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Online as much as in the real world, people bunch together in mutually suspicious groups—and in both realms, peacemaking is an uphill struggle

IN 2007 Danah Boyd heard a white American teenager describe MySpace, the social network, as “like ghetto or whatever”. At the time, Facebook was stealing members from MySpace, but most people thought it was just a fad: teenagers tired of networks, the theory went, just as they tired of shoes.

But after hearing that youngster, Ms Boyd, a social-media researcher at Microsoft Research New England, felt that something more than whimsy might be at work. “Ghetto” in American speech suggests poor, unsophisticated and black. That led to her sad conclusion: in their online life, American teenagers were recreating what they knew from the physical world—separation by class and race. ...

A cross-border fraternity that strives to be seen, heard and heeded

NEARLY four years ago, a web-based political movement set itself the modest task of “closing the gap between the world we have and world most people everywhere want”. Calling their group Avaaz, which means “voice” in several languages, the founders aimed to reproduce globally some of the success which their progenitors—like America’s Moveon.org, and Australia’s Getup!—had enjoyed in national political arenas.

By its own lights, the movement, using 14 languages and engaged in a mind-boggling list of causes, has had some spectacular successes. Within the next few months, membership will top 6m. The number of individual actions taken (from bombarding a politician with a well-aimed message, or funding a poster campaign, to helping provide satellite phones to Burmese monks) is estimated at over 23m. Among the recent developments Avaaz claims to have influenced are a new anti-corruption law in Brazil; a move by Britain to create a marine-conservation zone in the Indian Ocean; and the spiking of a proposal to allow more hunting of whales. ...

In its care for precious places, the UN cultural agency is torn between its own principles and its members’ wishes; the principles are losing ground

WHEN an archipelago famed for its flora and fauna is deemed to have escaped from environmental peril, that might sound like good news for anyone with an interest in the fate of life on Earth. But UNESCO’s recent clean bill of health for the Galapagos islands was greeted with dismay by many of the people who care passionately about the place.

The decision to remove the islands from the list of “world heritage sites in danger”—taken at a meeting in Brasilia that concluded on August 3rd—was only one of several signs that the UN agency is bending its own rules under pressure from member states. And since UNESCO is supposed to be an unprejudiced protector of the whole world’s built and natural environment, such slipping standards are not merely of concern in remote Pacific islands. ...

Georgia’s mercurial leader cocks a snook at art-historical convention

IN MANY European countries, dwindling Christian flocks can barely cope with the patrimony they have inherited, from steeples to statues. Georgia, which adopted Christianity 17 centuries ago, faces almost the opposite problem: such is the strength of a religious revival that began after the fall of communism that a hectic programme of building and restoring churches—from tiny chapels to Tbilisi’s vast new Holy Trinity cathedral—can hardly keep up with demand.

And perhaps inevitably, the rush to refit ancient places of worship can easily run up against other priorities, including the latest international thinking about archaeology and conservation which holds that intervention should be kept to a minimum. ...

In last week’s story on wind energy, we said Australia’s Bald Hills wind park was in Queensland. It is in Victoria. Sorry.

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