Set Your Tasers to Stun

Those tasers that cops use, I wonder if they have different power settings or if it's one shock fits all. Wouldn't it be great if they did have settings? Even better if one of the settings was "Fry Hippie?"

I dream of these things in the wake of the tasered journalist student at the University of Florida this past Monday. Allegedly, the aspiring reporter's first question to Senator Kerry was, ""You will take my question because I have been listening to your crap for two hours." He spent another minute yelling out some more questions before the fuzz moved in to cut him off. Completely surprised and righteously indignant, the student resisted the escort. The cops warned him to stop resisting or they would unleash the tasers of war. Apparently he didn't heed the warnings because the cops circled the wagons and proceeded to tase the crap out of him.

I know I shouldn't think it's funny, but I do. It's the same guilty pleasure I get watching old 60s footage of baton wielding cops beating protesting hippies. My glee at the tasing is blunted, however, since there is every indication that this student, Andrew Meyer, planned to create a media circus, even brought a video camera and asked someone nearby to start taping when he asked his first question. Fifteen minutes of fame, doncha know.

If he was trying to stir up some media frenzy, it seems things may have spiraled beyond his original intentions. Faster than you can say "injustice," the tasing police officers have been put on leave and the University of Florida is being criticized for how its personnel handled the situation. I'm actually hearing rumblings of violated free speech rights, or some such nonsense. If this turns out to be nothing more than someone trying to get some heavy youtube coverage, we'll have reached a new low in celebrity and what lengths people will go to achieve it in this country. An even newer low will be if the University of Florida punishes any of those officers or changes any of its security protocols.