AP
PORTLAND, Ore. - The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said an 88-year-old woman fended off a naked intruder by grabbing the man's crotch and squeezing. Deputy Paul McRedmond said the man got into the house Tuesday through a sliding door. He backed the woman into her living room and pushed her face down onto a chair.
That's when the woman reached behind and squeezed. The man tore free and fled.
McRedmond said a county code enforcement officer who heard the police call on his radio spotted a car near the woman's house and passed on the license information to authorities.
Troutdale police arrested a 46-year-old man. He has been jailed on accusations of burglary, harassment and private indecency. Bail was set at $110,000.

ROSLYN, N.Y. - A woman charged with biting a teacher at a raucous Long Island high school basketball game says she was defending herself.

Shaquana Beamon said Sunday that the teacher pulled her to the ground and kicked her Thursday as she approached her brother, a player on the Roslyn High School team.

The 20-year-old Beamon was arrested and arraigned on an assault charge Saturday. Police say she bit the teacher's arm and leg and someone else punched him in the head.

The school district's physical education director says the teacher was working as a supervisor at the rowdy matchup. Police say he was trying to break up the crowd.

The director says he was wearing a supervisor's red jacket, but Beamon disputes that.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - A woman is suing a Pennsylvania sports bar and restaurant, saying she got stuck inside a toilet bowl for 20 minutes after the seat broke.
Kathleen Hewko of Delran Township, N.J., says she was in the bathroom at Starters Pub near Allentown when the handicapped toilet seat she was sitting on cracked and dumped her into the bowl.
Hewko says in her lawsuit filed in federal court in November that she had hip surgery prior to the Nov. 19, 2006, incident and was re-injured when the seat broke.
The lawsuit names Starters and Kohler Co., the company that made the toilet seat.
Representatives from both companies said they couldn't comment.
___
Information from: The Morning Call, http://www.mcall.com

VERO BEACH, Fla. - A Vero Beach man faces a domestic violence charge after authorities said he assaulted his girlfriend with a cheeseburger. An Indian River County Sheriff's Office arrest report said a 22-year-old man and his girlfriend got into an argument as they sat in a car in front of their home.
The report said the man would not let the woman out of the vehicle, so she threw his drink out of the car. In response, the man allegedly grabbed her arm and smashed the cheeseburger into her face. The pair got out of the car, and authorities say the man again took the McDonald's sandwich and put it on her face.
The man was released on $1,000 bond Wednesday.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A New Zealand rape victim drove her rapist to a police station when he fell asleep in his car after assaulting the woman, local media reported on Wednesday.

Vipul Sharma, 22, was found guilty of abduction and two charges of rape by the Auckland District Court Tuesday, court officials told Reuters Wednesday.

The New Zealand newspaper said Sharma met the woman at an Auckland bar in 2006 and later drove her first to a park where he raped her in the back seat of his car.

After the attack Sharma allowed the woman to drive and fell asleep in the passenger seat, so the woman drove him to Auckland Central police station where he was arrested, said the newspaper.

"She showed a lot of bravery and common sense. I have nothing but respect for what she has endured," police detective Simon Welsh told the newspaper.

(Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

PRESCOTT, Ariz. - Authorities in Arizona say a jogger attacked by a rabid fox ran a mile with the animal's jaws clamped on her arm and then drove herself to a hospital. The Yavapai County sheriff's office said the woman told deputies she was on a trail near Prescott on Monday when the fox attacked and bit her foot.
She said she grabbed the fox by the neck when it went for her leg but it bit her arm.
The woman wanted the animal tested for rabies so she ran a mile to her car with the fox still biting her arm, then pried it off and tossed it in her trunk and drove to the Prescott hospital.
The sheriff's office says the fox later bit an animal control officer. He and the woman are both receiving rabies vaccinations.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If a woman wants to drive the men wild, she might want to dress in red.
Men rated a woman shown in photographs as more sexually attractive if she was wearing red clothing or if she was shown in an image framed by a red border rather than some other colour, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
The study led by psychology professor Andrew Elliot of the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, seemed to confirm red as the colour of romance -- as so many Valentine's Day card makers and lipstick sellers have believed for years.
Although this "red alert" may be a product of human society associating red with love for eons, it also may arise from more primitive biological roots, Elliot said.
Noting the genetic similarity of humans to higher primates, he said scientists have shown that certain male primates are especially attracted to females of their species displaying red. For example, female baboons and chimpanzees show red colouring when nearing ovulation, sending a sexual signal that the males apparently find irresistible.
"It could be this very deep, biologically based automatic tendency to respond to red as an attraction cue given our evolutionary heritage," Elliot, whose findings appear in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, said in a telephone interview.
The study involved more than 100 men, mostly college undergraduates, who were shown pictures of women and asked to rate how pretty they were, how much the men would like to kiss them and how much the men would like to have sex with them.
Men were shown a woman, with some of the pictures bordered in red and some bordered in white, grey or green. Even though it was the same picture of the same woman, when she was framed in red the men rated her as more attractive than when she was bordered by another colour.
Men were then shown photographs of a woman that were identical except that the researchers digitally made her shirt red in some versions or blue in others. And once again, the men strongly favoured the woman in red.
The men also were asked, "Imagine that you are going on a date with this person and have $100 (64 pounds) in your wallet. How much money would you be willing to spend on your date?" When she was clad in red, the men said they would spend more money on her.
The researchers noted that the colour red did not alter how men rated the women in the photographs in terms of likeability, intelligence or kindness -- only attractiveness.
The researchers then had a group of young women rate whether the pictured woman was pretty. Red had no impact on whether women rated other women as pretty, they found.
Gay men and colour blind men were excluded from the study.

MIAMI - Asha Mandela has hair that could rival Rapunzel's. The South Florida woman who started growing her hair 20 years ago now has locks longer than she is tall.

Mandela has submitted her hair, which measure 8 feet 9 inches long, to the Guinness Book of World Records for the Longest Dreadlocks, the first entry in a new category.

It takes one bottle of shampoo and one bottle of conditioner every time she washes her hair and can sometimes take days to fully dry after she washes it.

The 46-year-old Mandela says she "used to wash it three times a week. Now I do it once a week. It's very tiring. Sometimes I don't have the energy."

I got a letter in the mail from Sarah Palin. It was addressed to me - Leighann Lord - not Resident, Occupant or Home Owner. Given the current housing crisis, the latter salutation might have been supremely presumptuous. The return address simply said Sarah Palin; No city, state or zip; not even a zip plus four. I guess Sarah is like Santa Claus. The post office just knows where to find her.

The letter opened with:

"Dear Friend,"

Okay, let's stop there.

Admittedly, I'm horrible with names and not much better with faces, but I don't believe Sarah and I run in the same circles. I have not seen her at my book club meetings. I have not had the pleasure of pummeling her in my kick boxing class. I know she went to a lot of colleges, but none of them were mine. I only went to one.

We are separated by a lot more than six degrees. I doubt if even Kevin Bacon has an easy link to Sarah. We aren't even Face Book friends. We're not connected on My Space, Hi5 or Linked In. I have seen some of her work on Your Tube though . . . oh wait, that was Tina Fey.

Given that Sarah started her letter with a falsehood, I felt no need to read further, but curiosity got the better of me. It said:

"I personally want to say thank you for the steadfast support and unstinting generosity you have given to the Republican Party and all of our candidates."
Okay, friends. This is worse than I thought. Either my alter ego is a card carrying, money giving Republican -- she's not, I asked (actually my alter ego is very fond of Ralph Nader, but that's another story) - or someone has stolen my identity and is making unauthorized donations in my name. Why can't I get a normal identity thief who just wants to buy a flat screen TV at Best Buy?

In a past life, I might have Pay Paled Abraham Lincoln a couple of dollars, post emancipation and pre assassination, but other than that I have never knowingly given money to the Republican Party. Quite frankly, I never thought they needed it. Maybe they'd have some extra ducats in the kitty if they didn't spend money buying bad mailing lists or expensive outfits at Neiman Marcus. (Really Sarah? $150,000 on campaign accessories?) As far as I know, the wife of Joe Six Pack cobbles together her ensemble from Target, JC Penney and Forever 21.

I showed the letter to my husband and he was hurt. To date, he - a registered Republican - has received no correspondence from his friend, Sarah, although if he had, he probably would have burned it. My Sweetie is a bit disenchanted at the moment with the right wing wacko take over of his party. It also helps that I whisper in his ear when he's sleeping, "McCain is insane. No drama with Obama."

I don't feel bad about this. When we dated, he promised me he would switch to the Independent Party. That was his idea of sweet talk and I fell for it. I was young, in love and a sucker for bipartisan promises.

Any who, my friend, Sarah, was not writing to inquire about my health, wish me well on my career or even ask me for grand-baby name suggestions. No, she was soliciting money from me to help the McCain-Palin campaign.

"So please rush back your Emergency Pledge of $5,000, $2,500, $1,000, $500, $100 or $50 to McCain-Palin Victory 2008 in the postage-paid envelope I've enclosed with my letter today."

Normally, I'm all for using money to influence and corrupt the political process, but I'm shocked. I thought Republican's - as a rule - were allergic to handouts. Wouldn't my donation be akin to political welfare? I couldn't do that to my friend, Sarah. I would much rather see her and John stick by their principles and boot strap their way to the White House. That's the only way they'll learn. Besides, I'm a little short right now. All my money's tied up in the $700 billion dollar bail out.

And by the way, Sarah, it doesn't take a Washington insider to know that a real friend would have at least remembered my birthday. At the very least, an invitation to the $150,000 clothing shopping spree would have been nice, gosh darn it.

*****************************************************
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www.veryfunnylady.com again soon to find out about news, Leighann's TV appearances, live stand-up comedy shows or to join the mailing list.

Leighann Lord
Stand-up Comedian
www.VeryFunnyLady.com

Read my weekly humor column: www.TheUrbanErma.com

Every experienced party person knows you never leave your drink unattended. Be it glass, cup, can or mug you must be vigilant lest somebody slips you a Roofie. Even back in the day before Rohypnol was part of our everyday vocabulary you just knew if you turned your back somebody was bound to take liberties with your libation.

In my heyday I hugged my drink tighter than a running back grips a football. Nobody was sneaking in anything without my knowledge. I even hawkishly watched the bartender to be sure he wasn't in leagu e with some nefarious ne'redowell. I can honestly say that while at a party I've never drained a drink dry. If my attention wavered for a moment I would immediately abandon my beverage. I learned it was cheaper just to dance and pretend I wasn't parched.

I was at a function recently where a woman left the table and put a napkin over the top of her soda can. I think she did this out of reflex because it was a relatively nice and upscale event; not at all the type of shindig where one need worry about running the risk of a roofie. While I believe whole heartedly in the adage "better safe than sorry," I wondered how much protection a napkin would really provide. Can a would be Rohypnol Dropper be so easily foiled? Does etiquette demand that if a cup is covered he move on to an unguarded glass?

Is there an age where you no longer have to worry about being roofied? Certainly a young lady so new and fresh on the scene that she's still shiny must be on her guard, but what's the cut off? After age 60? 70? (My ego hopes that men will still want me, and not just for my money. I want to have that Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt kinda sexy well into my 90s.) The woman at the event who put the napkin over her soda can was in her mid-50s. It seemed more likely that she'd go cougar and roofie some sweet young thing in his 30s.

Some people are offended by=2 0the term Cougar. I'm not sure why. What's wrong with a mature woman being a wild cat; a creature who knows the rules of the jungle; who can hunt, chase and capture what she wants. Maybe people are concerned that as a women ages the tables turn. Instead of worrying about someone slipping something into her drink, she'll begin employing the tactic herself.

In this paradigm, however, one would think a roofie would be unnecessary. Given the dictates of human biology, men don't need much coercion when sex is in the offing. Men go willingly, nay, happily should their good fortune net them a teacher, a sugar mommy or just a good time. And this isn't mere charity work. Today's older women are looking fabulous! No longer does my gender need to quietly toddle off to the land of moo-moos and orthopedic shoes. There are a plethora of hot mamas over 40 who are putting 20 year olds to shame.

But the same biology that drives men to seize the punani pay day may also make them hesitant to move from hunter to hunted. It's not a position they're used to. I envision young men at parties clutching their rum and cokes, casting suspicious glances at the seasoned women on the prowl. The men worry, "Will that Silver Fox at the bar slip me a roofie if I glance away from my glass? Will she use me, abuse me and cast me aside?" Only if you're lucky, Baby. But if you're not ready,=2 0Fellas, don't worry. Any self respecting Cougar will pass you by if you put a napkin over your drink. That's proper roofie etiquette and a Cougar is nothing if not a lady.

Leighann Lord
Stand-up Comedian
www.VeryFunnyLady.com

Read my weekly humor column: www.TheUrbanErma.com