While The Blair Witch Project

explosion may have been the

entertainment horror story of

the summer, a nice sidelight has

been co-director Eduardo

Sánchez's efforts to

maintain a practically

first-name relationship with a fan

base that quickly grew into the

millions. We spoke with

Sánchez to get his

perspective on the phenomenon

— and to see if we could get

him to buy some Blair Witch

Incence [sic] for the Mind.

If you need further proof that

size matters in stardom,

consider the disparity in

actors' animal rights activism.

While strapping bucks like Alec

Baldwin take to the barricades

in defense of Central Park

carriage horses, the smallest of

creatures have only Mickey

Rooney as their champion. This

week, the diminutive star of

Cell Block Girls and Rudolph and

Frosty's Christmas in July held

a press conference decrying

crush video, the porn genre that

specializes in shots of women in

stiletto heels crushing frogs,

hamsters, and other tiny

critters. Don't get us wrong: We

share the Mickster's umbrage and

are happy to see that the

one-time box-office master is

still hip to true underground

culture. But after seeing

sophisticated city girls

figuratively crush Andy Hardy's

little heart in movie after

movie, we have to wonder if he

didn't somehow set the stage for

this deplorable "art" form.

Last week's discovery of Nazi

graffiti at Columbine High

School proves once again that

there is something rotten in

America's schools, but it took

sharp-eyed school security

officers in Harrison County,

Mississippi, to figure out that

the Jews are to blame. In

prohibiting 11th-grader Ryan

Green from wearing a Star of

David in school, the Harrison

County School Board invoked a

policy against gang symbols.

Which gang Ryan was representing

remains an open question, though

Mossad's official policy is to

avoid recruiting minors except

when absolutely necessary. The

school board's decision to

reverse its policy and allow

Green to wear his colors is

being attributed to pressure

from both Pat Robertson and the

ACLU (reports that Ryan's father

Tom Green threatened a campaign

of slow-moving, comedy

performance pieces against the

school have proved groundless).

The boy's family says it is

"truly joyous" and looking

forward to the time when the

school will begin forcing the

boy to pledge his love of Jesus

at the start of every school

day.

While you still can't get a

disease from a toilet seat,

simple numbers made it

inevitable that we would see an

Internet-generated STD outbreak

eventually. Health officials

have traced an outbreak of

syphilis to SFM4M, America

Online's chat area for gay men

in the San Francisco area.

Sparking seven infections, the

incident made for a brief

privacy-versus-public-health

debate. The matter was solved

quickly when members of Planet

Out took to the chat room to

spread the safety-first message.

Fears of further infections

subsided when it was discovered

that all the other chatters were

gay bashers who went there

specifically to talk

about beating up homos.

The organizers of Brady World

have alerted us to a shortage of

congratulatory messages on the

Official Florence Henderson

site. Mrs. Brady's new status as

the co-host of Later Today

offers a chance for

post-post-post-ironic fans to

send her messages of

congratulations. So far, only 10

people have bothered, a number

we find almost low enough to be

encouraging. If you're a Brady

fan, please post your miserable

message so we'll know to avoid

you in the future.

Make no mistake: Between the

screaming fans, the media

interviews, the sold-out

theaters, and the

celebrity-studded cocktail

galas, the life of a religious

ascetic can be mighty stressful.

In fact, it can be enough to

make a Buddhist monk reach for

the Xanax. That was made clear

during the Dalai Lama's recent

victory tour of New York City.

In the hottest Central Park gig

since cowboy-hatted stooge Garth

Brooks performed a free concert,

tens of thousands of New Yorkers

gathered to watch the feel-good

guru model the latest

free-flowing Tibetan fashions

and hear him explain why they

should count to 10 the next time

the clerk at Starbucks keeps

them waiting more than six

seconds for their mocha lattes.

Whether his plugs for compassion

and reflection were getting

through to a crowd more likely

to have an ecstatic experience

at Bergdorf's than a Buddhist

temple wasn't entirely clear,

though some serenely managed to

capture it on videotape for

later home viewing. "As soon as

he started talking about peace,

people were yelling at each

other to sit down," one

spiritual seeker complained to

the Daily News. Nobody ever said

enlightenment was easy.