Congress has decided to postpone the vote on the Internet anti-piracy bills, Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, after widespread outrage from Internet companies and most anyone who uses the Internet. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) Tweeted, "In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday's vote on the PROTECT IP Act #PIPA." more ›

The Brooklyn Museum is under fire today from the Daily News, which is horribly offended by the institution's plans to screen an avant-garde film with a 10-second shot of ants crawling over a crucifix. The tabloid previously flipped its lid over the Museum's graffiti exhibit, so this shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but this is a debate that's staler than communion wafers. more ›

Is Yahoo blocking emails with links to the Occupy Wall Street website? The short answer is yes, sometimes. We were able to send emails through our ancient, all-but-forgotten Yahoo accounts (it's been a while, Chunkylover53@yahoo.com!) but check out this video, which shows someone trying and failing to send an email with the www.occupywallstreet.org url in the body. After clicking send, the user is told: "Your message was not sent. Suspicious activity has been detected on your account. To protect your account and our users, your message has not been sent." Instead, check out this teaser for tonight's new episode of "Raising Hope"! more ›

Yesterday came the disheartening news that a New Jersey school was booting two books, Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood and Nic Sheff's Tweak, off their summer reading list after parents complained about the (limited) gay sex scenes in the books. Today, Wood's publisher, Knopf, sticks up for their author, calling out the district for succumbing to the pressures of a small handful of parents. more ›

A New Jersey school has dropped two popular books with—gasp! Gay sex scenes!—from their required reading lists, and apologized to parents for exposing their children to such a morally reprehensible act. The books? Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood and Nic Sheff's Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines . The meth and mental instability and suicide that make up the other major themes in the books? Those are apparently just fine. more ›

In the old days, it was enough for teachers to air their grievances in the mysterious smoke-filled teacher's lounge, where they gossiped about students and had coke-fueled sex orgies. But this is the Internet age, and kvetching in person just isn't enough anymore. That's why a Fresh Meadows teacher started the website Burn and Rot in Hell, a message board where visitors are encouraged to vent about everything from "sex" to "bad students" to "other stuff." It's healthy to blow off steam, but the wholesome administrators at St. Francis Prep School (Home of the Fightin' Swine Flu!) think the website is inappropriate, and they've suspended teacher Elizabeth Cucinotta without pay. more ›

Yesterday a group of artists and activists took to the cold city streets to protest censorship in art, specifically, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's decision to pull a video by late artist David Wojnarowicz. Amongst the images in the video, called "A Fire in My Belly" (below), is one of ants crawling over a crucified Jesus. The work was part of the Washington exhibit "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture," according to the Daily News, but was pulled when members of Congress and William Donohue of the Catholic League disapproved. A Smithsonian rep says, "It was becoming all about the video. We tried to avoid removing it. But it would have been the focal point, and everyone would have gone straight to that. It was overwhelming everything else. That's all everyone was talking about." Yes, please stop talking about the art, people—it should be about pretty pictures that don't evoke emotions. more ›

Responding to reports that BP was restricting media access to public beaches and other areas affected by the Gulf oil spill, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said in a statement on June 9th: "BP has not and will not prevent anyone working in the the cleanup operations from sharing his or her own experiences and opinions." Two days later, a New Orleans-based TV News reporter tried to interview some clean-up workers on a public beach. Watch the infuriating video: more ›

Irishman Phelim McAleer is a former journalist turned filmmaker whose most recent work is the "anti-environmentalist" documentary Mine Your Own Business. So, yeah, he's part of the head-in-the-sand camp which future generations will likely regard with unspeakable contempt as they hoard fuel Mad Max-style in a miserable, eco-apocalyptic landscape. Which is exactly what the well-intentioned new documentary The Age of Stupid is about; it stars Pete Postlethwaite as a global archivist living in 2055, flipping through the pivotal news stories from 2004 - 2008 and wondering why we didn’t stop global warming when we had a chance. more ›

Another clash of the art world and the religious reich is going down in the East Village. The AP reports that a "Roman Catholic watchdog group is protesting a student art exhibition that includes vulgar depictions of religious symbols including a crucifix and rosary." Just how does one depict a rosary as vulgar? There are ways:

The target of the protest is a series of paintings by Felipe Baeza. One of them depicts a man with his pants down and a crucifix in his rectum. A Latin caption says, "The day I became a Catholic." Another painting shows rosaries with male genitalia and a third, a man with a halo and erection.

Surely there is a difference between art, traditionally understood as conveying beauty, and junk. I have the sneaking suspicion that these paintings made the cut precisely because they were an assault on Catholic sensibilities. No, I can’t prove what the motive was, but I can be deadly certain that if even a reverential portrait of Muhammad had been offered, it would have been rejected. I hasten to add that if a reverential portrait of Jesus had been submitted, it too would have been rejected, but for entirely different reasons.”

UPDATE: It appears I may have been punk'd. Bwog is reporting that there was no vote to ban JuicyCampus by Columbia's student council. The university magazine talked to a student council VP of Policy who "claims that a mischievous tipster must have sent in a fake tip to Gothamist and the [New York] Post." No tip was received at Gothamist, but the Post was the source of this afternoon's item, along with background from The Spectator. more ›