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......

Brian Cox is widely admired for commanding performances in films like The Bourne Identity, Rushmore and the original Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. But like most actors from across the pond, the Scottish Cox originally built his reputation on decades of tireless stage work in theaters around the word. Until the stagehands’ strike shut down Broadway, he could be seen in the role of Max, a diehard British Marxist and Cambridge professor in Tom......

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is visiting Columbia University today to give a speech for the World Leaders Forum. And he continued to get a big New York-style welcome: The Daily News has its "The Evil Has Landed" cover while Assemblyman Dov Hikind told protesters outside Columbia's gates yesterday, “He should be arrested when he comes to Columbia University, not speak at the university, for God’s sake. I call on New Yorkers to make the......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: America at a Crossroads: Anti-Americans (A Hate/Love Relationship) (Monday, 10:00 P.M., WNET 13) A look at the Europeans love/hate relationship with the United States. Live From New York: The First 5 Years of Saturday Night Live (Tuesday, 8:00 P.M., WNBC 4) Two hours of classic SNL sketches and interviews with the performers who created them in this rebroadcast of this retrospective. Wide Angle: The Dying Fields (Tuesday,......

Brooke Gladstone is the managing editor and co-host of WNYC’s On the Media which is heard throughout the country on National Public Radio stations and as an internet podcast. She has won several awards, including two Peabody Awards, for her coverage at NPR, which she joined in 1987. She has been a foreign correspondent for NPR covering the reemergence of Russia out of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. She recently returned to Russia to......

EVENT: The New York Book Club at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum presents…"Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered New York City". The panelists include "Hal Buell, longtime AP photo editor who put images of the Vietnam War in newspapers across America; Richard Drew, AP photographer who has covered New York events including 9/11; Edie Lederer, longtime UN correspondent and first woman to be the foreign chief of bureau; and Valerie Komor, corporate......

While our comparatively well-paid proxies jetted off to enjoy their three-day weekends in the sun, Gothamist stayed home and indulged our sorrows with what we imagined (wrongly, as it happens) would be a journey into the bleakest corners of the former Soviet Union—Vostok, a traditional Bukharian restaurant deep in the heart of Boro Park. For the uninitiated, the term Bukharian refers to a community of Central Asian Jews originally coming out of the city of......

Mayor Bloomberg has been very busy since winning reelection last week. He visited a number of places of worship around town to thank voters for their support. He complained about the free-meter parking on Sunday rule that went into effect yesterday. And he wrote an editorial in the Daily News to tell New Yorkers how he wants to change the way judges get elected, saying the current process "bears more of a resemblance to voting......

In the his first event of the Olympics, Michael Phelps is already golden. The 19 year-old swimmer is attempting to win seven gold medals and tie Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one Olympic games. Spitz's record dates back to the 1972 Munich Games. The most medals of any color won in a single Olympics is eight by Aleksandr Dityatin of the Soviet Union in 1980. In today's race, Phelps broke his own......

Looking for a different perspective? Head to Bird's-Eye View, a Lomographic competition and exhibition. In June, artists and hobbyists armed with Lomo cameras were given three weeks to capture subjects and spaces in a way not normally experienced at eye level. The entries are on display in a large, mosaic presentation at SPRING 3D Magazine. Hailing from the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the no-frills Lomo Kompakt Automat camera was mass produced and sold......