Monday, September 14, 2009

Serena Williams is one scary dude, a Greek recap and a smackdown on the Honduran interim government

- I’ve said it before in regards to Serena Williams and I’ll say it again now: that dude scares me. After seeing that profanity-laced tirade Williams unloaded on a U.S. Open line judge Saturday, I was legitimately terrified. A muscle-bound, burly, raging athlete is nothing new, but seeing the fury with which Williams went after a call didn’t go her way was frightening. And for anyone who objects to me referring to Williams as a dude, just look at that physique. I’m all for chicks being in shape, but Williams takes it to a new extreme with bulked-up arms and pillar-like legs that are just a tad too much. As for the incident, Williams had dropped the first set of her semifinal match against Kim Clijsters on Saturday night and was two points from losing in the second set. She faulted at 5-6, 15-30 and on her second serve there, the line judge called a foot fault, making it 15-40 and giving Clijsters a match point. That didn’t sit well with Williams, who immediately began berating and brow-beating the line judge. Witnesses heard Williams threaten to kill the judge, a claim she denied. She also raised her racket toward the judge in a threatening manner, even though Williams insists she meant no harm. After the match, she wasn’t exactly apologetic about her outburst. The next day, she didn’t back down either. "Last night, everyone could truly see the passion I have for my job. Now that I have had time to gain my composure, I can see that while I don't agree with the unfair line call, in the heat of battle I let my passion and emotion get the better of me and as a result handled the situation poorly," Williams said in a statement released Sunday by a public relations firm. "I would like to thank my fans and supporters for understanding that I am human and I look forward to continuing the journey, both professionally and personally, with you all as I move forward and grow from this experience." Yes, she hid behind her PR people instead of owning her mistake. Furthermore, she tried to explain her meltdown away by attributing it to her competitive spirt and passion. Nice try, S. When she finally got around to talking about the incident in her own words, Williams again tried to pat herself on the back and praise her own competitive fire rather than owning her mistake. Thankfully, the USTA has fined her $10,000 for the incident, not nearly enough but at least a sign that her boorish behavior isn't simply being shrugged off. Additionally, the Grand Slam Committee Administrator will "determine if the behavior of Ms. Williams warrants consideration as a major offense for which additional penalties can be imposed." Hopefully that consideration will lead to a suspension, because Williams was out of line throughout the match against Clijsters, not just at the end. She was also $500 for smashing her racket after the first set of the match in addition to a ‘roid-rage-like verbal assault on a line judge that Williams could probably bench press with one arm. The only thing more offensive than her act on the court was her act in trying to spin what happened and apologize without actually apologizing for anything. Thanks for nothing, Serena, you’re one classy dude………..



- The tools in the administration at UCLA might have canceled the school’s legendary Undie Run, but the tradition was alive and well on this week’s episode of Greek. With the 60-year tradition set to take place, the drama centered on a prudish Pan-Hellenic leader who wanted to ban all campus sororities from participating and also on the ongoing “Gotcha!” assassin game for all campus Greek organizations. When the Pan-Hellenic council, led by uptight president Katherine, vowed to penalize any sorority whose sisters participated in the run, ZBZ rep Betsy was already past her breaking point. After calling the council members bitches repeatedly, she turned her PH duties over to Casey, who attended her first meeting in time to hear the Undie Run verdict. Appalled at the decision and the fact that she and her suddenly fitness-conscious ZBZ sisters wouldn’t be able to show off their hard work at the gym, Casey stood up to Katherine and looked to an unlikely source for help: her ex, Evan Chambers. After finding a loophole in the PH rules that allows a president’s decision to be overridden if a petition with 500 sorority signatures can be acquired, Casey enlisted Evan and his Omega Chi brothers to set up shop on campus in their boxers and collect signatures for the petition. In the end, the petition worked and Casey and the ZBZ sisters were able to participate in the Undie Run. But before they could, Katherine said something that stuck with Casey and inspired a great idea. After chiding Casey for not putting her experience as a Congressional intern over the summer and post as ZBZ’s Pan-Hellenic rep to better use than fighting for the right to run around campus in her underwear along with other sorority and frat members, Katherine inadvertently challenged Casey to make the Undie Run more meaningful. To accomplish that, Casey comes up with the idea to have everyone donate the clothing they wear to the start of the Undie Run (and thus take off) to the local homeless shelter, thus making the run a more meaningful event and proving a point to Katherine in the process. On the other hand, “Gotcha!” wasn’t exactly about proving a point as much as winning the prize money for your fraternity or sorority. As the game dwindled down, Rusty found himself with some tough choices. First, he had to “shoot” his best buddy Calvin, who was his next “Gotcha!” target. After putting a dart right off Calvin’s forehead walking to class, Rusty then inherited Calvin’s next target: Rusty’s girlfriend Jordan. At the same time he was tasked with offing her in the game, the two of them were still trying to find the right time to have sex for the first time after being interrupted by her dad during Father/Daughter weekend last episode. The tension of being two of the final players in “Gotcha!” only complicated things. The problem became even bigger when one of the other remaining players, KT member Beaver, was eliminated from the game by a player known as the Jackal, who tricked him to Dobler’s by mailing him phony coupons for free drinks. When he showed up, the Jackal took him out. The Jackal, it turned out, was Jordan. Eliminating Beaver left Rusty and Jordan as the only two players in the game, meaning they had no choice but to attempt to shoot one another. When Cappie and the KT brothers realize this, they stick Rusty with 24/7 protective custody, and the ZBZ’s do the same for Jordan. Still, the two love birds sneak away from their guards to meet up at Rusty’s place for a supposed romantic dinner. It turns out that both are still playing the game despite promising not to and Jordan tries to shoot Rusty. Cappie, who has been lurking on the apartment’s porch, dives inside and in front of Rusty to take the dart for him. The near-miss only makes everyone edgier and after a night-time ambush in which Rusty breaks up the heavy guns (literally, some huge dart guns) and rains darts down on Jordan without success, a tense sit-down with Cappie, Rusty, Jordan and Rebecca, Rusty and Jordan takes place. Rusty and Jordan are both put on lockdown, but later in the day, they once again manage to rendezvous at Rusty’s apartment and this time, both promise to quit playing “Gotcha!” and focus on their relationship. This time, they end up having sex for the first time and all is well - until Jordan pulls out a dart gun, shoots Rusty and wins the game. Rusty couldn’t care less about losing the game because he got what he really wanted. The ZBZs were happy to win and the KT’s were actually understanding of Rusty’s decision that led to losing the game. The last storyline from the episode was Calvin and Grant, who tried to move their relationship along by going on a date in the next town over from Cyprus Rhodes so none of their Omega Chi brothers would know, as Grant still hasn’t come out of the closet. Yet even in another town, they run into Evan, who apparently has been working a restaurant job to earn extra money now that he’s given up his trust fund. Seeing Calvin and Grant and them seeing Evan ruins both of their secrets, along with costing Evan his job because he’s too stunned to property sing “Happy Birthday” to Calvin after Grant lied and said it was his birthday to get a free desert. Evan comes clean about his trust fund situation and Calvin then reveals that a) Grant is gay and b) that they are dating. So that’s that, it was a really funny episode and probably the best of the season so far, thumbs up………..


- We don’t like your interim government, Honduras, and here’s what we’re gonna do about it! The American crusade against Honduras' interim government rages on, as over the weekend the United States revoked the visa of the country's leader, de facto President Roberto Micheletti. But that wasn’t enough, as 14 supreme court judges also had their visas revoked, along with Honduran Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez. All of this is part of the U.S. government’s effort to convince the current Honduran government to restore ousted President Jose Manuel Zelaya to power. Apparently our government feels very strongly that it’s mean and wrong to seize an elected president in his pajamas and send him into exile. That scene unfolded on June 28 after Zelaya attempted to go through with his plan to hold a referendum that could have changed the constitution and allowed longer term limits. The country's congress and its supreme court lined up against him and the standoff ended with Zelaya being given a one-way ticket out of town. Interim President Roberto Micheletti and his supporters continue to insist that Zelaya's removal was a constitutional transfer of power and not a coup despite the fact that it fits the dictionary definition of a coup to a “T.” The Organization of American States has joined the U.S. in calling for Zelaya’s return to power and the ousted leader has twice attempted to re-enter the country only to be turned away. The United States announced last week that it was terminating all non-humanitarian aid to Honduras to pressure the interim government to return Zelaya to power, but the pressure has seemed to have little effect thus far. Heck, even those impotent fools at the United Nations have condemned Zelaya's ouster and refused to recognize Michiletti's government, but to no impact. But this decision to revoke the visas of the government’s leaders is taking things to a new low, because now the these guys and gals won't be able to take their much-anticipated Vegas trip in October or hit up their favorite clubs on South Beach come November, which is truly a loss………



- There are a lot of people who are very angry about Kanye West's hijacking of the microphone from Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards - too many people and they’re far too angry. "Taylor, I'm really happy for you," West said after grabbing the microphone from a clearly stunned Swift. "I'll let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!" In other words, dude was upset that one woman won a Moon Man statue for a music video instead of another woman winning the same tacky trophy. Great, that’s a huge concern. I’m not sure why Kanye gives a damn who won for Best Female Music Video for a number of reasons. For one, what’s more irrelevant and pointless as it relates to good music than anything tied to MTV? The day I allow any MTV any part in being an arbiter of my musical tastes is…..well, let’s just say there’s a better chance of Rosie O’Donnell turning down a free ice cream buffet. Second, since when does Kanye care about anyone but himself? That’s a stunning revelation, much more stunning than anything else associated with this story. Yet the outrage from fans and fellow musicians against West has been fast, furious and vitriolic. He was booed loudly at the ceremony and after it ended, those same musicians and singers couldn’t wait to Twitter about the incident. Singer Pink tweeted, "Kanye West is the biggest piece of [expletive] on earth. Quote me." The front man for one of the biggest bands of poseurs around, Good Charlotte, was also unhappy. "All i'm saying is Taylor Swift is a young chic and you just walk up and grab the mic," tweeted Joel Madden of the band Good Charlotte tweeted. Fans were even more unmerciful and West has been continually skewered on Twitter, Facebook and every other social networking site since Sunday. I’m not saying what he did was acceptable or anything other than out of line, but let’s step back and get some perspective, folks. A) It’s a freaking MTV awards show, one of the most worthless and pointless of all self-congratulatory, self-aggrandizing awards shows in existence. MTV has nothing to do with good music anymore and hasn’t for a couple of decades. Most of the artists the network features are pop hacks masquerading as legit artists in other genres. B) This is one millionaire musician offending another one with words, nothing more. At the end of the night, both West and Swift went home to their multi-million-dollar mansions and with millions of dollars in their bank accounts. No one was injured, assaulted or killed. Stop getting so worked up about something so unimportant, period. This is what Kanye does: He shoots off his mouth, strokes his own bloated ego and has the misguided impression that he is the “voice of this generation.” Just ignore him, go about your business and stop making so much out of something so irrelevant……..


- This is one of those days when I am oh, so proud to live in the state of Ohio. Hearing that Ohio State Patrol troopers stopped a semi-trailer on Interstate 70 in Preble County Friday afternoon and seized $4.5 million in cocaine pumps me up. No, not because law enforcement in my state was able to uncover and take possession of illegal narcotics. Actually, that part of the story sucks exponentially and really bums me out. What has me excited is that the Buckeye State is esteemed highly enough by mis amigos in the drug trade that they are willing to traffic their fine product through this state. Not surprisingly, the shipment appears to have originated in Texas, as the Freightliner tractor and the 1999 Dorsey trailer it was hauling were both rocking Texas license plates. The truck was traveling eastbound on I-70 around 1:50 p.m. when the driver, Jose Antonio Dominguez Melendez, allegedly committed lane violations and was pulled over. Melendez and passenger Oscar Santos Ardueta didn’t have their act together and gave conflicting stories about picking up a load of lettuce in Salinas, Calif. According to the police report, several criminal indicators were present and they called in a K-9 unit to conduct a search. When the dogs detected something suspicious, the vehicles were then taken to an off-loading site and searched. It was then that troopers found 45 kilos of blow, valued at $4.5 million, concealed within loads of lettuce headed for New Jersey. Vegetables and the Colombian nose candy, I like it. Healthy eating and a treat for the nose, all in one. If only these two could have rehearsed their stories and been able to sell police on being a couple of humble truck drivers transporting some produce across the country, they could have gotten the job done. Instead, they were hauled off to the Preble County Jail and are being charged with possession of cocaine, criminal tools and marked lane violations. Still, it’s good to know that the state of Ohio is still a valuable link in the cocaine highway across this great nation and that it is doing its part to supply the coke needs of this country’s friendly coke heads………

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