Live From Kennedy Center

by Davis Bradshaw

Eric and Rebekah have left town, which I think I'm allowed to say because they've been on just about every single news program in the last week.

Rebekah's part of a concert at the Kennedy Center this weekend. One benefit of all this press is that she's getting a lot more opportunities to perform. I mean, it's not like she's the star of the show (yet) but she's certainly getting more attention.

As part of that, this week Eric's pretty much tagging along for the ride. Every interview they give is focusing on Rebekah, but by far my favorite was their appearance on Steph! this morning. For those of you who aren't familiar with Steph! (the male readers, no doubt), it's a mix of Oprah and The View, with a little TLC makeover nonesense thrown in for good measure.



I think over the entire hour, Eric said about six words. He looked mighty uncomfortable.



This is my favorite: "Terrorism: A Woman's View". Classic.

On a more serious note, I have to wonder what effect all this is having on Eric and Rebekah's relationship. During the next few weeks they won't be together much at all -- she's on the talk show circuit, and his court schedule is stepping up. (And all this media scrutiny probably isn't helping.)

Restricted

by Eric Hopkins

Well, not surprisingly the FBI has asked me to shut up for awhile on the blog, at least on the terrorist topic. So, for the next little while, I'll leave all the politics and current events to Davis and Baxter, while Rebekah and I will talk about American Idol and X-Men and other such things. Yes, it kind of ruins the point of the blog, but not much seems to be going according to plan lately.

So, in light of that, Rebekah and I were both pleased that Taylor won American Idol. Baxter was disappointed, because Katharine is good-looking, and I think he expected her to look at the phone voting records, realize that he's her biggest fan, and marry him. (This is actually less pathetic than Davis, who is still rooting for Becky O'Donohue.

In other news, Baxter, Davis, and I got together for some awesome board game action the other day. This is because we're nerds, and we can't have social lives that aren't approved by federal committee, filed in triplicate, and notorized.

So, instead of going out and spending time with girls and fresh air, we spent it at the kitchen table playing Axis and Allies: D-Day. Baxter was the British, I was the Americans, and Davis was the vile Nazis. Much like it happened in real-life, my troops got trapped on the beach for an awfully long time. Baxter's got a strong foothold, and marched toward Caen. But, much like it didn't happen in real-life, the Germans pulled out the ultimate victory.



However, just because Davis was so smug about his win, I'd like to display the following picture. He may have won Axis and Allies, but Elizabeth totally creamed him at Girl Talk.




Ha! Take that, you Nazi!

An Open Letter to Felix Hazard and the Novus Ordo Seclorum.

by Eric Hopkins

Dear Felix,

From what the FBI tells me, you're reading this blog all the time. Every time we post anything, be it our vacation itinerary or our American Idol picks, you're out there, somewhere on the Information Superhighway, reading.

If that's the case (to be honest, I think you probably have better things to be doing), then read this:

Leave us alone. Seriously. We got involved with you entirely because of mistaken identity. I found the jewelry by unfortunate chance -- you left it in your apartment when you moved, for crying out loud. I found it, and gave the necklace to Rebekah. If you had shown up, asked really nicely (or even mugged us and taken it), then there wouldn't have been a problem. But instead you kidnapped us.

And there was more to it than that. We tried to run away -- we were getting on a plane to leave the country, if you remember, and you wouldn't leave us alone. Instead, you shot up the airport.

My point? Leave us alone. There is nothing right now that we can do to you. There is nothing that we did to you that wasn't your own fault. The only reason that we figured anything out about the ring and necklace was because you kept trying to kill us. Had you just taken it, and left us alone, your whole plan would have worked. Good job.

Felix, I'm getting really sick of this. I'd like to get back to normal life, and thanks to you that may be years away, if it happens at all.

I'm calling a truce. Rebekah and I won't do anything to you if you don't do anything to us. It should be particularly easy on our end, since we've never tried to do anything to do. Just leave us alone and let us live our lives.

Eric Hopkins

Laying Down the Law

Okay, so here's the deal. The FBI has handed us a few guidelines. And as much as I'm annoyed by it, I understand that they are doing it for our own good. I guess.

First, we can no longer post any information that would indicate where we will be, unless it's something that is already public knowledge (such as Rebekah's concerts, or something at the courthouse).

Second, we're not allowed to discuss specifics of the trial, or conversations we've had with law enforcement officials that are not part of the public record. Technically, I think the FBI is not allowed to lay down this rule. I have a friend in law school who's looking it up for me.

Third, Eric and Rebekah once again have federal guardian angels to watch over everything they do. (Davis and I don't, though, so I guess we're not important enough to be targeted by the terrorists.) :)

The thing is, I completely realize that the situation is serious. Two nights before Christmas, Felix and Oliver showed up at my house and shot up the place. I'm not trying to downplay the threat. But I am getting a little sick of it all. When do we get back to normal life?

Rocky Mountain High? Not anymore.

by Joseph Baxter

Well, I'm posting this late today because of several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we've spent the weekend in long, heart-to-heart discussions with the FBI.

Here are some photos of our recent camping trip. First, sitting around the campfire:


Second, a pair of deer watch us from the forest's edge:


Third, hiking the scenic grandeur of Bryce Canyon:



In case you hadn't noticed, our camping trip was canceled. Our hot dogs and s'mores were replaced with Subway sandwiches, our campsite replaced with a park, and our solitude replaced with FBI chaperones. It's kinda lame.

The problem is this: we have a blog that anyone can read. And we told the world that we were going camping. We said when we were doing it, where we were going, and which campground we had reserved. An hour before it was time to go we were stopped by the feds and told that we had to change our plans -- perhaps the N.O.S. would follow us and murder us in our sleep. (This is a particularly silly argument, since it's no secret where we live, and there's no FBI agent parked in front of our houses.) (Rebekah's family excepted, of course, though that's different.)

Anyway, enjoy these photos of some awesome Frisbee playing.

Hittin' the Road

by Joseph Baxter


Well, after much discussion, we finally decided we're headed to Bryce Canyon National Park. Rebekah has never been there -- we found out a few months ago that she's never really been anywhere in Utah.



So, last night we pulled out the tents and sleeping bags and cleaned them thoroughly. From all the sand inside it looks like they haven't been used since Eric went to the west desert last summer. In the photo here you can see his wrist still in a bandage -- he should be getting it off soon.



And the whole time we were cleaning the camping equipment, Davis was gabbing with Elizabeth. Not that I was really surprised.



Anyway, Rebekah has a class this afternoon, after which we're leaving. I reserved a couple campsites at Sunset. The next time you see us we'll all be sunburned and filthy.

N.O.S. Update

So, last night after American Idol, the news had more stuff about the economy. The sad news is that, even though we were able to stop Novus Ordo Seclorum from attacking internet commerce, they're still pouring counterfeits into the economy, and the dollar is plummeting. The N.O.S. spent twenty years building up an enormous reserve of fake money, just waiting to spring it on the public. Their hope was that several-hundred-million-dollars worth of fake money would shake America’s faith in the dollar. And when no one believed in their money anymore, the money wouldn't be worth anything. Crazy, yes, but no one had accused Felix of sanity.

So far, his attack seems to be working. Stores offer discounts for using checks or credit cards. Even coins are preferred to bills, as no one had ever found a good, cost-effective way to counterfeit a quarter. 20/20 devoted an entire episode to coins, talking about how teenagers used the jingling money in their backpacks as a status symbol at school. They interviewed a high school junior from a poorer neighborhood of Chicago, who put two bags of washers in his pants pocket, and was suddenly accepted by the in-crowd.

The government is responding to the threat in the way that the government responds to things: congress is asking for more funding for the intelligence community. Some of that money also is going to public service announcements, in which big-name celebrities encourage the public to have faith in their money. Dustin Hoffman has a spot eating at a diner and leaving a twenty-dollar bill on the table; Julia Roberts pays five bucks for a bag of Doritos at a gas station.

And yet the dollar is dipping steadily. As far as we can see, Felix’s plot for complete economic equality via countrywide bankruptcy is beginning to work.

Rocky Mountain High

School is out for everyone, except the nerds who decided to take classes over the summer. (Rebekah, I'm looking in your direction.) And since I know that Eric has absolutely nothing to do with his time, and Baxter just spends all day goofing around on his computer all day, I hereby propose that we go camping this weekend. Of course, this means that we'll have to miss out on Dollar Night at the Varsity, as well as the Utah Prehistory and Heritage Celebration (which I'm sure will be awesome).

Given the current weather report, which looks pretty good, we could probably go most anywhere. I think there's still snow in the high mountains, but we could probably go up a local canyon.

Or, of course, we could just head south. Any ideas?

"You get stronger all the time"

(This is a syndicated article I wrote for Hansen Media Group.)

by Davis Bradshaw



Rebekah Hughes sits quietly by the piano, studying the pages of Camille Saint Saens’ Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor. Her violin rests beside her, tuned but silent as she reads the worn sheet music. Her eyes flash across the paper. She’s engrossed in the notes and lines, almost as though she were reading a bestselling novel. After several minutes, she lifts her instrument, nestles it under her chin, and begins to play.

At first glance, Rebekah seems little different from any college student: she attends the basketball games; stays up late watching movies; her backpack can barely contain its load of textbooks and notepads. But something is revealed as she draws her bow across the strings of the violin. You can see it in her eyes. Fierce determination. Intense resolve.

It’s what kept her alive.

Five and a half months ago, Rebekah was kidnapped. When Novus Ordo Seclorum surfaced in the final weeks of December, they offered her no signs that they were economic terrorists. Instead, they appeared merely as kidnappers, muggers, and thugs.

Rebekah spent three days with them, sometimes in the filthy basement of a run-down home, and sometimes in the freezing cold of an unheated warehouse. More than once she expected to be killed, and more than once the kidnappers tried. But through it all, Rebekah told herself that she would overcome. And when rescuers came for her, they were too late – she’d freed herself.

"I told myself that I just wasn’t going to let it happen," Rebekah says. "Sure I was scared, but that’s no reason to give up, to let them win. I mean, I don’t want to sound cliché here – I’m not trying to say that it’s as easy as just saying ‘I’m not going to die.’ It’s about faith. I knew… I knew that I could make it out of there."

So she did what she could. As she sat I the dark, she sang to herself to remain calm. She’d explored her tiny prison, watching for weaknesses. She talked to her captors, sometimes with mixed results.

"I liked to talk to Oliver," Rebekah explains, referring to one of the terrorists. "He was nervous, and that showed me he was still feeling something. The others, well, they were different. But Oliver would talk to me. He got in trouble for it."

Then, on her third night with the N.O.S., she was able to undo the ropes that held her feet, and flee into the darkness. She wouldn’t be safe for several more days, but she’d survived the first harrowing ordeal.

And now, months later, as she focuses on her music and lets the notes flow from her violin, that strength and passion are still visible.

"You get stronger all the time, you know?" Rebekah says, setting her instrument back into its case. "That’s how faith works."

The meetings never end

by Eric Hopkins



I consider myself fairly knowledgeable on the subject of law. Not only have I taken American Government and Politics at BYU, in an auditorium with 146 other freshman, but I’ve studied the subject extensively and independently of school: I’ve read three John Grisham books, which is probably just as good as going to law school, but more importantly, I’ve watched almost every single episode of Law & Order. I know the whole story about Lenny’s daughter. I know which lawyer got written off the show by getting in a car accident, and I know which cop got written off by punching a defendant. I know that whenever the grumpy judge with the stubbly white beard was on the show, things weren’t going to go well for the DA’s office. I even saw the episode when Anne of Green Gables murdered her kid.

What I didn’t know is that Law & Order doesn’t show you the painfully boring aspects of law, which account for about ninety-seven percent of it. Two percent accounts for business lunches—usually at crummy downtown restaurants—and the remaining one percent is the trial.

I haven’t gotten anywhere near that last part. Rebekah and I are stuck in the ninety-sevens somewhere, wishing we were in the twos, because even lunch at the Golden Wok was better than getting interviewed for the fifteenth time.
In Law & Order, the criminal investigation takes twenty minutes. The trial takes another twenty minutes. All these awful meetings must happen during the commercial breaks.



Anyway, we were in court again today. Paul Arbogast’s trial is first, and I wish that I was allowed to talk more about it. It has been recommended to Rebekah and I (and Davis and Baxter for their parts) that publicly we keep our opinions about the defendants to ourselves. I’ll just repeat here what I’ve said other places: it’s already a matter of public record and I can’t take it back (so I might as well say it again): Paul Arbogast tried to kill us, and his punishment can’t be harsh enough.



I can say, though, that Rebekah is handling things beautifully. I get frustrated easily, and more than once I've walked out of an interview. Rebekah is much more patient than me. However, with no end in sight, I wonder how long that will last.

Eric was released from the hospital

by Rebekah Hughes

Ugh… I don’t know how I got the privilege of the first blog entry. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t format this correctly; I’m new to the blogging world.

Anyway, this morning Eric got released from the hospital. According to the orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Barton, this should be Eric’s last wrist surgery. It was his third, and, the doctor says, relatively minor. They were just removing some scar tissue in an effort to increase Eric’s range of motion. The good news is that the doctors are pleased, and they’re optimistic that this procedure will be the last.

Here are a couple of pictures Elizabeth (my sister) took as we were leaving the hospital. (If you’ll notice, neither Baxter or Davis showed up for the event.) :)



In this second picture (below) you can see part of the scar from his initial surgery (on the outside of his forearm, curving down toward his elbow). It was by far the worst of the three, and had him laid up for quite a while. It’s still healing, though that hasn’t stopped him from playing basketball a couple of times in the last few weeks, against doctors’ orders.



(I just realized that I probably ought to explain his injury, in case there are some of you out there who have missed the story on the news. Eric received the injury on the night I was kidnapped, back in December. As a matter of fact, he broke his wrist trying to save me – who said chivalry was dead? He ended up falling about fifteen feet, head first, into a parking lot – he put out his hand to break the fall and shattered his wrist. The real problem, though, was that he wasn’t able to go to a doctor for several days after the accident, and it was re-injured several times.)

What is this blog?

by Joseph Baxter

A few days ago, we were sitting around the apartment watching the news. (It seems like, with Davis studying journalism and Eric constantly being interviewed, we're always watching the news.) On this particular occasion, four commentators were sitting together, discussing the failing economy. Of course, the subject of Eric and Rebekah came up, and the commentators (particularly one smug reporter from Slate) kept getting the facts wrong. Here it is, four full months after the story was first told, and reporters, who do this kind of thing for a living, don't even know the story.

Shortly after that news program, the four of us (Eric, Rebekah, Davis, and I) decided to begin a collaborative blog. Eric and Rebekah are still deeply entrenched in the trial -- they probably will be for months, if not years -- and we figured we might as well give a factual insider’s look at what's going on.

Now, as a disclaimer: they're key witnesses, and as such there are certain things that they've been asked not to discuss with the media -- and they won't discuss them here, either. This blog is not designed to give a detailed account of everything that happened back in December. Instead, we merely intend to discuss the current events, from our unique point of view, and to correct any errors that come up in the news.

The world changed in the final weeks of December. The United States was shown, once again, to be susceptible to terrorism -- an entirely different kind than we've witnessed before. But more than that, this terrorism is home grown. It wasn't born from some foreign ideaology, but came from the heartland of America, and spread like a virus through all parts of society. The leaders are still on the loose -- and very little is known about their organization. The world isn't safe. We hope that, in some small way, this blog can bring a little hope to Americans -- the more we know, the better we can fight.