A survey by the Social Integration Commission of people’s friendship networks in modern Britain has found that there are only two venues where people are likely to mix with folk from different social classes and age groups: churches and sporting venues. Churches were better at mixing people of different classes, and sporting events at mixing ages. Churches also scored comparatively highly on mixing people with different ethnic backgrounds, unlike sporting events. The research is being seen by some as evidence that official education and policy on “multiculturalism” is having little practical effect.
A high-profile Egyptian journalist who was imprisoned after seeking to change his religion on his official ID card from “Muslim” to “Christian” has gone on hunger strike to protest against abuse by prison guards. Egyptian law forbids official changes of religion, but the journalist challenged the law. Shortly after he started reporting on Muslim attacks on the Coptic Christian community in the country, he was arrested on a charge of “sectarian strife”; his lawyer says the charges against him are “trumped up and unproven” and has accused the judge who appears unwilling to set a date for an appeal hearing of being “prejudiced.”
There have been numerous instances in recent years of church groups or political groups travelling to other countries to apologise for the behaviour of their forbears towards that country. Such actions are sometimes criticised because the apologisers have little or no connection with those who committed the atrocities, through ancestry or through being a current government decision maker; because most of the apologisers seem to be from the countries who formed the Allies in the World Wars; and because some people think that it is better to forget the past than to dwell on bygone events. However, recently an apology and message of peace was given by the great-great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II (who declared World War 1) at a carol concert held at Crystal Palace’s football ground. Prince Philip Kiril, a Lutheran minister, asked forgiveness for his ancestor’s actions. Crystal Palace were especially badly affected by the war; they lost a number of their players in what became known as the “football battalion”, and the war also caused them to move away from their original ground close to the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, never to return.
A “nonhuman rights group” brought a legal case in New York arguing that a chimpanzee with “similar characteristics to humans” deserved basic rights, including being freed from captivity by its owner. The appeal court disagreed, saying that chimpanzees do not deserve rights because they “cannot bear any legal duties.” The group plans to continue to appeal.
Three American filmmakers have raised $2.1 million through crowdfunding to make a film about Kermit Gosnell, who was imprisoned last year for a series of abuses of practice at his Philadelphia abortion clinic, including murdering babies who were accidentally born alive. The proposed subtitles for the film are “America’s Biggest Serial Killer” and “The Doctor Is Sin”. The same crowdfunding approach was used for a film called “FrackNation”, which was a rebuttal to an anti-fracking film, and which was made successfully and is now available on Netflix. However, the Gosnell fundraiser had to be run through crowdfunding site Indiegogo rather than the usual Kickstarter site because Kickstarter made too many demands for the language of the advertisement to be toned down or changed.
In sport, Craig Gordon, the goalkeeper for Celtic, set an unusual record last week. One of Celtic’s players was injured, but in defiance of convention the opposition continued to play and to press for a goal. When the ball finally reached Gordon, he threw it away in frustration at the other team’s behaviour – and threw it over the stand and out of the ground.
And finally, there may have been a lot of bad press about the rich, capitalists and Russians this year, but it’s possible to be all three and still to show compassion. James Watson, joint holder of the Nobel Prize for Physics for discovery of the DNA helix, was forced to auction his Nobel Prize medal in order to raise money, after a series of controversial comments caused his academic career to stumble. The medal was bought for $4.1 million by Alisha Usmanov, the owner of Arsenal FC – who then promptly gave the medal back to Watson. “I honour him because of the work he did on trying to cure cancer,” said Usmanov, “which my father died of.”
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