Blessed Virgin Mary

Mariachi Imperial de America Helps Celebrate La Virgen de Guadalupe

Check out our slideshow from yesterday's Feast of the Virgen de Guadalupe. For Mexicanos and Mexico-Americanos, there is nothing better than mariachi music to help celebrate a wedding, birthday, funeral, graduation, hiring, firing, or national or religious holiday. The music is both fancy and acces ... More >>

Santa Muerte: Know Your Narco Saints

The religious iconography of the drug trade.

Know Your Narco Saints: The Religious Iconography of the Drug Trade

Santa Muerte, the newly-popular Grim Reaper-like Mexican folk saint, and subject of this week's cover story, is not the only object of supernatural devotion in the drug trade. Far from it. In fact, she's something of a Johnny-come-lately in Mexican folk religion. For as long as there have been smug ... More >>

Vladimir Putin: No Pussy Riot On His Watch

Above: Video of the performance that got three Moscow punk rockers arrested If he were still alive, Frank Zappa would have a field day with this one. Just when we thought the Montgomery County sheriff's department was setting the standard for dodgy tactics and thought control with Friday's suspici ... More >>

''The Heart of Mary/El Corazón de Maria''

Wittenberg

San Benito Teacher Replaced After Bizarre Classroom Rant About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, UFOs & The Apocalypse

A ninth-grade teacher at San Benito's Veterans Memorial High School has been replaced for the remainder of the year after her lesson plan went badly awry last Tuesday and her 12-minute rant was filmed by a student and uploaded to YouTube. Before the teacher was done, she told a roomful of alternate ... More >>

Bus Rider's Nightmare: Man Hassles Her, Follows Her off the Bus & Rapes Her

Houston Police and Crime Stoppers are looking for help in finding a man who was the nightmare no bus passenger wants to endure. Last Wednesday at 1:45 p.m., a 31-year-old woman was walking to the Metro stop at Wayside Drive and Lawndale when she was approached by a man who wanted to talk. She pref ... More >>

Sister's Holy Humor Is Back with Late Nite Catechism

The setup: Denise Fennell, as the teaching nun "Sister," starred in Easter Catechism last year in an extended run, and she returns again with fresh material in a one-person show, Late Nite Catechism, to chide us for our sins, offering the joy of laughter and the forgiveness of holy humor. The ex ... More >>

Capsule Stage Reviews: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Cinderella, Fruitcakes, The Santaland Diaries

Capsule Stage Reviews: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, A Christmas Story — A Ghost Story of Christmas, Fruitcakes, The Nutcracker, The Santaland Diaries

Memoirs of the Sistahood: Chapter Three: Ave Maria

Dia de las Tequilas

El Gran Malo is Houston's first infused-tequila bar, with a side of voodoo.

"Jeroni White Feather": Who Is She?

Update: We're told she has been identified. Harris County investigators are looking for information to clear up the mystery of a woman's body found wearing men's clothes with a plaintive note in a pocket. The woman, 5-2, 100 pounds, believed to be between 25 and 40 years old, was found in Spring F ... More >>

Four Loko No Mo'

Drink faces Texas ban.

Four Loko Soon Banned In Texas?

Four Loko: Someone has to cover it​It's funny how certain things become your beat. Some guys get latched onto animal rights, some find their niche working for homeless people, while other find themselves covering a can of liquid death, in my case, Four Loko. I was the one who drank three can ... More >>

Upcoming Events

Best make your Halloween plans now so you don't end up sitting at home alone, decorating pumpkins with leftover vegetables you found while cleaning out your crisper drawers...alone...on Halloween.​This coming Wednesday, all you need is basic cable and Twitter to participate in Bon AppeTweet, a ... More >>

Tiffany Young-Hartley: A Clairvoyant Sheriff, Vanishing Suspects, Whoring Politicos, Incompetent Pot Smugglers, And Weird Facebook Photos

Still a lot of unanswered questions​Some law officers will tell you they develop a sixth sense about crime. They will say that even while they are driving to work, they know the kind of mayhem their shift will bring. But as Talking Points Memo notes, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez's ES ... More >>

Live From The Austin City Limits Festival, Day 3

Marco TorresTrombone Shorty​Craig Hlavaty: News coming out of the media tent: Don Henley of the Eagles had a stent put in his heart this past week. He will be singing and possibly playing guitar, but not exerting himself on drums. This could very well be the last Eagles show for a while - if e ... More >>

Top 5 Great Moments in Divine Food Intervention: All Hail the Grilled Cheesus!

Lupe Ontiveros in the 2007 film Tortilla Heaven.​The controversial installment of Glee that aired last night, the third of season two, centered on spirituality and a very spiritual sandwich. The episode opened with Finn Hudson's (Cory Montieth) existential crisis, brought on by the manifestat ... More >>

High School Football: If Hollywood Were In Control, These Five Things Would Happen

Sacred grounds​This evening marks the start of another high school football season. Entire cities and towns will be shuttering their doors and congregating at the central holy ground: the football stadium. Well, that may not be the case in Houston, but certainly in Dillon and West Canaan. (Oh, tho ... More >>

Valley Weekend Mayhem Proves God, Intoxicants, And Knives Don't Mix

Photo courtesy Hidalgo Co Sheriff's Office​Catholicism, knives, and intoxicants proved to be a potent stew in two incidents in and around the Rio Grande Valley town of Edinburg over the weekend. One is kind of funny... When Hidalgo County police found 20-year-old Agustin Casanova hiding in a ... More >>

Look! It's Jesus! In Everything From Kit Kats To Cheetos To Toast

Harry and Sandra Choron, both with long-term experience in the publishing business, have released their latest book, Look! It's Jesus!. You can tell from the cover (a slice of toast with an image of Jesus burned on to it) that the Choron's approached the project with a mix of awe and a sense of ... More >>

Minute by Minute at Robin Thicke's Sex Therapy Listening Party

Photos by Marco Torres​ 7:15 p.m. Ack. Parking on Washington Avenue at night is just about the worst. It's such an uneasy feeling. If we had to choose between parking on Washington or juggling knives with no pants on, it'd end up being something we actually had to think about. We mean, we're just ... More >>

Texas Traveler: Houston Haunts

Photos by Brittanie SheyEntrance to the Donnellan vault below the Franklin Street Bridge​Texas Traveler has spent the better part of the month checking out some of the creepiest, oldest, most interesting parts of Houston and it's neighboring cities, and to wrap up the month we have a few more ... More >>

Houston Leads The Nation In Young-Teen Moms: A Good Thing?

​People are up in arms (Are people ever "down on arms"?) about a new report that shows Houston leads the nation in teen births, at least among women aged 15 or less.Abstinence-only ain't working, we need more abstinence-only, yadda yadda yadda.Sure, having a baby when you're 15 isn't the best choi ... More >>

Iconoclastically Yours

Local graffiti artist DUAL is bringing his work off the streets, sort of

Robert Downey Jr. Plays Jesus for Artist Sam Taylor-Wood

Anything for Art

Jesus on a Pole -- Updated

“Interwoven Traditions: The Spiritual Journey from African to African-American” and “The Road to the Promised Land: Martin Luther King Jr. & the Civil Rights Movement”

Two exhibits examine the history of black Americans

“Houston Cultura”

Chuy Benitez goes round and round with his series of panoramic photographs

What’s That Dirt on Your Head? Oh Yeah, It’s Ash Wednesday

Steve Trevino

This Latin comic didn’t just jump on the Mencia bandwagon

Sweet Mary, Mother of God!

Hey, what do you know, Joe?

Taco War on Caroline

Taco War on Caroline

The Passion of the Christ: A Very Special Episode

Conception far from immaculate in teenybop retelling

The Delightful Dud

Why Do Mexicans See the Virgin Mary in the Stupidest Things?

The Mexican replies

Tale of Two Cities

Catholic priest John Chinh Tran re-created Vietnam's Thai Xuan Village in Houston with an iron hand. These days his control is slipping away.

Best Comedian

Chingo Bling

You'll Cry, You'll Laugh

Theater LaB and Stages prove 'tis better to be funny than to take yourself too seriously

Non Mall Shopping Adventures

Shopping adventures

News Hostage

Conan Was a Warrior

The Antihero

Is Bill Davenport's art stupid? Yeah. Brilliant? That, too.

Letters

Virgin Rebirth

The statue doesn't look like a traditional Our Lady of Guadalupe. But its appearance is just the start of the

'Round Yonder Virgin

A Family Affair

Roland Garcia has the political backing to be the U.S. Attorney for South Texas. He also has a brother imprisoned for murder and drug trafficking -- a fact he somehow forgot to tell his congressional sponsors. That may not be enough to disqualify him, but