Surprise!

This update originally aired on April 8, 2008

Friday's Rush Morning Update:

"Hey, folks: I have three surprising items for you today.

First: Curators at the museum of the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Vienna are surprised at the outpouring of anger over a current exhibit. The museum is honoring 80-year-old Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka (Herd-licker?): atheist, communist, antiwar activist is who he is. (Herd-licker?) One of his sculptures depicts the crucified Christ without a face -- or loincloth. A painting of the crucifixion shows a soldier beating Jesus... while fondling him. The most widely criticized "art" is a painting of the Last Supper with the apostles engaging in what the artist calls "a homosexual orgy." (That's why his name's Herd-licker!)The curators of the Catholic museum don't understand why people consider the works blasphemous.

Closer to home, in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, school authorities were surprised by the response to this year's "Wacky Day." Students at Pineview Elementary school were encouraged to dress either as senior citizens or members of the opposite sex. The school was flooded with protests after local radio picked up the story. School District administrator Tom Benson assures everybody that encouraging the kids to cross-dress was not an attempt to promote cross-dressing. (Why would anybody think that?)

Final surprise: The 9th Circus Court of Appeals ruled the website Roommates.com cannot require its users to identify their sexual preference while seeking out -- or applying to be -- a roommate. So the real surprise, for some of these lucky users, will come later.

Don't you just love surprises, folks? Especially the way I tell you about them?"

Rush's References:

Reuters: Erotic Jesus Sparks Art Debate in Austria
Reuters: Straight or Gay? US Court Says Website Can't Ask