parish

Dawkins cameos, gun-toting Christians and embattled mediums news

Mad Madge One can only feel sorry for Vanity Fair journalist Rich Cohen, who in a recent interview with madonna was on the receiving end of the fading pop star’s increasingly bizarre spiritualist views. madonna reprimanded Cohen for “choosing” to have sons instead of daughters. When he said that he didn’t choose the gender of his children, the material Girl begged to differ, asking “Do you believe that? you think things just happen?” after stating that yes, he does think that things like that “just happen”, Cohen asked madonna to share her wisdom on who or what actually determines the gender of children: “you do, you and your missus. you chose it. your soul chose it.”

Dr Dawkins plays with his brand new sonic screwdriver

Dawkster who?

atheists brave enough to come out from behind the sofa for the final episode of the current series of Doctor Who are promised a rare treat. For there on screen, mingling with the usual méélange of fantasy characters, will be the very real material figure of Richard Dawkins. Series producer Russell T Davies is delighted with his scoop. He calls Dawkins the man who “brought atheism proudly out of the closet”. He’s not alone in his appreciation. apparently the crew were also delighted to have him on the set. “People were falling at his feet,” Davies reveals. “We’ve had Kylie minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping.” It was initially unknown what role the Professor would play in the show and this

sparked much online speculation. a poll on the New Humanist blog found 36 per cent of the respondents calling for him to play God but a more cynical minority suggested he might be better fitted to the part of “evil scientist”. at least Richard doesn’t have to go far to find advice on how to handle his new thespian career. He is married to Lalla Ward, who played the highly desirable Romana in ten series of Doctor Who back in the eighties. Let’s hope she can persuade him of the fictional nature of his role. a generation of children could be scarred for life if he were suddenly seized by an on-screen urge to denounce Dr Who and all his works as another example of dangerous indoctrination.

Back by popular demand...

Fed up to here It’s always pleasant to come across an example of atheists being given a little of the respect that believers so often claim as their personal right. Consider the recent happenings in the Illinois state legislature, where atheist activist Bob Sherman was busy testifying before House State Government administration Committee. Sherman barely had time to set out his views on the misappropriation of a one-million-dollar grant that had been intended for a local Baptist church before Democrat representative monique Davis decided to enter the debate. She seems to have weighed her words carefully. “I don’t know what you have against God,” she declared. “What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous. It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists. I am fed up! Get out of that seat! you have no right to be here! We believe in something. you believe in destroying! you believe in destroying what this state was built upon.” Whoever said rational debate was dead?

The gathering forces of irrationality will be quaking in their boots once more with the return of the new Humanist Bad Faith awards. Last year the right-wing uS Christian commentator Dinesh D’Souza strolled to victory with a stunning 22 per cent of the vote, but already this year contenders have been flexing their muscles in preparation for a shot at the title. It was clear that Tom Cruise would be 2008’s man to beat when his Scientology indoctrination

video leaked on to the internet. as we watched him ranting on how Scientologists are the “authorities of the mind”, bookmakers across the land rushed to slash the odds on him walking away with this prestigious award. not that he’s without competition from members of the more traditional world religions. The archbishop of Canterbury catapulted himself into the running with his comments on Sharia Law, while the various religious

pronouncements on the embryology and Human Fertilisation Bill resulted in a few contenders. We nominate Cardinal Keith O’Brien for his claim that the bill would lead to scientific research of “Frankenstein proportions” and the Bishop of Durham for his stunningly ignorant assertion that “Gender-bending was so last century; we now do species bending.” making up this pack of early frontrunners is the new england football manager Fabio Capello, a

man who expressed his admiration for General Franco during a spell managing in Spain and who believes that the Catholic Church needs to take an even more “traditionalist turn”. So, it’s a formidable field already but, as voting won’t take place until December, we’re urging readers to once more nominate the year’s most formidable enemies of reason. Send your nominations by post or email them to editor@ newhumanist.org.uk, ideally with a supporting weblink. Heathen-free zone: The Illinois

state legislature building

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The spirit of freedom lives on in parklifediaRy Ken worpole’s

It’s looking as if 2008 will go down as a bad year for psychics, but then again they should have seen it coming. This month sees the repeal of the Fraudulent mediums act, a piece of 1950s legislation so effective that fewer than ten people have been prosecuted under it in the past 20 years. It even made allowance for “genuine” clairvoyants, but its replacement looks set to be far less forgiving. The new Consumer Protection Regulations will prohibit activity “which misleads the average consumer.” Thus, the onus will now be on mediums to prove that they haven’t exploited

vulnerable subjects. naturally charlatans across the land are worried these regulations could put them out of business and may force them to preface their services with disclaimers pointing out that their activities amount to “a scientific experiment”. Spiritualist churches claim they are a religion being subjected to unfair discrimination, and have mounted a challenge to the new legislation. But this argument seems unlikely to wash with lawmakers and all the signs in the stars suggest that we may soon be seeing clairvoyants in the dock for exploiting the public’s credulity.

Psychic strife RaRely a day has gone by when I’m working at home that I haven’t walked through Clissold Park, close to where I’ve lived in Hackney for the past 40 years. This afternoon the park was teeming with Orthodox jewish families, the men in wide fur hats and prayer shawls, the women in severe costume dresses, the children with bikes and scooters, all munching ice creams. The world of the park has always seemed to me a place apart, strangely inviolate, which still resists the blatant commercialisation evident in every other square inch of the modern city. It’s a good example of what the Situationists would have called a TaZ – a temporary autonomous zone – an enclave of self-organised freedom. Like many other students in 1968 I was swept up in the idealism of the may events, though my fellow trainee teachers and I still spent most of our spare time volunteering on an adventure playground. not so much street-fighting, more face-painting man. Looking back on those times, it is clear that the Situationists had a more prescient eye on the future than the 57 varieties of Leninism otherwise on offer. There was a brief period when the new Left – with which I was involved – was divided into those who wanted to read althusser and those who got excited by Saul alinsky. The latter was a guru of the community-organising politics of those West Coast radicals who thought parks and playgrounds contained the germ of the future utopia. There is no doubt in my mind that images of children at play which dominated european and american photography after the Second World War – initially through the enormous success of the 1955 Family of man exhibition organised by edward Steichen – lit the fuse, so to speak, of the street culture and street theatre of late ’60s radical politics. many of the photographs portrayed children at play on the streets and bomb-sites in cities around the world, reclaiming them as their natural territory

heavenly heat Sunday morning worship in Georgia, USA, could soon become a dangerous game after the state’s Christian Coalition backed a proposed piece of legislation that would include churches in the places where citizens are legally allowed to carry a concealed firearm. In case you’re wondering why anyone would feel the need to make their religious observances while armed to the teeth, the Coalition’s leader Jim Beck explained that “many of the state’s megachurches would like the option of using their congregants as an informal security force.” And why not? If you’re going to gather thousands of worshippers together in one place, you may as well have them doubling up as a heavily armed paramilitary force.

The inner city is lost to the dreary developers: let’s head for open country

and lost domain. The enragéés were simply grown-up children. The Situationists got much of it right, and their influence is probably as strong today as it was 40 years ago. This is especially so in the marking out of contested political territory, exemplified in the writing of Iain Sinclair and other psychogeographers, whose work enchants and frustrates in equal measure. nevertheless I detect a waning of interest in the inner city as the last redoubt of authenticity, and a new interest in more open landscapes – especially at the marginal edges – as the coming sphere of meaning. In post-Sinclair times, the writers who have done most to capture the idiosyncrasies and freedoms of the unscripted walk and the spontaneous exploration have been people such as WG Sebald, Roger Deakin, Robert macfarlane, jim Perrin and Kathleen jamie, and all of them at the land’s edges. east anglia has never been so trendy; essex is the new estramaduras. This is possibly because most city districts – think Hoxton, think Bristol Harbourside, think Liverpool One – have been colonised by dreary urban designers, loft developers, barristers and baristas. and the same is now happening not just to streets but to playgrounds, where planners and designers have little time for any form of unscripted life and leisure. Only last year one of the government’s new school academies opened in Peterborough – designed deliberately without a playground. The head teacher claimed that “I think what the public want is maximum learning.” yet the world of the park still tantalisingly offers freedoms and pleasures – including the domain of free play – that are beyond the reach of commercialised leisure and the national curriculum. no wonder today’s contrarians are deserting the grey for the green, the pavement for the beach. n

Ken worPole talks about “The child at play” as part of the 1968 and All That event at Conway Hall, London on 10 may

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