BAD WEEK TO BE A BRUIN

You've seen a snippet of the story, perhaps. A confrontation with a student of Middle Eastern Appearance in a campus library, shouting, then tasing, more shouting, then tasing, more shouting then tasing. LOST watched the tape, made with a cell phone-cam in a building formerly recognizable as Powell Library. LOST's memories of that place were a bit more dingy, pre-seismic retrofit, back in the day when the stacks were a dull green metal, and all of the entrances to the building were open and accessible. Pre 1984 (Olympics, that is), when the big push toward heightened security was made. Back in the day when a few street people called UCLA home like LOST did. LOST never saw any of those street people treated as barbarically as the student (LOST won't even try to spell the man's name) was on Tuesday night. Because it was a dear place, and because LOST knows the next step, now that the student has Yagmanned up, is for the UC to write a big check and create the next litigation millionaire, LOST can see some of the points made on he other side. Okay, two: First, on watching the tape, it seems possible that the student in question is embellishing a bit, as though he is channelling his inner Gitmo before being tasered, during and thereafter. His medical charts and follow up should address that issue quite nicely. Secondly, unless the involved UCPD personnel have other prior instances of such "dirt" in their files, let's not slam the UC too hard for this one.

There is little doubt that the cops in question overreacted in this instance, and nowhere is that more clear than in the threat to taser student witnesses asking for their badge numbers and ID's. And its pathetic and disgusting that the Daily Bruin would publish an op - ed piece - written by a Bruin Republican wiener named David Lazar - cautioning against rushes to judgment which contains the veiled assertion that thou shalt yield to authority at all times. Mr. Lazar's piece also solicits favorite "Rodney King jokes" as a means of demonstrating his jocularity. David Lazar, meet Craig Peyer. Bring your blonde wig and your VW beetle. If LOST were tased every time he forget to bring something, or forgot where something was, he'd have been taser-cued to well doneness years ago. Get a grip, those of you trying to defend this disgusting exercise in overlordism.