Who survived?

Well shiver me timbers.

We already knew that while CBS was shooting its latest season of the Survivor "reality TV" game show on the Gulf of Panama's Perlas Archipelago the whole area was buffeted by unseasonal tropical cloudbursts. Maybe those scenes will bring us a few more adventure tourists and keep some less hardy souls away (at least until dry season starts at about Christmas time).

We now also know that CBS marooned the contestants on the island with only the clothes that they were wearing.

Who would do such a piratical thing? Well, pirates, of course.

This show, which takes to the North American airwaves on September 18, takes on a pirate motif. Regular readers of The Panama News have seen a hint of it in the sets featured 16th century Spanish colonial military architecture. Those of you who know Panamanian history will also know that eventually the British sea dogs breached such defenses. And then you who view history from the Anglo perspective may take offense at the depiction of the Right Honourable Lord Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica --- one Henry Morgan, who did a smash-up job for God and Country in his rampage across Panama --- and the brave Sir Francis Drake, who saved England from the Spanish Armada (and secured a big share of the gold that the Spaniards looted from the New World for Elizabeth I), as "pirates."

But there you have it. CBS divided the contestants into two tribes, each with their own island of paradise and hell, and named one after Morgan and the other after Drake.

The Morgan tribe included Tijuana Bradley, 27, a pharmaceutical vendor from St. Louis; Nicole Delma, a 25-year-old masseuse from Hermosa Beach, California; Darrah Johnson, 22, an undertaker from Liberty, Mississippi; Lillian Morris, who's 51 years old and a scout troop leader from Cincinnati; 31-year-old electrician Ryan Opray, from Los Gatos, California; Chicago attorney Andrew Savage, 40; Ryan Shoulders, a 23-year-old grocery clerk from Clarksville, Tennessee; and Boston equity trade manager Osten Taylor, who's 27.

The Drake tribe was composed of Sandra Diaz-Twine, 29, an office assistant from Fort Lewis, Washington; 42-year-old Trish Dunn, an Annapolis sales exec; Jon Dalton, who's an art consultant in Danville, Virginia and 29 years old; Christa Hastie, a 24-year-old LA computer programmer; Burton Roberts, 31, a San Francisco marketing executive; Pittsdown, New Jersey student Michelle Tesauro, 22; Indianapolis resident Rupert Boneham, who's 39 and works as a mentor for troubled teens; and New Yorker Shawn Cohen, who's 28 and sells advertising for a living.

Also in this section:
Cool Internet sites
Casco Viejo Diversity Parade
Survivor motif: pirates or sea dogs?

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