IN THIS ISSUE

NEW

Humanist

Volume 121 No 4 July/August 2006

EDITOR Caspar Melville

DEPUTY EDITOR Pádraig Reidy

COMMISSIONING EDITOR Laurie Taylor

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sally Feldman

DESIGNER Paul Anderson

CARTOONIST Martin Rowson

SPECIAL THANKS Meena Chauhan, Judith Walker

EDITORIAL OFFICES 1 Gower Street, London WC1E 6HD Tel 020 7436 1151 Fax 020 7079 3588 Email info@newhumanist.org.uk Website www.newhumanist.org.uk ISSN 0306-512X

Published by the Rationalist Association. Available on microfilm for libraries in the USA from: Proquest,300 Northzeeb Road, Ann Arbour,Michigan,USA

RA ASSOCIATES

VICE PRESIDENTSBaroness Susan Greenfield,Paul Kurtz,Laurie Taylor

HONORARY ASSOCIATESDavid Aaronovitch, Peter Atkins,Lord Birt,Harold Blackham, Colin Blakemore,Alan Brownjohn,Colin Campbell,Philip Campbell,Noam Chomsky, Bernard Crick,Helena Cronin,Richard Dawkins,Sanal Edamaruku,Paul Edwards, Ekow Eshun,Winston Fletcher,Antony Flew, Michael Foot,AC Grayling,Stuart Hall,Tony Harrison,Simon Heffer,James Hemming, Christopher Hitchens,Eric Hobsbawm, Richard Hoggart,Ted Honderich,Linton Kwesi Johnson,Sir Ludovic Kennedy,Richard Leakey,Sir Michael Levey,Sir John Maddox, Haydn Mason,George Melly,Jonathan Miller, Edwin Mullins, Conor Cruise O’Brien,Jack Parsons,John Postgate,Claire Rayner, Amartya Sen,David Starkey,Ralph Steadman,DJ Stewart,Ian Stewart,Hazhir Teimourian,Claire Tomalin,David Tribe, Baroness Turner of Camden,Arnold Wesker, Francis Wheen,Lewis Wolpert

4 NEWHUMANIST

28HOPELESS ROMANTICS Lynda Nead on the perennial appeal of the suffering artist

8DON’T LOOK BACK Stan Cohen sorts through the messy process of reconciliation

©Tate2006

COLUMNS 6DIARY Douglas Rushkoff on his new biblical comic book 10DEATH WISH Would you help a friend die? Jenni Murray would 11FREE SPEECH FOR ALL Sunny Hundal despairs of minority self-censorship 15HAPPY EVER AFTER Carol Smart on her research into gay marriage 19GOODBYE TO ALL THAT Michael Bywater misses his ivory tower 24WISHFUL THINKING Wishing doesn’t make it so,says Jeremy Stangroom 25REASONABLE BOUNDS AC Grayling finds Kant’s humanist side

REGULARS

3 EDITORIAL

7 PARISH NEWS

40 LETTERS

41 CONCRETE REASONING

42 ENDGAME Laurie Taylor’s looking a little flushed IN THIS ISSUE

CONTENTS VOLUME 121 NO 4 JULY/AUGUST 2006

COVER STORY

12 STAYING AFLOAT Marking Fidel Castro’s 80th birthday, Isabella Thomas reflects on his remarkable resilience

FEATURES

16ALPHA MALE What do evangelical courses actually teach? Michael Marsden took one to find out

20‘MOSCOW ISN’T SODOM’ Merlin Holland’s eyewitness account of Moscow’s first Gay Pride march

26SPOOKS AND SANDALS MI5 kept tabs on folk singer Ewan MacColl for 40 years. Ken Hunt looks through his file

CULTURE 32BOOKS

SALLY FELDMAN spends the night with Howard Jacobson

TOBY SAUL on how Francis Wheen brings Das Kapital to life

WINSTON FLETCHER finds overstretch in an attempt to explain human nature

ERWIN JAMES goes inside the American prison system

MARTINA EVANS on a true story of changeling belief

38SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL Liz Funk sees through US raunch culture 39SUPREME BEING Ashley Kahn maps John Coltrane’s spiritual journey

22SUMMER QUIZ Blasphemers,holy books and utopias: they’re all here in Sally Feldman’s fiendish brain teaser

Rosé is all the rage this summer. Really. Bag yourself some rare Muscat rosé. See Terry Herbert’s wine offer exclusively for New Humanist readers page 31

NEWHUMANIST JULY/AUGUST 2006 5