Author / Edward Champion

Posts by Edward Champion

Edward Champion is the Managing Editor of Reluctant Habits.
by Edward Champion

John Kerry, Students Do Nothing as Student is Tazered for Asking Question

CBS 4: “A Weston student at the University of Florida was shocked with a stun-gun and arrested Monday when he tried to continue speaking at a forum with U.S. Senator John Kerry after the question and answer session had ended. The whole incident was caught on camera.”

Here’s another camera angle. The chilling thing is that nobody did a damn thing while Andrew Meyer cried out for help. Is this a free society?

And to show you just how acceptable this kind of over-the-top police reaction has become, here are some comments from the NBC 6 site:

This was so hilarious that I watched it several times. The demented liberal freak is yelling “what did I do?” while trying to punch out police officers. It’s nice seeing an anti war protest thug receive some of the street justice that they love to meet out at their “peaceful” protests.

Taser him again!!!!

Use a bullet next time

Hit him again….

what a douche

And here’s another video angle. To be fair, there are some queries here from the crowd. But the detail that creeps me out is the blonde woman who stands on the left edge of the frame smiling while this student is being hit with a stun gun.

UPDATE: More details from the Miami Herald: “Members of the student group sponsoring the event summoned UF police to escort Meyer out, according to a police statement. At first, students can be heard cheering as he is asked to leave.” In addition, a website has been created containing a number of links to what happened. A protest is planned at the University of Fresno this afternoon at noon.

And here’s more from Emil Steiner:

Before his Miranda rights had even been read, the outspoken student asked loudly, “What are you doing? I want to stand and listen to him answer my question. Why are you arresting me for asking a question? I didn’t do anything.” The six officers then grabbed ahold of his shirt, pulled him to the ground and cuffed him.

Throughout this disturbing display, Kerry remained stoically focused on answering the young man’s questions (the ones to him, not the ones he asked the police). Even as Meyer’s shrieks grew in urgency, the Massachusetts senator reflected calmly on the importance of not contesting the results of the 2004 election.

Kerry’s voice, however, was no match for Meyer’s, who despite not having a mic continued to hog the audience’s attention with such glib catch phrases as: “Help me! Help!” and “What are you doing! Get off of me! Don’t Taser me, bro! Oh my God! OH MY GOD!”

Nothing, incidentally, on this posted by Daily Kos or Atrios.

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • I refuse to mention the chain by name. But I’m wondering how much this ostensible tale of redemption is undermined by the [Insert Corporation Here] Saved My Life rap. Color me decidedly skeptical. But it would seem to me that this gentleman’s recalibration of his priorities changed his life and not necessarily the chain in question. I am finding, of late, more problems with causative thought (i.e., X caused Y) applied to everyday scenarios. Even people who are much smarter than me seem convinced that they can find correlations without accounting for all the factors that make up a scenario. (And I, by no means, abjure myself from engaging in this fallacy in thinking.) I am wondering why this has grown more acceptable in the United States.
  • Mark Thwaite interviews Tom McCarthy.
  • Dan Green on litblogs and serious criticism. I fully agree that the perceived “chatty” quality of litblogs is as broad a brush as declaring all print reviews “stodgy.” Nevertheless, Dan is correct to suggest that litblogs should continue to offer more in the way of “serious criticism,” whatever this might mean. With this in mind, I’m hoping to offer a few more long-form posts very soon.
  • Chandler writing The Long Goodbye. (via Bill Peschel)
  • To proclaim rather reductively that “style should serve to strengthen the author’s message” is to lose sight of the fact that life is ambiguous. If art reflects life, should art not likewise be served in a baroque manner from time to time? (In other words, I can’t abide such childish generalizations about Martin Amis’s work.)
  • There are currently too many errands to run. I’ll try to check in later. But don’t forget that, here in New York, tonight is the Columbia panel.
by Edward Champion

Nothing Changed at All; Micropayments Simply Don’t Work

New York Times: “What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.”