Listen Up: George Bush Jr. is a...

Listen Up: George Bush Jr. is a little testy about the rumors that he stayed out of the Texas gubernatorial race this year because his mother told him not to run. “That’s crud!” he said in an interview in M inc. magazine. “My mother’s been telling me what to do for 44 years and I haven’t listened to 80% of it.”

Vanishing Act: A young Arlington, Va., maintenance man was literally given a bath while figuratively being taken for a ride by a fortune teller, according to police. Detective James Griswold said the unidentified man was told by the seer that he was possessed. She then lit candles, told the man to strip to his underwear and rubbed his body with raw eggs. She then told him that to remove the curse she would have to bless his money overnight. He came up with $16,000 and she turned up missing.

Making Pun Of: Dorothy Parker died in 1967 but an old line of hers has come back to haunt the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, which used it on a fund-raising T-shirt. The line--”You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think”--”is insulting to women who earn or have earned their living as prostitutes,” says a letter from the Pittsburgh Action Against Rape group. Holly Van Dine, the trust’s marketing director, disagreed. “It wasn’t our intention, and I don’t think it was Dorothy Parker’s intention, to insult prostitutes,” said Van Dine.

Chile Reception: Letters from Southwestern soldiers in the Middle East lonely for some hot sauce brought tears to the eyes of executives of San Antonio-based Pace Foods Inc. and a free shipment of 2,000 bottles of picante sauce. An example: “If y’all find it all in y’all’s heart to send us a sizable donation of medium Picante sauce to my unit, it would be a big morale booster,” wrote Army Spec. Charles R. Moulder. The requests didn’t surprise R.J. Sands, Pace’s president and chief executive officer. “A lot of people think chile peppers cool the body by making it perspire more,” he said.