Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe N.Y. senator to kids: Pull up your pants NEW YORK, March 29 (UPI) -- A New York politician has taken his message for youngsters to billboards: Pull up your pants. Advertisement "Stop the Sag!" reads one of six billboards, set to go up Monday in state Sen. Eric Adams home borough of Brooklyn. "We are better than this!" says another. Adams spent $2,000 in campaign funds for the billboards, which show male models whose pants are sagging below their underwear, the New York Daily News reported. "This whole sagging pants culture seems to have swept the city and the country," Adams said. "Children will be children. But as adults, we need to be on record and tell them they're doing something wrong." Adams, a Democrat, said he is riding the momentum of an "American Idol" moment, when contestant Larry Platt auditioned with the original song "Pants on the Ground" and the video took off on the Internet, the newspaper said. The song urges people to pull up their pants. Advertisement "I thought it was funny," Adams said. "But when you look at it more closely, you see how big this matter is. When we sag like that, we're playing into it. We look like clowns." Adams, a former New York Police Department captain and co-founder of 100 blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, said he also to urge a dress code that would ban sagging pants in city public schools. Saquan Spaulding, 19, who was in Crown Heights wearing black jeans with black boxers held up with a studded belt, said wearing saggy pants is just more comfortable. "It's good for (Adams) to try and change it, but I doubt it's going to happen," he said. "It's a young thing." Beer vendor, 86, appealing bias ruling NEW YORK, March 29 (UPI) -- An 86-year-old beer vendor at Citi Field in New York says she'll appeal after a judge ruled she wasn't reassigned to a less-lucrative stand because of her age. Mildred Block, who had served beer at a booth at Citi Field and the New York Mets former home, Shea Stadium, for nearly 20 years, sued food service company Aramark last year after being moved from her longtime stand, the New York Daily News reported. Advertisement Aramark, which declined to comment on the appeal, said it has the right to reassign workers and told the court it moved Block because her lines were too long. A Manhattan judge ruled discrimination was "highly unlikely" because Aramark replaced Block with another senior citizen, Gloria Smith, who was then 75. Block disputed Aramark's reason for her move, saying it came only after she threatened to file the suit. Her former partner at the stand, who is middle-aged, was not moved, she said. "The judge really didn't understand the case," Block's son, Marty, 59, told the Daily News. He said a manager at Citi Field told him, "Your mother is an antique dinosaur, old cripple that we do not want at Citi Field." An attorney for Block, Martin Silberman, said Block uses a cane but is "quite spry ... not some decrepit old woman." Blagojevich may not get official portrait SPRINGFIELD, Ill., March 29 (UPI) -- Illinois lawmakers have voted to deny former Gov. Rod Blagojevich money for an official portrait in the Statehouse, officials say. The House approved the measure 85-23 Friday, and it now goes to the Senate, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The bill would allow Blagojevich to pay for his own portrait. Advertisement "I have no desire nor intent to revise history. I also have no desire nor intent to see to it that someone who is impeached and convicted of impeachable offenses gets into the taxpayers' purse for anything," said Rep. Bill Black, a Republican and the bill's chief sponsor. Every previous Illinois governor has a portrait hanging in the Statehouse. That includes Blagojevich's immediate predecessor, George Ryan, who was convicted after leaving office of corruption while he was Illinois secretary of state. Blagojevich, a Democrat, became internationally notorious when tapes were released suggesting he tried to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama when he became president. At least one Democrat suggested Blagojevich's picture belongs in the seat of government. "I think actually having a portrait of all the governors is a great opportunity for young people to learn what is good and what is bad, and hopefully to guard against those things that have happened in our history that weren't so enlightened," Rep. Mike Boland said. Online funerals showing more appeal BEIJING, March 29 (UPI) -- Chinese officials say people are turning to online memorial services to avoid a waste of social and natural resources. The discussion is increasing ahead of the Qingming Festival April 5, when people will offer sacrifices to ancestors and sweep the tombs of the deceased, Chinas state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Advertisement Usually, cremated remains are not kept for online funerals, Xinhua said. Instead, a portrait of the dead and pictures of the farewell party and poetry are put online for relatives and friends to commemorate. The Internet also has a virtual cemetery. Zhu Yong, deputy director of a research institute under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said the green concept of interment was popular in countries like Australia and New Zealand, where some online gravestones were simply of name card size. That kind of funeral suits China, he said, because of its "sparse land and huge population," he said, Xinhua reported. The report did not say what happened to actual remains after an online funeral.
