent File can legally remove five members of the Colorado City school board, the Attorney General's Office is reviewing the matter.
But state schools superintendent Tom Horne says it's unlikely that either File or the Arizona education department can forcibly remove elected school board members.
"If a district stops operating and becomes totally dysfunctional, somebody has to step in and do something," Horne admits. "But there is apparently no statute allowing such action."
Horne says he plans to ask the Legislature to pass a law that would allow the state to intercede when school districts, such as Colorado City's, have severe financial and operational problems.
That would be great, File says, but it won't solve the immediate problem.
"Colorado City is never going to change," he says, "unless the state goes in there and takes over the school, or the state allows me to replace the school board members with people who represent the children who go to that school."
File is not the first to call for a new school board in the polygamist enclave. Last year, a group of angry students submitted a petition to the Colorado City board demanding that members resign en masse.
Cops Take Child Brides
Colorado City police officer Winford Johnson Barlow married his second wife, Margaret Jessop, in a spiritual ceremony sometime before her 18th birthday on July 6, 2002.
Seven months after Jessop turned 18, she delivered a healthy, seven-pound, 14-ounce baby girl at the Hildale Maternity Home on January 29, 2003. Winford Barlow is listed as the girl's father on a Utah birth certificate obtained by New Times.
By all indications, Barlow, 36 at the time, had sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old girl who was not his legal wife sometime in the spring of 2002.
A Hildale resident, Barlow apparently committed a class-three felony in Utah, which outlaws such sexual encounters between a legally unmarried minor and a much older adult. No charges, however, have been filed. Barlow could not be reached for comment.
Barlow already had a large family before Jessop was brought into the fold. He legally married his first wife, Carolena Holm, in October 1986 when he was 21 and she was 19. Like all dutiful FLDS wives, Holm began bearing children -- her ninth baby was born last September.
If Utah records are accurate and the Jessop girl went through a normal gestation period, Winford Barlow is the second Colorado City police officer discovered to have spiritually married and impregnated an underage girl.
Last August, Officer Rodney Holm was convicted of bigamy and sexual misconduct for spiritually marrying a 16-year-old girl as his third wife. The girl bore Holm two children before she turned 18. Holm was sentenced to one year in the Washington County, Utah, jail and stripped of his police officer certification in Utah and Arizona.
Utah AG Shurtleff says the Rodney Holm case -- along with evidence indicating that other Colorado City police officers, including Winford Barlow, have engaged in unlawful acts -- has spurred his office to launch an investigation of the entire town police department, which has jurisdiction on both sides of the state line.
Shurtleff says his goal is to strip Utah police certification from as many Colorado City police officers as possible, which would set up the possibility that the Washington County Sheriff's Office would take over policing in the area.
"We are going beyond just the fact that they are living in polygamy," Shurtleff says. "We are also trying to document cases where they have been uncooperative with law enforcement efforts and haven't been doing their jobs."
The fate of many in the Colorado City department, made up of more than a dozen cops, could be determined next month when the Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) board, which certifies law enforcement personnel in the state, holds its next meeting.
Arizona officials, meanwhile, say they are closely monitoring Utah's upcoming certification hearings.
"If the grounds for revocation in Utah are also grounds for action in Arizona, then cases could be opened," says Tom Hammarstrom, executive director of Arizona's POST.
Like Utah, Arizona does not certify police departments, but individual officers. Under current state law, Arizona's POST cannot revoke a certification just on the grounds that an officer is a polygamist, even though officers must pledge to uphold the state Constitution, which bans polygamy.
Arizona tried unsuccessfully to decertify former Colorado City assistant police chief Sam Barlow in the late 1980s because he is a polygamist. A hearing officer ruled that since the Arizona Legislature has never passed a law criminalizing polygamy, there were no grounds to strip Barlow of his certification.
Because legal issues regarding polygamy are murky in both Arizona and Utah (there have been no enforced legal restrictions against men marrying as many wives as they please), the fundamentalist Mormon community straddling the border between the two states has been able to rapidly expand. Fifty years ago, there were fewer than 500 polygamists in the area. Now, there are more than 6,000.
Utah has passed a series of laws attempting to stop polygamy, including a felony bigamy statute that makes it illegal for a married person to "purport" to be married to another person or to cohabit with another person. But the statute has been rarely enforced because it is difficult for authorities to find plural wives willing to testify against men. The Rodney Holm case was the rare exception where an estranged spiritual wife served as a witness for the prosecution.
Arizona, meanwhile, has no specific statute banning polygamy. Arizona's bigamy law is only effective against a person who knowingly enters into two civil marriages. Polygamists have gotten around this prohibition by conducting spiritual unions.
Arizona Senate President Ken Bennett says he will support legislation that would stop polygamists from abusing the welfare system and from holding public office. The most direct way to do that, he says, is to make all multiple marriages illegal, regardless of whether they are spiritual in the eyes of fundamentalists.
Bennett, a mainstream Mormon, says he has no plans to personally introduce such a bill. But if another lawmaker does, he says he will hold hearings and make sure the bill comes to a vote during the upcoming legislative session.
"I imagine it would be successful," Bennett says.
House Speaker Jake Flake, a mainstream Mormon whose great-grandfather was a polygamist, also supports hearings next session to address Arizona's lack of a criminal statute banning polygamy, says aide Jake Logan.
All this is good news to state Senator Linda Binder, the Lake Havasu Republican who for years has been pushing the Legislature to enact laws banning what she calls "sham marriages."
"I think [Bennett and Flake] are finally realizing that they have to get on board," says Binder, who has been the most outspoken of a handful of legislators calling for reforms that would protect young girls in the state's polygamist society from sexual abuse.
Arizona AG Goddard says he heartily welcomes the possibility of legislation making it a felony for a person to enter into a multiple marriage with a minor, spiritual or otherwise.
"That law," Goddard says, "would give us some real prosecutorial clout."
Arizona Moving In
As legislators talk about getting tough on fundamentalist Mormons, and state agencies investigate polygamists' sexual abuses and highly questionable public policies, one thing seems certain:
Arizona will open a multi-agency government office in Colorado City early next year that will assist women seeking to avoid or escape polygamous marriages.
And the office won't just be a social service agency. Police and state and county investigators will be on hand to probe complaints of criminal wrongdoing, particularly sexual abuse of minors.
The office will mark the first time Arizona has placed a regulatory and law enforcement facility in Colorado City independent of the fundamental Mormon polygamists who control the town.
When the multi-agency facility was first proposed last August, some anti-polygamy activists denounced the plan, suspecting it would quickly fall under the control of the fundamentalist political machine.
But Arizona AG Goddard promises that the facility will be independent of local leaders.
"If somebody wants to step up and say there is a problem, we want to make sure help is available," Goddard says. "[That help] will not be compromised by local contacts and [will be] truly independent."
The office will offer important welfare and law enforcement services, the AG says. A representative from Child Protective Services will be on hand to protect children. And Goddard says he will staff the office with an investigator to look into issues reported to CPS and other agencies involving child abuse, underage marriages and welfare benefits.
Almost since Goddard took over as AG this year, he has contended that the state is stymied in making prosecutions against statutory rapists in Colorado City because witnesses, in the throes of the polygamist society, are afraid to come forward. He sees the center as a way to provide protection to women and children, who could later assist the state in prosecutions.
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, who initiated a grand jury investigation into Colorado City in 2000 while she was attorney general, has also endorsed the plan to open the office and has pledged that the state Department of Economic Security will provide long-term staffing.
"It's definitely moving forward," Napolitano spokesman Paul Allvin says about the center. "The governor wants something up there . . . possibly in the early spring."
Help the Child Brides, a St. George, Utah, anti-polygamy activist group, hailed the decision to open the multi-agency facility.
"It's what we have been hoping and praying for," says Bob Curran, director of the volunteer group that operates an information and outreach center in St. George.
Curran says he is particularly pleased that Arizona is making a commitment that the office will be independent of the Mormon polygamists who control the town.
"Any involvement by them would have doomed the project, as no citizens would have dared to avail themselves of the services," Curran says.
Utah is also moving forward with plans to establish a permanent presence in the area, possibly in conjunction with Arizona or in a separate facility.
"We are absolutely committed to first of all having a law enforcement presence in the area," says Utah AG Shurtleff.
For starters, Shurtleff plans to get a billboard erected in Colorado City with the 800 number of a law enforcement agency outside the control of the fundamentalist hierarchy.
The multi-agency center in Arizona will be staffed with at least two DES workers, says Director David Bern. The employees will be cross-trained to handle Child Protective Services issues as well as welfare benefits.
Bern says the DES will assist any person who seeks help, whether the issue is child abuse, an underage marriage, welfare benefits or assistance to those with developmental disabilities.
Bern says he will work with Utah officials to ensure that welfare recipients aren't getting benefits from both states, which officials suspect is going on in many cases.
Bern says the DES office will be designed mainly to respond to complaints rather than initiate investigations.
"This is a way," he says, "to offer expanded services to the population there."
The goal is to build trust, particularly among abuse victims, that the government can provide beneficial services, Bern says.
Underage girls and women fleeing pending marriages into polygamy, he stresses, will find safety at the DES office.
In the past, girls fleeing Colorado City continually have been returned by state authorities to families attempting to force them into polygamous unions. Bern says this will no longer be the case.
"It would be a violation of our ethics and policy," he says. "I would expect our staff to do a comprehensive assessment of what's going on."
If it appears that returning an underage girl to her family would place her in an "inappropriate or illegal" situation, Bern says, "we would want to be involved not only through CPS but through a coordinated approach with law enforcement."
Mohave County Attorney Bill Ekstrom says his office will lend a sexual assault victims' advocate to the Colorado City facility on a part-time basis.
If that seems like very little, note that Ekstrom won an outstanding leadership award last month at a statewide sexual-assault conference sponsored by Napolitano and Goddard's offices.
Ironically, while Ekstrom has aggressively provided services to sexual-assault victims in southern Mohave County, he has given no assistance to victims from Colorado City.
Ekstrom, who is resigning as county attorney on January 1, is on record as viewing FLDS-controlled Colorado City as an idyllic, family-oriented town. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he has been publicly skeptical that underage girls are being forced into polygamous marriages routinely.
During the 24 years he has headed the Mohave County Attorney's Office, sexual-assault cases out of Colorado City have typically ended in plea bargains, or with sentences of less than one year in jail -- no matter how grievous the crime.
Indeed, Ekstrom's office has never prosecuted anyone for having sexual relations with an underage girl who is the spiritual wife of a polygamist.
Last year, Ekstrom's office agreed to a plea bargain that resulted in a sentence of 13 days in jail for the son of Colorado City Mayor Dan Barlow. Dan Barlow Jr. had been charged with sexually molesting his five daughters repeatedly over the years.
If Ekstrom has his way, the multi-agency office won't be set up to pry into what is going on inside polygamous households. For action to be taken, victims would have to come forward.
"This is not for the purpose of catching anybody," he insists, "but for the purpose of providing resources to the community."
Little is likely to change in the Mohave County Attorney's Office when Ekstrom leaves. He announced his resignation effective in January, he says, to give his hand-picked successor, assistant county attorney Matthew Smith, time to prepare for the 2004 election. Smith was the prosecutor in the Junior Barlow case.
Though his office hasn't been aggressive in investigating underage marriages in the past, Mohave County Sheriff Tom Sheahan says he is now ready to go after men who sexually abuse females in spiritual marriages. Sheahan says he will assign six officers to the new Colorado City office to investigate victims' complaints.
"We will help [sexual-assault victims] and get them to safety," he promises.
Sheahan says he and his counterpart across the state line, Washington County Sheriff Kirk Smith, are discussing the possibility of sharing space in the new facility. Both sheriffs, he says, want to have their officers cross-deputized so they have legal authority in Utah and Arizona.
Sheahan says his office is prepared to assume law enforcement duties in Colorado City, if Arizona and Utah authorities take action that effectively shuts down the town police force. His office already has jurisdiction in unincorporated areas of Mohave County, including the Second Ward district of Centennial Park.
The Mohave County Board of Supervisors is expected to rubber-stamp the project once County Manager Ron Walker finishes an analysis of what size facility is needed. "I would like to get this done as quickly as possible," Walker says.
The favored location for the office is on land in Colorado City owned by the Mohave County Community College. The location is also within walking distance for residents of Hildale and Centennial Park.
Mohave County Supervisor Buster Johnson says he supports putting the multi-agency facility in the community, but he stresses that it isn't enough.
Johnson recommends aggressively arresting everyone who is obviously engaged in sexual relations with underage girls.
"There's been lots of talk [about getting tough on statutory rapists], but not action," says Johnson, a former sheriff's deputy in Los Angeles County, California.
Women who have left Colorado City to escape polygamous marriages predict that the state office will be quietly welcomed among women in the community. If authorities are true to their word and remain independent of local polygamist leaders, victims will start to flock to the facility, they say.
"It's going to have to be there for a little while to build trust," says Penny Petersen, who left the community as a teenager 16 years ago and now lives in Phoenix. "The women are going to have to see the workers around town a little bit. That will build trust."
Polygs Get Mom's Kids
Such trust will surely have to be won, because a combination of factors make it extremely difficult for females to leave the closed society they were born into.
Consider what happened to Tammy Phelps, now 33, and her three children once the former polygamist wife got tangled up in the Utah court system.
Her story reveals that it's not only difficult for a woman to flee polygamy, it's nearly impossible for her to take her children with her.
Mothers who leave polygamy are generally portrayed by their husbands as wayward or mentally unstable, and even children can be indoctrinated to believe that their mothers are evil for daring to leave a situation endorsed by God and the church.
Coping with an outside world that is strange to them is problematic enough (most have seldom traveled outside the polygamist enclave, where many books are banned and watching TV and movies is discouraged), but leaving is made even more difficult because husbands often launch FLDS-financed custody battles to trap children in the polygamist culture.
Phelps, like many girls growing up in Colorado City, says she was forced into polygamy just after her 17th birthday. That's when her parents and then-Prophet Rulon Jeffs decided she would marry Orson William Black.
"My mom told me growing up that I had to do whatever the prophet said," Phelps recalls. "I had no choice."
Phelps wanted to run away when she got the news regarding Black, but her parents wouldn't let her out of the house. Eventually, she says, Black came over and, after a few minutes, grabbed her forcefully.
"He told me I couldn't get away," she says. "I was his wife now."
Black then drove her to Rulon Jeffs' home.
"[The prophet] told us to stand up and then said, You're married.'"
The date was July 27, 1987. Her new husband, she says, didn't so much as give her a ring.
"I didn't know what I was getting into. It was just horrible."
Life got worse from there, she says.
Phelps says she knew nothing about sex, but was about to find out.
"He took me home, threw me on the floor and he raped me," she says of her wedding night and the loss of her virginity. She was more than 11 months away from her 18th birthday.
Phelps says she had three children in the first five years of the marriage.
About Black, she says, "He was just going on talking real strange. He started telling everyone that he was the prophet. That God was talking to him."
Phelps says she finally left because of mental and physical abuse. Since she wasn't sure of her future, she had to leave the children behind.
Phelps, who was forced to drop out of school in the 11th grade, lived with her mother in town for several years, finally leaving Colorado City in 2000. After getting intimidated into signing over the children to Black, she was allowed to see them for four hours every other weekend.
Last March, Arizona filed five felony charges against Black, alleging he sexually assaulted two teenage sisters whom he had purportedly married in spiritual ceremonies. Black fled to Mexico before he could be arrested.
Phelps immediately regained temporary custody of her three children -- an 11-year-old boy and two daughters, ages 15 and 13. Though she alleges that her daughters were also abused by Black, they were not the girls listed in the legal complaint against the polygamist. She moved her kids to her home in Cedar City, Utah. But Amy Black, who had raised the children after Phelps had moved out, petitioned to regain custody.
Phelps acknowledges she was having a difficult time controlling the children, the oldest of whom was particularly belligerent. The girl was upset because her wedding plans had been derailed. She had been preparing to marry her stepbrother, Dave Barlow, with whom she had lived in the Black household for the previous eight years, says Penny Petersen, who aided Phelps in her custody case.
Before he was forced to flee, William Orson Black had planned to perform the marriage ceremony involving his stepson (from his fourth wife) to his and Phelps' daughter Natalie.
Despite the unusual circumstances surrounding her regaining custody of her children, Phelps says she was helping them make the difficult transition into life outside the strict confines of Colorado City.
It was slow going, she admits. She lacked parenting skills, and the children did not view her as their mother, court records show.
"They had all this anger," Phelps says about the children, whom she sent to detention centers on a few occasions. "And then Amy started calling them on the phone, and that just made them more angry."
The custody battle soon turned in favor of Amy Black, as the court-appointed guardian for the children supported returning the kids to her rather than keeping them with their natural mother.
A Utah CPS worker interviewed the children on at least three occasions, and they contradicted Phelps' assertion that they had been abused by their father.
"I found them to be angry and defiant on each of the occasions," CPS worker Mary Beam stated in a letter to the court. "They adamantly denied that they had ever been physically or sexually abused by their father or any other family member, with the exception of their mother. The children wanted it to appear as though Tamara Phelps is the abusive parent."
Phelps says her court-appointed lawyers told her that if she didn't agree to Amy Black getting custody, she could lose all visitation rights to her children.
And, Phelps says, she was told that if she insisted on placing the children in foster care, she would be forced to pay child support even though she is indigent.
By late October, Phelps was emotionally and physically drained from the ordeal. Her options bleak, she turned over legal custody of her children to Amy Black, her former sister wife and the only legal spouse of fugitive Orson William Black.
Phelps is allowed to see her children every other weekend and six weeks in summers under an agreement approved by Utah Fifth District Juvenile Court Judge Hans Q. Chamberlain.
The guardianship orders issued by Chamberlain had some unusual stipulations, especially since Amy Black is currently one of at least five women betrothed to Orson Black.
The judge ordered Amy Black not to take the children outside the area and that she should have no contact with her husband. And he ordered Amy not to let any of the children marry before they turn 18. But he also decreed, "Polygamy shall not be taught to the children, nor lived or practiced in the home of Amy Black."
Though some of Orson Black's spouses are reportedly in Mexico with him, Phelps fears that these stipulations will not be followed.
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"The children could be raped, forced into marriage or end up in Mexico," she says, contending that fundamentalist Mormons follow the dictates of the church, not the state.
"Those polygamists are just bad people," Phelps says. "They were constantly telling the kids that I'm the devil, that I'm the evil one. "
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China's Domestic Economic Activity Conundrum
On Tuesday, I wrote about the importance of foreign direct investment to China's economy and what investors should watch for as the Chinese begin forming their new government tomorrow. In this column, I'll discuss the domestic economic needs in China and how they may impact the national policies on trade and currency management by the new government.
The relationships China has with the U.S. government and the U.S. private sector are not the same. In fact, in some ways, the goals pursued by each relationship are diametrically opposed....468 more words left in this article. To read them, just click below and try Real Money FREE for 14 days.
There's no substitute for a trading floor to get great ideas, so Jim Cramer created a better one at Real Money and blogs there exclusively. We then added legendary hedge fund manager, Doug Kass, with his exclusive Daily Diary and best investing ideas. Staffed with more than 4 dozen investing pros, money managers, journalists and analysts, Real Money Pro gives you a flood of opinions, analysis and actionable trading advice found nowhere else, and allows you to interact directly with each expert.
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Triumphant Rodney returns to Rays Thursday
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- After playing a pivotal role in the Dominican Republic's undefeated run toward claiming its first World Baseball Classic title, Fernando Rodney will return to Rays camp on Thursday.
The Rays closer was named to the All-World Baseball Classic team. Rodney recorded the final out in all eight of the Dominican Republic's games, which were played over the course of 13 days.
His eight appearances and seven saves set Classic records. In all, he allowed no runs on one hit, three walks and eight strikeouts over 7 1/3 innings.
Rays manager Joe Maddon said the team plans to work him back into the swing of things gradually, noting that he won't pitch in an actual exhibition game for five or six days.
"We'll evaluate him once he gets back, see how he feels," Maddon said. "Because I think there's going to be an emotional letdown as much as anything. He really got into it, man. It was fun to watch how totally absorbed how all those teams were. They really wanted to win."
Maddon allowed that Rodney did "a lot" of pitching at a high intensity level.
"We've got to watch him," Maddon said. "Yes, there's a physical impact, I don't know how that's going to play out by the end of the year. Let him chill for a little bit and then get back to work."
Meanwhile, catcher Jose Molina was on the Puerto Rico roster, but wasn't the starter, which brought another set of problems.
Molina "didn't play," Maddon said. "That's the other side of this event that can be difficult when guys go and don't play. You have a guy who maybe worked too much and a guy who didn't work enough. I think that's going to happen every time this event is run."
Bill Chastain is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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Replacement tip for Weller WLC100, WP25, WP30, WP35 and other popular Weller soldering irons.
by juglenaut
on 7/31/2017
These tips work great with NO CLEAN Flux type solder, paste, wicks. OK with Rosen flux.If one wants to use soluble flux types, one must get tips with thick plating or designed for such flux, do not let soluble flux sit on your tips, iron and use a different sponge, and brass sponge with soluble flux, or even to the point of a different solder station.
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A teenager diagnosed with bone cancer says he has drawn inspiration from fellow fundraiser Stephen Sutton whose positive outlook helped raise more than £3.5 million for charity.
Jacob Simpson was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer discovered in his right leg, in August last year. The cancer was also found in his lungs.
He has just started a less aggressive form of chemotherapy at Leeds General Infirmary and receives treatment once every three weeks, as well as daily radiotherapy.
Stephen Sutton, 19, from Staffordshire, died on Wednesday after losing his battle with bowel cancer. He won a place in the nation's hearts in the last few weeks of his life and has so far raised more than £3.5 million for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Now Jacob, 18, says Stephen's fundraising has spurred him on to raise even more cash for the same charity.
Much money has been raised in his honour, including Jacob's Ball which was held at the Mercure Hotel in Nab Wood, Bingley last month.
The Bradford branch of Specsavers, in Darley Street, helped towards the £8,135 raised at the event – which went to the Teenage Cancer Trust – with a photo booth.
Jacob said: "Stephen Sutton was a real inspiration to everyone, including me. The things Stephen did were absolutely amazing.
"As someone who has been affected by cancer, I know where the money he raised will go. He has inspired me to do more for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
"If anything Stephen's story has helped raise more money for Jacob's Ball.
"The Teenage Cancer Trust seems to be the first charity that isn't just about curing cancer, it's about giving people who suffer from it a better time.
"Stephen's family have been great in supporting him."
Jacob, of Yate Lane, Oxenhope, will be re-sitting his A-levels in Psychology, Media and Biology at North Halifax Grammar School next year.
He said: "The support I've had from friends, family and even complete strangers has been absolutely amazing.
"I just want to get the chemotherapy out of the way now, I'm nearing the end of it. I'm focusing on that. I want to get back to normal.
"This has been the first time in my life that I've been missing school.
"It's been really hard. The worst thing has been the monotony of going into hospital for treatment.
"Life's too short, I just want to have some fun. I'm keeping positive.
"There are plans for us to organise another ball in a couple of years time."
For more information, visit jacobsball.org.uk.


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Where will they finish in this years games?
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Where will they finish in this years games?
I'm going with gold because the team seems pretty balanced. The young guys wil need to step up, but from what I've read about LaBron and Mello, that shouldn't be a problem.
If Duncan gets hurt though, we could be in trouble.
I voted Gold. I gotta think this team learned something from our last international outing. There's no just showing up and collecting medals anymore.
Plus, like SK mentioned, I think many of the young guys on the team (LeBron, Melo) are excellent team players.
Iverson's influence could be a detriment, though, given the fact that he's already been late to a meeting. Good grief!
I expect a Gold, but don't think it will be a cakewalk.
Melo hasn't learned anything from your latest loses
I have no idea what that means.Originally Posted by PacerBlade
This space for rent.
That would never fly. Think about how many months over a 1.5 year period a team that won the Championship would be playing if they were to represent the U.S. in the Olympics too.
I don't think that would really (or virtually) guarantee a Gold Medal either. Suppose Houston wins and Yao cannot play or Sacramento losing Peja. The Pistons would be fine sure, but Okur and Darko were not (currently anyway) the gas that keeps their engine going.
It's an interesting idea but with the length of the NBA season and playoffs, one that just won't happen.
I agree it won't work because it's too much playing time for those guys.
But I disagree that it wouldn't work because of foreign issues.
If the Rockets won the title, you just replace Yao with Duncan.
Kings, replace Peja with Garnett or Odom.
Originally Posted by PacerBlade
I don't get this either, but if you read the reports from yesterday's game you would know the coaches were very impressed with Mello. He played the sg instead of sf and did very well. All of these young guys are going to improve greatly for next season thanks to this summer. Maybe it was good all of the older guys didn't want to go.
I voted gold, but mostly because of the coach of the team, not because of the players.... George Karl is a joke...
Here, everyone have a : on me
Duncan carries burden of USA's gold-medal hopes
Web Posted: 08/02/2004 12:00 AM CDT
Mike Monroe
Express-News Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. They've got two former NBA Most Valuable Players, the reigning Rookie of the Year and NBA All-Stars, past and present, up and down their 12-man roster.
So why do some experts believe the 2004 United States Olympic basketball squad is more nightmare than dream team?
It's not because no one has faith in Spurs forward Tim Duncan. On the contrary, the consensus among those who observed the team's full week of training camp at the University of North Florida placed Duncan in the role of sole defender of the gold in the competition that begins for the U.S. on Aug. 15 in Athens, Greece.
Said one NBA executive who watched the team work before it headed to Europe for a series of exhibition games, "This team is one Tim Duncan ankle sprain from embarrassment."
All you really need to know to understand the importance of Duncan to Team USA is this: When the team on Friday scrimmaged New Zealand, whose best player is Spurs deep reserve Sean Marks, Duncan played only in the first and third periods of the game, played under international time regulations of four 10-minute quarters. In those two quarters the U. S. outscored New Zealand by 34 points.
In the two periods in which Duncan rested on the bench, New Zealand outscored the U.S by six points. And New Zealand hardly is one of the upper-echelon teams in international competition. Those would be Serbia and Montenegro, which won the gold medal at the 2002 World Championships; Argentina, silver medalist in that World Championships and led by Spurs guard Manu Ginobili; Lithuania, the reigning European champion; and, to a lesser degree, Spain, Germany and China.
None of those teams, of course, has a player to match Duncan, which serves to emphasize his importance to his team's hopes.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is an assistant on USA head coach Larry Brown's staff. Though it may be in Popovich's long-term interest to see to it Duncan doesn't get worn out from the month-long international grind of training and competition, in his heart he knows, perhaps more than anyone, how vital Duncan is to America's chances of winning a fourth-straight gold medal.
"At one time there was a significant difference in talent level between foreign teams and our team," Popovich said, "but it's closing pretty rapidly. I don't know that it will ever close altogether, but that's irrelevant. It's closed enough, to the point if you're not prepared and dedicated, you're in trouble.
"The other teams don't have a Tim Duncan type of player, thank goodness, but they've certainly got enough talent to be dangerous. You look at Argentina, and they've not only got Manu, they've got three or four guys who are, or will be, in the NBA.
"These games are just 40 minutes and guys only get five fouls. A lot can happen."
Duncan scored an easy 15 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in 25 minutes in Team USA's exhibition victory over Puerto Rico on Saturday. He knows he may be asked to play a lot more against the tougher teams in Athens, considering he is the only dominant big man on a relatively undersized team. His backups in the post are either undersized (Utah's Carlos Boozer) or grossly ill-prepared (Charlotte's Emeka Okafor) to give him much of a break with the often-brutal inside play that characterizes the international game. Okafor, a late addition to the team, is so mechanical his teammates nicknamed him, "I-Robot."
If that means Duncan will have to play nearly full-time in key games, he insists he is prepared to do so.
"We're going to mix and match," Duncan said. "I'm going to play whatever is there and the coaches will decide that. I'm feeling pretty good, feeling in good shape and I'm prepared to do whatever I have to do for this team."
The other big concern for Team USA is whether or not it has enough time to jell into a true team by the time competition begins in two weeks. Brown and Popovich have stressed the importance of playing true team basketball. So many of the international squads have played together, some of them for years, that the U.S. always has had to rely on talent differential to remain on top. But in the 2000 Sydney Games the narrowing of the talent gap was apparent when the U.S. nearly was defeated by Lithuania in a semifinal game, and beat France only by 10 points in the gold-medal game.
After the humiliation of USA's sixth-place finish in the 2002 World Championships, USA Basketball, which oversees all national teams, tried to put together a core of eight NBA players for last summer's Tournament of the Americas in San Juan, Puerto Rico, then keep them together for the Olympics. A relatively short training/practice schedule was put together with that premise in mind.
Unfortunately for Team USA, only three players from the Tournament of the Americas squad Duncan, Allen Iverson and Richard Jefferson are back for Athens.
Can Brown and his staff mold into a true team those three, plus the youngsters who make up the remainder of the squad?
"I can't worry about that," Brown said. "We'd better. Who anticipated only having three guys that went to Puerto Rico with our team? We made the schedule with that in mind. We thought we'd developed some chemistry and continuity. We don't have that. It's tough, but that's what we've got."
Brown departed Jacksonville on Saturday afternoon very worried about that team chemistry after Iverson, LeBron James and Amare Stoudemire were suspended from playing in that day's exhibition game against Puerto Rico after they were late for a team meeting Saturday morning.
"This," Brown said as he exited Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, "was a miserable day."
Brown, of course, is prone to excess worry, but as vital as he believes true team play is to Team USA's success, his pessimism is natural.
Duncan believes the players can jell quickly, in part because they know they must.
"I think everybody is receptive to the fact we're going to have to be a very good team," Duncan said. "We're going to have to play together. We're going to have to run together. I think everybody's bought into that early and I think this team is going to jell really quick and with an understanding that's how we're going to have to play.
"There's always pressure to win the gold. Everybody is coming after us. USA has always been the best. We're the ones that win the gold, and everybody wants to take that. We don't want to be the team that disappoints people.
"As the years have gone on and teams have gotten better and better, that margin that everybody favors us by has gotten less and less, and this year is no different. The gap's closed and we're fighting, just like everybody else. Nobody is afraid of this team. They really want to come after us. They really want to beat us."
It is up Duncan, more than any other individual, to see that doesn't happen.
I hope he stays healthy and the youngsters step up.
I think we will get gold.
Super Bowl XLI Champions
2000 Eastern Conference Champions
Here is the vote total, so far.
Anyone care to change their vote?
Mens Olympic BB Team
1. Gold Medal ---------------- 81.08%
2. Silver Medal --------------- 10.81%
3. Bronze Medal -------------- 2.70%
4. Out of the Medal round -- 5.41%
Total 37 votes
I voted Silver.
The best exercise of the human heart is reaching down and picking someone else up.
I'm still going to stick with my vote of gold, but someone besides Melo better start hitting jump shots.
I saw today on ESPN that Germany didn't even qualify for the Olympics. Can you imagine whats gonna happen when we start playing good teams.
I have not voted yet but I' seriously thinking we don't make the medal round.
These all star teams are not put together for international competition.
Come to the Dark Side -- There's cookies!


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Marburg virus disease
Marburg virus disease (MVD) (formerly known as Marburg haemorrhagic fever) was first identified in 1967 during epidemics in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany and Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia from importation of infected monkeys from Uganda. MVD is a severe and highly fatal disease caused by a virus from the same family as the one that causes Ebola virus disease. These viruses are among the most virulent pathogens known to infect humans. Both diseases are rare, but have a capacity to cause dramatic outbreaks with high fatality.
Illness caused by Marburg virus begins abruptly, with severe headache and severe malaise. Many patients develop severe haemorrhagic manifestations between days 5 and 7, and fatal cases usually have some form of bleeding, often from multiple sites. Case fatality rates have varied greatly, from 25% in the initial laboratory-associated outbreak in 1967, to more than 80% in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1998-2000 and the outbreak in Angola in 2005.
The Marburg virus is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected persons. Transmission of the Marburg virus also occurred by handling ill or dead infected wild animals (monkeys, fruit bats). The predominant treatment is general supportive therapy


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Get an overview of this hotelArt Deco condominium resort property in Miami Beach's South Beach neighborhood with a private beach
Popular property highlights
Center of it All
Located on Collins Avenue between the W South Beach and The Setai South Beach, our all Suite 52 Room Luxury Boutique Property offers oversized one and two bedroom units and penthouse units with roof-top access.
Have it All
Amenities include 24-hour valet, concierge, boutique lobby and common areas, a meditation garden and courtyard, fitness center, landscaped roof-top oasis with pool, Jacuzzi and cabana beds, private beach.
Balconies with views
The Rooms have a minimalist ultra chic design that is every bit as alluring as the mesmerizing city and ocean views. And the lavish luxuries in every kitchen and bath may give you little reason to ever leave.Information missing or incorrect? Tell us!Opens in a new window
Boulan South Beach
Property Amenities
Property Amenities
In addition to an outdoor pool, Boulan South Beach provides a private beach club, a health club, a spa tub, and a fitness facility. High-speed wireless Internet access is available at a surcharge. This Art Deco condominium resort property also offers a rooftop terrace, valet parking, and a concierge desk. Limo/town car service, wedding services, tour/ticket assistance, and translation services can be provided. Catch up on business at the business center. There is a hair salon for any time to touch up your hair. Grab a coffee at the coffee shop or cafe or a drink at the bar/lounge. Onsite parking is available (surcharge). The property may provide extended parking privileges to guests after check-out (surcharge).
- Babysitting or childcare (surcharge)
- 24-hour front desk
- Bar/lounge
- Business center
- Coffee shop or café
- Free breakfast
- Concierge services
- Hair salon
- Free WiFi
- Computer station
- Total number of rooms - 58
- Number of floors - 6
- Poolside bar
- Beach bar
- Porter/bellhop
- Number of restaurants - 2
- Free pool cabanas
- Beach sun loungers
- Pool sun loungers
- Long-term parking (surcharge)
- Beach towels
- Shopping on site
- Smoke-free property
- Dry cleaning/laundry service
- Elevator/lift
- Health club
- Tours/ticket assistance
- Pool umbrellas
- Laundry facilities
- Multilingual staff
- Valet parking (surcharge)
- Rooftop terrace
- Picnic area
- Luggage storage
- On private beach
- Year Built 2010
- Number of buildings/towers - 1
- Spa tub
- Outdoor pool
Family Friendly Amenities
- Family Hotel
- On private beach
- Outdoor pool
- Separate living room
- Free Wi-Fi
- Soundproofed rooms
- Laundry facilities
- Babysitting or childcare (surcharge)
- Separate dining area
- Refrigerator
- Microwave
- Cribs/infant beds (complimentary)
Available in all rooms: Free WiFi
Available in some public areas: Free WiFi
Long-term parking (surcharge), Valet parking (surcharge)
Room Amenities
- In-room safe
- Air conditioning
- Premium TV channels
- Refrigerator
- Minibar
- Daily housekeeping
- Designer toiletries
- Bathrobes
- Hypo-allergenic bedding available
- Premium bedding
- Soundproofed rooms
- In-room climate control (air conditioning)
- Phone
- Free local calls
- Coffee/tea maker
- Microwave
- Cookware, dishware, and utensils
- Satellite TV service
- Free WiFi
- Separate dining area
- Dishwasher
- Separate living room
- Private bathroom
- Free toiletries
- Hair dryer
- Rainfall showerhead
- In-room massage available
- Room service (limited hours)
- Pillowtop mattress
- Connecting/adjoining rooms available
- Free cribs/infant beds
- Separate bedroom
- Rollaway/extra beds (surcharge)
- Heating
- Iron/ironing board
- Desk
- iPod docking station
- Flat-panel TV
- Blackout drapes/curtains
- Down comforter
- Egyptian-cotton sheets
Where to Eat
Named in celebration of The Orange Blossom Special — the ultra-plush train that ferried New Yorkers down to Miami in the late 1800's — Orange Blossom celebrates Miami's past while keeping an eye to the future. Despite its youth, the warm, convivial dining room has become a neighborhood meeting place, where locals and guests sip and socialize over market-to-table, New American cuisine and specialty craft cocktails. Happy Hour starts every day from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m
Nearby Things to Do
A private beach club and a health club are featured at the condominium resort property. An outdoor pool and a spa tub are on site. Other recreational amenities include a fitness facility. The recreational activities listed below are available either on site or nearby; fees may apply.
- Snorkeling nearby
- Bicycle rentals nearby
- Scooter/moped rentals nearby
- Golf lessons available nearby
Spa Services
Spa services available nearby.
If you have requests for specific accessibility needs, please note them at check-out when you book your room.
- Accessible bathroom
- In-room accessibility
- Roll-in shower
Property Policies
Minimum check-in age is 21
Check-in time ends at 11:00 PM
Check-in time starts at 4 PM
Check-out time is 11 AM
Payment types
Children and extra beds
- Children are welcome.
- Kids stay free! Up to 3 children 11 years old and younger stay free when using existing bedding.
- Rollaway/extra beds are available for USD 50.0 per night.
- Free cribs (infant beds)!
- Pets allowed for an extra charge of USD 125.00 per accommodation, per stay
- Dogs and cats only
- 2 per room (up to 25 lb)
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on property policy.
- The name on the credit card used at check-in to pay for incidentals must be the primary name on the guestroom reservation.
- Deposit: USD 150.00 per day (for stays between 1 January - 31 December)
- Resort fee: USD 34.20 per accommodation, per night
- Pool access
- Beach access
- Beach loungers
- Beach towels
- Fitness center access
- Internet access
- Phone calls
- In-room safe
Optional extras
- Valet parking fee: USD 40 per night (in/out privileges)
- Pet fee: USD 125.00 per accommodation, per stay
- Rollaway bed fee: USD 50.0 per night
Property Name
- Boulan
- Boulan South
- Boulan South Beach
- Boulan South Condo
- Boulan South Condo Beach
- Boulan South Beach Condo Miami Beach
- Boulan South Beach Condo
- Boulan South Beach Miami Beach
- Boulan South Beach Aparthotel Miami Beach
- Boulan South Beach Aparthotel
We should mention
Up to 3 children 11 years old and younger stay free when occupying the parent or guardian's room, using existing bedding. The property has connecting/adjoining rooms, which are subject to availability and can be requested by contacting the property using the number on the booking confirmation. Some facilities may have restricted access. Guests can contact the property for details using the contact information on the booking confirmation.


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Mark Cavendish on Thursday attempted to play down his aspirations to claim the Tour de France yellow jersey in his mother's home town of Harrogate on Saturday.
The 190.5-kilometre opening stage from Leeds to Harrogate could thrust Cavendish into the race leader's maillot jaune for the first time, if he can claim a 26th stage victory of his distinguished career. Eddy Merckx has the record of 34 stage wins.
The 29-year-old from the Isle of Man, whose mother Adele is from the Yorkshire town, is bidding to become the seventh Briton to lead the Tour, after Tom Simpson, Chris Boardman, Sean Yates, David Millar, Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome.
Cavendish said: "It would be nice to wear the yellow jersey. I've not yet done that.
"It's not a given. There's 200 bike riders, almost, on the start line and every one of those would like to wear the yellow jersey.
"(And) the Tour de France is 21 days long. It doesn't begin and end in Yorkshire.
"We've got an incredibly strong Omega Pharma-QuickStep team and we'd like to be successful throughout the three weeks."
Even Harrogate's Coach and Horses pub has had a name change to Cvndsh and Horses for the Grand Depart in expectation of a 'local' success.
Cavendish believes the 2014 Grand Depart will surpass London in 2007 - when he made his Tour debut - as a spectacle.
He added: "The support that not just Yorkshire, but the whole of the UK, has for this Grand Depart is phenomenal. It's like something I've never seen.
"People who rode the Tour de France when it started in London in 2007 still talk about it.
"I think Yorkshire's going to out-do that."
Cavendish won, by his high standards, just two stages of last year's Tour as Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) emerged as the premier sprinter with four wins.
Andre Greipel (Lotto-Bellisol) and Andre Demare (FDJ) have also performed well in the bunch sprints in recent seasons.
"I'm incredibly lucky to have won 25 stages of the Tour de France," Cavendish said.
"It's the biggest bike race in the world and to come here and be successful...
"One win in a rider's career can make their career, let alone one win per year.
"I'd like to come here and win as much as possible."
Cavendish is one of four British riders to take to the start line - alongside Froome, Geraint Thomas (both Team Sky) and Simon Yates (Orica-GreenEDGE) - and he had hoped there would be more, pointing to 2012 winner Sir Bradley Wiggins and Millar, in particular.
Wiggins was not selected by Team Sky and Garmin-Sharp did not pick Millar.
"In an ideal world I'd have liked to have seen more Brits at this Tour de France," he said.
"Bradley (Wiggins), David (Millar) and these guys, grand tour stage winners from our country."
Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford opened his squad's media conference with a welcome to the UK.
The former British Cycling performance director established Team Sky in 2010 and expressed his pride at the journey from their stated aims, which have been fulfilled, including winning the Tour with a British rider within five years.
"The eve of the Tour de France is always an exciting moment but for us this year it's exceptionally exciting starting in Yorkshire," Brailsford said.
"We may only have four riders in the race but I think it's notable that two different British riders won this race in the last two years."
Team Sky's aim is a third successive victory, with Froome again standing on the top step of the Paris podium on July 27.
"We're ready for the fight, can't wait for it to get going and we'll give it our best shot," Brailsford said.
Froome feels different to 12 months ago, now he is defending the title.
"There definitely is an increased pressure element coming back as defending champion, given we're starting on home soil, we've got huge crowds," he said.
"(But) I think it's all very warm, positive energy.
"Given the structure of the Tour this year and the diversity of all the different challenges, it's not possible to say this guy's going to win.
"I will say I'm going to give it absolutely everything, (but) it's not going to be a walk in the park."


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Cincinnati Reds righthander Johnny Cueto has been scratched from Friday night's scheduled minor league rehab start because of soreness in his right oblique, The Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
Cueto was placed on the disabled list on April 15 because of a lat strain, so this setback isn't related to his original injury. He threw a successful bullpen session Monday, but there was discomfort by Thursday.
"We've just got to wait and see," Reds manager Dusty Baker told the newspaper. "I always see wait until the next day and hope there's nothing. This time, there was. All we can do is wait until we get back. I'm sure Johnny is as disappointed as anybody. He wants to pitch."
In three starts this season, Cueto is 1-0 with a 2.60 ERA and 18 strikeouts (in 17 1/3 innings).
Rookie lefthander Tony Cingrani will continue to fill in for Cueto in the Reds' rotation.


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Muskingum University Learning Communities
"Just as a body is composed of various concordant members, so does the whole circle of learning consist in one harmonious system. For this reason those who from an early age are initiated in the different branches of learning have a facility in acquiring some knowledge of all, because of their common connection with each other."
- Vitruvius,
Ten Books of Architecture, Book I, 12.
Taking, as its primary principle, Muskingum University's purpose statement "to develop ... whole persons," learning communities at the university similarly seek to make a more meaningful whole of students' academic experience. A presently-expanding endeavor, Muskingum University learning communities assist students in making the transition to academic life and responsibilities, and in developing strong academic, social and support networks. At the same time - and in particular - the communities promote: the acquistion of increasingly-advanced academic skills; the integration of knowledge across a breadth of areas needed for success beyond college; further develop a capacity for team-work, critical thinking and life-long learning, and; the creation of a genuine community of scholars dedicated to success and achievement.
Maps & Directions
Academic Affairs
Undergraduate Admission
Financial Aid
Graduate & Continuing Studies
Business Office
Academic Catalogs


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Cancer care in region to be greatly enhanced
MEMPHIS, TN - October 28, 2011 Methodist Healthcare and The West Clinic have entered into a partnership, effective January 1, 2012, to transform cancer care in the Mid-South area. The West Clinic, the region's premier cancer practice and a nationally-recognized leader in cancer research, is joining forces with Methodist to create a comprehensive, fully integrated cancer service for the benefit of Mid-South residents.
"The West Clinic is a world-class center of excellence for medical oncology, hematology, oncologic imaging, and other advanced medical care. Together, our two leading organizations will be exceptionally well positioned to take cancer care to the next level," said Gary Shorb, president and CEO of Methodist Healthcare.
As part of the partnership, approximately 110 direct patient care employees at The West Clinic will become Methodist Healthcare associates. Physicians and administrative staff will remain with The West Clinic.
"The West Clinic's goal has always been to help people be the best they can be during their cancer journey, and this partnership will help us do exactly that," said Kurt Tauer, M.D., FACP, The West Clinic Chief of Staff. "I have been at The West Clinic since 1985, and I've seen some amazing changes. I expect this partnership to revolutionize the way we provide care to our patients and their families."
In another move that will further position this partnership for success, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) plans to move its Oncology Fellowship Program to The West Clinic. Methodist and The West Clinic will provide UTHSC $5 million annually over seven years, for a total of $35 million, to enhance cancer research, care programs, and innovation.
Lee Schwartzberg, M.D. FACP, The West Clinic's medical director, said, "My passion is all about translating research advances into positive benefits for our patients. These highly-skilled fellows will further enhance our ability to revolutionize cancer care in our region by coordinating research and education across Methodist and UTHSC and training the next generation of specialists in this area."
"It is important to note that this is not a sale of The West Clinic," affirms Erich Mounce, CEO. "The West Clinic and its physicians will remain independent and autonomous. This is a novel partnership that will build upon the strengths of both Methodist Healthcare and The West Clinic to transform the way cancer care is provided in the Mid-South." Mounce will maintain his position with The West Clinic and take responsibility for Methodist's cancer service line, reporting directly to Gary Shorb.
With eight locations across the Mid-South, The West Clinic includes 33 physicians and 400 employees. The East Memphis, Collierville, Mid-Town, Brighton and Southaven locations will be part of this partnership. The West Clinic's Corinth, Miss. operation will not be affected by this partnership.
About The West Clinic
The West Clinic has been the region's premier provider of cancer care in the Mid-South for over 30 years. With a team second to none in breadth of expertise, dedication to excellence, and commitment to compassionate care, our multidisciplinary physician group is comprised of 33 specialists in Medical Oncology, Hematology, Gynecologic Oncology, Breast Surgery, Endocrinology, Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Pain and Palliative Care, and other advanced medical care. With eight locations in Memphis, West TN, and North MS, patients across the Mid-South have greater access to the highest quality care available.
The West Clinic's clinical research program, under the direction of Lee S. Schwartzberg, MD, FACP, Medical Director, is internationally renowned. Over the past two decades, West Clinic has consistently been one of the first centers in the US to gain experience and hasten the development of new drugs for breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, lymphoma, and many other diseases. Today, our researchers are investigating new drug therapies through participation in national clinical trials. For more information visit www.westclinic.com
About Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare
Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare (MLH) is an integrated healthcare delivery system based in Memphis, Tenn. Founded in 1918 by The United Methodist Church to help meet the growing needs for quality healthcare in the Mid-South, MLH has grown from one hospital into a seven-hospital system that also includes a home health agency, ambulatory surgery centers, outpatient facilities and physician practices serving the Memphis and Mid-South area.
Methodist was recently named the best hospital in Memphis by U.S. News and World Report and #29 nationally in orthopedics. Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare has consistently been named one of the Top 100 Integrated Healthcare Networks in the country.
Affiliated with the Memphis, Mississippi and Arkansas Conferences of The United Methodist Church, Methodist Healthcare combines a dedication to the art of healing with a Christ-centered commitment to minister to the whole person.
The Memphis hospitals are licensed as one and with 1,689 licensed beds and 60,431 inpatient admissions, Methodist is the third largest hospital in the country. With 10,000 associates, Methodist is the second largest private employer in Memphis. Methodist Le Bonheur's major areas of focus are: cardiology, oncology, neurosciences, transplant, and pediatrics. For more information visit www.methodisthealth.org.
# # #
Video Announcement
Gary Shorb, CEO of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare; Kurt Tauer, MD, Chief of Staff of The West Clinic; and Lee Schwartzberg, MD, Medical Director of The West Clinic, discuss what the partnership means for cancer care in the Mid-South.
Erich A. Mounce,
Kurt Tauer, MD, FACP,
Lee S. Schwartzberg, MD, FACP, Medical Director,
Gary Shorb,
Medical Oncology/Hematology
Sonia Benn, MD
Stephen A. Besh, MD
Mike G. Martin, MD
Arnel M. Pallera, MD
David C. Portnoy, MD
Jarvis D. Reed, MD
Sylvia S. Richey, MD
Bradley G. Somer, MD
G. Gary Tian, MD
Benton M. Wheeler, MD
Gynecologic Oncology
Mark Reed, MD, FACOG
Joseph T. Santoso, MD, FACOG
Linda M. Smiley, MD, FACS, FACOG
Todd D. Tillmanns, MD, FACOG
Diagnostic & Interventional Radiology
Scott L. Baum, MD
Thomas D. Hodgkiss, MD
Press Conference Photos
Click "high-res photo" to download a larger version.
Methodist Healthcare CEO Gary Shorb with The West Clinic's Gary Tian, Arnel Pallera, Stephen Besh, Sylvia Richey, Sonia Benn, Bradley Somer, Benton Wheeler, Kurt Tauer, and Lee Schwartzberg High-Res Photo
|The West Clinic and Methodist Healthcare celebrate their new partnership. High-Res Photo
|Lee Schwartzberg of The West Clinic and Kevin Spiegel of Methodist University Hospital High-Res Photo
|Drs. Benton Wheeler and Bradley Somer of The West Clinic High-Res Photo
|Methodist and The West Clinic Announce Their Partnership High-Res Photo
|Lee Schwartzberg, Medical Director of The West Clinic High-Res Photo


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Miracle MountainProbability puzzles require you to weigh all the possibilities and pick the most likely outcome.
A hiker climbs all day up a steep mountain path and arrives at the mountain top where he camps overnight. The next day he begins the descent down the same trail to the bottom of the mountain when suddenly he looks at his watch and exclaims, "That is amazing! I was at this very same spot at exactly the same time of day yesterday on my way up."
What is the probability that a hiker will be at exactly the same spot on the mountain at the same time of day on his return trip, as he was on the previous day's hike up the mountain?
Is the probability closest to (A) 99% or (B) 50% or (C) 0.1% ?
HintThis is not a trick. His watch works perfectly well. He does not sit in the same spot all day or any other such device, although it would not change the answer if he did!
AnswerThe answer is (A). Since it must happen, the probability is actually 1 (100%).
Explanation: Firstly, consider 2 men, one starting from the top of the mountain and hiking down while the other starts at the bottom and hikes up. At some time in the day, they will cross over. In other words they will be at the same place at the same time of day.
Now consider our man who has walked up on one day and begins the descent the next day. Imagine there is someone (a second person) shadowing his exact movements from the day before. When he meets his shadower (it must happen) it will be the exact place that he was the day before, and of course they are both at this spot at the same time.
Contrary to our common sense, which seems to say that this is an extremely unlikely event, it is a certainty.
NOTE: There is one unlikely event here, and that is that he will notice the time when he is at the correct location on both days, but that was not what the question asked.
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