Virtual Communion

"A retired Methodist minister is to use Twitter to conduct Holy Communion - with his online flock taking bread and wine in front of their PCs. The Rev Tim Ross will tweet out the lines of the Eucharist next month to his 357 followers, and says participants can tweet back "Amen". He hopes that it will unite the faithful across the world. 'Where it could lead, who knows? Maybe one day to a baptism by Facebook,' he said."

From The Times, Monday July 26 2010, p.9

One of the potentially many problems of this would be that they will not partake of one loaf (1 Cor 10:17).

The Right To The Internet!

A BBC World Service poll today suggests that four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right.

What do we mean by "a fundamental right" in that context? It seems quite extraordinary that access to the newfangled interweb should be a fundamental right.

Do we mean hat someone else shouldn't deprive me of the right to free access to the web? Does everyone have that right? Do prisoners?

Or do we mean that someone else ought to do all they can to provide me with the internet?

How would the right to the internet compare to other rights? Say, the right to a fair trial? That's a rather different things, isn't it?

Who gives this right? With respect to whom? Etc.? Etc.