This looks really interesting!

By Martyn Casserly | 22 December 2009

This Christmas, as churchgoers battle against snow, wind and ice to reach their places of worship, one section of Christendom will pay its respects from the comfort of the sofa. These few, observing midnight mass in slippers and pyjamas, are part of a new movement of virtual churches whose buildings exist solely online.

St Pixels is a community of believers who meet online to hold virtual services, pray for each other, blog about their experiences and enjoy the community. Members are represented by cartoon avatars, and the church itself is in essence a chat-room, but behind the icons are real people who are serious about their faith. 

"The most important thing for me," explains Pat Oakley, one of the leaders at St Pixels, "is that we are not bound by geographical location, time or denomination. We have members from all around the world, and it’s great to share our worship with people we otherwise wouldn’t be in contact with."

The reasons for attending an online church differ from person to person, but in Pat’s experience there are some common explanations.
 
"Many people are geographically remote from a church where they would like to worship," she says. "Some are carers, for whom it’s difficult to get to a ‘real-life’ church regularly, or may be those that suffer ill health. Others may be dipping their toes into the water of faith and find St Pixels to be a non-threatening environment where they only divulge what they choose, and can explore every aspect of Christianity safely, at their own pace."

For those of a more visual disposition there are now a host of churches establishing themselves in Second Life. The Anglican Cathedral of Second Life is in the tradition of classic gothic architecture. Visually it looks the part, with stained glass windows, wooden pews, a stone altar, and even a church organ present.

Despite the nods towards realism, cynics may question whether any of these virtual churches constitute a genuine place of worship. "I think for some it’s hard to understand how this can be ‘real’ church," says Ailsa Wright, lay pastor at the cathedral. "The concept of 3D worlds on the internet, if people have the concept at all, is that they are for games, something you play at. It’s simply not possible to fully appreciate worship and fellowship online unless you have experienced it. We can provide prayer, worship and pastoral care for many needy people via the internet, and we’re there 24/7 which is a great freedom."

"There’s a huge need for a listening ear in Second Life," she continues. "People tend to be very open in their questioning and in seeking help when they have difficulties. It’s a fantastic opportunity for the church to get alongside people in their everyday struggles and to show that we care, that God cares."

Running a service in a virtual world, replete with customisable avatars, also brings about unique challenges not faced by regular church leaders.

"You don't have congregants who are clouds because they haven't rezzed yet (i.e. materialised on screen) in real life," Ailsa muses, "and its not often that you worship with hippos, cats, robots, mermaids and various other livestock."

Mythical creatures aside, growing congregations suggest that the virtual church is here to stay. You really can find anything on the internet these days – including God.

Ballet by Javier de Frutos received rowdy reception when it premiered on the London stage in October

• Charlotte Higgins, chief arts writer
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 December 2009 17.31 GMT
• Article history

A scene from Eternal Damnation Of Sancho and Sanchez by Javier De Frutos. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

 

When Javier de Frutos's dance tribute to the great Russian impresario Diaghilev premiered in London on 13 October, the work – with its deformed pope, pregnant nuns and wild sex – received a mixed reception: walkouts and boos combined with an ecstatic response from its fans.

It was a succès de scandale, recalling the brawls at the premiere of The Rite of Spring in 1913, which Diaghilev famously commissioned. The following day, the BBC announced it would broadcast the piece, along with three other new dance works commissioned by Sadler's Wells in honour of Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes.

But last month it became clear that the BBC had decided pull the transmission of De Frutos's work, set for a pre-watershed slot on Friday on BBC4 – and now de Frutos is hitting back at a decision he believes is "silly as well as dangerous".

He said: "Obviously Jerry Springer the Opera [which elicited 55,000 complaints when broadcast on the BBC in 2005] was a watershed. It seems that we still live in a society where a small minority has the power to take away the right of the majority to see things. This seems absurd, especially in the case of BBC4. The knitting channel has marginally more viewers than they do."

According to the composer Thomas Adès, who saw the work at Sadler's Wells theatre: "To pull it from the programme is a shocking, terrible mistake, and shows a disgraceful, pathetic and worrying loss of nerve on the part of the BBC. I am abrim with disgust at the BBC's behaviour … all they needed to do was broadcast it later [in the evening].

"There should be much more outrage about this not being shown than there was about Jerry Springer's being shown. I thought the work was a masterpiece, a brilliant tribute to the showmanship and provocation of Diaghilev. In content there was nothing you would not see in South Park or Family Guy."

In the words of Guardian dance critic Judith Mackrell: "Cast with a hunchbacked pope, pregnant nuns and horny priests, [the work] is set in a crypt decorated with frescoes of priapic men. Its rituals climax in some of the most graphic scenes of sex and violence seen on the dance stage." She also praised it as "funny and tight … sharply structured and wittily referential".

De Frutos acknowledges that his piece – called Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez – is unsuitable for a pre-watershed broadcast. But he is angry at the "naivety" of the BBC for assuming that "they could broadcast it before the watershed just because it was ballet. People just simply assumed. And you should never assume in art."

The works were given a pre-watershed slot, according to a BBC spokesman, "because ballet at this time of year is a family thing. You sit down together and watch.

"At the time we commissioned the programme we did not realise that there would be this kind of material in the work."

The BBC announced the broadcast in a press release on 14 October, the day after the work's premiere. De Frutos said he was contacted by the BBC about five weeks ago to be told that the broadcast would be pulled.

He said that his intentions with the work were clear from May, when he started creating the 25-minute piece. "There was access to all this. My studio was open."

The BBC was not involved until relatively late in the process, when it decided to acquire footage that had been created by an outside company for a Sadler's Wells DVD.

However, according to De Frutos: "If you have a piece about the Marquis de Sade, then obviously you don't put it on CBeebies, because it's the wrong slot."

The fact that the piece, like Jerry Springer the Opera, contains material critical of religion, also contributed to the BBC's decision.

"The fact that it's Advent and the programme was essentially part of our Christmas schedule was relevant," said the BBC spokesman.

Jan Younghusband, the BBC's commissioning editor for music and events, said: "It is not my commission so I cannot speak about why a post-watershed work was commissioned for a pre-watershed slot … normally we would edit round anything inappropriate but in this case we can't, because it would destroy the work.

"But obviously it would be good to show Javier's work at some point, which is why I have asked to see him to talk about how we might do so in the future."

Lisa Katayama

POSTED AT 9:17 PM November 2, 2009

A young Iraqi woman died tonight in Arizona because her father believed she had become too Westernized. Noor Faleh Almaleki, the 20-year old pictured here, moved to the Phoenix area in the mid-90s with her family.

Her father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki, feared that her American upbringing had led her to abandon traditional Iraqi values. He opposed the way she dressed and the way she resisted his rules. So on October 20th, he ran over her and another woman, Amal Khalaf, in his Jeep Grand Cherokee as they walked across a parking lot. Khalaf — who is the daughter's roommate and the mother of her boyfriend — survived, but the daughter died tonight in the hospital. Her father is in police custody now after a failed attempt to escape to the UK via Mexico.

Iraqi woman, 20, dies; police in Arizona say father ran over her

By Peter Kirwan | 02 November 2009

In the UK, some ten million adults have never ventured online. For some, no doubt, this is a matter of personal choice. Others, however, face more significant obstacles, including old age and poverty. In total, around three million of the ten million refuseniks identified by the government are classified as “socially excluded”.

Martha Lane-Fox – recently appointed as the government’s so-called champion for digital inclusion – is attempting to galvanise this stubborn minority. With a nod to the forthcoming Olympics, she has launched an effort called The Race Online 2012. Lane Fox aims to get four million refusniks, most of them on low incomes, using the web.

In a report published this month, Lane Fox argued that “potential” economic benefits of getting the last ten million Britons online could amount to as much as £23 billion. Even if you spread £23 billion – as Lane Fox does – across the lifetime of an entire generation, it sounds like a lot of money. Yet like most such numbers, this one is constructed upon a ziggurat of assumptions.

We’re told, for example, that if the nation’s ten million digitally excluded adults could save £9 billion every year by shopping online. Low income households would find themselves between £300 and £390 better off annually.

But these savings start to look less enticing if you factor in the cost of buying a PC and subscribing to broadband. Most low-income households would find themselves nursing a loss on their investment during Year One. Deficits of any kind don’t mix well with absolute poverty.

But Martha Lane Fox has another way of counting the cost of digital exclusion. This involves what are described as “improved educational and employment outcomes”.

If the UK’s 1.6 million digitally excluded kids are given PCs and broadband to use at home, we’re asked to believe that their “total lifetime earnings” will increase by £10.5 billion. The long-term unemployed, the disabled and elderly employees will benefit to a lesser extent.
 
Again, the numbers sound impressive. But break them down and a slightly different picture emerges. That additional “lifetime” economic benefit for 1.6 million digitally excluded kids boils down to an extra tenner a month during a working lifetime of 50 years.

Most likely, that extra tenner will end up being spent on broadband access. Any incremental benefit will end up being enjoyed by shareholders of BT, Carphone Warehouse and Sky.

Much of this may seem like quibbling. But the point remains: for many of the poorest households in the UK, exhortation isn’t useful.

The problem, overwhelmingly, is a lack of cashflow. At the margins of subsistence, broadband remains an optional luxury compared with the need to (for example) feed and clothe children.

Of course, there is another way of counting the cost of digital exclusion. This involves the huge cost to taxpayers of maintaining HM Government’s parallel distribution platforms for social services.

Oddly, however, Lane Fox suggests that HM Government will only save £1.8 billion if the most frequent users of its services start interacting with it online. This is a footling amount. Interestingly, Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report – which recommended the appointment of a digital inclusion champion in the first place – seemed to adopt a different perspective.

Carter argued that HM Government needed to stop “simply adapting paper-based, analogue, processes” for the web. Instead, a “digital switchover” of public services was required, in which online became “the primary means of access, rather than one among many”.

Those without internet access, Carter argued, should be left with “a safety net in delivery”.

Lord Carter isn’t alone in seeing online self-service as the future. In 2006, Sir David Varney, the former chairman of O2, oversaw a 100-page report on e-government for the Treasury. It recommended that the government should only offer its citizens “face-to-face contact provision” where it’s “essentially needed”.

A year later, the National Audit Office published a report that predicted “great scope for achieving efficiency savings” by shutting call centres and “local offices”.

The savings could be very significant. Data from 2006, for example, suggests that central and local government operate a total of 730 call centres, which employ some 55,000 staff.

In addition, central government maintains 1,200 local offices used for face-to-face transactions with members of the public. That’s almost double the number of Starbucks outlets that exist in the UK.

The cost of handling paperwork via a call centre, a local office, or even the postal system is vastly higher than the online alternative. At Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, for example, the cost of processing a traditional paper-based application for free school meals runs to around £9. The end-to-end processing cost of doing the job online is just 6p.

This is a huge differential. And Tameside isn’t unique. Similar metrics apply to dealing with applications for DVLA tax discs, housing benefit paperwork and self-assessment tax returns.

The general drift seems clear enough. While Martha Lane Fox has worked hard to underline how refuseniks will benefit by getting online, it’s arguable that the real benefits will accrue to HM Government (and hopefully, to taxpayers as well).

Claire Enders, the media analyst, is among those who argue that the need to cut the cost of public services is what’s really driving efforts to get broadband laggards online.

Enders worked as an external consultant on the team that produced Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report. In meetings, she argued that nature – and the market – should be left to take its course. By her own account, Enders suggested that digital exclusion would simply cease to exist by 2030.

The answer from the Digital Britain team was curt and emphatic. The taxpayer, Enders was told, cannot wait 20 years to reap its digital dividend. Government cannot afford to “keep services going left, right and centre”.

In the greater scheme of things, Enders admits, accessing government services from a home PC will start to make a lot of sense. “One or two years past peak oil,” she says, “the future involves people working more in the local space”.

Yet she also warns that Whitehall has “a completely optimistic view about the transition in the case of digital have-nots”.

“Ultimately, what they’re talking about is health and education,” she says. “But the poor and the elderly, like everyone else, want a doctor who is going to feel them, touch them, comfort them.”

Enders also worries about the advent of “a world in which the main point of contact for people with the government is a screen.” Through it, she suggests, we “will be told what to do, which school to attend, how much benefit we are entitled to.”

Her ultimate objection, however, revolves around the need to offer people choice. Earlier this year, Enders made this point in front of the Commons Select Committee for Culture Media and Sport.

“Some people have left that community space and now live in the great internet age, as probably we all do in this room,” Enders announced. “But for many people it is a choice they have made not to go that way. That personal choice is being relayed back to them as being inappropriate, stupid, that they are third-class citizens and do not get it.”

Martha Lane-Fox’s breezy drive to get ten million digital refuseniks online represents an improvement on that stance. Hopefully, it will do some good. But this societal equivalent of a gigantic fun-run (underwritten by lots of volunteered resources) obscures the really weighty questions.

How much can HM Government save by making the transition to e-government? Can the web support the weight of government’s ambitions? Are the social costs worth it? How bad will things get if we don’t force the pace of transition?

The Great Transition isn’t just about media. It’s about the virtualisation of large swathes of our society and economy. Few aspects are as important as the impending digitisation of public services.

Worried, presumably, by the potential backlash from public sector employees, policy-makers have shied away from discussing the real issues in public.

Instead, we have The Race To 2012: a happy-clappy initiative, bereft of real funding, and designed by its makers to reassure us that the best of all possible worlds lies within reach.

• David Smith in Johannesburg
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 October 2009 19.05 GMT
• Article history

He is old enough to be her great-great-grandfather. But Ahmed Muhamed Dhore, a Somalian who claims he is 112 years old, said he had realised a "dream" by marrying a 17-year-old bride.

Dhore – who says he was born in 1897, the year that Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee – already has 13 children by five wives, but said he would like more with his newest, Safiya Abdulle.

Hundreds of people attended the extraordinary ceremony this week in Guriceel, in the region of Galguduud. "Today God helped me realise my dream," Dore said. He and his new wife, who is almost a century his junior, are from the same village in Somalia, he said, adding that he had waited for her to grow up to propose. He says his children and two other wives agreed to the marriage, as did Abdulle's parents.

"I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love, and then we agreed to marry," the groom said. The bride's family said she was "happy with her new husband". Somali adolescent girls are often married off to older men.

Dhore has 114 children and grandchildren. His oldest son is 80 and three of his wives have died. This was his first marriage for three quarters of a century.

Exhibit 1: The New Lady Gaga Sleeve. (Cheers Pop Justice!)

Exhibit 2: Aleister Crowley (pronounced Crow-ly). Nuff said!

Actually, nuff might have been said, but I do wonder if I should dig out that awesome song I did with Mary called Love Is The Law that ripped a bunch of lyrix from the ole Beast and never came out for reasons that totally escape me right now.