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......

As most of yesterday's political news attention was on the fate of Florida's and Michigan's delegates, presidential hopeful Barack Obama announced his family "withdrew their membership at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ." The church, which he has described as where he found his spirituality, had become a favorite target of opponents, after it was reported his former pastor and mentor Jeremiah Wright made remarks implying America got what it deserved on September 11 and......

The Staten Island Advance has been following the turmoil brewing between a Wiccan family and their neighbors. The South Shore home at the center of the controversy is a duplex, half belonging to the Wiccan devotees, Ivy Colmer Vanderborgh, her husband and mother (the husband isn't Wiccan). Not hiding their practices, their property is decorated with a "witchy weather vane and cauldron out front," along with a massive stained-glass pentacle. Before the front yard cauldron......

Professor, author and activist Robert Thurman is widely regarded as the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism, having been a major force in the widespread introduction of Tibetan culture and religion to the west. In 1962, Thurman became the first American ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, but after a few years he shifted from strict monasticism to the more conventional lifestyle of an academic. Though currently on sabbatical to write another book, Thurman remains......

The NYPD detectives working the homicide investigation of Carol Simon have identified a suspect in her killing, although they are not publicizing his identity. Simon was shot as she was returning to her car where her son was waiting for her at a gas station. The killing occurred Saturday evening in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, as an argument between two men turned violent and one of the men pulled a gun. Neighbors and......

SFist witnessed a student interrupt Sean Penn's Dennis Kucinich-endorsement speech at San Francisco State University, with sexy results. Sort of. Speaking of sort of sexy, SFist readers demanded to know: at what age does one become a cougar most? In local political news, it looked like San Francisco Public Utilities Commission chief Susan Leal might get the ax. Au revoir! And we found a startling aesthetic connection between the Omaha mall shooter and Rick......

The NY Post has another story in the ongoing ogling at Theresa Duncan's death. The East Village artist apparently "fell into suicidal depression after telling friends that oddball rocker Beck backed out of her movie project." So now we have yet another baffling peek into the paranoid mindset Duncan and her long time boyfriend Jeremy Blake were in when they committed suicide, just one week apart from each other. In the January issue of Vanity......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Art in the Twenty-First Century (Sunday, 10:00 p.m., WNET 13) Four artists - Robert Adams, Mark Dion , Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle Ursula von Rydingsvard – who explore the intersection between nature and culture. Billy Crystal: The Mark Twain Prize (Monday & Thursday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13; Saturday, 7:30 p.m. WLIW 21) Billy Crystal receives the tenth annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in......

EVENT: Tonight, as part of the recurring Upstairs at the Square event, Nellie McKay plays tunes from her latest, Obligatory Villager and host Katherine Lanpher talks with author and filmmaker Antonio Monda. Monda's new book Do You Believe? Conversations on God and Religion will hit shelves soon -- and tonight he'll relay the discussions he had about religion with folks like Spike Lee and David Lynch. 7pm // Barnes & Noble [33 E 17th St]......

MOVIE: Somewhere between Han Solo and Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford (pictured) starred in Ridley Scott's 1982 cult classic Blade Runner, which has been screening over at the Ziegfeld. This director's cut version includes more fights! And more special effects! And way more cyberpunk attitude! 5:30 and 8:30pm // Ziegfeld [141 W 54th St] // $11 READING: Earlier today Rosie O'Donnell was there, but tonight Shalom Auslander will spend some time at Barnes & Noble reading......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 126th St. in Manhattan, another shooting on Intervale Ave. and East 163rd St. in the Bronx, and a stabbing on Rockaway and Pitken Aves. in Brooklyn. Atlantic City's Borgata casino was in flames this morning. Connecticut's Governor suspended parole for inmates convicted of violent crimes after NYC cops shot a convict who drove a car stolen at knife point into the city. A Norwegian Cruise Line......

Can someone's religion shield her from charges for smuggling bushmeat into the United States? The NY Sun has a fascinating article about the case of a woman who is facing criminal prosecution for bringing "steaks of monkey meat" from Guinea to NYC. The Scopes Monkey Trial, this is not, but Milbank, Tweed Hadley & McCloy is representing Mamie Manneh on a pro bono basis. Manneh was arrested when she brought 65 pieces of smoked bushmeat,......

Rev. John Carmichael is the President of the Church of Scientology in New York. We recently asked him a few questions about his church, New York, Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake and the subway stress tests. We're turning comments on for this interview, which is something we don't normally do. There are a lot of myths that fly around about your religion, could you please tell us about some of the basics of Scientology?......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a vessel in distress off Rikers Island in the East River, a dead body found in the East River off Roosevelt Island and Queens, and an industrial accident on 52nd Ave. in Queens. Confirming recent speculation, The New York Times is cancelling its TimesSelect initiative, in which people subscribed to read a number of columnists and other special online content. Mayor Bloomberg signed autographs, greeted courtroom personnel, and posed......

The blog Boy Culture ran into (an all too common these days) "Travolting display" in the subway system over the weekend. Scientologists! The religion cult "legendarily opportunistic Church Of Scientology" is back underground giving out free stress tests. Though police kicked them out in 2005 for violating New York City Transit rules about vending in the subways, it seems they've still had a presence down there and, from this photo (taken in late 2006), they're......

MOVIES: With another version of Hairspray hitting the big screen this summer, it seems to be a season of decades past and, of course, hair! Movies With a View brings back the musical tale of Central Park hippies, small town boys headed to Vietnam and the '60s as they show the film Hair tonight. Deejays at 6pm, Movie at Sundown // Empire Fulton State Park, Dumbo // Free It's the last night to catch Punk's......

The Simpsons Movie (directed by David Silverman) This weekend marks the move of America's favorite dysfunctional family the Simpsons from the suburbs of television to the urban center of the big screen. After all of the viral marketing of Simpson-ified magazine editors, real life Kwik-E-Marts and ticket giveaways, is it too much to hope that there's still fresh material to be mined from the long-running animated sitcom? According to the critics, the movie is just......

Natasha Khan is better known as the singer-songwriter behind Bat for Lashes, a band recently nominated for the Mercury Prize. Khan weaves a world all her own with her music and artwork, and happily invites anyone to come join her there. We wouldn't be surprised if at university she majored in nostalgia, with so much attention drawn back to childhood in her work. Her wide-eyed world of yesteryear is a little bit magical, a little......

Expensive designer jeans - the downfall of criminals! The police - and onlookers - ended up chasing a pair of women who had been using a stolen credit card in Soho for many blocks yesterday afternoon. A cashier at the True Religion denim store on Prince Street noticed that Frances Chanelle was using a stolen Discover card - and a forged Virginia's driver license - when buying $1,500 in clothing, so the store called......

Yesterday was the 38th Annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride March, and thousands of people participated - from shimmying and showing off their outrageous costumes to waving gay pride flags and hollering their support. The grand marshals of the parade were religious leaders Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum and Reverend Dr. Troy Perry; Kleinbaum said, "We stand for a progressive religious voice. Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda I believe are blaspheming......

Not long after their triumphant The Threepenny Opera (and the not-so-triumphant Wall Street crash of 1929), Bertolt Brecht and his close collaborator Elisabeth Hauptmann began assembling Saint Joan of the Stockyards from the spare parts of Happy End, the critically maligned follow-up to Threepenny (both with music by Kurt Weill). The story was heavily influenced by Brecht’s first dip into Marxism, not to mention Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan......

Mayor Bloomberg has been an independent all of a couple days, but there is tons of ink being devoted to his chances. The most interesting story is from the NY Sun, which offers various scenarios where Bloomberg could win the 2008 presidential election (not that he wants to run for president). For instance, he'd need the Northeast, West Coast, Florida, and Heartland states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, etc. And if "extreme" candidates run in......

Architectural firm Kohn Pederson Fox has drawn up plans for the new JPMorganChase building that will arise near the southeast area of Ground Zero. It involves an interesting integration with the rebuilt St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. The 40-story tower will include seven cantilevered trading floors that will extend from the tower and cover the diminuitive church. The benefits of the overshadowing are being widely lauded. Gov. Spitzer......

When the son of famed televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jay Bakker, made the decision to be a “gay affirming” pastor, his life was almost ruined for the second time. Financial backers dropped him, he had to let go of some of his staff, and churches he was scheduled to speak at pulled out. Now Jay speaks at a different set of churches. Last Saturday we saw him at the Middle Collegiate Church,......

Students at all NYC schools have a day off today in what is officially noted on the Dept. of Education's calendar as a Chancellor's Conference Day for Staff Development. That dry description actually masks the fact that today's day off from school is a tradition that dates back to 1829 and used to be one of the most widely celebrated holidays in Brooklyn and Queens. Dating back 178 years, Anniversary Day was a school holiday......

The fight between boys at a Queens public school that led to a Sikh classmate's hair being cut off was classified as a hate crime by the authorities. The Queens DA's office and the NYPD gave a few more details. The NY Times reports that 17-year-old Umair Ahmed, a Pakistani student, and Vacher Harpal, a 15-year-old Sikh, "had had an argument and that Vacher had made derogatory comments about Mr. Ahmed’s mother." And though Vacher......

Beware the yo mama joke: After some "friends" were yo-mama-joking around at Newtown High School in Elmhurst, two students cut off the hair of another student. And the victim is a Sikh, whose religion requires long hair to be worn. Apparently Pakistani students Waqas Ali and Umair Ahmed had been joking with Sikh student Harpaal Vashar, although some other reports claim that they were trading insults. But Vashar's joke went too far, and Ahmed would......

There's nothing quite like religion and politics to get people worked up. In a debate Monday night at the New York Public Library, Al Sharpton seemingly combined both, saying, "As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don’t worry, that’s a temporary situation." The Mormon in question is Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. Sharpton was debating with Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is......

READING: FreeNYC points us to a reading at B&N featuring Gong Show guru and possible CIA assassin, Chuck Barris: "In addition to bringing the world the Newlywed Game, the Gong Show and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Chuck Barris has now turned his attention to the phenomenon of reality TV in The Big Question, a dystopian view of what television will become in the near future.Come meet Barris and have your copy of his latest......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Saturday Night Live in the '90s: Pop Culture Nation (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., WNBC 4) A look back at SNL in the 1990s with clips and interviews with former cast members. The Mormons (Sunday 9:00 p.m., WLIW 21) If you missed it last week on WNET, here is your chance to take a watch at this two part look at the Mormons which is a collaboration of two......