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Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Friday 8 August 2014

Woman tracks down the mother who abandoned her as a baby... only to realise she has unwittingly married her BROTHER -

Woman tracks down the mother who abandoned her as a baby... only to realise she has unwittingly married her BROTHER - 



A woman went in search of her long-lost mother - and discovered she has unknowingly married her own brother.
Adriana, 39, and her husband Leandro, 37, have been together for seven years and have a six-year-old daughter.
The Brazilian couple - who didn't want to reveal their surnames - spent their lives trying to find their respective mothers, who were both called Maria, and had both abandoned their children when they were still babies.

But neither ever imagined - until this week - that the women they had both been searching for could have been the same person.
Adriana, a cosmetics saleswoman, hadn't seen her mother since she was just one, when she left home leaving her to be raised by the girl's father.

Meanwhile, truck driver Leandro found out aged eight that his own mother had also abandoned him, and that the woman he knew as his mum was actually his step-mother.
While Leandro stayed in the same town where he was born in the state of Sao Paulo, southeast Brazil, Adriana moved away to work as a housemaid, was married for 15 years and had three children.
The pair met for the first time ten years ago after Adriana's marriage broke down and she moved back to her home town, and they soon fell in love and moved in together.

Still unable to forget the give up the search for her mother, last month Adriana decided to contact a a radio station in their town to ask for help - and this week the two were reunited live on air.
But at the end of the interview on Radio Globo's 'The Time Is Now' programme, which specialises in finding lost relatives, the mother revealed she also had a son who didn't know her, Leandro.

As it becomes clear that it is the same Leandro that she was married to, Adriana is heard weeping uncontrollably: 'I don't believe that you're telling me this. Leandro is my husband,' she sobs.
At the end of the interview she says: 'Now I'm scared to go home and find out that Leandro doesn't want me any more. I love him so much.'
Adriana and Leandro - who never married legally - yesterday told Radio Globo that they would stay together, despite the bombshell that they are actually brother and sister.
Adriana said: 'Only death is going to separate us. All this happened because God wanted it to happen.
'Of course it would have been different if we had known all this before, but we didn't and we fell in love.
'We thought it was funny that both our mothers had the same name, but it is a common name so we just thought it was a coincidence.
'At first we were really knocked by it all. But we had a family meeting and told everyone that we are going to stay husband and wife, whatever anyone might think.
'We have so many plans together, nothing's going to break us up, nothing.'
The couple said they don't blame their mother for leaving them, have spoken with her a number of times since and plan to meet up soon.

Read more: -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2718216/Woman-tracks-mother-abandoned-baby-realises-unwittingly-married-BROTHER.html

GeoFencing - Schools use new software to monitor students social media posts -

GeoFencing - Schools use new software to monitor students social media posts - 



Officials in western Maryland’s Washington County schools will be tracking students’ social media activity while at school using new software that scans for keywords like “kill” or “bomb.”     
studentsmartphone

The district is using software called Social Sentinel that employs “geofencing” protocol to determine when students are on school grounds and scans their Twitter, Facebook and other social media posts for evidence of violent threats, harassment, drug or alcohol use, or similarly dangerous language, WJLA television station reports.

District officials are assuring the public that student privacy won’t be violated because the “geofencing” protocol limits tracking to when students are at school, a public place.

“School officials said the goal is to protect student safety. Examples of such posts that will be tracked include those that feature keywords like ‘kill,’ ‘bomb,’ and others,” the news station reports. “School officials said they will also be consulting with parents and members of student government for feedback on what additional keywords should be added to the watch-list.”

Once the software nabs posts with words administrators don’t like, someone – the news station didn’t report who – will read the posts closer to determine if there’s anything fishy going on. Depending on the context of a threatening post, it will either be forwarded to police or school officials, according to WJLA.

The Washington County district is only one of four in the nation employing the student snooping software, which runs $20,000 per year. District superintendent Clayton Wilcox told the Herald-Mail it will be in place for the district’s middle and high schools when students return from summer break in two weeks.

“The software will search sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Instagram, Meetup, Tumblr, Vimeo, and Google Plus, with other sites expected to be added, according to a presentation Tuesday to the Washington County Board of Education,” the Herald-Mail reports.

While the program would seem to raise objections from students, parents or faculty, no serious objections were cited in media reports.

The Washington County Teachers Association President Denise Fry did, however, raise mild concerns about the potential perception that “’Big Brother is watching,’ and whether the software might be used for other purposes,” according to the Herald-Mail.

And while Wilcox touted the system’s ability to track social media posts precisely within school bounds, he acknowledged that the geofencing feature can be expanded, and it seems as though school officials are already peaking into Pandora ’s Box.

During the meeting, (Wilcox) did mention that one day the school system might want to expand it, if officials hear about gang activity or a fight just off campus,” the Herald-Mail reports.

Read more - 
http://eagnews.org/schools-use-new-software-to-monitor-students-social-media-posts/

British police raided an English country pub in search of a stolen wooden relic believed by some to be the Holy Grail -

British police raided an English country pub in search of a stolen wooden relic believed by some to be the Holy Grail - 



British police raided an English country pub this week in search of a stolen wooden relic believed by some to be the Holy Grail - a cup from which, according to the Bible, Jesus is said to have drunk at his final meal before crucifixion.

The Grail has captivated religious experts for centuries, spawning myriad theories about its location and inspiring numerous fictional accounts from the Middle Ages onwards.

The object of the police search, which was unsuccessful, was a frail wooden bowl known as the Nanteos Cup that has been attributed with healing powers since the 19th century, attracting pilgrims and others who believe it may be the Holy Grail itself.

After receiving a tip-off, a team of eight officers and a police dog arrived on Sunday morning at the Crown Inn, a village pub in the rural English county of Herefordshire.

"They turned the place upside down. They came with fibre optic cameras to look in all the corners and nooks and crannies, and under the floorboards ... they were clearly serious about it," the pub's landlady, Di Franklyn, said.

Police said the relic, a dark wooden cup kept inside a blue velvet bag, had been stolen from a house in the area about a month ago. Photographs available online show a bowl-shaped vessel with around half its side missing.

"We get a few rogues and scallywags in the pub, but no one who's quite on the level of stealing a priceless ancient artefact," Franklyn said.

The cup takes its name from Nanteos Mansion, a country house in Wales where the vessel is reported to have been stored until 1952 after 16th-century monks fleeing King Henry VIII's dissolution of England's monasteries sought refuge there.

The cup was said to have been brought to Britain after Jesus' death by Joseph of Arimathea, the biblical figure who provided Christ with a tomb and, according to legend, brought Christianity to Britain.

Scientists who have examined the cup have said it almost certainly dates from many centuries after the crucifixion, and is not made of the olive wood that might have been expected for a Middle Eastern drinking vessel.

Read more - 
http://news.yahoo.com/british-police-raid-pub-search-holy-grail-163716296.html