Watercooler Stories

Arts grant awarded for buttocks sculptures

SWANSEA, Wales, June 29 (UPI) -- A Welsh artist says she has gotten $33,000 to create plaster casts of women's buttocks in a bid to get to bottom of cultural attitudes about female fannies.

Sue Williams, of Swansea, Wales, will use the money from the Arts Council of Wales to mould a series of plaster casts of women's bottoms, starting with her own, to examine the "racial fetishism" of the backside in African and European societies, The Times of London reported.

"The project is taking on the issues around the bottom and how it is viewed in contemporary culture and viewed by the male," she said. "For example, it is quite clear that the bottom is sacrosanct to the African man and woman."

The arts grants are funded by lottery sales and are supposed to be used for "good causes." One member of the British Parliament questioned whether Williams' sculptures qualify.

"No doubt there are some people who consider this a good cause, but the majority of people buying lottery tickets are bound to question this," Adrian Sanders, a Liberal Democrat member of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, told The Times.

Mayor barred from posting on town Web site

INDIAN TRAIL, N.C., June 29 (UPI) -- Council members in a North Carolina town barred its mayor from posting the town's newsletter on its Web site, citing what they call his negative comments.

Indian Trail Mayor John Quinn countered that the ban -- the latest action the council has taken against him -- was enacted based on misinformation that he was harassing some council members, The Charlotte Observer reported.

Council members said the mayor's comments should reflect well on the town and should have focused on events such as Indian Trail's new farmers market and passage of the town's budget without a tax increase.

"It doesn't mention anything positive since the last newsletter went out," Council Member Dan Schallenkamp said of the mayor's newsletter comments.

Previously, the council voted to deny Quinn contact with town employees except through Interim Town Manager Peggy Piontek, and ruled he cannot enter non-public areas of the town tall without Piontek's permission.

Filipino inmates honor Jackson by dancing

OPRA, Philippines, June 29 (UPI) -- Hundreds of inmates in a Philippines prison honored the late pop icon Michael Jackson the way they've always celebrated his music, officials said, by dancing.

During the past two years, the more than 1,000 prisoners of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center have routinely danced in unison to Jackson's "Thriller" album. The spectacle of the orange uniform-clad men's synchronized dancing not only attracted hundreds of curiosity-seekers to the prison but a video of it became an Internet sensation. The 4-minute video clip attracted 23 million views after being posted in 2007.

"He is like the God to them. It is Michael's music that gives them international recognition," Byron Garcia, a security consultant at the prison told Xinhua inside the sprawling jail.

After Jackson died Thursday, the prisoners decided to perform to four Jackson songs in a row as a final tribute.

The 1,581 inmates, serving sentences up to 10 years for murder, rape and drug crimes, Saturday danced to an audience of about 500 visitors and journalists, the Chinese news service reported.

"I am really sad, because Michael Jackson is my idol," said an inmate officials identified as one of the primary dance coaches. "Filipinos are so Westernized and that's why lots of us loved Michael."

Venice gets first female gondolier

VENICE, Italy, June 29 (UPI) -- One of Italy's last bastions of male privilege has been breached with the coming of the first female gondolier in Venice, observers said.

Giorgia Boscolo, 23, a married mother of two, successfully completed Venice's official gondolier license test Friday, enabling her to start an apprenticeship as a "second captain," the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

ANSA said Boscolo would become the first official female gondolier in the city in 900 years.

"I'm immensely happy and proud but today my day starts like every other, taking the children to school," she told the news agency, indicating she became determined to follow in her gondolier father's footsteps when she was 7 years old.

"I've always loved gondolas and, unlike my three sisters, I preferred to punt with my father instead of going out with my friends," Boscolo said, brushing aside concerns by male gondoliers that she doesn't have the strength to navigate the 36-foot-long, 1,100-pound boats.

"Childbirth is much more difficult," she told ANSA.