Police under pressure in Portland, a Greek recap and the dream of the U.S.A. version 2.0 ends

- Under pressure, police officers are counted on to make the right decision with little time and much on the line. An unidentified police officer in Portland, Ore. showed that she may not have what it takes in the clutch when faced with a man who set himself on fire Wednesday outside the Nicholas Ungar Furs store in Portland. Daniel Shaull of Kansas poured gasoline on himself and then set himself on fire outside the Nicholas Ungar Furs store at Southeast 12th Avenue and Yamhill Street and began screaming: “There are animals dying! Animals dying!” Shaull’s father said that his son was not an animal-rights activist but did have a history of mental illness, so clearly this is a tragic situation, as Shaull was rushed to nearby Legacy Emanuel Hospital, where he later died from the damage inflicted by the fire. I can't say for sure whether the end result would have been different if the first officer on the scene hadn’t parked her patrol car, went to her trunk and accidentally grabbed pepper spray used for riot control instead of the fire extinguisher and hit Shaull with a pepper-spray blast. Apparently the canister of pepper spray the officer used is red like many fire extinguishers, but that must be a pretty freaking big container of pepper spray to be confused for a fire extinguisher. But even if the riot-gear-sized spray police typically use is very similar in size, appearance and color to the fire extinguishers they carry, this is one of those moments where you had better be damn sure. The pepper spraying came after a motorist who had been driving by grabbed an actual fire extinguisher to help Shaull, but he kept running away. “They (officer and motorist) attempted to get the young man to roll on the ground to put out the flames,” Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer said. “He kept running away and was uncooperative. Eventually, additional cover units arrived, and they were able to get him on the ground and extinguish the flames.”
Police officials say that the pepper spray used was water based and was not an accelerant, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t make the situation worse. Shaull could have easily gotten some of the spray in his eyes or mouth and reacted to it, no question. In spite of that, officials insist there are no plans to discipline the officer. The Portland Police Department will review where materials are placed in the trunk and how they are marked to prevent a similar mistake, but something tells me that this isn’t the last time we will hear about a story like this……………

- Geeks were the center of last night’s Greek. After winning the Gary Wyatt engineering grant, Rusty found himself the object of adoration for every girl in the engineering program and the attention caught him a little off guard. One girl in particular, Dana, made a big deal over him and admitted she’d had a crush on him since freshman orientation. Rusty doesn’t remember Dana and barely gives her the time of day, but having someone single him out and fawn over him goes to his head almost immediately. He sits down in the marketing class he has next and tries to brag about his engineering grant to a hot blonde sitting next to him, but she blows him off and switches seats. Instead, Rusty ends up sitting next to Ashleigh, his big sister Casey’s BFF. They commiserate over their romantic troubles and Rusty offers to help fix her virus-plagued laptop. The class ends up being a joke because the professor is so obsessed with being cool that she makes the class super easy and gives out all A’s. But the day turns out to be an idea-starter when Rusty and pal Dale fix the laptop and return it to Ashleigh. She is thankful and combines that with the ongoing problem Zeta Beta is facing after accidentally burning down the Gamma Psi house in last season’s finale. The idea of doing a philanthropic event to benefit GP and assuage ZBZ’s guilt in the process comes up and instead of a bachelor auction of frat guys, Ashleigh comes up with the idea of a nerd auction. She figures it could also help Rusty get a date with Erica Miller, the hot blonde who blew him off in class. The nerd auction is on, but ZBZ’s problems persist. Casey is feeling increasingly guilty about the fire and keeping it from GP member and Pan-Hellenic president Katherine, who is investigating the fire. With her guilt weighing on her, Casey turns to Evan Chambers for advice because he is well-versed in doing douche-baggish things and living with the guilt. He advises her to hang in and keep quiet, but she can’t cope with the guilt. Instead, she goes to see GP president Natalie and confesses that she was the one who accidentally started the fire. Instead of being understanding, Natalie decides to blackmail Casey and demand that the ZBZ’s give the GP’s their house for the next year while the Gamma Psi house is being rebuilt. The warring sororities have nothing on the battle between Evan’s Omega Chi fraternity and Kappa Tau, which are still at each other’s throats after last season’s prank-gone-bad that led to the expulsion of three KT’s. The battle spills over into a meeting of the super-secret Amphora Society that both Evan and KT president Cappie are members of. When Evan makes a comment that sparks Cappie’s anger over the expulsions, the two tussle and Cappie shoves Evan, knocking him into a jug of sacred Amphora wine and spilling it all over the place. The tension between the two of them and the spilling of the jug irk their fellow Amphora members and the next time Cappie and Evan show up to their secret lair for a meeting, everything is gone and the Amphoras have apparently decided to kick them both out and move to a new location. Cappie’s problems with Evan even extend to Evan’s current girl of choice, Rebecca Logan. Both Cappie and Rebecca are vying for a spot in the hard-to-get-into human sexuality class and as they tussle for what ends up being the only open spot in the class, the topic of Evan comes up. Cappie urges Rebecca to stay away from him, but that only pushes Rebecca to pursue Evan more. They go out on a date and Cappie clearly hates seeing someone he considers to be a friend get mixed up with a guy who he believes will eventually hurt her. In the end, after trying to flirt and charm their way into the class, both of them get in and Casey has to deal with having her boyfriend in a human sexuality class with a sorority sister she doesn’t exactly trust. Evan does prove to be not all bad when he provides even more help to Casey in her problem with the Gamma Psi house fire. He suggests that she dig deeper into the Song Fest judging irregularities that the ZBZ’s broke into the GP house to investigate in the first place. Casey finds and talks to Ryan, the Song Fest judge who rigged his votes to make sure Gamma Psi won, and tricks him into admitting that he slept with Natalie in exchange for rigging the vote. Armed with this information and Evan’s advice, Casey turns Natalie’s blackmail around on her. In a sit-down with Katherine and Natalie in the common room of the dorm where Natalie is stuck because of thw GP house fire, Casey lays out all the facts and points out the possible ramipercussions for both sororities if the Song Fest scandal and truths behind the house fire story became public. Natalie agrees to call things even and that’s the end of the saga. It is also the end of Casey’s short-lived tenure as Pan-Hellenic’s vice president of judicial affairs, which didn’t even last the entire episode. She was asked by Katherine to investigate the fire, which only heightened tensions at the ZBZ house. After the common-room meeting, Casey resigns her new post. The results of the nerd auction are equally disappointing for little brother Rusty, who invites Erica Miller, has her show up and win the bidding for him and then finds out that she only wants a “date” with him so he can fix her and her sorority sisters’ computers. In the process, Rusty is once again rude to Dana, forgetting her name and offending her for a second time. Making matters worse, Ashleigh gets badly rattled before the auction because her ex, Fisher, shows up with his new girlfriend and the two have a showdown before he leaves Dobler’s. That results in Ashleigh rambling on during the auction about how Rusty is just like every other guy in the world and will probably cheat on and disappoint whatever girl bids on him. The only person who benefits from the auction is Dale, who a) strikes a deal with Ashleigh for five percent of the profits from the auction and b) gets bid on by a dorky engineering girl with whom he has a fun date. The day after the auction, a bummed-out Rusty regrets his lame “date” with Erica and tries to ask out Dana, who goes off on him for being a jerk to her before and shoots him down. At episode’s end, Rusty is still single, although there were more than a few hints dropped that he and Ashleigh could be on the way towards getting together, methinks. A pretty fun episode for the most part and the show is off to a great start to the new season…………

- Not being a mixed-martial arts fan, I don’t pay much attention to UFC, Strikeforce and any other MMA organization that is out there. These guys can climb inside the octagon, beat the living crap out of each other and attempt to make one another tap out any day they want, but the brutality just does not interest me. There is the rare exception, such as Strikeforce: Miami Saturday night, when a) New York Jets coach and noted FAT guy Rex Ryan showed up, conducted a ringside interview and informed Miami Dolphins fans that his team will be looking to beat them twice next season, then flipped them the bird and b) 47-year-old former NFL star Herschel Walker made his MMA debut and won, defeating some stiff named Greg Nagy. Walker, sporting his trademark chiseled physique, went two-and-a-half rounds with Nagy, ultimately winning in the third round when referee Troy Waugh called the fight after a barrage of punches to Nagy’s head. What has always amazed me about Walker is how dude is absolutely ripped despite not lifting weights (seriously, he claims to do all his workouts using only his own body weight, lots of varieties of push-ups, sit-ups, etc.) and being a decade past his football career clearly has not changed that. Afterward, Walker seemed happy with his performance but also humble. “The experience was exciting. This is the hardest thing I've ever done,” he stated before stopping to praise his trainers. “They're the ones that got me here. We sparred three days a week to get me ready.” This is just the latest in an eclectic post-football journey for Walker, who also tried out for the U.S. Olympic bobsled team, made an appearance on Celebrity Apprentice and fought a tough battle with multiple personality disorder. He is also fairly accomplished as a businessman, but he seems to have found a new direction to channel his energies and hopefully he doesn’t get his face broken in the process……………

- Farewell to the concept of the United States of Africa. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the man pushing that dream, has been kicked to the curb as president by the African Union. The AU has elected a new president, rejecting Gadhafi’s bid to remain president of the organization for another year. Instead, the leaders from 53 African countries that comprise the AU selected Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika as the organization's new leader during an annual summit Sunday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Gadhafi, who ose to power in Libya after a coup in 1969 and has become one of the world's longest-serving leaders/despots, had long campaigned to integrate the continent into a United States of Africa, which could definitely have resulted in a cool new flag, some bitchin’ merch sales and a whole lot of chaos – in other words, a win-win. Unfortunately, that dream will likely die with Gadhafi’s presidency of the organization, even though the African Union allegedly seeks to boost cooperation and solidarity on the continent. The summit also featured an appearance by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who spoke to the group and addressed peace-related issues, saying African leaders and the United Nations have a responsibility to war-ravaged countries such as Sudan. His speech was somewhat self-serving, as he urged the leaders to support various U.N. efforts, including increasing its presence in Sudan as balloting nears for national elections are in April. On top of that, Sudan’s southerners will vote in January 2011 on whether to become an independent nation. "In Sudan, time is of the essence," Ban said. "The elections are three months away. The two referenda to determine the future shape of Sudan are in just under a year." This is clearly a pivotal time not just for Sudan, but for the continent as a whole and I for one am sad to see the possibility of the U.S.A. – Version 2.0 go by the wayside……………

- Warning: This next story is extremely depressing in nature. I have the misfortune of sharing with you the news that the world's most sophisticated talking female sex robot is officially on the market. Standing 5 feet 7 and weighing in at 120 pounds, Roxxy the sex robot will talk with losers about their interests, have fake robot sex at any time and “she” only costs $7,000 plus any remaining shreds of personal dignity you may have. "She doesn't vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else," said her inventor, Douglas Hines. Hines unveiled his unfortunate creation last month at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, or as I call it, the event where your humanity goes to die. This doll is clearly for losers for whom phone sex lines and Playboy have lost their luster. Roxxy is powered by a computer under “her” soft silicone "skin" and “she” uses voice-recognition and speech-synthesis software to answer questions and carry on conversations. Heck, pathetic freaks who throw down seven grand for this pile of computerized crap will receive a fake companion armed with five distinct "personalities," from Frigid Farrah to Wild Wendy, that can be programmed to suit their own freaky predilections. "There's a tremendous need for this kind of product," said Hines. No there isn’t, dork. Just because some losers can’t find an actual woman willing to have consensual sex with them doesn’t mean they need Roxxy. If you can’t find a woman willing to have sex with you of her own free will, that’s what hookers are for. Ordering a sex robot and paying a couple months’ salary (or more in this economy) for it is not just scraping the bottom of the barrel, it’s plowing right through that bottom, digging into the earth below and not stopping until you’re several miles down. What’s sad is that even though Roxxxy won't be available for delivery for several months, but Hines is taking pre-orders through his Web site and thousands of losers have signed up. "They're like, 'I can't wait to meet her,' " Hines said. "It's almost like the anticipation of a first date." Wow……just wow. I feel legitimately ashamed to be a member of the human race at this point, although my shame is mitigated by the fact that the freaks who are pre-ordering this sex robot may in fact not be actual humans, not by my definition anyhow. But don’t feel like I’m singling you out for ridicule, fellas; women have inquired about ordering a sex robot, too. What a (sad, disturbing) scene it must have been when conventioneers flocked to Hines' AEE booth last month in Las Vegas, asking questions and interacting with a Roxxy prototype. What makes this story even more disturbing is that Hines calls himself a happily married man from Lincoln Park, New Jersey. I’m not into suggesting that people get a divorce or anything, but Hines’ wife may want to consider it. How a lady can be cool with her husband spending what has to have been an inordinate number of hours working on a sex robot instead of having actual sex with her……umm, never mind. Let’s just keep moving because this is going to a very dark and uncomfortable place. The design for Roxxy consists of a s body is made from hypoallergenic silicone -- the kind of material in prosthetic limbs -- molded over a rigid skeleton. The robot can’t on its own but can be manipulated into most any position. The entire device is powered by a self-contained battery that lasts about three hours on one charge. There are more details, but I am too depressed by this point and so we will just wrap this up with me asking once again to stop the world from spinning because I would like to get off of this ride…………