I had read the news reports. I had heard the “battle cry”, and I knew the general details of the situation, but I had never seen the video. Truth be told, I got the idea to watch it after seeing an episode of “Franklin and Bash.” It’s a tv comedy about 2 lawyers in Los Angeles. One episode has one of the lawyers being led out of the courtroom for contempt after some misconduct . When he is led to the door, you can hear him say “Don’t tase me bro!” I thought then, and still do think it was funny. Now, having watched the video, there is still some evidence of comedy; if it wasn’t all true, and while we are talking about truth, I find the whole situation sad. A college student, Andrew Meyer had attended a lecture at the University of Florida. After listening to lectures for 2 hours, he wanted to ask a few questions to Senator John Kerry. You can watch the video, but what ensued in the end, was he was hauled away from the podium, arrested, forced to the ground,and tasered. For what really? Having the passion to ask some questions at a lecture while the majority of his fellow students “lounged” in apathy somewhere on campus in between the “professional football team” and the dope-smoking losers contemplating their next kegger. Lets run it out;

1. Could Andrew Meyer have acted in a little more cooperative manner? Sure, but in comparison to any heated civic “town hall” meeting that has some person addressing the council about potholes on their street, Andrew’s behavior was very calm and collected.

2. Senator Kerry tried to defuse the situation by saying he would answer Meyer’s 3 questions. That could have ended everything right there, except in today’s world where asking questions is frowned upon; especially in an alleged “place of higher learning.” Hell, there was a time when I was taking a literature class at URI. One student would constantly disrupt the professor, her fellow students, and the class several times a day while she assaulted us with opinions, dialog, and psycho-babble concerning a book called “The Women’s Room.”  If any college student was ever more deserving to be “tased,” it was her……except we sucked it up, rolled our eyes and went on with our lives knowing that we allowed an exchange of ideas; as painful as they may have seemed.

3. It takes 7 police officers and two taser guns to “escort a student ” away for asking questions at a question and answer session? The whole scene looked like something from a LAPD recruiting film. One of the charges against  Meyer was inciting a riot………let’s see, were all the rioters the spineless, ignorant, folks clapping and cheering as he was hauled away for …….you guessed it; asking questions! Isn’t it ironic that the man fielding the questions would be the same man who years earlier would buck the system and as a veteran, protest the Vietnam  War. Kerry’s response? “A little weak!”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_incident#Response_from_Senator_Kerry

May 4th, 1970, was the date of the student massacre at Kent State. The Ohio National Guard shot, and killed 4 unarmed students and wounded 9 at a protest of the Vietnam War. I had never seen the above newspaper headline clipping matching the now famous picture, but why am I not surprised for the lack of respect for the human race.  Most college actions plans addressing protest,and unrest from students are based on those horrific events to gauge and minimize undue violence to all on the college campus. The University of Florida must have lost that book.