Yesterday, I got Jon Krakauer’s new book about Mormons — or, more specifically, about a disturbing and bloody murder committed by members of a fundamentalist offshoot of that sect.

Today, Teresa Nielsen-Hayden highlights a story about a similar batch of Mormons, this time concerned with forced marriages and escapse therefrom. Take a look.

Elizabeth Mitchell has pointed me toward a strange little story thatÕs developing in Colorado City (formerly Short Creek) Arizona: The townÕs children are fleeing. It started less than a week and a half ago, when two girls named Fawn Broadbent and Fawn Holm ran away for fear of being forced into polygamous “marriages”. It wasnÕt the first time children have tried to run away from Short Creek. The difference was that this time, the authorities didnÕt return the Fawns to their families. They escaped and stayed escaped. That story went round the FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saint) community at lightning speed, and in the week that followed, eight more children ran. All it took was the hope of real escape, and some indication that help was available in the outside world.