St. George Saves the Day
 

The first mention of St. George and the dragon dates to the 12^th century hundreds of years after his death. According to one version of the legend, a dragon was terrorizing a town in present-day Libya. With his lair in a marshy swamp, the beast’s breath spread pestilence whenever it came close to the town. The people offered animals as a sacrifice to the dragon until they had no more to give. Then lots were drawn each day to determine which virgin girl would go to the dragon. One day the lot fell to the king’s daughter.

When George, a soldier, heard of the town’s plight, he went to save the princess. He attacked the dragon and pierced its side with his lance. He asked the princess for her girdle, which he used as a collar on the dragon and the princess led him like a lamb. George returned to the town and told the people not to fear but to be baptized. He chopped off the dragon’s head and all the townspeople converted to Christianity.

The real St. George was a Roman soldier born in Cappadocia around 280 AD. He enlisted in the Roman army at age 17 and quickly developed a reputation for virtuousness, physical strength, valour and good looks. He rose to the rank of tribune and became of favourite of Emperor Diocletian. In order to raise the morale of the Roman people, the Emperor started a campaign to revive the pagan traditions and religion, even though many Romans had converted to Christianity. Diocletian became the cruelest persecutor of Christians of this period in history.

A Christian convert, St. George tried to curtail Diocletian’s excesses. His actions resulted in his arrest. The Emperor imprisoned George who was then sentenced to death and beheaded in Nicomedia near Lyddia in Palestine on A

pril 23, 303 AD. The Catholic Church made George a saint in 494 AD.

King Edward III made him the Patron Saint of England when he formed the Order of the Garter in St. George's name in 1350. St. George is the also the patron saint of Aragon, Catalonia, Genoa, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Istanbul, Lithuania, Moscow, Palestine, Portugal and Venice (second to St. Mark). He also serves as the patron of soldiers and archers, cavalry and chivalry, farmers and field workers, Boy Scouts and butchers, and horses, riders and saddlers.

St. George's Day is celebrated on Apr. 23. For information on St. George’s events throughout England, visit. www.enjoyengland.com and do a search on St. George’s Day.

Cleanliness Is Next to Privacy

In 2003, two graduate students from the Laboratory for Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began research to quantify how many discarded computers still contain valuable or confidential information. To that end, the students purchased 158 used computer disk drives for under $1,000 from eBay and other similar venues. 

Of those 158, the students found that only 12 had been properly cleaned or “sanitised.” On the 129 drives that were functional, the personal data of previous users was still intact and easily accessible. Here’s what the students found on the drives. 

On one, there was more than 5,000 credit card numbers; on another, a year’s worth of Automatic Teller Machine financial transactions. Twenty-eight of the hard drives looked as though they’d been tossed or resold with no attempt made to remove any data. Even though about 45 percent of the disk drives contained no files, important data could still be retrieved by using special tools to read “blocks” (i.e., places on the computers’ disks that hold information).