Day: October 4, 2006

Imprisoned on a Deserted Island

Chris 8 Comments

Hmmm.

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, September 29, 2006 – A young Trinidadian who was sentenced to one year on a deserted island by the Maldives government has been released and now back home.

The intriguing tale told by the Trinidad Guardian newspaper this morning is of the intervention of Minister of Foreign Affairs Knowlson Gift, who resigned this week, to get the Trinidadian released…

…The young man having confessed to having sex was sentenced to one year on a deserted island. He was dropped off there and periodically would be taken food and water but it was up to him to survive as best as he could.

(via gallimaufry.ws)

Taking Passwords to the Grave

Chris 1 Comment

From Wired:

William Talcott, a prominent San Francisco poet with dual Irish citizenship, had fans all over the world. But when he died in June of bone marrow cancer, his daughter couldn’t notify most of his contacts because his e-mail account–and the online address book he used–was locked up.

Talcott, 69, a friend of beatnik Neal Cassady, apparently took his password to the grave.

It’s a vexing, and increasingly common problem for families mourning the loss of loved ones. As more and more people move their lives, address books, calendars, financial information, online, they are taking a risk that some information formerly filed away in folders and desks might never be recovered. That is, unless they share their passwords, which poses security threats.

“He did not keep a hard copy address book. I think everything was online,” said Talcott’s daughter, Julie Talcott-Fuller. “There were people he knew that I haven’t been able to contact. It’s been very hard.”

Freemasons: A Secret Society, Spilling a Few Secrets

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From ReligionNewsBlog:

For more than two centuries, the Freemasons and their grandiose rituals have played a secretive, mysterious role in American life. One of the Masons’ symbols looks a lot like the all-seeing eye on the back of every $1 bill. And look whose picture is on the other side.

George Washington was not the first Mason, and not the only famous one. Mozart worked thinly disguised touches of Masonry into operas. Fourteen presidents and everyone from the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale to the comedian Red Skelton belonged. Masons presided when the cornerstone was laid at the Statue of Liberty.

But the Masons’ numbers have been steadily dwindling — whatever their secrets are, they apparently do not have one for avoiding death — and their ranks have been graying. So the New York State Masons have followed other state Masonic societies in doing something that they would have once considered heretical: they are actively reaching out for new members. And, in the process, a famously reticent fraternal organization that now puts a premium on its community service has lifted its veil of secrecy just a bit.