Watercooler Stories

Mayor clears way for festival food

ALBUQUERQUE, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- St. Francis Xavier Church parishioners in Albuquerque will get to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe the old fashioned way, city officials say.

Mayor Martin Chavez told church leaders to go ahead and take their homemade posole, menudo, tamales and bizcochitors to church for the Dec. 14 celebration as they had for the past 84 years despite a city law, the Albuquerque Journal said.

The mayor also ordered the law be revised to allow churches and other groups to serve homemade dishes without violating city food-handling restrictions. He called a rigid interpretation of the city's food ordinance "plain silly," the newspaper reported.

Two weeks ago, city health officials told church leaders that food-handling laws prohibited parishioners from taking home-cooked food to church to serve an expected 500 people for the feast.

Parishioners faced the possibility of canned posole and store-bought desserts before they got the reprieve. However, standing in the wings were commercial kitchens and restaurants offering to help them out, the Journal said.

Bush name unlikely to dot U.S. landscape

WASHINGTON, Texas, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- George W. Bush is unlikely to find his name on a lot of buildings and geographical features after he becomes a former U.S. president Jan. 20.

At the moment, the 43rd president has an elementary school and road in Texas and two highways -- one in Ghana and one in the former Soviet republic of Georgia -- named after him, the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman reports.

First lady Laura Bush has done almost as well, with a school and a public library branch.

The president's father, by way of contrast, has an airport and turnpike in Texas, while the George H.W. Bush, the Navy's newest nuclear-powered carrier, is set for commissioning in January, and the CIA headquarters in Virginia is now the George H.W. Bush Center for Intelligence.

The younger Bush has popularity ratings lower than President Richard Nixon's at the time of his resignation, which is likely to slow any urge to name things in his honor, the newspaper said.

The Connecticut legislature rejected moves to give his name to an airport and road in New Haven, where he was born.

San Francisco voters rejected a plan Nov. 4 to name a sewage treatment plant after the current president, something that was not intended as a compliment.

Alleged scam artist posed as Army sergeant

WEST HARTFORD, Conn., Nov. 21 (UPI) -- A Connecticut man was arrested as he allegedly tried to cash a phony check wearing a phony U.S. Army sergeant's uniform bought online.

Orlando Ramos-Cabrera, 18, was decked out in full uniform with "Special Forces" and "Cavalry" patches when he went into a bank in West Hartford Thursday afternoon, The Hartford Courant reported. But some of the police officers who responded to a call of a potential fraud in progress were veterans and quickly recognized that the uniform was as fake as Ramos-Cabrera's check for $40,000 appeared to be.

Ramos-Cabrera, a Hartford resident, was allegedly driving a 2008 Dodge Charger he had just purchased from a dealer in East Hartford, police said. The car, allegedly paid for with another bad check, was seized by police.

Arrested at TD Bank North, Ramos-Cabrera was charged with first-degree larceny and illegal use of a uniform.

School denies underwear checks

WINCHESTER, England, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- A Winchester, England, school has denied claims that teachers have been checking students' underwear to be sure they comply with the dress code.

Parents of 11- through 16-year-old students at Kings School said their students were told during assemblies that boys are only to wear white or black underpants and girls are to only wear white or light-colored unpadded bras, The Daily Mail reported.

Some students claimed teachers were performing "spot checks" to ensure students were following the underwear rules.

Stuart Gander, whose daughters Chelsea, 15 and Kirby, 13, attend the school, said his children were told that the school considers colored bras "offensive."

"They were told they had to wear white ones or very light pale bras and they would be spot checked," Gander said. "You wouldn't be able to do that in a work place so why should you be able to do that at school?"

However, a school spokeswoman said female students were merely told what was appropriate dress for the school as a way to prepare them for the workplace.

"There is no rule, we are not checking underwear. We are not checking girls' bra straps and we have certainly not had an assembly with any of the boys telling them what color underwear to wear."