From the AP

Backing away from a confrontation with religious groups, NBC said Thursday it has decided not to show pictures of Madonna mounting a Crucifix when it airs a concert special with the pop star next month....

During the provocative passage in her concert, Madonna is shown on a mirrored cross wearing a crown of thorns. She has explained that it was meant to illustrate a theme of confession.

But this angered some religious leaders, who called it a bad-taste publicity stunt. Several religious groups in the United States told NBC they would organize a boycott of one of the concert's commercial sponsors if the cross scene appeared, and were meeting next week to decide which company to target.

NBC didn't explain its decision, with a spokeswoman saying the network doesn't discuss how its editorial decisions are made. NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly ducked out of an industry function in Los Angeles Thursday before reporters could reach him.

''NBC did the right thing, but the fact that it did not say why the offensive part of Madonna's concert was cut shows cowardice,'' said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League. ''What NBC should have done is to admit that since it refused to air the Danish cartoons that Muslims objected to earlier in the year, it felt obliged not to treat Christians in a discriminatory manner.'' [...]

The pop star, whose video for ''Like a Prayer'' likewise left some religious leaders cold two decades ago, explained earlier that she wasn't mocking the church and considered the scene no different than a person who wears a cross.

Asked about it an interview late this summer, Reilly told TVGuide.com that the crucifixion scene would probably be in the special. He said Madonna ''felt strongly about it.''

''We viewed it and, although Madonna is known for being provocative, we didn't see it as being ultimately inappropriate,'' Reilly said then, according to the Web site.

From the AP via Huffpost

A leading opera house canceled a 3-year-old production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" that included a scene showing the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, unleashing a furious debate over free speech. In a statement late Monday, the Deutsche Oper said it decided "with great regret" to cancel the production after Berlin security officials warned of an "incalculable risk" because of the scene.

After its premiere in 2003, the production by Hans Neuenfels drew widespread criticism over the scene in which King Idomeneo presents the severed heads not only of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon, but also of Muhammad, Jesus and Buddha. The disputed scene is not part of Mozart's original staging of the 225-year-old opera, but was an addition of Neuenfels' production, which was last performed by the company in March 2004.

"We know the consequences of the conflict over the (Muhammad) caricatures," Deutsche Oper said its statement announcing the decision. "We believe that needs to be taken very seriously and hope for your support." READ IT ALL

From NY Times

NBC has drawn protests this week from religious conservatives over the content of two television shows, but for different reasons—in one instance for excluding references to God and in the other for possibly including religious imagery.

The disputes, over the network’s proposed broadcast of a Madonna concert that includes a crucifixion scene and over its cutting religious references from the animated children’s show “VeggieTales,” have some critics charging that NBC maintains a double standard toward Christianity.

University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily doesn't think its student body can handle a few Jesus cartoons. Read all about it and see the "offensive" cartoons here.

From the Washington Post:

Third-year student Grant Woolard drew the comics for the Cavalier Daily, one of which is called "Christ on a Cartesian Coordinate Plane," with a drawing of the X and Y axes over his figure on the cross. The other, "A Nativity Ob-scene," is of Joseph and the Virgin Mary talking about a bumpy rash she has, with her saying, "I swear, it was immaculately transmitted!" [...]

Form e-mails from members across the country have pelted the U-Va. president's office and the Cavalier Daily.

Carol Wood, a U-Va. spokeswoman, said they have gotten between 2,000 and 2,500 letters and about 50 phone calls, primarily from people outside the university. She said the school's response has been that while the writers' concerns are understood, the Cavalier Daily is an independent newspaper and the school must uphold freedoms of speech, expression and the press.... The editor in chief, Michael Slaven, referred to an editorial earlier this week that read, in part, ". . . we regret being thrust into the culture war in this way. . . . Just because a comic appears in our pages does not mean that the editors agree with the point or even find it in good taste. It only means that the comic fails to meet specific criteria that warrant censorship. "

Kevin Simowitz, chairman of Catholic Student Ministries at U-Va., said: "If they were putting out a comic that was challenging and intriguing and funny and cutting edge, that's one thing. When it's tasteless and not useful, and doesn't spark debate, and just offends . . . they deserve all the flak they get."

From MosNews

Orthodox and patriotic forces are meeting at Pushkin Square in downtown Moscow in a demonstration against Madonna’s forthcoming Moscow show.

Some 100 people holding banners and orthodox flags with large crucifixes placed in the center are participating in the meeting, Interfax reports.

“We declare a new Holy Inquisition that will fight against the sacrilege of crosses, icons, Russian Orthodox symbols, including during Madonna’s show. The singer is an advocate of Kabbalah,” chairman of the Union of Orthodox flag-bearers Leonid Simonovich-Nikshich said at the meeting.

The main goal of the inquisition will be “to fight against slander, rather than to kill people,” he said. READ IT ALL

Some fundamentalist loon is trying to initiate a boycott of our new book. Pro-Jesus, the "home of the pro-active, pro-freedom, pro-family, pro-Christian boycott" claims our book is "WAY out of bounds" and "strikes beneath the belt." Guess they've never heard of free speech. We don't know if we should be honored or deeply distraught. Enter pro-jesus at your own risk.

New PBS CEO Paula Kerger says "bring it on"

Last week the FCC issued a S15,000 fine to a PBS station in Northern California. The crime? The PBS affiliate aired a Scorsese documentary on the Blues that contained two "inappropriate" words. (Incidentally, harsher language was allowed to be broadcast in prime time by the FCC who issued no fines for the airing of Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. Does the FCC prefer Spielberg to Scorsese?). Infuriated by the infringement upon free speech and unclear obscenity guidelines issued by the FCC, PBS is ready for a fight. [From SF Chronicle]

The current Issue du Jour at PBS as it pertains to cowering from government fines relates first to San Mateo station KCSM - which is facing potential fines for showing, of all things, Martin Scorsese's documentary about blues music - and Ken Burns, who's making a documentary called "The War" (fall of 2007) and who's worried that swearing may result in the FCC going ballistic in response to people at the Parents Television Council who think war should be "heck" and not "hell." For the safety of the kids, I suppose. [...]

What has been so encouraging during the two days of PBS here, which closes out the TV critics' summer press tour, is that new president and CEO Paula Kerger seems to be more upset and thus proactive than past leadership on the FCC issue:

"The situation with the FCC is tremendously concerning," she said.... As you know, there is a case pending now with our station in San Mateo around the broadcast of Martin Scorsese's 'The Blues.'We are filing, I think next week, August 2nd, an amicus brief. And as part of that ruling - as part of that case, we have provided additional legal support to KCSM. We think that this is a tremendously important issue. It is an issue because of free speech. It is an issue because our filmmakers deserve to be able to tell their stories and tell them well. And we, as an industry, are very concerned. When you have stations whose operating budgets in some cases are only a couple million dollars, even, frankly, the old fines, once you factor in all the legal work and so forth, were daunting. The fines now would put stations out of business, and we cannot allow that to happen... this is not just about Janet Jackson, that this is about filmmakers that have powerful stories that now are not being allowed to tell those stories on public television or on broadcast television... I think that we certainly have a couple cases coming up that I hope we as an industry will stand together and be bold and sort of 'bring it on.'"