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Praying for:
Sinhalese of China, Hong Kong
Topic: 1 of 3
Regional: Invite them to the Lord's banquet
Jesus died for every tongue and tribe and nation. As His ambassador, you have the privilege of inviting them to the Lord's banquet.
Isa 25:6 And the LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, And refined, aged wine.
I thank You Lord for preparing a banquet for us, and for giving us free access through Your sacrifice. You are the Lord high and lifted up, and you reign forever and ever and there is no end to Your kingdom.
As a servant of the Most High God, I announce the coming of the Lord's banquet, and I speak to the
Sinhalese of China, Hong Kong
now in Jesus name. Your place is reserved at the Lord's table. Your seat has been purchased by the blood of the Lamb. We need you to complete the worship of our Savior on that day.
I speak across the heavens in Jesus name and I invite the
Sinhalese of China, Hong Kong
to join us at the Lord's Table. I proclaim in the heaven-lies that you are welcome and are needed to complete the Body of Christ. Jesus has prepared the way for you, His love and His grace calls to you. As His servant, I invite you and welcome you to receive what He has prepared for you.
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When I decided to test Bay Photo Labs for the quality of their metal prints, I wanted something different than the regular 8x10s or 20x30s.
In addition, I wanted a theme and not just pick a few photos for the wall. I decided on 3 images with 3 different colors. After all, what's the point of getting test prints made and all the colors are the same?
So I chose three different images to represent the three primary colors of Photography: Red, Green, and Blue. AND, I did not want the prints to be just normal prints. So as I was sitting there pondering what I wanted, I was examining the canvas prints on my wall. They have "fade to black" sides which make them appear to float off the wall. A light bulb went off over my head.
Here's the set and the result of that inspiration:
This technique is rather easy and you can get some great looking wall prints with it.
It uses a technique called "pixel stretching" and uses the gradient tool to bade the stretched pixels to black.
It took me about half an hour to decide on the theme and final print size. I wanted square metal prints to they look better from a distance and you didn't have to worry about trying to get the arrangement to look nice on the wall.
Square prints make this easy for two reasons: The image is relatively big and the prints are small enough to hang in a narrow wall space.
So Let's Begin:
***To make things a bit easier, I've also incorporated a video after the main blog to help you better understands the steps.
First choose the image you'd like to use. Second, choose your image size. The beauty of this technique is you can make your final print a 20×30 then have the main image float as a 16×24.
For an example, I'll use an image of the Locust Beach pilings in Bellingham, Wash., I shot a few days ago.
It's a nice image and my wife and I want a nice print to hang on our wall. We're thinking of a nice 20×30 canvas.
I want a nice image to float inside a 20×30. Doing some quick math, to get a 2″ faded boarder my main image should be about a 16×24.
1. Make the image a 16×24. I use 300 dpi to keep good detail in the image and a high enough resolution to make a high quality print. The 16×24 stay with the 3:2 ratio of the sensor and gives an even border.
2. Take the image and using the "Layers" panel in Photoshop, duplicate the "Background" layer twice so you have a total of three layers. To make it easier, I re-name the layers as follow: Top is called Main Image, and the middle is "Faded Border."
3. Click on the "Background" layer to highlight it. Using the Canvas Size command, make your canvas the size you need, in this case it's20x30, with a black background. You can choose any backround color you like. I just prefer black.
4. Highlight the upper layer and click on the "eye" to hid it. This makes it easier to work in the next few steps.
5. Highlight the middle layer. Don't forget this part or you'll be doing all the pixel stretching on the wrong layer. Yes, I did this a few times and it is very frustrating.
This is the "pixel stretching" tutorial:
6. Using the "Single Column" or "Single Row" marquee tool, select a pixel about halfway along the length of the side. As a note, this tool selects all the pixel in that row (horizontal) or column (vertical) and looks like a single dotted line.
7. Select the Free Transform tool. It's under the Edit drop down menu up top, or use the "command-T" key combination. Click and hold the middle square and the drag it slightly past the edge of the canvas. Be sure to go just a touch past the edge of the canvas. Hit enter to complete the transformation.
8. Complete for all four sides.
This is the "gradient tool" fade-to-black tutorial
9. To create the fade to black, I use the Gradient Tool. The option I have is "Black to Transparent" and check the "Reverse" box in the options panel. How much you want the fade to black depends on where you start and stop the gradient tool. I keep it simple and just start at the edge of the main photo and end at the edge of the canvas. ***You can create your own gradient by clicking on the gradient pattern in the options bar. A window comes up with all the options.
10. Now, go to the layers panel and click on the eye on the Main Image layer. Make it visible.
11. On the bottom of the layers panel, or in the Layers Properties in the Layers drop-down menu (Layer > Layer Properties > Stroke), select Stroke. A panel open with all the option. You can have a thin or thick line, choose which color you would like, have the line inside, centered, or outside. Choice is yours. Play with
For the color you'd like, click on the small color box and another window opens. This is your color Picker. To pick the color you'd like from your image, use the magnifying glass. Click on it and hover over the part of the photo with the color you'd like to make your border. Click on that and then the OK button. Your border color is now chosen.
12. Your image is complete. Use the "Save As" command to save the file to keep the changes. In Fact, at the beginning of the process, I like to use the "Save As" command at the beginning and then "command-s" along the way. I save the file as a layered PSD file so I can make changes if needed.
The process only takes about 5 minutes per image.
Here are a few tips to make the workflow smoother and save time:
- Learn your menus
- Learn the quick key combinations
- Work on one photo at a time. Saves RAM and CPU time.
- Have your colors already chosen. Having a goal at what the final image will help you zero in on the final colors quicker.
- Play around with the application. Don't be intimidated by Photoshop. Yes there is a lot to the program, but it is a powerful tool and using a powerful tool just takes a little practice.
- Be flexible. While working the image, you might decide on a completely different approach.
Below is a video of the process in action. I hope it clarifies the above steps.
title="© Paul Conrad/Pablo Conrad Photography Storm clouds and raging surf at Locust Beach along Bellingham Bay in Bellingham, Wash."
BTW, the metal prints from Bay Photo Lab turned out absolutely gorgeous. The colors are deep and rich, the detail is phenomenal, and mounting on the wall was super easy.
But the best way to make your images the best they can be:
- Have a goal of what your final image should look like
- Create a plan and then execute it
- Ask questions if you don't have the knowledge.
Feel free to comment or ask questions.
Have a great day and thank you for stopping by and reading. All comments are appreciated.
Paul "pablo" Conrad


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Conflict and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka
Caught in the Peace Trap?
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Book Description
The period between 2001 and 2006 saw the rise and fall of an internationally supported effort to bring a protracted violent conflict in Sri Lanka to a peaceful resolution. A ceasefire agreement, signed in February 2002, was followed by six rounds of peace talks, but growing political violence, disagreements over core issues and a fragmentation of the constituencies of the key parties led to an eventual breakdown. In the wake of the failed peace process a new government pursued a highly effective 'war for peace' leading to the military defeat of the LTTE on the battlefields of the north east in May 2009. This book brings together a unique range of perspectives on this problematic and ultimately unsuccessful peace process.
The contributions are based upon extensive field research and written by leading Sri Lankan and international researchers and practitioners. The framework of 'liberal peacebuilding' provides an analytical starting point for exploring the complex and unpredictable interactions between international and domestic players during the war-peace-war period. The lessons drawn from the Sri Lankan case have important implications in the context of wider debates on the 'liberal peace' and post conflict peacebuilding – particularly as these debates have largely been shaped by the 'high profile' cases such as Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. This book is of interest not only to Sri Lanka specialists but also to the wider policy/practitioner audience, and is a useful contribution to South Asian studies.
Table of Contents
1. Caught in the Peace Trap? On the illiberal consequences of liberal peace in Sri Lanka Jonathan Goodhand and Benedikt Korf 2. Government-LTTE Peace Negotiations in 2002-2005 and the Clash of State Formation Projects Jayadeva Uyangoda 3. The Indian Factor in the Peace Process and Conflict Resolution in Sri Lanka S.I. Keethaponcalan 4. Superpowers and Small Conflicts: The United States and Sri Lanka Jeffrey Lunsted 5. The Military Dynamics of the Peace Process and Its Aftermath Chris Smith 6. Would the Real Dutugemunu Please Stand Up? The politics of Sinhala nationalist authenticity and populist discontent David Rampton with Asanga Welikala 7. Whose War? Whose Peace? The LTTE and the Politics of the North East Liz Philipson 8. The Genealogy of Muslim Political Voices in Sri Lanka Nick Lewer and Mohammed Ismail 9. Politics of Market Reforms and the UNF-led Negotiations Sunil Bastian 10. Aiding Peace? An insider's view of donor support for the Sri Lankan peace process, 2000-2005 Adam Burke and Anthea Mulakala 11. Muddling the Peace Process: The political dynamics of the tsunami, aid and conflict Georg Frerks and Bart Klem 12. In the Balance? Civil society and the peace process 2002-2008 Oliver Walton with Paikiasothy Sarrabanmuttu 13. Reflections on an Illiberal Peace: Stories from the East Jonathan Spencer
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Jonathan Goodhand is a Reader in Conflict and Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His research focuses on the political economy of conflict and the role of international aid, with a particular focus on NGOs.
Jonathan Spencer is Professor of the Anthropology of South Asia at the University of Edinburgh. He has carried out fieldwork in Sri Lanka since the early 1980s, concentrating at first on rural change and local politics, but writing more recently on ethnic conflict, political violence and political non-violence.
Benedikt Korf is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Switzerland. His interests focus on the politics of violence, authority and disorder in Sri Lanka and Ethiopia. He has also worked as consultant for several aid agencies in Sri Lanka.


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Diogo Dalot goes to sleep thinking of Champions League qualification, such is the 19-year-old's determination to ensure his dream move to Manchester United to play under "one of the best coaches ever" does not turn into a nightmare in his first season.
Jose Mourinho's men have endured a troubled start to the campaign, with the team languishing in eighth place and eight points off the top four after Wednesday's action-packed 2-2 draw against Arsenal at Old Trafford.
While there were signs of promise for the much-changed hosts, the result represented a fourth straight winless Premier League match for under-performing United.
It also ratcheted up the pressure ahead of struggling Fulham's visit this weekend, a match Dalot, fresh from making his first league start, is determined to win to kick-start their top-four hopes.
"Fulham is a big game," the summer signing from Porto said. "I think in the Premier League it's always a big game – that's one of the things I have noticed here.
"There's no weak games, there's no chance to relax and most of all for us because we need to get points and to climb up the table. That's what we want.
"We sleep thinking about (getting into the top four) and we wake up thinking about that and for sure we will get there.
"I think it is our main goal for now to get into the top four and we are going to fight for that and I think are will get there."
Dalot spoke with a confidence and composure that belied his tender years after a frantic first 90
minutes of Premier League action.
The 19-year-old always felt prepared for his chance in the "best league in the world", with his time on the sidelines and training under Mourinho aiding his adaptation.
"I have been following the Premier League since I can remember, since I first watched football, and to be able to see from the stands for a while and then get on to the pitch, it has all been good experience for me," Dalot said.
"But I think my game can adapt and (I can) get my game together here and settle down. With the help of my team-mates, the coach and the fans I think I will be improving a lot here.
"Jose Mourinho brings all his experience and knowledge of the game to us all, not just me.
"I think he is one of the best coaches ever and for me it is a dream come true to be alongside him and to learn from him. For me, it is very good."
"I needed to be ready to come here and to settle here," the Portuguese said. "So, for me, it was good to learn the language well and quickly. I am still learning, it is not perfect.
"I learnt and consumed English in school and I watched TV and movies to give myself an idea."
Like Dalot, experienced centre-back Sokratis Papastathopoulos is looking to make an impact during his first season in the Premier League.
"We were unlucky because we started to play good in the first half, but we had two injured (players, Rob Holding and Aaron Ramsey) and we had to change so it was not easy for us.
"But I am happy we fight, we play good and we look forward.
"Every time mistakes happen, but it is good we stayed together and fought together. Mistakes can happen.
"Our focus is to get into the first four. We have confidence and we have to win the next matches."


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Tagged: Rickey Henderson
Phantom Ball, With Video – And Monty (Updated)
In Spring Training of 2011 I wrote of the lost joy of pre-game "infield practice," in which a team's manager or coaches hit grounders and flies to their position players while barking out game situations. Then-manager Jim Riggleman of the Nationals had reintroduced the ritual (and gotten chastised by confused groundskeepers at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, who told him he was screwing up their field).
I'm not talking about shortstops standing behind screens at first base nor pitchers shagging fly balls during batting practice. This was one or two catchers, all the starting infielders and outfielders, and many of the reserves, on the field, twenty minutes before first pitch, chasing everything from pop-ups behind third to long drives into the right field corner. It was a mini-spring training.
Teams used to do this before almost every game. Earl Weaver thought it was the most important thing his club did, next to hitting three-run homers. And when done well, it achieved nearly the qualities of ballet. It gradually faded from the scene because some managers were concerned it gave away too much real-time information on the health of fielders and particularly the game-day strength of outfielders' arms, and the players happily used this as an excuse to go and hide in the dugout the moment BP ends.
So imagine my joy when my old friend Robin Ventura came into Yankee Stadium for the first time as a manager last night, and at about 6:20 his Chicago White Sox were doing this under the guidance of another old friend, third base coach Joe McEwing (number 47), with back-up catcher Tyler Flowers to his left, and bullpen catcher Mark Salas.Before the joy of watching his team "take infield," I had already had a long conversation with Ventura, who was probably the champion of dry-witted baseball figures during his time as a player. He was the one who spread the story that when Rickey Henderson joined the Mets in 1999, he asked first baseman John Olerud why he wore a helmet in the field (Olerud had suffered a brain aneurysm in college and benefited from the limited plastic protection). Ventura quoted Rickey as saying "A guy I played with in Toronto did that too." The guy, of course, was the self-same John Olerud, with whom Henderson had been teammates six years before.
Henderson was many things, but he did not have a bad memory about players. The story was entirely apocryphal, but Ventura sold it so well that for years it was treated as gospel. And everybody kept Robin's name out of it. When somebody finally confronted him about it he simply smiled. This was exactly the insurrectionist attitude that I thought would serve Ventura so well as a manager. When I reminded him of that he deadpanned "Yeah, but every day the writers still ask me if I'm afraid I'm going to lose control of the club."
I took this long side trip into the persona of Robin Ventura for a reason. Take another look at that picture of the White Sox. I'll ask you what Sox co-owner Eddie Einhorn asked me as I marveled that his club was actually taking infield: "Do you notice if anything's missing?"
There's no baseball.
They were taking infield practice, for ten minutes or more, without any baseballs. It took me at least two minutes to even notice it, and another two to convince myself either my vision or my circulation hadn't gone bad. No baseball. They were pantomiming it.
I shot a brief video:
At one point catcher Flowers came running right at me in pursuit of an imaginary foul ball. I thanked him for making sure it didn't hit me.
Eddie Einhorn said his club calls it "Phantom Ball." In the Negro Leagues in the '30s, the teams used to entertain fans pre-game with a high speed version that including leaping catches and plays at the plate, which they called "Shadow Ball." Under whatever name, it was a joy to behold, and the Sox insist it's terrific for honing instincts and reducing the risk of injury because there's no ball in use.
As I left the field Ventura asked me how I liked it and insisted it was Joe McEwing's idea. "See?," he added, still deadpan. "There's a reason they keep asking me if I'm going to lose control of the club. I can't even get them to use a baseball."
Ventura might just win that division.
Update, 9:45 PM EDT: Ben Walker of the Associated Press, who loves "Infield" as much as I do, sent me an email mentioning that he asked Ventura and McEwing about this tonight and the skipper said they did this at least once under the guidance of coach Cookie Rojas when they were with the Mets – that would date to the 2000 season. This reminded me that Ventura told me last night "Every once in awhile we go all Cookie Rojas out there."
He sure as shootin' will if the Sox keep doing stuff like this. Three hours after Phantom Ball ended, Dayan Viciedo tore into a David Robertson pitch and all of a sudden a nice safe 3-1 Yankees' ninth inning lead was a White Sox 4-3 victory.
Not long after, an ESPN researcher tweeted that it had been a long time since that had happened to the Yankees: that the last time a visiting team trailing by two or more went ahead on a home run in the 9th had been in 1972, when Bob Montgomery did it to them.
And a distant bell went off in my head.
I was at that game too, and boy was I cheesed off.
The Yankees trailed the third-place Red Sox by just a game-and-a-half when they met for a twi-night doubleheader at Yankee Stadium on July 28, 1972, on day two of a five-game series that would probably decide which one of them might still challenge for the AL East Division crown. As an aside, for those of you who think the rivalry was always like it is now, the attendance for two Yankee-Sox games that night was 20,129.
I was one of them, and I happily watched my favorite, Mel Stottlemyre, hold the Sox to three hits and two runs until the ninth. The Yanks were up 5-2 when Stott got wild and walked Reggie Smith and Rico Petrocelli. Manager Ralph Houk brought in relief ace Sparky Lyle, and I got worried because Lyle had recorded his 20th save the night before, but had pitched 2-1/3 innings to do so.
Sure enough, Danny Cater (whom the Yankees had astutely traded to Boston for Lyle in one of the worst one-for-one trades in baseball history) singled to drive in a run and cut it to 5-3. Shortstop John Kennedy worked the count full but then struck out. This brought up Bob Montgomery, Boston's third string catcher who had, to that point in the 1972 season, hit exactly no home runs and driven in exactly two. In fact, in the middle of his third big league season Montgomery had hit exactly three career homers (he would go on to a long career as a Boston back-up, be the last man to regularly bat without a batting helmet, and then become a beloved color commentator on the Red Sox tv broadcasts).
Montgomery promptly put Lyle's pitch into the right field seats and, just like last night, a two-run Yankee lead had become a one-run visitor's victory.
I was not happy. And this is not memory speaking. It took me five minutes to find my scorecard. The blasphemies directed at Manager Houk ("Lyle? 2 Days in a row…You are a fool!") will not be illustrated here. The scorecard will:40 years is a long time between any two similar events.
Just how long is underscored by what's on the page behind that scorecard. It lists the names and numbers of the pitchers of the American League teams. For the future 1972 World Champion Oakland A's, there are only nine pitchers listed.
For those interested in the other stuff I'll be appearing as a guest Sunday morning on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos.
Robin Now Leads Batmen
Congratulations to Kenny Williams and Jerry Reinsdorf and all others with the Chicago White Sox who managed to pull not just a complete surprise, but what is likely to be a long-term brilliant maneuver, in hiring Robin Ventura as the team's new manager.
If anybody in baseball history has ever been better prepared psychologically for the roller-coaster of managing, I can't think of his name. Ventura was probably the most unflappable, even-keeled player I've ever met – completely immune to the impact of wins and losses, interviews and ignorance, the media and the fans. He focused on exactly one thing: playing the game, and helping his teammates play it nearly as well as he did.
And he did this with an exceptional sense of humor that he used surreptitiously and almost conspiratorially. You have doubtless heard the story of Rickey Henderson coming to the New York Mets in 1999 and being reintroduced to John Olerud, briefly his teammate with the 1993 Blue Jays. Rickey – famously unfocused in the most benign and only self-injuring way possible – is supposed to have caught one glimpse at the batting helmet worn in the field that was both Olerud's protection against after-effects of a brain aneurysm and the first baseman's trademark – and said "I played with a guy in Toronto who did that, too."
The story was entirely false, but so authentic-sounding, that it is still told as if it were biblical truth. And it was completely the concoction of Robin Ventura, perhaps the only such practical joke clean enough to be documented here. What's more, if it took 100 words to tell that apocryphal story, those were probably 100 of the 200 words Ventura said to anybody not on his team that month. The French will tell you that there is the man good at the "bon mot" – the clever remark, that might have been the only clever remark out of a thousand he made that day. Then they will tell you, with a great deal more reverence, about the expert at the "mot juste" – the guy who is quiet all night, all day, all week, until he finally speaks, and says something so precisely correct and appropriate, that the quote stays vibrant and with you, forever. That's Robin Ventura.
That's not just about his humor. His baseball intuition was just like that, too. Jerry Manuel just said on MLB Tonight that Ventura used to "take care" of their infield when both were with the White Sox. The same was true with the Mets. Even as his skills slowed with the Yankees, his ability to position himself defensively based on pitch and hitter more than made up for the slowing reflexes. As a manager, one would expect that he would be as he was as a teammate: he will say damn little, and when he does speak, his players will say "Jeez! Why didn't I think of that? He just extended my career five years." This is, simply, one damn smart baseball man, who can't be upset.
The latter truth probably comes from one infamous day that only becoming an all-time great manager might enable Ventura to live down. On August 4, 1993, after Nolan Ryan hit Ventura with a pitch at Arlington, Ventura charged the mound. He was 26, Ryan was 46 – it should've been no contest. It was exactly that. Ryan, alone among all pitchers who have ever faced that scenario, had the presence of mind to stay on top of the mound. From there, he was Andre The Giant. Ventura could do little more than run into Ryan's headlock, and the rest was a video highlight that will still be being played on the day humankind disappears from the earth.
Since then, Ventura has made no brash move. Only stealth stuff. He has marched to his own drummer's beat and done very well at it. And this is all said with the kind of caveat the White Sox must have anticipated. If he has misjudged his own interest in dealing with today's players, Ventura will shrug his shoulders and go home. Maybe that will happen in 2032, maybe in 2022, maybe next May.
I'm not saying it's likely, I'm just saying he doesn't need this managing crap, and that's one of the reasons he figures to be great at it.
Cooperstown: Sunday – And More On Rose
The Hall of Fame induction speeches are always heartfelt and always noteworthy, but rarely do they have such emotional impact as this year's.
Cooperstown: Sparky Anderson And Pete Rose Speak
In what both men indicated was their first conversation in roughly two decades, Sparky Anderson, manager of the Cincinnati "Big Red Machine" of the 1970's, and Pete Rose, his most public and most star-crossed player, visited together briefly in Cooperstown on the eve of baseball's Annual Hall of Fame Inductions.
The Cooperstown Flood
Greetings from Cooperstown, New York, where baseball did not begin, but where it could conceivably end Sunday at what could easily wind up being the first-ever underwater Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies.
Mets Answer
The first of our two trivia questions from the denizens of the Yankee Stadium Press Box, we'll answer here, then give the juicier one a little more time to cook.


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Dec. 1, 2006 — -- It's rare to get inside the mind of a terrorist, but Maryanne Vollers does just that in her new book, "Lone Wolf: Eric Rudolph: Murder, Myth, and the Pursuit of an American Outlaw."
"Lone Wolf" tells the story of Eric Rudolph, a deadly bomber who evaded the largest manhunt in FBI history. Letters from Rudolph unlock the mystery surrounding his mindset and run from the law.
Vollers paints a chilling, disturbing portrait that no reader will soon forget.
"Liberty for the wolves means death to the lambs." --Isaiah Berlin
1: Lone Wolf
In the end, the moon was just another enemy. It hadn't always been that way. When he started writing about his fugitive years the word he chose was addicting: "There is something addicting about the full moon on an early summer or fall evening in the South…" Now the moonlight pinned him to the shadows, kept him off the roads and dirt tracks where the breeze would quickly disperse his scent, leaving no trace for the hounds to follow. The damp grass and foliage could hold his trail for days. The years of hiding, he later said, had turned him into a nocturnal creature, sleeping in the day, prowling for food at night, always watchful.
Eric Rudolph kept his campsite orderly: Hiking boots lined up like soldiers on the cardboard pallet beneath a double tarp. Discarded newspapers and magazines stacked to read. A small ring of stones for a cooking fire, with two blackened pots upturned to drain. He had scattered overripe bananas, tomatoes and onions to dry in the sun. He could store them, use them later when food was scarce. His life was consumed with planning: Figuring out the movement of police patrols through town, knowing which days the grocery stores dumped their expired bread and vegetables. He traced a grid on notebook paper to make into a calendar. Every day was neatly crossed off as it passed. When the federal agents found the calendar at his camp the last marked date was May 30, 2003.
It was a weekend night, not much of a moon, and the lone patrolman would be distracted by teenage drunks out looking for trouble. Rudolph pulled on his "rummaging" clothes: a black cotton tee shirt, dark slacks, old black tennis shoes. In the darkness his feet remembered the steep trail down the small mountain overlooking town. When he reached the bottom he watched for the glow of headlights approaching, and when it was safe he ran across the four-lane highway, following the bridge a short distance until it crossed the Valley River. One time a car had surprised him and he'd had to hang off the side of the bridge to keep from being seen. Tonight the trip went smoothly and he dropped down quietly into a field on the other side of the river. He followed another well-worn path through the grass and weeds to the edge of a small shopping mall. The patrol car usually drove down this alley once every hour or so. He crouched in the darkness and waited.
It was late in the third shift on the first night of the long Memorial Day weekend and Officer Jeff Postell was running through his routine business checks along Highway 19 in Murphy, North Carolina. At about 3:30 am, Postell cruised through the alley behind the Save-A-Lot grocery store and the Sears appliance retailer, past a random cluster of old, one-story shops with their backs to the marshy bottomland of the Valley River. Then he turned his patrol car back into the deserted parking lot.Postell was short and slight, a 21-year-old rookie with less than a year on the Murphy police force. But as his colleagues had already noticed, Postell managed to compensate for his size. More seasoned police officers might slide through the bottom of the third shift, waiting for trouble to call itself in. Not Jeff Postell. He was flush with the optimism of inexperience, and he wanted to catch himself a burglar before he switched over to working days.
Murphy is the largest municipality in the mountainous western tip of North Carolina. The town has 2500 people in a county with 25,000 scattered residents, a population that almost doubles in the summer months. Locals like to boast that the area is "two-hours from anywhere," which is the driving time to the nearest city in any direction: Asheville to the east, Chattanooga to the west, Atlanta to the south. Due north is the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and the Appalachian heartland. Now that the textile factories and other light industries have packed up and moved to Mexico, Murphy's main industry is tourism. The visitors come for the clean air and long mountain views, fishing and water sports. Four counties, Cherokee, Clay, Macon and Swain are interspersed with the 500,000 acre Nantahala National Forest. If you don't count the transgressions of marijuana growers in the mountains or the crank syndicates that exploit the area as a regional distribution center, crime rates are pleasantly low. The most common police blotter items involve DUI's. Restaurants close early and the streets empty out after dark. People sleep soundly in the velvet warm nights of late spring, windows open to the breeze.
As soon as Postell was clear of the lot, he cut off his lights and swung the car around the corner and back into the alley, hoping to surprise any prowlers. It was then that he spotted the figure of a man crouched down and scurrying toward the supermarket loading dock. The rookie saw something long tucked under the subject's arm, like a rifle or a shotgun on a sling. The man heard him coming and darted behind a stack of milk crates. Postell turned on his "alley lights" while he radioed dispatch for backup. Then, using his open door for cover, he got out of the patrol car, drew his sidearm and shouted, "Come out! Put your hands where I can see 'em!"
Which is just what the man did."Okay, drop to your knees." The man complied."Now, down on the ground. Arms out. Cross your feet…"The subject seemed so docile that Postell felt comfortable enough to approach and cuff him.
Cherokee County deputy Sean Matthews, known to all as Turtle, was walking out of Fatback's Citgo with a paper cup of coffee in his hand when he heard a commotion on his patrol car radio. As he climbed behind the wheel he could make out Jeff Postell's voice shouting "man with a gun!" It sounded pretty urgent. Jody Bandy, an officer with the Tennessee Valley Authority whose jurisdiction covered the federal lakes in the region, had stopped for coffee with Matthews and heard the same call. He jumped into his own car, and both of them took off with their lights on and sirens blaring. By the time they arrived at the Save-A-Lot alley, a third backup had already arrived: Charles Kilby, an off-duty city policeman who had been finishing some paperwork at the station when the call came in.
As the four officers stood around the man lying face-down in the dirt, Postell started asking him the routine questions: What's your name? Where are you from and what are you doing here? The man seemed calm and respectful. Cooperative. He said his name was Jerry Wilson, born December 19, 1964, but he had no identification on him. He was homeless, he said, just passing through from Ohio. He'd been living under a bridge, and he was hungry. He looked to be somewhere in his thirties, thin, average height, with short dark hair. He wore a dirty camouflage jacket, black tennis shoes and dark pants tied at the ankles with string. A bulge underneath his jacket turned out to be a pair of binoculars. The object tucked under his arm was not a gun, but a long black Mag-lite slung on a piece of rope. Nearby they found an army rucksack, empty except for some plastic bags and string.Postell called his dispatch to run an identity check, and the name and date of birth he gave came back "no match." That was odd. Most people had at least some sort of records in the system.
Jody Bandy asked "Mr. Wilson" if he had a social security number.He'd lost his, he said, and added, "I don't believe in them."
Meanwhile Matthews was staring at the man on the ground. He asked him to roll over, and the man turned his face away. Matthews asked him again, and this time he flipped himself over on his side. The deputy bent down and pointed his flashlight in the man's face. He had a few days' stubble on his cheeks, a noticeable scar on his chin and searing blue eyes. Matthew's stomach started to churn. He was just about sure. And he might as well forget about the vacation he was planning to take, starting this morning.
He stood up and pulled his colleagues aside. "This looks like Eric Rudolph."
Postell shook his head, wondering at the possibility. Rudolph was one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted. Postell had been in high school in 1998, when Rudolph's name first came up as a suspect in the fatal bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, AL. He was also accused of a series of bombings in Georgia, including one at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta where two people died. Postell had heard that Rudolph was some sort of survivalist with links to a racist militia group, and that he had been living alone in a trailer outside Murphy before he disappeared. When he was in high school, Postell used to work at the McDonald's in Andrews, serving morning coffee to the state and federal agents who arrived in droves to search the national forest for Rudolph. He'd even rode around with some of them for a Boy Scout project. It was the biggest federal manhunt in history, but they never caught Rudolph. By now most people thought he was either dead or long gone. Postell thought this was a strange way for him to show up after five years. But Matthews had actually met Eric Rudolph years back. They'd both grown up in Macon County, just northwest of here. That put a certain weight behind his suspicions. After some discussion about what to do with him, the officers agreed "Mr. Wilson" should be taken into custody under the safe-keeping statute, a state law designed to sweep vagrants and drunks off the streets for their own good. Then they could hold him for up to twenty-four hours. When Postell informed "Wilson" he was being taken to the county jail to be given a warm bed and a hot meal, the man showed no signs of alarm.
Matthews put the suspect in the back of Postell's cruiser and looked him in the eye. "You're not who you say you are," he told him, and the man said nothing, just smiled, as Matthews later recalled, "a big shit-eating grin."
Within three minutes they were at the county jail, a square brick building behind the courthouse. The jailhouse was half a century past its prime, and far too small for the county. The sheriff's offices, which were once housed in the building, had been pushed out to make room for more cells – enough to hold eighty prisoners in cramped quarters. The sheriff now occupied a cluster of white trailers on the other side of the parking lot. The city police station was on Peachtree Street, a block away.
As soon as they got Mr. Wilson settled in the booking room of the old jail, the cops looked around for a picture of the fugitive Eric Rudolph. Nobody could find one. So Postell went on the Internet and printed out an FBI wanted poster. One of the images was clean-shaven, and sure enough, although the old picture of Rudolph was much beefier than the subject at hand, he had the same attached earlobes, the same hairline, the same scar on his chin.
Jody Bandy from the TVA brought the poster into the booking room and held it up behind the man who sat placidly in his chair, saying nothing. Everyone gathered around. Matthews told him, "You look like someone I used to know."He snickered.
Finally Bandy said, "Just tell us who you really are."The man laughed softly, and Postell remembered it was "the coldest laugh I ever heard." "I'm Eric Robert Rudolph," he said. "You got me."Just like that.
He did not say "I'm Eric Rudolph," the way his friends and family knew him. No, this was Eric Robert Rudolph, a man familiar with his own legend.
Jeff Postell and Turtle Matthews looked at each other and decided it was time wake up the sheriff and the chief of police. Dispatch reached the Sheriff, Keith Lovin, at home at 4 am. It had already been a long, difficult day that started with the execution of a major arrest warrant, and ended at the scene of a gruesome accident in a neighboring county. A state trooper had been killed in the wreck, and Lovin had gone to help with the scene. He'd known the dead man, having been a trooper himself before he ran for sheriff last year. Lovin had hit the pillow at 1 am, and three hours later was driving to the jail to have a look at someone who said he was Eric Rudolph. Mark Thigpen, the Murphy police chief, met him there with a manila folder left by the FBI five years ago: the protocol for identifying Eric Rudolph. They had to be sure this wasn't a hoax, or one of those characters with a compulsion to confess to famous crimes.Lovin, a dark-haired man in his forties, sat down across from the prisoner and started asking questions. Thigpen, tall and sturdy with a military flattop, stood out of sight behind an open door and checked the answers against the file. Lovin thought the man seemed fairly calm, considering his situation. Thoughtful, even.
"Where were you born?" "Merritt Island, Florida." "What's your driver's license number?" He gave the right answer.
Sheriff Lovin notified the FBI regional office in Asheville that it looked like they really had Rudolph. This set off a chain reaction of jingling cell phones and buzzing pagers from Washington to Atlanta to Birmingham and back as word spread through the community of agents, cops and federal prosecutors who had been waiting for this moment for five long years. The news quickly leaked to CNN, and the network had the story on the air before the first federal agents arrived in Murphy. Satellite trucks and carloads of reporters soon followed. SWAT-team snipers set up defensive positions on rooftops around the jail, gaining the attention of curious townspeople who had gathered to watch the commotion. The mayor and a former sheriff made themselves available for interviews in front of the blue marble courthouse.
Rudolph's arrest was welcome news in Washington, where the present administration was having a hard time tracking down the government's most infamous fugitives. Eighteen months after George W. Bush had declared a war on terror, U.S. forces were still chasing Osama bin Laden like a ghost dog through the Tora Bora mountains. Weeks after the US invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussein had yet to be extracted from his spider hole. Catching a domestic terrorist was a PR bonanza, and John Ashcroft, the Attorney General, wasted no time releasing a triumphant statement. "Today, Eric Robert Rudolph, the most notorious American fugitive on the FBI's Most Wanted list has been captured and will face American justice," he said. "This sends a clear message that we will never cease in our efforts to hunt down all terrorists, foreign or domestic, and stop them from harming the innocent."
Inside the old jailhouse the deputies fingerprinted Rudolph and took a mug shot before they let him clean up a bit. To a man, nobody who saw Rudolph that morning could believe he'd been living in the mountains for so long. He was scruffy and not too fragrant but his hands were soft and his fingernails intact. His hair was trimmed and his teeth seemed sound. One jailer who saw him strip off his shirt in the washroom said his skin was clean and unscarred. Deer hunters returning home from a weekend in the woods looked worse than Rudolph. People were saying he should have been tanned like a leather strap if he'd spent years out in the wind and snow. But that was his story and he was sticking to it."This is the first time I've talked to anyone in five years," he told Matthews.
One of the jailers gave Rudolph a Marlboro from a fresh pack of cigarettes. He said he was grateful to smoke something he didn't have to fish out of Taco Bell's outdoor ash can.
Turtle Matthews was assigned to sit with Rudolph. Since he had the only connection to him, however tenuous, the sheriff thought the prisoner might open up with him. He was told not to ask him any questions, but not to discourage him from talking, either. The jailers brought them some scrambled eggs and bacon, biscuits and gravy, juice and coffee – the first of two breakfasts for Rudolph, who wasn't lying when he said he was hungry. Mama Liz, the jail's excellent weekend cook, was famous for her biscuits. While they ate, Rudolph started to chat with Matthews. He asked about the outcome of a recent referendum in Murphy to allow beer and liquor to be sold by the drink in restaurants. "It lost," said the deputy. Rudolph nodded. He said he followed the papers whenever he could find them. Then Rudolph looked Matthews in the eye.
"I knew you knew," he said."Then why did you lie to me tonight?"
"Well, it had happened before," he said, and proceeded to describe how he had been picked up by some cops back in 1999. He said a truck he had stolen to move his supplies ran out of gas outside of Murphy. Two deputy sheriffs stopped to offer him a ride to the filling station. They even dropped him back at his stolen truck without a question asked. He thought he might get lucky again. Matthews got the impression, though, that Rudolph was just relieved the running was over. He said he was tired of eating out of Dumpsters. He told him that he had never left the area, and he had a camp just outside of town. Turtle could tell the bomb technicians not to worry, he said, because it wouldn't be booby-trapped. And they would find it neat and sanitary. "Cleanliness is next to godliness," he said.
As Matthews got up to report this information to the sheriff, Rudolph told him something else. "No matter what you hear," he said, "tell them I'm not a monster."
Rudolph spent the next two days at the Cherokee County Jail. He would turn stone cold any time he saw a federal agent, but he was talking a blue streak to his the round-the-clock guards about the Old Testament and politics and how to live off acorns and salamanders; just about everything except his crimes. He seemed interested in his jailer's lives, and even inquired after their families. But he never asked anyone whether his own mother was still alive, or for any news about his sister and brothers. Finally, when it was obvious he wasn't going to confess to anything, the federal agents took custody of the prisoner. As he prepared to leave, Rudolph shook hands with the deputies and jail staff. He even signed wanted posters for them, like some kind of rock star. Rudolph inscribed one with a reference to Psalm 144, that begins: "Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight." FBI agents confiscated every one of the posters. For handwriting samples, they said.
The camera crews who had been waiting outside the jail all weekend finally got what they wanted when Rudolph was moved from Murphy to a federal court in Asheville. It was a ritual "perp walk," the modern equivalent of a public stoning, where the accused is marched from the jailhouse door to a waiting vehicle. He is dressed in prison orange and fitted with a large bulletproof vest, shackled at wrist and ankle, and hustled along in a scrum of anxious-looking guards, quickly, but with enough time in the open for photographers to capture a few frames of his cool, watchful gaze. Timothy McVeigh, after his arrest for the Oklahoma City bombing, was photographed in this way, setting the gold standard for the terrorist perp walk. McVeigh looked menacing, scowling into the sun. He later said he was scanning the crowd for a gunman he was sure would appear, like Jack Ruby, and kill him on the spot.
Eric Robert Rudolph had a similar look on his face when he emerged from the Cherokee County jail, flanked by Lovin and Thigpen. He turned his head to glare in the direction of the assembled media before he was hustled off in convoy to a waiting helicopter, where he would be delivered to his enemies. He rode to the airport in silence, staring straight ahead. But as the chopper lifted off, Rudolph took one last look at the green river valley and the smooth-knuckled mountains of the Nantahala, folded like hands in prayer.
I arrived in Murphy a few weeks after Rudolph was captured. By then the media road show had moved on, leaving the local citizens in turns bemused and resentful. With far too much time on their hands, reporters and producers had started looking for some local color to fill in the twenty-four-hour news cycle. They wanted to know whether someone in this mountain community had helped Rudolph survive all these years on the run. This was not an unreasonable line of inquiry, since the FBI was looking for the same answers. In service of this story, however, a lot of old hillbilly clichés were dragged out of the dusty files on Appalachia. Significance was assigned to the gun racks and Confederate flags plastered on local pickup trucks, and the sign above the Peachtree Restaurant urging people to "Pray for Eric Rudolph." The Associated Press quoted more than a few local sympathizers who said they wouldn't have turned him in. Jeffery Gettleman of the New York Times wrote, rather elegantly, "If there is an antigovernment current here, coursing through the woods clear as a splashing brook or a pint of moonshine, it is nothing new." Television coverage gave the general impression that Murphy and the surrounding towns were nests of anti-government zealots.
Murphy's mayor, Bill Hughes, was indignant. When I met him on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the city office building, the first thing wanted me to understand was that Eric Robert Rudolph was not, as he put it, "a local product." Rudolph was born in Florida. The family moved to western North Carolina when Eric was a teenager. Hardly anyone knew him.
Hughes sat at his big squared-off mayor's desk in front of a large American flag, sifting through a scrapbook of clippings, photographs and letters "from all over the world" about the recent unpleasantness. Hughes' face is tanned and fine-boned and he speaks with the deep, modulated voice of a retired principal who spent years intoning class announcements over the school intercom. His smooth delivery and uncompromising civic boosterism made him a favorite on cable news during the media siege.
The cameras and mikes disappeared after Rudolph was whisked away to Asheville, but the notoriety lingered. "Here's a postcard from Louisiana," said Hughes, squinting at the cramped handwriting as he read aloud: " 'Long Live Eric Robert Rudolph...'" He shook his head sadly.
"Here's one from England: 'I thought the country was beautiful…'" That got a smile.
"Here's another one: 'It seems to me that Rudolph must have had local help to survive, hiding a murderer who thought he was doing God's work. I'm sure you don't want us Virginians to think y'all down in North Carolina are a bunch of redneck criminals and gun nuts. Maybe you don't care, but you should. I'm just going to leave this as 'A Law Abiding Citizen' since I don't want you and your friends up bombing my house.'" Hughes laughed incredulously. "And it goes on and on and on."
Along with the letters, Hughes has collected a thick stack of newspaper articles, and scanning them caused the mayor's bright blue eyes to narrow with resentment. To his mind, many of them were inaccurate and downright offensive.
"The media blitz turned into a media circus, unfortunately," he said. "You get to see journalism at its worst and at its best. They portrayed us as ignorant illiterate hillbillies, painting us as the stereotype – distrustful of the federal government, totally ignorant of the outside world, close-knit, antigovernment. The things they said about us simply are not true." What, then, was the truth about Murphy and the people of Cherokee County?
"I would say Murphy is just a typical small American town," said the mayor. "Every one knows everybody else. You have your town characters, you live in a goldfish bowl. People are basically honest. They are basically trusting. Our people are tolerant, they are law-abiding, they do respect authority."
I would spend many afternoons like this one in the next three years, dipping into the parallel and paradoxical narratives that run through the story of Eric Robert Rudolph. Like the perceptions of North Carolina, the descriptions of Rudolph I encountered were so strangely divergent that I might have been hearing about twin brothers with the same faces and different personalities, one who committed the crimes and one who was captured and punished for them. Eric Rudolph was, by his own inclination, the most reclusive and enigmatic kind of outlaw. He left a faint trail to follow. And in doing so, Rudolph became less a real person than a touchstone for the expectations of others.
From the time he went into hiding after the Birmingham clinic bombing to the morning he was captured, Eric Rudolph had disappeared in more ways than the obvious one. In fact he had been slowly vanishing for years. He lived alone, paid cash for everything, lied about his whereabouts to his family and occasional girlfriends. When he was identified as the main suspect in the series of bombings, federal investigators profiled him as a "lone offender," or "lone wolf": a self-appointed avenger with no real alliances, no meaningful social ties; an inadequate male who converts his frustrations and longings into a campaign of murder. He tries to justify his actions by attaching them to a cause: saving babies, defending the white race, striking a blow against technology. The lone wolves believe history will judge them to be heroes.The lawyers who were later chosen to defend him were prepared to present a very different picture of Eric Rudolph. They describe him as a misguided but sensitive and engaging human being who isolated himself to protect his lonely mission. And this was not just a defense strategy. They looked forward to visiting him in jail; some considered him a friend. And one of his attorneys, a conservative Jew, came to love him like a son.
In many ways, offenders like Eric Rudolph are ciphers, blank screens upon which all interested parties can project their expectations and their agendas. And the more sensational the crime, the more agendas emerge. To the radical anti-abortion movement, Rudolph became a source of inspiration; to the so-called "patriots" he was a government scapegoat; to militia watchdog groups and pro-choice advocates, he was a poster child for the dangers of the extremist right. He became a trophy as well for the federal agencies, investigators, lawyers, government bureaucrats and members of the media who fought for position to define him, hunt him, study him, defend him, and try him.
The enormous consequences of the case affected, and sometimes distorted, every aspect of it. Rudolph's bombing campaign was what the federal agencies call a "major incident," a bland term for a Big Crime. Big Crimes are spectacles that draw public interest and law enforcement attention beyond what would logically be expected based on the damage done to property or the number of casualties. Big Crimes are like plane crashes; more people are killed on the highways every day, but we are still transfixed by the special horror of the fuselage tumbling from the sky. Serial crimes are the most sensational of all because they are rare, frightening and seemingly random with a built-in dramatic hook: Where will he strike next?
The government pursued Rudolph with such ferocity not just for the sake of his victims, although they were important, but for the audacity of his bombings. An attack on the Olympics while the games were being hosted on US soil was more than just a bombing, it was domestic terrorism, a symbolic attack on America itself. The subsequent bombings in Atlanta and Birmingham, which appeared to be aimed at law enforcement personnel as well as the specific targets, amplified the government's response. And once the death penalty was put on the table, another layer of symbolism was added to the mix, raising the stakes for another group, the anti-death penalty advocates.
Outside of this circle of interest, the American public seemed both fascinated and repelled by Rudolph. As a society we tend to have at least two conflicting impulses when it comes to famous fugitives: The first is to ignore our legal presumption of innocence and assume they are guilty as soon as they are accused, try them and execute them without mercy. The other impulse is to romanticize them in some way, to separate them from the cowardice and brutality of their crimes and to fit them into the archetype of the outlaw hero. They become Robin Hood or Jesse James or Pretty Boy Floyd – guys who perform daring deeds, who outwit the authorities, who are forced by circumstance to ride on the other side of the law, and who always have some redeeming qualities to burnish their legends.
Rudolph seems aware that his story occupies the uneasy territory between the outlaw hero and the deranged killer, the Christian soldier and the despised terrorist. He is a prodigious reader of history, philosophy and Russian literature – he has informed me, without irony, that Crime and Punishment is his favorite novel. He followed his own publicity from wherever he was hiding, and while in jail obsessively watched news reports about his case. He held his silence for years before he finally tried to explain himself -- first in brief court statements, then through a handful of broadsides published on the Army of God website, and, finally, in a series of written interviews with me.
I had my own agenda, of course. Eric Rudolph was a puzzle I needed to solve for the sake of a story I wanted to tell.
This book was never meant to be the biography of a serial bomber, nor an academic study of terrorism. It is an extended act of journalism, a thin slice taken from a time in the life of our country in an attempt to illuminate a series of horrific events. The idea was not to mythologize Rudolph or his crimes, but to pick them up like rocks in a stream, to hold them up and see what's underneath. On its most elevated level the story is a journey into the darkest precincts of idealism, an exploration of how things can go terribly wrong in the name of doing good. But it is still a story, and in many ways an incomplete one. The challenge has been to take disparate and often contradictory facts and try to fit them into a sensible narrative. This is what prosecutors and writers have in common. So I began my study of Eric Robert Rudolph the way the investigators always begin: by looking at the crimes and at the evidence. And never forgetting the victims.


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