Maybe virtual health care is next

Personally, I find Second Life and the like extremely creepy.

Local governments haven't rushed to set up shop in Second Life and other virtual worlds. Officials have plenty of skepticism, not all of it unwarranted. Virtual worlds remain a social and technological frontier, where people, through their animated alter egos, or avatars, can act out fantasies of violence and public nudity and where a computer hiccup can leave a frustrated visitor pounding on a keyboard.

But as designers keep pushing to make the worlds more realistic and easier to navigate, the Washington area has become home to creative efforts to move government toward such realms.

The Bethesda-based National Library of Medicine, for instance, has created in Second Life a potentially noxious world of everyday health hazards called Tox Town, where clicking on a tower in a dusty construction site produces a list of the chemical properties of neighborhood runoff.

At the University of the District of Columbia, criminal justice students practice investigations and patrols and deal with such imaginary perp behavior as the attempted theft of Professor Angelyn Flowers's pink convertible.

Other designers have created in Second Life a virtual Capitol Hill, where plans are afoot for a white-tie inaugural ball Jan. 20. Instructions are forthcoming on how to find a good tux.

"There will be music. There will be dancing. There will be socializing. There will be virtual punch," said Steve Nelson, executive partner of Clear Ink, a Berkeley, Calif.-based Internet firm that built the cyber Capitol Hill. "The idea is after they leave [the ball], they actually feel like they participated somehow."

Nelson is related by marriage to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). His wife, Troi Nelson, designed an avatar for former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who has dabbled with the medium as a way to advance his political agenda. And for the TV series "The Office," she created avatars for the actors who play Jim and Dwight.

Virtual worlds are populated with users who, after donning new skins, walk or fly themselves through the obsessions and passions of people everywhere by clicking on screen arrows. Characters meet, gesture, text, talk, lie, kiss, marry and sometimes fight.

Feather's Internet double is Theatre Magic, a younger, chiseled version of the real thing. "I never had a swimmer's build. Second Life is an opportunity to be what you always wanted to be. And it's cool to look really hot at the office," Feather said.

As I said, creepy.