The Guardian:
She's funny, she's had a boob job and she's just written a book that could see her thrown out of her church. But, as Elna Baker tells Louise France, it's too late nowIf I told you that Elna Baker had written a frank and self-deprecating memoir about dating which is unlike any other frank and self-deprecating memoir about d (Read More)
The Guardian:
My four-year-old says he wants to be baptised, but my ex-husband feels he's too young to decide. Should I nip this in the bud or embrace our son's spirituality?The dilemma When our sons were born, my ex and I decided to allow them to choose to be baptised (or not) when they were older. I was raised a Catholic while my ex wa (Read More)
The Guardian:
Robert Yates returns to the streets of Liverpool, where he grew up, to report on a story of deprivation and hopeIn a parade of shops on County Road in Walton, north Liverpool, a couple of signs compete for attention. "Slip! Trip!" offers the first, in the window of Walton Accident Claims – the jaunty exclamation marks expla (Read More)
observer.guardian.co.uk:
Join a strange safari in the desert hunting, not rare animals, but an equally endangered prize – absolute silenceSeveral times each night I wake up. My first thought is usually that I am getting too old to sleep out, even in a proper sleeping bag and with a long padded Bedouin cushion between me and the ground.Then, during (Read More)
The Guardian:
An increasing number of female jihadis are being recruited and trained to blow themselves up in the name of Islam. Alissa J Rubin visits an Iraqi jail to find out what makes young women turn themselves into killing machinesIn Baquba, the Iraqi police detective flipped pointlessly through a file on his desk; the daylight wa (Read More)
observer.guardian.co.uk:
A new film bringing the life of John Keats to the big screen prompts a personal Romantic pilgrimage to RomeThe rose-seller is stalking me. It is a brilliant blue-skied November morning in Rome and I am standing on the Spanish Steps silently contemplating the beauty of Bernini's fountain when he sees me. He rushes towards me (Read More)
guardian.co.uk Society:
Aaron Cohen travels the world, rescuing girls sold into prostitution. He tells Carole Cadwalladr why he does it – and how a suburban kid turned heroin addict became a human rights campaignerI don't know where to even start with Aaron Cohen. With his day job, springing imprisoned girls out of brothels? With his past life as (Read More)
The Guardian:
In a desperate attempt to secure its electoral base, the government is shamefully wooing religious extremistsAs every middlebrow with a newspaper column or Radio 4 slot to fill agrees, a vulgar "new atheism" is sweeping Britain. The readers of Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman and Christopher Hitchens are, they tell us, crass (Read More)
guardian.co.uk Sport:
Scotland 9-8 AustraliaA scoreline to make some people weep this may be, but it is a result that had Murrayfield rocking in a way it surely never has since, oh, probably 1982, when Scotland last beat Australia. After 16 fruitless attempts to replicate that triumph, this – the seventeenth – was about as heroic a win as Scotla (Read More)
guardian.co.uk Society:
Cash incentives alone won't solve childcare – perhaps Gordon Brown should look at Germany's response to a 'stove premium'While Gordon Brown has had to rethink his plan to abolish tax relief on childcare vouchers, family policy in Germany took a different turn right from the start. It's the better-off who benefit most from t (Read More)
www.guardian.co.uk:
Robert Crumb's straight retelling of Genesis lacks his trademark humourIt's the old story. Milton tried to retell the Bible and discovered that Satan was a more interesting character than God, and now, three centuries later, Robert Crumb confirms that God is a hell of a lot less fun than Fritz the Cat. "The first book of th (Read More)
The Guardian:
The real challenge to the biblical literalism held dear by creationists is in the Bible itselfAn academic conference in Louisville, Kentucky, provided me with an opportunity to visit the Creation Museum in nearby Petersburg with a friend who is also an Anglican priest. Opened in 2007, this $25m museum's mission is not only (Read More)
The Guardian:
He got his big break playing Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and now, 34 years later, John Hurt is at it againThere's something disturbing about John Hurt. That familiar Mount Rushmore face seems to have ironed itself out. It was once compared to a komodo dragon – even his lines seemed to have lines – but today he (Read More)
The Guardian:
Converts to Rome cannot pick and choose, says Vincent Nichols, as Rowan Williams and pope prepare to meetAnglicans should not become Catholic to protest against female clergy or sexual ethics, the archbishop of Westminster said today, as he warned traditionalists against adopting a "pick and choose" approach to the religion (Read More)
The Guardian:
The Anglican church should no longer put the virtue of uniformity above the need to challenge prejudice and suffering"United we stand, divided we fall" is a common saying. Likewise there is a Japanese proverb "A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle."To stay united (or appear to be), members of families, re (Read More)