Friday, the Rocky Mountain Collegian out of Colorado State University published this on their Opinion page:

TASER THIS. F*** BUSH.

The four-word editorial was intended to ignite a debate about free speech according to editor-in-chief J. David McSwane. As you can imagine, the story hit Drudge and was featured on Rush Limbaugh yesterday. And according to a local news station, McSwane is close to losing his job.

The Collegian, like The Daily Illini is an independent publication that receives no University funding. So while administrators have no direct power over any of the operators or editors of the paper, they can use that newsy term you hear about in those COMM classes: Flak.

While everyone generally agrees that this paper had every constitutional right to print that, the debate is whether they should have printed that. Personally, I say no. Why?

The UF Taser incident and President Bush had very little in common. It just didn’t make sense to put them together. Secondly, they made the mistake of using President Bush as their target. This is what made the conservative media care about it in the first place. Surely, if they believe that they are the David to the liberal media Goliath, then they agree with the Collegian editors’ right to publish that. But that’s not a ratings grabber. Instead, they get to use this as an excuse to bash academia and the press as being too-liberal. The point is that by introducing a partisan-figure into the argument, they’ve muddied the waters of the debate and incurred the wrath of a great deal more people than they needed to. It’s not about free speech anymore, it’s about politics.

Third, if they want to talk about free speech, talk about something more substantive. How about Columbia University’s decision to let Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak at its campus next week? How about Ward Churchill? How about China’s lack of free speech? Or more appropriately, why didn’t they talk about FCC obscenity regulations? Why are newspapers allowed to print 4-letter words but radio and TV stations can be fined or have their licenses revoked if they utter them on the air?

Newspapers, especially college newspapers, make mistakes. That’s why they exist, for people to learn. I don’t disagree with The Collegian’s ideals, but they should choose their methods more wisely next time.

On Wednesday, there will be a protest on the Quad against Chancellor Herman’s Inclusive Illinois initiative. The Facebook event announcing it says that “Racism , Power, and Privilege @ UIUC. FORUM 2007″ is the host.

Titled “Take Back the Union!”, its tagline is “because racism, power and privilege didn’t begin or end with the chief halftime dances”
The organizers are against the “business as usual” behavior from the administration.

Some excerpts from their grievances:

“-It’s starting an “Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government Fund” -Link addition is mine
-Its not providing safe spaces and resources for undocumented students and workers.
-It’s continuing to allow companies with horrible working condition and poor labor rights to produce U of I apparel
-Its continuing the culture of silence by refusing to have transparent decision making processes
-Its allowing government units and groups to recruit on campus that are currenty involved in the colonization, exploitation, and extraction of resources from the third world”

Initial thoughts? I’ll probably have some reaction tomorrow.

A reader sent this into me last night about 9PM and I awake this morning to find it at the top of Drudge, YouTube and most of the major news websites.

You may remember this incident in which a UCLA student was tasered multiple times in the school library.It seems that in this case, Senator Kerry finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s announced that he will not run for President in 2008, but seek another term as Massachusetts’ junior Senator. It’s going to be interesting to see how he handles this incident, especially because of his high profile but also because he’s a former district attorney.But I suppose the big question at the moment is whether the police were justified in their actions. Post your thoughts.