Here's a quote from today's Washington Post regarding the guy in Baltimore:

"A law enforcement source said, 'We have three or four of these [fruitless tips] a day.' The only difference yesterday was 'you found out about this one.'

"'This is what the police do. They follow up leads like this, and many of them sound promising,' the source said. 'When they say they're making progress, they mean that they're following leads like this every day.'"

They certainly have caused a lot of terror and disruption around here, McGrath, you're quite right.

They are hurting the local economy, too. At my handcrafters' guild meeting, people reported that over the weekend there were a lot of empty booth spaces at the shows; the scheduled crafters had refused to come to the Washington area while this is going on.

Gas stations are seeing a slow down, as are the big strip malls, I suspect. Some gas stations have put up protective barriers to shield their pumps from the street: others have "Guardian Angels" working to pump people's gas so people can stay in their cars.

There are lots of other effects, too. At the "Taste of Bethesda" festival last weekend, which usually draws huge crowds, the MC got a big laugh when he said, "Welcome to Bethesda, all eight of you!" Well, you can imagine how people feel. Fatal auto crashes happen, but they are relatively few and far between -- not 11 people in two weeks. And not in circumstances that have always felt "safe" and now feel threatening.

Well here's me, too, rambling on about this when I ought to be revising and posting the FSGW Getaway program! -- See you later, got to get to work.

Rita F